Global Shifts in Agro-Industrial Capital and the Case of Soybean Crushing: Implications for Managers and Policy Makers

Tremendous shifts are occurring in the location of agro-industrial capital around the globe. To focus discussion on this topic a session was convened at the annual meeting of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association in Montreux, Switzerland in June of 2004. The session brought together researchers and industry leaders to better understand these dramatic shifts and the implications they hold for the agri-food system. The following article emerges from that session. The first part of the article provides the context for the discussion by looking at global shifts in soybean processing investment. The second part entails reaction by three industry panelists.Soybeans, Processing, Investment, Global strategy, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Wildlife recreation : rural America's newest billion dollar industry

Rural areas ; Rural development

A Comparative Analysis of the Uses of Mediation in the Entertainment Industry

[Excerpt] This paper will provide a broad, and by no means exhaustive, overview of some of the unique ways that mediation is, or could be, used in some of the principal fields of entertainment while, identifying the similarities among them and also noting how they differ. The primary focus will be on film, television, and commercial theater and how mediation has been or could be used in situations specific to these disciplines

Do more banking offices mean more banking services?

An argument that recent growth in the number of banking offices (head offices plus their branches) does not necessarily mean that banking services have increased.Banks and banking - Customer services

Practicum Pairs: An Alternative for First Field Experience in Early Childhood Teacher Education

This paper focuses on partnership between pairs of students in early childhood education during a teaching practicum in preschools and kindergartens. One hundred students enrolled in early childhood preservice teacher education programs at a large metropolitan Australian University were paired and placed in kindergartens and preschools with host teachers. The project aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of host teachers and students involved in the paired practicum which was evaluated qualitatively using semi-structured surveys of host teachers and students. This paper identifies eight practices and two principles making this paired practicum successful or not successful

The Construction Contracts Act 2013 – An Overview

It is absolutely fundamental to trust within the construction industry that participants should be paid for the work which they have undertaken – Sir Michael Latham The Construction Contracts Act 2013, in essence, deals with the timing of, amount of, and enforcement procedures for payments within the Irish construction industry. The Act was introduced to redress a perceived power imbalance between main contractors and sub-contractors which fostered poor payment practices. The Act establishes a formal payment process which may be enforced by aggrieved parties who claim they have not been paid on time or in full, through suspending the works or referring the disputed payment to adjudication. This study has been undertaken in the aftermath of the commencement of the Act on the 25th July 2016. The study reviews the rationale for the introduction of the Act, examines the Act’s provisions, reports industry commentary and analysis, and reviews the findings of various undergraduate and postgraduate studies undertaken on the topic within the School of Surveying and Construction Management in the Dublin Institute of Technology since 2013. The study focuses on the implications of the Act for quantity surveyors and is addressed to Irish students undertaking studies on undergraduate and conversion masters courses in quantity surveying and construction management related disciplines

What do we know about rail suicide incidents?: analysis of 257 fatalities on the rail network in Great Britain

There are over two hundred and fifty suicides on the railway in Great Britain (GB) each year. Descriptive statistics are compiled, producing national and international data. The industry know how many and, to a limited extent, where these fatalities occur. There is little in-depth analysis of events. Therefore, there are gaps in knowledge of these fatalities and this is a weakness when considering the best approaches to prevention. This paper reports on the analysis of data on 257 suicide events at or near to 51 stations on three rail routes in Great Britain over a 20 year period. The analysis uses data from the industry Safety Management System (SMIS) database and produces simple descriptive statistics on a range of variables, including comparisons across the three rail routes. Additional data from staff and route based documentation have been used to verify, supplement and interpret information in the database. Examples of patterns of immediate and precursor behaviours during incidents have been presented, illustrating the potential to explore both common and anomalous behaviours during events. The findings demonstrate the type of content that can be explored within the industry data and through use of other data that are available within the industry. Commentary is provided on the strengths and weaknesses of the data and how findings from the analysis can be used to improve future data collection and prevention of incidents

‘Our newsroom in the cloud’: Slack, virtual newsrooms and journalistic practice

Virtual newsrooms have enormous potential: enabling journalists around the world to pool their knowledge, skills and perspectives within joint projects, such as the Panama Papers. These virtual newsrooms are supported by Online Collaborative Software (OCS), the most popular of which is Slack. But although many of the world’s top news organisations now use Slack, there is no empirical research examining its impact on workplace processes or culture. This article presents the results of a year-long ethnographic study of a global digital news outlet, whose remote journalists collaborate, almost exclusively, via Slack. We found that the platform deepened relationships and enabled new creative practices across geographic regions. However, it also contributed to the erasure of the line between private and professional spheres for workers, and introduced new opportunities for management to shape newsroom culture. We argue that the concept of ‘space’ as developed by Harvey can helpfully frame the analysis of these new, important digital platforms