From national cinemas to cinema and the national : rethinking the national in transnational Chinese cinemas

No Full Tex

Regional Transition Groups and Regional Collaborative Groups - A Voluntary Approach to Structural Reform in Western Australi

The Western Australian Minister for Local Government, the Hon John Castrilli MLA announced on 4 February 2009 strategies for local government reform based on a voluntary reduction in the number of individual councils.Western Australia has a professional and well managed local government sector that is characterised by diversity in size, revenue and remoteness. However, Western Australia is effectively the last state in Australia to experience major structural reform in the sector. Local government reform in WA is currently being implemented as a voluntary, industry led process

Screening Tiananmen

Recently, I’ve been spending a lot more time in Shanghai than in Beijing. This is because of a research project comparing moving image screens—mostly Lighting-Emitting Diode (LED) screens—as part of everyday culture in public places in Cairo, Shanghai and London. (If you’re interested, you can read more about that here.) But in the meantime, I had heard about the Jumbotron screen installed in the middle of Tiananmen Square. So, when I made it back to Beijing for the first time since just before the 2008 Olympics to do a bit of teaching at the Chinese Film summer school organized by Yomi Braester and hosted at the Beijing Film Academy, I couldn’t resist going down to Tiananmen again. Here are some notes I made after my return

The poll provisions and local government reform in Western Australia

Local government reform is on the agenda of many countries, particularly those with local government systems based on the Anglo-Saxon approach. In many of these jurisdictions, from Wales to the Republic of Ireland, to most of the Australian states and New Zealand, the dominant reform narrative is structural change, and the challenge faced in most of these jurisdictions is how to marry the apparent national interest in creating bigger councils with the desire of citizens to have a say about how their towns and districts are governed; it is a debate that inevitably finds governments’ technical experts at odds with local citizens. The resulting challenge has led to a range of new approaches to structural reform, optimistically designed to meet the needs of both

APPROACHES TO IMPROVING THE DELIVERY OF SOCIAL SERVICES IN DIFFICULT ENVIRONMENTS

Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

The presence of copycat private labels in a product set increases consumers' choice ease when shopping with an abstract mindset

This research demonstrates how the presence of copycat private labels (CCPLs) on retail shelves can positively affect consumers' shopping experience. Adopting a construal level theoretical perspective, Experiment 1 shows that when consumers shop with an abstract mindset, the presence (vs. absence) of CCPLs in a product set positively affects choice ease. Experiment 2 replicates this finding using different stimuli, manipulation of abstract mindset, and measure of choice ease. Experiment 3 demonstrates that the presence of CCPLs due to perceptions of similarity, substitutability, and simplicity positively influences choice ease and attitude toward the chosen product for those with an abstract mindset through conditional mediation. Experiment 4 extends these findings to practice by showing that when consumers shop at a far distance (i.e., ten feet), the presence of CCPLs once again positively affects choice ease and subsequent attitude toward the chosen product. The theoretical and practical contributions of this research are discussed

Taming the Hydra: Funding the Lithium Ion Supply Chain in an Era of Unprecedented Volatility

The lithium ion supply chain is set to grow in both size and importance over the coming decade due to government-led efforts to decarbonize economies and declining costs of lithium ion batteries used in electronics and transportation. With forecasts of demand for lithium chemicals alone forecast to grow by three times later this decade, at least $10B USD is needed to flow into the upstream supply chain to ensure an efficient and timely build-out. Significant additional capital is needed for other portions of the supply chain such as other raw materials, cathode or anode production, and battery cell manufacturing. Recent exogenous shocks such as the US-China trade war and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have made securing adequate capital for the supply chain a difficult challenge. Without the steady stream of funding for new mine and chemical conversion capacity, widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) could be put at risk. This paper discusses the current structure of the lithium ion supply chain with a focus on raw material production and the need for and challenges associated with securing adequate capital in an industry that has, to date, not experienced such a robust growth profile