Climbing the high road: strategic design and management of New Zealand's human capital and economic transformation

‘Ui mai koe ki ahau he aha te mea nui o te ao, Maku e ki atu he tangata, he tangata he tangata’* ‘Ask me what is the greatest thing in the world, I will reply: It is people, it is people, it is people!’ The strategic design and management of New Zealand’s economic transformation is a sophisticated and long-term process. Economic transformation is not merely a re-branding exercise, although a forward-thinking national brand strategy could provide the catalyst for promoting the repositioning strategy. New Zealand’s economics performance has always been affected by global events, socio-cultural factors and physical constraints – small population size and distance from key global markets. Therefore, New Zealand cannot compete in ‘low road’ strategies by simply opening the economy to international trade, investment and technology flow, or by providing cheap labour. New Zealand’s economic future will be transformed by significant human capital developments to enable the workforce and businesses to become design-savvy and capable of harnessing and commercialising new technologies, networking globally and adding value to everything we produce that is significantly more innovative and better than that of our competitors. Managing such a ‘high road’ economic transformation strategy is both complex and challenging. Systems and process must be put in place to enable the government, corporations, businesses and universities to work in partnerships and clusters for exploiting creativity, innovation and technology to sustain global advantage. Capability development in creativity, innovation and the judicious use of technologies are the greatest assets for New Zealand’s economic transformation. A rich pool of creative human capital will enable the nation to integrate its products and services into global value chains – thus adding value, forging new competencies, developing niches, and establishing a high profile, national identity, brands, jobs and wealth for the nation. This paper will discuss these forces in details, and highlights the agencies to strategically manage the transformation processes along with the Government’s Growth and Innovation Framework, Sector Taskforces, Country Branding, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and the bold New Zealand Design Policy to transform an agriculture economy into a design-savvy, high wage and high value globally competitive economy

Appraising the Market Overt Exception

Under what circumstances can a sale of goods by a person, who is not the owner ofthe goods, nonetheless confer good title on the purchaser? The common law rule “nemo dat quodnon habet†embodies the principle that the transferee of goods cannot get better title than that of thetransferor. In other words, if goods are sold by a person who does not have title to the goods (forexample, because he had obtained the goods by theft), then he would be unable to pass title to asubsequent purchaser since he did not have title to begin with. The nemo dat rule thus protects thetrue or original owner of goods. One of the exceptions to this rule under the Hong Kong Sale ofGoods Ordinance is the market overt exception, which seeks to protect innocent purchasers. Thisarticle first considers the meanings of and rationales behind the nemo dat rule and the market overtexception respectively. Problems with the existing market overt exception will next be discussed. Asuggestion will then be made that the market overt exception be replaced with a rule that protectsinnocent buyers who deal as consumers and who have purchased goods from shops or markets inHong Kong

Combinatorial complexity of signed discs

AbstractLet C+ and C− be two collections of topological discs. The collection of discs is ‘topological’ in the sense that their boundaries are Jordan curves and each pair of Jordan curves intersect at most twice. We prove that the region ∪C+ − ∪C− has combinatorial complexity at most 10n − 30 where p = |C+|, q = |C−| and n = p + q ≥ 5. Moreover, this bound is achievable. We also show less precise bounds that are stated as functions of p and q

Authentication of traditional Chinese medicine using infrared spectroscopy: Distinguishing between ginseng and its morphological fakes

10.1007/s11373-006-9133-3Journal of Biomedical Science142265-273JBCI

Contributions of prognostic factors to socioeconomic disparities in cancer survival : protocol for analysis of a cohort with linked data

Introduction Socioeconomic disparities in cancer survival have been reported in many developed countries, including Australia. Although some international studies have investigated the determinants of these socioeconomic disparities, most previous Australian studies have been descriptive, as only limited relevant data are generally available. Here, we describe a protocol for a study to use data from a large-scale Australian cohort linked with several other health-related databases to investigate several groups of factors associated with socioeconomic disparities in cancer survival in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, and quantify their contributions to the survival disparities. Methods and analysis The Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study participants completed a baseline questionnaire during 2006-2009. Those who were subsequently diagnosed with cancer of the colon, rectum, lung or female breast will be included. This study sample will be identified by linkage with NSW Cancer Registry data for 2006-2013, and their vital status will be determined by linking with cause of death records up to 31 December 2015. The study cohort will be divided into four groups based on each of the individual education level and an area-based socioeconomic measure. The treatment received will be obtained through linking with hospital records and Medicare and pharmaceutical claims data. Cox proportional hazards models will be fitted sequentially to estimate the percentage contributions to overall socioeconomic survival disparities of patient factors, tumour and diagnosis factors, and treatment variables. Ethics and dissemination This research is covered by ethical approval from the NSW Population and Health Services Research Ethics Committee. Results of the study will be disseminated to different interest groups and organisations through scientific conferences, social media and peer-reviewed articles

Role of CD56 in Normal Kidney Development and Wilms Tumorigenesis

The cell-surface glycoprotein CD56 has three major isoforms that play important roles in cell adhesion and signaling, which may promote cell proliferation, differentiation, survival, or migration. It is an important molecule in normal kidney development and acts as a key marker in Wilms tumor stem and progenitor cells. Here, we review the structural and genetic features of the CD56 glycoprotein, and summarize its roles in the normal versus diseased metanephric blastema. We discuss areas of CD56-related research that may complement or improve existing Wilms tumor treatment strategies, including the antibody-drug conjugate lorvotuzumab mertansine that binds to CD56

Prediction of Glycerol-Effect on Antigen-Antibody Binding Affinity from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Many biological and biotechnological processes are controlled by protein-protein interactions in solution. In order to understand, predict and optimize such processes, it is valuable to understand how additives such as salts, sugars, polyols and denaturants affect protein-protein interactions. Currently, no methodology to foretell the effect of additives on protein-protein interactions has been established and frequently and extensive empirical screening to identify additives beneficial to the protein process is resorted to. In this work, we developed a methodology enabling the prediction of the additive-effect on the protein reaction equilibrium. The only prerequisite is that the atomic structure of the protein reactants and products are known. The methodology is based on the thermodynamic model for preferential interactions and makes use of molecular dynamics simulations to gauge additive-protein interactions. In order to validate our methodology, the change in binding affinity of the antibody fragment Y32S Fv D1.3 for lysozyme in the presence of varying glycerol concentrations is being calculated and the results will be compared with experimental data from literature. Finally, our methodology will be used to predict the glycerol effect on the binding affinity of wild type Fv D1.3 and various mutants.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA