The explanation of why the level of UMF varies in manuka honey

A few years ago many beekeepers kindly supplied samples of manuka honey, from the spring 2001 season, directly from hives in various specific locations so that a study could be conducted to investigate the possible reasons why there is variation in the level of UMF in manuka honey

Introducing social pedagogy into Scottish residential child care : an evaluation of the Sycamore Services social pedagogy training programme

This report provides an introduction to the approach to child care known as social pedagogy and an evaluation of a social pedagogy training programme delivered to a group of child care staff employed in Sycamore Services. It is a 1st stage evaluation which gathers information from participants during the training programme and over the first few months following the training. This was a pilot programme and the Sycamore Services management have decided that the programme will be run again, and will eventually be offered to all staff. A further evaluation will be carried out in order to identify benefit and impact one year on from the end of the pilot

When will New Zealand catch up with Australia?

New Zealands average income, defined as GDP per capita, is now three quarters that of Australia and even lower than in Australias poorest state, Tasmania. Over the last seven years, New Zealand has grown slightly faster than Australia, but at these rates, it would still take 140 years to close the trans-Tasman income gap. To catch up with Australia in five to 10 years, New Zealand would need to grow at between 4.7% and 7.6% per year. This exceeds New Zealands highest average annual growth rate over a five-year period of 4.6%, in the early 1960s. These calculations hold Australian growth rates constant at its annual average over 2000 to 2007. If Australia were to grow faster than its recent performance, the growth rates required of New Zealand to catch up with Australia would be even higher. While such growth rates are not impractical, New Zealand is not currently on track to achieve them, given its recent poor record on labour productivity. Catching up with Australia is not impossible, but very unlikely without major changes to New Zealands policy directions. The challenge is for its policy makers to put forward sensible policies and to carry them through to fruition in the years to come.Australia, New Zealand, economic growth, economic policy

Establishing Energy Cooperation in Northeast Asia : Implications from the experiences of the European Union

It is increasingly considered appropriate to deal with international energy issues, such as achieving energy market stability and energy supply security and countering climate change, on a regional or even global level. The large energy-importing countries in Northeast Asia China, Japan and South Korea have also begun discussing establishing cooperation on energy issues although some obstacles are in place. Based on the experiences of the European Union, strong top-down imposed cooperation helps creating a strong framework that ensures ongoing integration, but is less effective at achieving results for more specific issues. Therefore, establishing energy cooperation in the Northeast Asian countries should start bottom-up, although top-down cooperation should be aimed for at the same time. By focusing on some more concrete topics first, the cooperation that is established on the basis of these topics could then be used as a basis for further cooperation. Some topics that could have this function are technology transfer on energy efficiency, joint stockpiling, transportation safety, and external policy to enhance bargaining power towards supplier states. Looking at the experiences of the EU, it is more likely that cooperation will be established on other topics than security issues. Therefore, especially technology transfer could play a large role in establishing energy cooperation in Northeast Asia.

A Structuralist Model of the Small Open Economy in the Short, Medium and Long Run

Open-economy macroeconomics contains a monetary model in the Keynesian tradition that is deemed serviceable for analyzing the short run and a nonmonetary neoclassical model thought capable of handling the long run. But do the Keynesian and neoclassical models meet the challenges thrown out by the main events of the past few decadesthe 80s shock to Europe from the sharp increase of external real interest rates; the kind of speculative shock experienced in the U.S. and parts of northern Europe in the second half of the 90s : the prospect of new industries emerging in the future with needs for new capital; and what may have been an important shock in the U.S. : the large Kennedy cut in income taxes in 1964? We first indicate that the effects of these shocks on the open economy are not well captured by either the standard Keynesian model or the standard neoclassical theory. Next we provide a careful development of a nonmonetary model of the equilibrium path of the real exchange rate, share price level, as well as natural output, employment and interest that contains trading frictions of the customer-market type. We then examine its implications for the above kinds of shocks not only over the medium run but over the short run and the long run as well. The structuralist model we develop also provides an explanation for the dollars weakening and accompanying decline in U.S. employment from early 2002 to late 2004 (and prediction of subsequent recovery) resting on belated apprehensions over the scheduled explosion over future decades of Medicare and Social Security outlays for the baby boomers and alarm over the large tax cuts enacted in spite of this prospect.structuralist model, share price, Real exchange rate, Employment

Monetary Policy Objectives in Pakistan : An Empirical Investigation

The Taylor rule (1993) focuses only on two objectives : output and inflation. In practice, the central banks loss function (especially in developing countries) contains objectives other than these two, like the interest rate smoothing, exchange rate stabilisation, etc. In this study, the monetary policy reaction function has been estimated, including five objectives for monetary policy as well as controlling for the effect of three other factors. Whereas the results confirm the counter-cyclical response of monetary policy to the factors in the loss function, the response of interest rate to changes in the foreign exchange reserves and the government borrowing has been negative. Variance decomposition shows that most of the variation in the interest rate is explained by its own lagged values. Other variables, in explaining variation in the interest rate, can be ranked as inflation, government borrowing, exchange rate, output gap, trade deficit, and, finally, the foreign exchange reserves.Monetary Policy Objectives, Variance Decomposition, Call Money Rate

BANKING SECTOR REFORMS AND EQUITY - A SUB-REGIONAL ANALYSIS IN ANDHRA PRADESH

The changes in government policies are continuous to correct the ill effects of its earlier policies. In this study an attempt is made to examine the equity aspect due to reforms in the banking sector at sub-regional level in the state of Andhra Pradesh covering the period 1985 to 2004. The analysis indicates that the share of rural areas in number of branches, number of accounts, deposits and credit declined during pre and post liberalisation periods. Despite declining shares in most of the parameters especially those of credit and deposits, there is positive growth in both the periods. However, the growth of these parameters is more in urban areas. The distribution of credit among the sectors indicates that the share of agricultural sector in accounts and credit declined during pre and post liberalisation periods. The share of agricultural credit declined in all the regions during pre and post liberalisation periods. This is true with respect to credit and number of credit accounts. In the case of other sectors, the share in accounts and credit increased in both the periods. Though, the share in the agriculture sector declined in all the regions, per account credit increased in all the regions during both the periods. It may be concluded that liberalisation has increased inequalities. But the rate of increase in inequalities is arrested to a certain extent in the recent past. But if one looks at the growth of credit given to different sectors and growth of credit in rural and urban areas, one may not come to this kind of conclusion.Banking Sector Reforms, Equity, Andhra Pradesh

Regulating Systemic Risk

The failure to spot emerging systemic risk and prevent the current global financial crisis warrants a reexamination of the approach taken so far to crisis prevention. The paper argues that financial crises can be prevented, as they build up over time due to policy mistakes and eventually erupt in slow motion. While one cannot predict the precise timing of crises, one can avert them by identifying and dealing with sources of instability. For this purpose, policymakers need to strengthen top-down macroprudential supervision, complemented by bottom-up microprudential supervision. The paper explores such a strategy and the institutional setting required to implement it at the national level. Given that the recent regulatory reforms that have been undertaken to address systemic risks are inadequate to prevent and combat future crises, the paper argues that national measures to promote financial stability are crucial and that the Westphalian principles governing international financial oversight should be rejected. The paper proposes that while an effective national systemic regulator should be established, strong international cooperation is indispensable for financial stability.systemic risk, global financial crisis, macroprudential supervision, microprudential supervision, regulatory reform

Econometric Approach to Water Use Estimation in Power Plants

The purpose of this paper is to examine water use estimation in hydel and thermal electric power plants in selected regions i.e. Coastal, Rayalaseema and Telangana regions of Andhra Pradesh. The study primarily focuses on the realistic fundamental premise thatthermal electric and hydro electric energy generation is responsible for the largest monthly volume of water withdrawals in four seasons (i.e. summer, rainy, winter and post monsoon season) of a year. These enormous water withdrawals by these hydel and thermal power plants can have significant influence on local surface water resources. However there are very few studies of determinants of water use in hydel and thermal electric generation. Analysis of hydel and thermal electric water use data in the existing power plants clearly indicates that there is wide variability in unitary hydel and thermal electric water use within the system. The multivariate regression procedures were used to identify the significant determinants of thermal and hydel water withdrawals in various power plants i.e. five hydel and four thermal power plants. The estimated regression coefficients indicate that the best explanatory variables for the total quantity of hydel water withdrawals are storage capacity, tail water level and actual generation and thermal water withdrawals are condenser cooling and ash disposal. The unit variability of unit water usage indicates that there is significant potential for water conservation in existing power plants. Apart from this as water is no longer available as a free good; it calculates the real value of water in selected power plants using Water Valuation Techniques such as Residual Value and Opportunity costs.Thermal water withdrawals, hydel water withdrawals, storage capacity, tail water level, actual generation, condenser cooling and ash disposal.

Natural Gas and LNG Supply/Demand Trends in Asia Pacific and Atlantic Markets

This paper discusses a portion of the outcome of a study undertaken by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ) on commission from the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry under the project title of FY2007 Research for Promotion of Natural Gas Development and Utilization (Study of Natural Gas Supply and Demand Trends in Asia Pacific and Atlantic Markets). The scope of the above study included a fixed-point observation survey on the on-going status of countries that are either exporting or importing LNG as well as trends in the LNG markets, which potentially may have an impact on Japans natural gas supply and demand situation. In the following sections, an overview will be presented in sequence on the natural gas supply and demand situation, natural gas trading, the LNG chain, and LNG supply and demand balance.