ELISION: sonic gastronomy

Concert review of Australian contemporary art music ensemble Elision. Their Spirit Weapons concert at the 2001 Queensland Biennial Festival of Music included Michael Smetanin, Vault; Michael Jarrell, Essaims-Cribles ; Liza Lim, Spirit Weapons; René Wohlhauser, Quantenströmung; Michael Vaughan, Infinite Skies

A new prey record and range extension for Hyperaspis paludicola Schwarz and a new prey record for Microweisea misella (LeConte) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

The miscanthus mealybug, Miscanthicoccus miscanthi (Takahashi) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), is newly reported as prey for the lady beetle Hyperaspis paludicola Schwarz (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) at the Regan National Airport, Washington, DC (northern range extension). A new armored scale prey, Diaspidiotus ancyclus (Putnam) (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), for the lady beetle Microweisea misella (LeConte) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) is recorded. A range extension for Hyperaspis paludicola is reported

R&D, Agency Costs and Capital Structure: International Evidence

We examine the impact of R&D intensity and agency costs on the value of firms across 13 economies. We find that R&D adds value while high agency costs reduce value. R&D adds value, however, even when agency costs are high. We show that in those firms where agency costs are high and R&D intensity is high the debt control hypothesis is at work. In contrast to the stylised fact of high R&D firms having low levels of debt, these firms have higher levels of debR&D, Agency Costs, Capital Structure

Brisbane songs

Vocal composition for Collusion ensemble (soprano, clarinet, violin, cello, piano). Three poems are collected and set in Brisbane Songs. Les Murray’s Nocturne starts the set in a reflective mood. The poem is an ode-like enumeration of iconic features of Brisbane, centring on the river, and dwelling on the major impact of World War Two on the city, touching evocatively on many other aspects of Brisbane’s identity in the process. The inescapable river is strongly present in Streets of Brisbane by Kevin Hart, represented in the music by a series of widely-spaced, static chords that overtake the texture at several points. The third poem, Leaving West End, by Bronwyn Lea, takes quite a different turn, focusing on two frozen moments of observation. Set at an inner-suburban bus stop, the first observation is of a young, typically Brisbanian couple intense in their embrace of the present moment; it is interrupted by the recounting of an experience of heroin-accompanied eroticism