Globalisation and Shortages of Skilled Labour in Pacific Island Countries: A Case Study of Australia

During the past two decades, the Australian economy has experienced fundamental changes influenced by the increasing propagation of globalisation. Globalising forces have reduced barriers to labour mobility across countries and economies. Concurrently there has been an increase in the importance of the ‘knowledge economy’ and thus the demand for highly skilled workers. The combination of these factors has increased the competition for highly skilled workers across national economies and in particular among Pacific Island countries (such as New Zealand and Fiji) in which the domestic demand for highly skilled labour outstrips the available domestic supply. The primary objective of this article is to analyse the impact of globalisation on the Australian labour market with a focus on shortages of skilled labour in Australia. The paper also examines the implications of shortages of skilled labour for other Pacific Island countries and suggests policy initiatives in this area.

Are Drone Strikes Effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On the Dynamics of Violence between the United States and the Taliban

Strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have been the primary weapon used by the United States to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This paper examines the dynamics of violence involving drone strikes and the Taliban/Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan from January 2007 to December 2010. We find that drone strikes do not have any significant impact on terrorist violence in Afghanistan but that drone strikes do have a significant impact on Taliban/Al-Qaeda violence in Pakistan. We find that our results are robust to examining different time periods and lag structures. We also examine the impact of successful and unsuccessful drone strikes (which did or did not succeed in targeted killing of a militant leader) on terrorist attacks by the Taliban. We find strong negative impacts of unsuccessful drone strikes on Taliban violence in Pakistan, showing the deterrent effects are quite strong, while the incapacitation effects appear to be weak or non-existent.time series models, conflict

Remittances and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh India and Sri Lanka

In many developing countries, remittance payments from migrant workers are increasingly becoming a significant source of export income. This paper investigates the causal link between remittances and economic growth in three countries, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, by employing the Granger causality test under a VAR framework (Granger 1988). Using time series data over a 25 year period, we found that growth in remittances does lead to economic growth in Bangladesh. In India, there seems to be no causal relationship between growth in remittances and economic growth; but in Sri Lanka, a two-way directional causality is found; namely economic growth influences growth in remittences and vice-versa. The paper also discusses a number of policy issues arising from the results of the analysis in relation to remittances in association with liberalisation of financial institutions, gender issues, regulation and enforcement, investment and savings schemes, and promotion and education.

Are drone strikes effective in Afghanistan and Pakistan? On the dynamics of violence between the United States and the Taliban

Strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have been the primary weapon used by the United States to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This paper examines the dynamics of violence involving drone strikes and the Taliban/Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan from January 2007 to December 2010. We find that drone strikes do not have any significant impact on terrorist violence in Afghanistan but that drone strikes do have a significant impact on Taliban/Al-Qaeda violence in Pakistan. We find that our results are robust to examining different time periods and lag structures. We also examine the impact of successful and unsuccessful drone strikes (which did or did not succeed in targeted killing of a militant leader) on terrorist attacks by the Taliban. We find strong negative impacts of unsuccessful drone strikes on Taliban violence in Pakistan, showing the deterrent effects are quite strong, while the incapacitation effects appear to be weak or non-existent

Condensation in disordered lasers: theory, 3D+1 simulations and experiments

The complex processes underlying the generation of a coherent-like emission from the multiple-scattering of photons and wave-localization in the presence of structural disorder are still mostly un-explored. Here we show that a single nonlinear Schroedinger equation, playing the role of the Schawlow-Townes law for standard lasers, quantitatively reproduces experimental results and three-dimensional time-domain parallel simulations of a colloidal laser system.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

The Induction and Evaluation of Productive Semidwarf Mutants of Basmati-370

Dry, uniform seeds of Basmati 370 with about 14% moisture content were exposed to 0, 15,20 and 25kR doses of gamma rays (60Co source). Twenty one semi-dwarf mutants were selected from 36,000 M2 plants originating from about 12,000 Ml plants. The breeding behaviour of these mutants was studied in M3 and consequently 6 mutants were selected. The comparative yield test of mutants with mother cultivar Basmati-370, established the high yield potential and semi-dwarf plant posture of mutant strains. The other plant attributes as well as physico-chemical traits of the mutants and parent cultivar are also presented

Preculturing effect of thidiazuron on in vitro shoot multiplication and micropropagation round in Capparis decidua (Forsk.) an important multipurpose plant

An efficient protocol was developed for clonal multiplication of an important shrub: Capparis decidua (Forsk.) Edgew, through in vitro shoot induction and multiplication from nodal explants. Pretreatment of nodal explants in a liquid Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium augmented with various thidiazuron (TDZ) concentrations at relatively high levels (5–100 μM) for different time duration (4, 8, 12 and 16 d), proved a significant approach for in vitro shoot production. After an initial exposure time to TDZ, nodal explants were inoculated onto a MS basal medium devoid of TDZ for further induction and proliferation. The highest regeneration rate (85%), average number of shoots/explant (8.7 ± 0.22) and maximum shoot length (3.9 ± 0.33 cm) were obtained from the nodal explants exposed to 50 μM TDZ for 8 d. The nodal explants excised from the proliferated cultures of TDZ (50 μM) for 8 d were used as explants and showed an enhancement rate after next three round of in vitro propagation. Best results for rooting was obtained by ex vitro treatment of shoots with 200 μM indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) for 20 min. as it produced an average of 5.7 ± 0.41 roots per microshoot with 4.4 ± 0.39 cm root length in 84% shoots. Different planting substrates was tested for maximum survival of hardening off micropropagated plantlets and soilrite proved most effective than others as 97.1 ± 7.21 plantlets survived. All micropropagated plants grew well in natural conditions and showed similar morphology to the mother plant

Characterization of carbon monoxide, methane and nonmethane hydrocarbons in emerging cities of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and in Singapore

We investigate the composition of 63 C2-C10 nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs), methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO), in Jeddah, Mecca, and Madina (Saudi Arabia), in Lahore, (Pakistan), and in Singapore. We established a database with which to compare and contrast NMHCs in regions where ambient levels and emissions are poorly characterized, but where conditions are favorable to the formation of tropospheric ozone, and where measurements are essential for improving emission inventories and modeling. This dataset will also serve as a base for further analysis of air pollution in Western Saudi Arabia including, but not limited to, the estimation of urban emissions and long range pollution transport from these regions. The measured species showed enhanced levels in all Saudi Arabian cities compared to the local background but were generally much lower than in Lahore. In Madina, vehicle exhaust was the dominant NMHC source, as indicated by enhanced levels of combustion products and by the good correlation between NMHCs and CO, while in Jeddah and Mecca a combination of sources needs to be considered. Very high NMHC levels were measured in Lahore, and elevated levels of CH4 in Lahore were attributed to natural gas. When we compared our results with 2010 emissions from the MACCity global inventory, we found discrepancies in the relative contribution of NMHCs between the measurements and the inventory. In all cities, alkenes (especially ethene and propene) dominated the hydroxyl radical (OH) reactivity (kOH) because of their great abundance and their relatively fast reaction rates with OH