A career of choice: attracting talented young people into house building

The purpose of this research was to establish a better understanding of how young people view house building as a career choice and to provide insights to improve recruitment of those with enthusiasm and talent into the sector. It collected the views of over 500 teenagers and young men and women between the ages of 14 and 24, and the views of those who advise them on careers.NHBC Foundatio

Sugaropolis: the Mackay–Pacific Islands people trade voyage statistics, 1867–1903

The Queensland Government published annual statistics on South Sea Islander immigration and emigration, which have never before been brought together in one publication. These statistics enable tracking of arrival and departure numbers Queensland-wide by males, females, and children, or by years, individual ships, ports, wrecks, Captains (also called Masters), and Government Agents. The Mackay list below is part of a larger project begun by Sydney-based Australian South Sea Islanders (Port Jackson) Ltd (ASSI PJ) to make all these statistics more readily accessible. I have also completed a more limited set of statistics for Townsville. I hope that the statistical details available in this document also will encourage the newly-formed Queensland United South Sea Islander Council Inc. (QUASSIC) in their quest to retrieve their history and confirm their place as a contemporary Australian ethnic community. The document is a tribute and guide to the Mackay district South Sea Islander community, and in many ways it completes research I began in the 1970s

Making Mala: Malaita in Solomon Islands, 1870s–1930s

Malaita is one of the major islands in the Solomons Archipelago and has the largest population in the Solomon Islands nation. Its people have an undeserved reputation for conservatism and aggression. Making Mala argues that in essence Malaitans are no different from other Solomon Islanders, and that their dominance, both in numbers and their place in the modern nation, can be explained through their recent history. A grounding theme of the book is its argument that, far than being conservative, Malaitan religions and cultures have always been adaptable and have proved remarkably flexible in accommodating change. This has been the secret of Malaitan success. Malaitans rocked the foundations of the British protectorate during the protonationalist Maasina Rule movement in the 1940s and the early 1950s, have heavily engaged in internal migration, particularly to urban areas, and were central to the ‘Tension Years’ between 1998 and 2003. Making Mala reassesses Malaita’s history, demolishes undeserved tropes and uses historical and cultural analyses to explain Malaitans’ place in the Solomon Islands nation today

Tulagi

Tulagi was the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate between 1897 and 1942. The British withdrawal from the island during the Pacific War, its capture by the Japanese and the American reconquest left the island’s facilities damaged beyond repair. After the war, Britain moved the capital to the American military base on Guadalcanal, which became Honiara. The Tulagi settlement was an enclave of several small islands, the permanent population of which was never more than 600: 300 foreigners—one-third of European origin and most of the remainder Chinese—and an equivalent number of Solomon Islanders. Thousands of Solomon Islander males also passed through on their way to work on plantations and as boat crews, hospital patients and prisoners. The history of the Tulagi enclave provides an understanding of the origins of modern Solomon Islands. Tulagi was also a significant outpost of the British Empire in the Pacific, which enables a close analysis of race, sex and class and the process of British colonisation and government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Regional collective learning processes, innovation and growth of high technology SMEs: The case of the Cambridge region

Recent theoretical research on the technological development of dynamic European regions has drawn attention to the supposedly key role of "untraded interdependencies" between local firms and other organisations (Storper, 1995), involving informal inter-firm networking (Yeung, 1994) and processes of "collective learning" (Camagni, 1991, Lorenz, 1992). These processes, which involve exchange and development of technological expertise, are seen as being based on relationships of trust and reciprocity, while the networks and processes themselves are viewed as influential in the recent evolution of dynamic regional clusters of innovative small and medium sized enterprises. The paper will attempt to assess the extent, importance and nature of collective learning processes in the specific caseof technology-intensive firms in the Cambridge region recenty descried as the "nearest thing in Europe to Silicon Valley" (Martin 1996). Based on an original interview survey of technology-based enterprises, the paper will asses the role of technology firm spin-off and acquistion, inter-firm research and technology collaboration, and scientific and professional labour market recruitment, in the development of local technological competencies and collective learning capabilities. Alltention will also be paid to the role of key local instiutions and supporting business services in this regard. The paper will conclude by condsidering implications for policy.

Studies of base-catalysed protiodeiodination of aryl iodides

The rates of the methoxide ion induced protiodeiodination of a number of polychloroiodoarenes in dimethyl sulphoxide-methanol (9:1, v/v) have been measured at 323&middot;2K. Chlorine substituents activate all positions in the order, o-Cl > m-Cl > p-Cl, although the more fully substituted polychloroiodoarenes show much weaker substituent effects. The true reagent effecting the reactions appears to be the dimsyl anion, and the rates of reaction in some cases reach and exceed that expected of an encounter-controlled process. This may account for the major decrease in efficiency of further activating substituents. The extent to which concomitant methoxydehalogenation occurs has been checked partly by product analysis and partly by comparison with the rates of methoxydechlorination of some allied polychlorobenzenes. Methoxydehalogenation is an expected mode of reaction in a number of cases. Only in studies of some non-ortho-substituted compounds is extensive methoxydehalogenation observed. The presence of an ortho-chlorine substituent promotes the protiodeiodination reaction to the exclusion of methoxydehalogenation. The addition of fluorene to the reaction medium to provide a second and competing carbanion causes the formation of V9,9 -bifluorenylidene whose presence suggests the intermediacy of 9,9'-iodofluorene. This and a number of other observations suggest that the mechanism of the reduction involves the loss of iodine as Idelta+ towards a suitable nucleophile and that, despite the similarity of reaction conditions, the SRN1 mechanism is not operating in these systems.<p