Academic literature on the topic 'Investments, French Australia Case studies'

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine whether sustainable and responsible investing (SRI) outperforms the benchmark index investing across different time frames globally. Design/methodology/approach Based on the systematic weighted environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings compiled by Thomson Reuters Asset4, the authors assess the stock market performance and risk of highly compliant firms portfolio in seven different countries; grouped as developed and developing nations over different time frames by adopting the Jensen’s alpha model (CAPM) and the Fama and French three-factor model. Findings The study finds that SRI portfolios significantly underperform their benchmark index, in case of, the developing nations, however, enjoy a significantly lower risk. This is contrary to the findings in case of developed nations, where the US SRI portfolio has significantly outperformed the benchmark index and the UK and Australia SRI portfolios have performed in line with the benchmark index. Finally, the study discusses results and implications for regulators, practitioners and investors’ who believe in the SRI investing. Research limitations/implications This study provides empirical support for the practitioners, policymakers and investors emphasizing that in the case of developed nations SRI investments generate a significant excess return or at the best perform in line with the broader market index. However, in the case of developing nations, very few firms are consistently rated on ESG parameters. This provides lesser options for investors in developing nations to apply the “impact first” philosophy of investment. The investor’s community and regulators need to make a serious effort in promoting firms to take up sustainability effort seriously. Originality/value The unique contribution of this study is that it considers a wider definition of the term “sustainability” and examines the performance of SRI investment in developed vs developing countries. This is one of the few studies at the global level, which highlights whether sustainable investing generates abnormal risk-adjusted returns for the investors.

AbstractThis article examines the time-varying risk premium with reference to investments in fine wines. Unlike previous studies, our article focuses on this issue within the context of the financial crisis. To do this, we propose the use of a conditional capital asset pricing model and a multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model on several appellation wines worldwide. We find that Bordeaux fine wines were more volatile during the financial crisis and are less volatile in non-crisis periods. In addition, while the volatility of Burgundy wines is second only to Bordeaux wines, non-French fine wines (Australia, Italy, and USA) exhibit inverse volatility trends to French fine wines. (JEL Classifications: C50, G01, G11, Q13)

This article studies slave and other long-distance trades in eighteenth-century France. The data cover 238 ventures from seven French harbors between 1710 and 1780. Using the undiscounted benefit-cost ratio as a proxy for the internal rate of return, the article shows that these investments were more liquid, shorter, and more profitable than private notarized credit, without higher risk. They were safer and had a shorter duration than government bonds, without being less liquid or less profitable. The conclusion, that investment in these trades was preferable to domestic alternatives, may be explained by barriers to entry.

During the last decade, a range of indicators has been advocated for assessing soil, farm and catchment health. This paper assembles some recent experiences of the authors in developing and using indicators from paddock to national scales. Indicators are merely a subset of the attributes that are used to quantify aspects of catchment or farm health. Their selection and use in the past has led to criticism of indicators, but, given an explicit approach, most of the criticisms can be overcome. Reliable indicators provide positive and negative signals about the current status of natural resources and how these properties have changed over time. They are used both to identify potential risks and to confirm that current farming practices and systems of land use are effective in maintaining the resource base or economic status. They should be precursors for change and future on-ground investments when problems are observed or identified.A structured approach is needed to ensure indicators are selected and used efficiently. This approach involves: deciding local issues and selecting the most appropriate indicators to reflect those issues; interpreting both positive and negative signals from the monitoring process; taking appropriate action to resolve problems; and, using indicators to monitor the outcomes from the action taken.Finally, we have drawn on these and other experiences to compile a list of indicators that may be used to address sustainability issues associated with farm productivity, soil health and catchment health identified in recent strategic plans developed for the northern grains region of Australia, the focus of this special journal issue.

Hydrogen has been identified as a very promising vector for energy storage, especially for heavy mobility applications. For this reason, France is making significant investments in this field, and use cases need to be evaluated as they are sprouting. In this paper, the relevance of H2 in two storage applications is studied: a domestic renewable electricity production system connected to the grid and a collective hydrogen production for the daily bus refill. The investigation consists of the sizing of the system and then the evaluation of its performance according to several criteria depending on case. Optimizations are made using Bayesian and gradient-based methods. Several variations around a central case are explored for both cases to give insights on the impact of the different parameters (location, pricing, objective, etc.) on the performance of the system.Our results show that domestic power-to-power applications (case 1) do not seem to be competitive with electrochemical storage. Meanwhile, without any subsidies or incentives, such configuration does not allow prosumers to save money (+16% spendings compared to non-equipped dwelling). It remains interesting when self-sufficiency is the main objective (up to 68% of energy is not exchanged). The power-to-gas application (case 2, central case), with a direct use of hydrogen for mobility, seems to be more relevant according to our case study, we could reach a production cost of green H2 around 5 €/kg, similar to the 3–10 $/kg found in literature, for 182 houses involved. In both cases, H2 follows a yearly cycle, charging in summer and discharging in winter (long term storage) due to low conversion efficiency.

Australia is transitioning to become an energy superpower—the $43 billion Gorgon LNG project and the other comparably sized projects lining up behind the Gorgon project confirm this. There are predictions that around $80 billion of CAPEX on LNG projects will be approved for expenditure for the 2010 financial year with much more to be invested in the following years. And, we are on the cusp of further coal seam gas developments in Queensland, which could see annual production rise from 130 to more than 3,000 petajoules per annum once the infrastructure is in place. What are the skills needed to realise the true potential of these investments? An appropriate asset management plan is key. Asset management is more than the provision of maintenance services—it is about developing a systematic approach to managing an asset during its life and achieving the outputs required by the owner of the asset. Program and project management of brownfield capital works, maintenance services and infrastructure projects are also essential technical capabilities to help meet the demand of the burgeoning LNG and coal seam gas industries. These skills will determine who can deliver on schedule, or ahead of it. The other key capability will be mobilising, managing and retaining people. There is speculation that the Queensland coal seam gas industry alone will generate approximately 12,000 jobs. The industry needs to be prepared to be innovative in engaging, training and upskilling people. As the only true global resources and industrial provider in Australia, Transfield Services will share its key learnings on effectively managing assets, projects and people from its work with clients including Canada’s largest energy company, Suncor Energy.

Huge investments have been carried out in sports teams and professional sports leagues all over the world. There are different sports that are popular in different parts of the world. In the United States, it's American Football, in Europe and UK it is Football (soccer); in the Indian sub-continent and Australia, it is Cricket that attracts the largest crowd. The research analyses this business of investments in sports leagues around the world. The paper looks at the potential interest in investing in clubs and team franchises of sports leagues. The aim of this paper was to find out the attractiveness and risks, economically and financially, involved in the Global business of sports leagues and the Involvement of business in the field of sports and critically analyze different business models used in the field of sports leagues for conducting business globally. The research utilized the primary data through questionnaires, case studies, and secondary data through government agencies like the census bureau, information compiled for sale by commercial vendors, data published by universities, government, equity research, reports, trade association newsletter, etc. The research concluded sports have always been a unique game of business for players and investing organizations. However, the research recommended the franchise business model used for the business is the appropriate model for conducting business in the field of sports leagues.

Huge investments have been carried out in sports teams and professional sports leagues all over the world. There are different sports that are popular in different parts of the world. In the United States, it's American Football, in Europe and UK it is Football (soccer); in the Indian sub-continent and Australia, it is Cricket that attracts the largest crowd. The research analyses this business of investments in sports leagues around the world. The paper looks at the potential interest in investing in clubs and team franchises of sports leagues. The aim of this paper was to find out the attractiveness and risks, economically and financially, involved in the Global business of sports leagues and the Involvement of business in the field of sports and critically analyze different business models used in the field of sports leagues for conducting business globally. The research utilized the primary data through questionnaires, case studies, and secondary data through government agencies like the census bureau, information compiled for sale by commercial vendors, data published by universities, government, equity research, reports, trade association newsletter, etc. The research concluded sports have always been a unique game of business for players and investing organizations. However, the research recommended the franchise business model used for the business is the appropriate model for conducting business in the field of sports leagues.

This volume revisits, as its title states, the theory and practice of reversing language shift (RLS) first proposed by Fishman in 1991. A dozen of the original case studies are reanalyzed and several more are added, producing a rich source of detail on some of the specific situations of language shift and efforts to reverse it. Fishman contributes introductory and concluding chapters as well as one of the case studies (Yiddish); other authors cover Navajo, New York Puerto Rican Spanish, Québec French, Otomí, Quechua, Irish, Frisian, Basque, Catalán, Oko, Andamanese, Ainu, Hebrew, immigrant languages in Australia, indigenous languages in Australia, and Maori. The resulting book provides a wealth of information about language shift and public policy directed toward RLS, but its aims are broader than that.

This report aimed to study symptoms and causes of brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome (BOAS) in brachycephalic dogs and to determine appropriate surgical procedures for these symptoms by reviewing literatures and examining four case studies conducted at Veterinary Specialist Service Hospital, Underwood, Queensland, Australia. The cases included a 6-year 3-month-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier (case 1), a 1-year 5-month-old French Bulldog (case 2), an 8-month-old French Bulldog (case 3), and an 8-year 8-month Pug (case 4). Those dogs went to the Veterinary Specialist Service in a worsen state of respiratory problems, including the upper respiratory noise (case 1, 2, 3), decrease in exercise tolerance, respiratory struggling (case 1, 3), regurgitation (case 1), coughing, sleeping difficulty, respiratory stridor (case 2), nasal discharge, dyspnea, bloating, and tachypnea (case 4). Examinations revealed the causes including the elongated soft palate (case 1, 2, 3, 4), stenotic nostrils (case 2, 3, 4), tonsils inflammation (case 3) and everted laryngeal saccules (case 4). After surgery, the dogs were recovered in intensive care unit within 2 days, and then discharged. Scheduled re-examination one week later showed improvement in the respiratory health in all cases. Overall, major complications occur in 10% of cases; however, this surgery is vital and can be totally applied in Vietnam where brachycephalic dogs have become a popular companion.

A comprehensive and rigid analysis of Chinese investment in Australia for the past four decades is an under-researched topic, though there had been sporadic treatments of this subject matter from the perspective of single institutions in economics, politics, and culture. The neoliberalism era marked a honeymoon between China and Australia, which boosted the Chinese investments in Australia, marked by the Australia-China Free Trade Agreement and the ‘One Belt One Road Initiative’ Agreement, signed by the Victorian Government and the Chinese Development and Reform Commission. Recent years witnessed a deterioration of the Australia and China relationships and the “tit-for-tat” strategies and racism movements which discourage the Chinese investments in Australia. This study has developed a conceptual framework consisting of economic, political, cultural and institutional factors that may explain the Australian government’s decision of rejecting certain Chinese investments in recent years. Case studies were employed to illustrate the application of the conceptual framework. The findings suggest that the conceptual framework can be utilized to explain why the Australian government rejected certain Chinese investments. This research aims to analyze the determinants of Australia Government’s rejection of Chinese investment in Australia. Case studies in the field of the Australian mining sector, agriculture and agribusiness, and infrastructure unveil that political distrust towards Chinese investment in Australia is a major source of refusing Chinese investment. This led to continuous reduction of Chinese investment in Australia since 2016. Such political distrust which works against the national interest of the respective countries, may also drive the decline of Chinese investment in Australia. This research contributes to the literature by examining the factors which lead to the Australian Government’s decision to reject certain Chinese investments based on in depth analysis of case studies. This will be useful for understanding how to enlarge shared interest for policymakers, businessmen and academic researchers.

Abstract Adequate wastewater treatment in low to medium income cities worldwide has largely been a failure despite decades of funding. The still dominant end-of-pipe paradigm of treatment for surface water discharge, focusing principally on removal of organic matter, has not addressed the well-published problems of pathogen and nutrient release with continued contamination of surface waters. This book incorporates the new paradigm of integrated wastewater management for valorization without surface water discharge using waste stabilization pond systems and wastewater reservoirs. In this paradigm the purpose of treatment is to protect health by reducing pathogens to produce an effluent that is valorized for its fertilizer and water value for agriculture and aquaculture. Methane production as a sustainable energy source is also considered for those applications where it is appropriate. Emphasis is on sustainable engineering solutions for low to medium income cities worldwide. Chapters present the theory of design, followed by design procedures, example design problems, and case study examples with data, diagrams and photos of operating systems. Excel spreadsheets and the FAO program CLIMWAT/CROPWAT are included in examples throughout. Sections on engineering practice include technical training, operation and maintenance requirements, construction and sustainability. The book incorporates design and operating data and case studies from Africa, Australia, Latin America, Europe, New Zealand, and the US, including studies that have been published in French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The book is designed for upper-division and graduate level engineering students, practicing engineers, regulatory professionals who help establish and enforce effluent standards, international development professionals, and policy stakeholders. ISBN: 9781789061529 (paperback) ISBN: 9781789061536 (eBook) ISBN: 9781789061543 (ePUB)

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

In modern organisations a large portion of senior management’s time is now being spent on finding ways to measure the contribution of their organisations’ IS/IT investments to business performance. It has been shown that IS/IT investments in many organisations are huge and increasing rapidly every year and yet there is still a lack of understanding of the impact of the proper IS/IT investment evaluation processes and practices in these organisations. At the same time, the issue of expected and actual benefits realised from IS/IT investments has also generated a significant amount of debate in the IS/IT literature amongst the researchers and practitioners. This is as true in Australia as it is in the rest of the developed world. Thus, one can argue that a detailed program of research into the current practice and process of IS/IT investment evaluation in Australia is warranted. This paper reviews the progress made in research in this area and proposes a research program incorporating surveys, case studies, and expert focus groups to assess current practice and to develop an approach, model or framework based on the fit between theory and practice of IS/IT investment evaluation by large Australian organisations.

Professor Leslie R. Marchant was a Western Australian historian of international renown. Richly educated as a child in political philosophy and critical reason, Marchant’s understandings of western political philosophies were deepened in World War Two when serving with an international crew of the merchant navy. After the war’s end, Marchant was appointed as a Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia’s Depart of Native Affairs. His passionate belief in Enlightenment ideals, including the equality of all people, was challenged by his experiences as a Protector. Leaving that role, he commenced his studies at The University of Western Australia where, in 1952, his Honours thesis made an early case that genocide had been committed in the administration of Aboriginal people in Western Australia. In the years that followed, Marchant became an early researcher of modern China and its relationship with the West, and won respect for his archival research of French maritime history in the Asia-Pacific. This work, including the publication of France Australe in 1982, was later recognised with the award of a French knighthood, the Chevalier d’Ordre National du Mèrite, and his election as a fellow to the Royal Geographical Society. In this festschrift, scholars from The University of Notre Dame Australia appraise Marchant’s work in such areas as Aboriginal history and policy, Westminster traditions, political philosophy, Australia and China and French maritime history.