The legal and contractual aspects of networked cooperation for the building and construction industry

The construction industry is a project-based business bringing together many different organisations to complete a desired goal. The strategic use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has enabled the goal to be completed more effectively. Two issues require addressing, the technology itself and the implementation factors of the technology. Such implementation factors should consider, among other factors, the legal and contractual issues associated with the use of ICT, training requirements and its effects on the organisational culture. To date the legal and contractual issues have not been extensively covered, and it is recognised that the technologies have not been properly covered by any recognised legal and contractual practices. This in turn is threatening to inhibit the growth and prosperity of the use of the technology on construction projects. This paper discusses these legal and contractual issues and describes methods and tools that can be used to enable the growth of technology to be used in a legal and contractually valid environment

The Impact of Government Policy on Technology Transfer: An Aircraft Industry Case Study

This case study explores the interaction between domestic and foreign governmental policy on technology transfer with the goal of exploring the long-term impacts of technology transfer. Specifically, the impact of successive licensing of fighter aircraft manufacturing and design to Japan in the development of Japan’s aircraft industry is reviewed. Results indicate Japan has built a domestic aircraft industry through sequential learning with foreign technology transfers from the United States, and design and production on domestic fighter aircraft. This process was facilitated by governmental policies in both Japan and the United States

Taking to the skies

A resurgence in spending on manned and unmanned air power across Asia-Pacific is largely being driven by regional and territorial disputes, and the desire to keep up with near neighbours in a regional arms race

Energy challenges for ICT

The energy consumption from the expanding use of information and communications technology (ICT) is unsustainable with present drivers, and it will impact heavily on the future climate change. However, ICT devices have the potential to contribute signi - cantly to the reduction of CO2 emission and enhance resource e ciency in other sectors, e.g., transportation (through intelligent transportation and advanced driver assistance systems and self-driving vehicles), heating (through smart building control), and manu- facturing (through digital automation based on smart autonomous sensors). To address the energy sustainability of ICT and capture the full potential of ICT in resource e - ciency, a multidisciplinary ICT-energy community needs to be brought together cover- ing devices, microarchitectures, ultra large-scale integration (ULSI), high-performance computing (HPC), energy harvesting, energy storage, system design, embedded sys- tems, e cient electronics, static analysis, and computation. In this chapter, we introduce challenges and opportunities in this emerging eld and a common framework to strive towards energy-sustainable ICT

"Digital Transitions: The POLIS Theory and The NIEs"

In the fast developing digital technological revolution even the newly industrialized economies (the NIEs) have found it hard to catch up and maintain the pace required for not falling behind. The developing economies are clearly at a great disadvantage in such a fast paced technological race. Thus there is a digital divide that is growing and through a cumulative causation the gap will widen further unless coordinated action is taken. This paper discusses some of the most important economic issues conceptually and offers some modest policy advice. The basic problem of adoption of a new technology system such as the ICT( information and communications technologies) is explored via the theory of a positive feedback loop innovation system (POLIS) in a nonlinear, path-dependent world where institutional structure and its evolution matter crucially. By investing strategically in physical, intellectual and other forms of human and organizational capital as well as building new institutions of cooperation the NIEs may be able to forge a path not only in the ICT sectors, but also create innovation systems of their own that can be extended to region-wide systems. Under the emerging globally competitive market environment this will be the best way to compete dynamically. However, creating comparative advantage in this way requires capabilities that many NIES in Asia will need to promote. Creative policy interventions with a mix of market promotion, good governance, relative openness, and promotion of sustainable development in an equitable manner are necessary if the NIEs are not to be left far behind. The theoretical approach developed here also allows to evaluate the state of the economy and society ethically by extending and incorporating Amartya Sen's capabilities approach within the POLIS.

Personnel and Human Resource Management

The basic endeavor of this discipline has not changed over the years: it has sought “to contribute to organizational success by assuring that the right numbers of the right people are in the right places at the right times doing the right things in the right ways.

Law & Economics Perspectives on Electricity Regulation

This paper first reviews some of the main contributions of the new institutional economics to the analysis of the process of competitive transformation of network industries. It shows that neoinstitutional analysis is complementary to the microeconomics of rational pricing, since it accounts for the decisive role of an institutional framework adapted to new transactions. It emphasizes the importance of the political reform process, which draws on the conditions of attractiveness and feasibility to define an initial reorganization of property rights in these industries. The paper then analyzes in this light some of the main challenges ahead for electricity regulation: the question of investment in generation capacities and the link to long term contracts, the regulation of wholesale market power, the support to Renewable Energy Sources for Electricity (RES-E) and the design of new regulatory authorities.Electricity Markets; New Institutional Economics; Law & Economics

Enterprise platform systems management security threats and mitigation techniques

Developers and technologists of enterprise systems such as servers, storage and networking products must constantly anticipate new cybersecurity threats and evolving security requirements. These requirements are typically sourced from marketing, customer expectations, manufacturing and evolving government standards. Much ongoing major research focus has been on securing the main enterprise system purpose functionality, operating system, network and storage. There appears, however, to be far less research and a growing number of reports of vulnerabilities in the area of enterprise systems management hardware and software subsystems. Many recent examples are within types of subsystems such as baseboard management controllers (BMCs), which are intricate embedded subsystems, independent of the host server system functionality. A BMC is typically comprised of a specialized system-on-a-chip, RAM, non-volatile storage, and sensors, and runs an embedded LINUX Operating System. The BMC’s primary roles are always increasing in scope including managing system inventory, system operational health, thermal and power control, event logging, remote console access, provisioning, performance monitoring, software updates and failure prediction and remediation. To compromise or create a denial of service of such subsystems has an increasing impact on equipment manufacturers and large and small enterprises. This report’s primary objective is to research real-world and theoretical hardware and software cyber-attack vectors on enterprise product platforms, inclusive of BMCs, BIOS and other embedded systems within such products. For each presented attack vector, best practices and suggestions for effective avoidance and mitigation are explored. Domains of particular interest are physical access security, hardware manipulation and secure boot protections against software image manipulation, BIOS recovery and secure field debug techniques.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Economic Integration, Sovereignty and Identity: New Zealand in the Global Economy

Markets are becoming more integrated. Whilst governments have limited influence over this process, they can hasten or hinder the pace of integration and will need to respond to the implications of integration. This paper provides a framework for thinking about the benefits and costs of market integration. It analyses how cross border flows of goods, services, capital and labour affect the living standards of New Zealanders in terms of both productivity and incomes as well as other, broader, aspects of living standards. Particular attention is paid to the areas of spatial economic analysis and national sovereignty and identity. Governments must consider a number of factors when thinking about their stance on integration. Further economic integration promises economic benefits for New Zealanders in terms of greater productivity and higher incomes. One risk, however, is that with increasingly free factor flows, government pursuit of integration may increase the risk of activity relocating offshore. The evidence on the overall effect of integration on income distribution is unclear, however we do know that there will be winners and losers. Decision-making power and feelings of identity seem to be important components of well-being - integration brings with it both risks and opportunities in these areas, as pressure is put on traditional forms of governance and identity, and new forms develop. Deciding how the costs and benefits of integration stack up ultimately involves a number of value judgements - the paper provides a framework and a summary of empirical evidence to help inform those judgements.