Are Biofuels to blame for higher food prices?
Source: Michael Knox's Economic Strategy
"Four Fed researchers Scott Baier, Mark Clements, Charles Griffiths and Jane Ihrig have recently published an insightful research piece on the interaction between biofuels, a number of major US food crops and food prices. Their paper examines the effect that biofuels production has had on commodity and global food prices. They estimate that biofuel production over the past two years has had a sizable impact on corn, sugar, barley and soybean prices but a much smaller impact on global food prices."
Click and connect – young Australians' use of online social media
Source: Australian Communications and Media Authority
"Children and young people have a high level of awareness of cybersafety risks and the key messages for staying safe online. This ACMA report found that 75 per cent of children surveyed claim they know not to give out their address or phone number online and remember key safety messages such as ‘people aren’t always who they say they are online’."
Organizing the Innovation Process: Complementarities in Innovation Networking (journal article)
by James H. Love and Stephen Roper
from Industry and Innovation, Vol 16 No 3 June 2009 pp. 273-290
"This paper contributes to the developing literature on complementarities in organizational design. We test for the existence of complementarities in the use of external networking between stages of the innovation process in a sample of UK and German manufacturing plants. Our evidence suggests some differences between the UK and Germany in terms of the optimal combination of innovation activities in which to implement external networking. "
Who killed the eco-town? (journal article)
by Damian Arnold
from Architecture Journal, 25 June 2009
"Eco-towns are dead. Architects, planners and developers alike are asking: who killed them? Gordon Brown wanted to unveil plans for 10 carbon-neutral communities that would deliver up to 200,000 new homes on cheap government-owned land in the greenbelt by 2020. The idea was that the eco-towns would be so enthusiastically received that they could simply be parachuted into existing local authority development plans and fast-tracked through the system so that building could get started as quickly as possible. Developers flocked to get involved in what they saw as a great commercial opportunity – all in the name of being green. For better or for worse, this grand plan is not going to happen."
And Data for All: Why Obama's Geeky New CIO Wants to Put All Gov't Info Online (article)
by Nicholas Thompson
from Wired Magazine, 18 June 2009
"The Obama administration's most radical idea may also be its geekiest: Make nearly every hidden government spreadsheet and buried statistic available online, all in one place. For anyone to see. Are you searching for a Food and Drug Administration report that used to be obtainable only through the Freedom of Information Act? Just a mouseclick away. Need National Institutes of Health studies and school testing scores? Click. Census data, nonclassified Defense Department specs, obscure Securities and Exchange Commission files, prison statistics? Click click. Click. Click."
Water and Wastewater Services in Non-Metropolitan New South Wales: A Critical Analysis of the Report of the Independent Inquiry (journal article)
by Brian Dollery
from Agenda, Vol 16 No 2 2009
"The Commonwealth's assumption of greater control over water policy has been justified on the grounds that a 'national approach' to the problems in the Murray-Darling Basin is required to resolve the ills of the Basin. This paper investigates the validity of this contention in the context of the Federal government's 'Water for the Future' manifesto. The paper argues that the current naive understanding of 'water use efficiency' concepts is likely to stymie any purported basin-wide gains from a 'national approach' to water policy."
'Green' Building Liability: From Claims to Litigation. (journal article)
By Michael C. Loulakis and Lauren P. McLaughlin
From Civil Engineering, Vol 79 No 6 June 2009
"The article offers information on the engineering liability of green buildings of the U.S. Green Building Council, the developer of the widely used Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. It discusses the impact of certified green projects on engineers and architects from a liability perspective. It notes that sustainable design, green legislation, and LEED certification may lead to a new legal standard of care for architects and engineers."
More employees ignoring data security policies (blog)
from Ponemon Institute June 10 2009
"More employees are ignoring data security policies and engaging in activities that could put a company at risk. A large number of employees copy secure data to USB drives or turn off security settings in mobile devices like laptops, which could put a company's data at risk, according to the survey. The rate of noncompliant behavior was worse in this most recent survey compared to a similar survey conducted in 2007."
How and why to create data destruction policies (journal article)
by Mark Grossman and Tate Stickles
from CIO (US) 24 June 2009
"Hate to throw anything away? Technology lawyer Mark Grossman explains why your IT staff must fight that instinct and create a data destruction policy that works for the business."
Controlling Cane Toads Ecologically (journal article)
by Rick Shine
from Australasian Science, June 2009
"Although physical removal of the cane toads that are plaguing northern Australia has failed to slow the invasion, some promising new approaches to toad control are emerging from research into the invaders’ basic biology."
Local variation or global convergence in agricultural biotechnology policy? A comparative analysis
by Daniel Lee Kleinman, Abby J. Kinchy and Robyn Autry
from Science and Public Policy, June 2009
"The history of attention to local variation in science and technology studies notwithstanding, there is a growing emphasis in the study of science policy on global convergence. In this paper, we undertake a multi-state comparative study of agricultural biotechnology policies, illustrating the continuing value of attending to policy variation and the factors that mold it. We acknowledge the growing influence of supranational entities and transnational cultural exchanges in shaping policy. However, our research does not indicate the homogenization of agricultural biotechnology policies across the globe. Instead, we find three broad models of agricultural biotechnology governance: 'liberal science-based' regulation, 'precautionary science-based' regulation, and 'social values-based' regulation. While states are constrained by global and local factors, they actively shape policies by blending parts of these three policy models in distinct ways."
Public procurement as an innovation policy tool: the role of institutions (journal article)
by Max Rolfstam
from Science and Public Policy, June 2009
"Policy-makers in the EU have increasingly emphasised the role of public procurement as a policy instrument that can be used to stimulate innovation. This development reflects and responds to a growing concern among EU member states about how to maintain competitive advantage in an economic environment increasingly subject to global competition. To contribute to these emerging policies, this paper develops an innovation theory-based approach regarding public procurement of innovations, by elaborating an institutional focus. In contrast to current institutional approaches in innovation studies, the approach applied here brings in the often neglected endogenous perspective. The empirical studies cited in this paper suggest that the needs of endogenous, or informal, institutions also need to be taken into account in order to understand better the institutional set-up enabling public procurement of innovations. "
