Food Price Policy in Indonesia

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Decolonising indigenous social impact research using community-based methods

© 2019 Association of Researchers in Construction Management, ARCOM 2019 - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference. All rights reserved. Indigenous procurement policies encourage the construction sector to provide new training, employment and business opportunities for Indigenous people suffering from economic and social disadvantage. However, the success of these policies is often distorted by the failure of policy evaluations to account for Indigenous perceptions of social value. Since these often differ markedly from non-Indigenous values, this can distort the allocation of funds to Indigenous communities and exacerbate the marginalisation of the communities these policies are meant to help. Drawing on theories of community-based research, this methodological paper seeks to reconceptualise approaches to measuring Indigenous social value in an Indigenous social procurement policy context. Working in partnership with a peak body for Aboriginal business in Australia, we have co-designed a novel approach to Indigenous social impact research that recognises the legitimacy of Indigenous perspectives when investigating the social value Indigenous procurement policies create. We argue that culturally appropriate focus groups (yarning discussion groups) are appropriate in Indigenous social impact research because they prioritise Indigenous people's experiences of Indigenous procurement policies, rather than focusing on simplistic policy targets. As a method that promotes community involvement in social impact research to define how social value is perceived, yarning discussion groups have significant implications for future research seeking to represent Indigeonus perspectives of social value. It is concluded the approach developed here can be operationalised in the field to better understand the nature of Indigenous social value and the impact created by Indigenous procurement policies in Australia and other countries with disadvantaged Indigenous populations

PSS8 Use of consumer market research panels to generate prevalence and disease burden estimates in data-sparse diseases: a case study in severe Chronic Hand Eczema

Farrando, Jordi;Febles, Maria Dolors ;Henrich, Jordi;Tarrasó, Olga ;Fuertes, J.C.;Pérez, S

Modelling the impact of liner shipping network perturbations on container cargo routing: Southeast Asia to Europe application

Understanding how container routing stands to be impacted by different scenarios of liner shipping network perturbations such as natural disasters or new major infrastructure developments is of key importance for decision-making in the liner shipping industry. The variety of actors and processes within modern supply chains and the complexity of their relationships have previously led to the development of simulation-based models, whose application has been largely compromised by their dependency on extensive and often confidential sets of data. This study proposes the application of optimisation techniques less dependent on complex data sets in order to develop a quantitative framework to assess the impacts of disruptive events on liner shipping networks. We provide a categorization of liner network perturbations, differentiating between systemic and external and formulate a container assignment model that minimises routing costs extending previous implementations to allow feasible solutions when routing capacity is reduced below transport demand. We develop a base case network for the Southeast Asia to Europe liner shipping trade and review of accidents related to port disruptions for two scenarios of seismic and political conflict hazards. Numerical results identify alternative routing paths and costs in the aftermath of port disruptions scenarios and suggest higher vulnerability of intra-regional connectivity

Walking the walk: a phenomenological study of long distance walking

Evidence suggests that regular walking can elicit significant psychological benefits although little evidence exists concerning long distance walking. The purpose of this study was to provide detailed accounts of the experiences of long distance walkers. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with six long distance walkers. Data were transcribed verbatim before researchers independently analyzed the transcripts. Participants reported a cumulative effect with positive feelings increasing throughout the duration of the walk. Long distance walking elicited positive emotions, reduced the effects of life-stress, and promoted an increased sense of well-being and personal growth. Results are aligned to theories and concepts from positive psychology

Longevity-indexed annuities

This paper addresses the problem of the sharing of longevity risk between an annuity provider and a group of annuitants. An appropriate longevity index is designed in order to adapt the amount of the periodic payments in life annuity contracts. This accounts for unexpected longevity improvements experienced by a given reference population. The approach described in the present paper is in contrast with Group Self-Annuitization where annuitants bear their own risk. Here, the annuitants only bear the non-diversifiable risk that the future mortality trend departs from that of the reference forecast. In that respect, the life annuities discussed in this paper are substitutes for reinsurance and securitization of longevity risk

The future of biotic indices in the ecogenomic era: Integrating (e)DNA metabarcoding in biological assessment of aquatic ecosystems

The bioassessment of aquatic ecosystems is currently based on various biotic indices that use the occurrence and/ or abundance of selected taxonomic groups to define ecological status. These conventional indices have some limitations, often related to difficulties inmorphological identification of bioindicator taxa. Recent development of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding could potentially alleviate some of these limitations, by using DNA sequences instead of morphology to identify organisms and to characterize a given ecosystem. In this paper,we review the structure of conventional biotic indices, andwe present the results of pilotmetabarcoding studies using environmental DNA to infer biotic indices. We discuss the main advantages and pitfalls of metabarcoding approaches to assess parameters such as richness, abundance, taxonomic composition and species ecological values, to be used for calculation of biotic indices.We present some future developments to fully exploit the potential of metabarcoding data and improve the accuracy and precision of their analysis. We also propose some recommendations for the future integration of DNA metabarcoding to routine biomonitoring program

Methanol Steam Reformer on a Silicon Wafer

A study of the reforming rates, heat transfer and flow through a methanol reforming catalytic microreactor fabricated on a silicon wafer are presented. Comparison of computed and measured conversion efficiencies are shown to be favorable. Concepts for insulating the reactor while maintaining small overall size and starting operation from ambient temperature are analyzed