Статті в журналах з теми "Cost-Benefit; Full-Income"

Objective: Existing evidence suggests that vocational rehabilitation services, in particular individual placement and support (IPS), are effective in assisting people with schizophrenia and related conditions gain open employment. Despite this, such services are not available to all unemployed people with schizophrenia who wish to work. Existing evidence suggests that while IPS confers no clinical advantages over routine care, it does improve the proportion of people returning to employment. The objective of the current study is to investigate the net benefit of introducing IPS services into current mental health services in Australia. Method: The net benefit of IPS is assessed from a health sector perspective using cost–benefit analysis. A two-stage approach is taken to the assessment of benefit. The first stage involves a quantitative analysis of the net benefit, defined as the benefits of IPS (comprising transfer payments averted, income tax accrued and individual income earned) minus the costs. The second stage involves application of ‘second-filter’ criteria (including equity, strength of evidence, feasibility and acceptability to stakeholders) to results. The robustness of results is tested using the multivariate probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Results: The costs of IPS are $A10.3M (95% uncertainty interval $A7.4M–$A13.6M), the benefits are $A4.7M ($A3.1M–$A6.5M), resulting in a negative net benefit of $A5.6M ($A8.4M–$A3.4M). Conclusions: The current analysis suggests that IPS costs are greater than themonetary benefits. However, the evidence-base of the current analysis is weak. Structural conditions surrounding welfare payments in Australia create disincentives to full-time employment for people with disabilities.

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) is one of the major horticultural produce and an important source of income as well as livelihood in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and North-eastern part of India. However, it is also full of nutritional and functional health benefits. Despite all the advantages associated with the fruit, shorter shelf life is major hindrance in attaining its potential economic benefit to the farmers. Apricot drying is most common in these regions t raditionally done by the farmers. Solar dryer developed by ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI) at its regional station, Leh is helping in extending shelf life of apricot and its availability throughout the year. This study was carried out during 2017–19 aimed to estimate the techno-economic benefit on adoption of the dryer by individual farmer or processor. It is found that adopter need to make investment of `1.10 lakh in fixed capital and requires `1.22 lakh annually to process one metric tonnes of the fruit. The annual cost of production was determined as `133,000 with depreciation of `11,000 for project of 1 metric tonne fresh fruit. Estimates indicate that adopter could generate net income of `78,000 annually. Profitability analysis yielded net profit ratio, pay-back period, benefit-cost ratio and break-even point of 37%, 1.23 years, 1.52, and 123.50 kg, respectively.

e20682 Background: In Japan, reconstruction of medical service system for cancer patients is urgent necessity. On medical service system, economist Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg advocated that value in health care is determined in addressing the patient's particular medical condition over the full cycle of care. In our facility, we adopted their concept to our cancer care system. Methods: In our facility, the cancer care team conducted by medical oncologists provides the best value across the full span of care services. In order to manage our care delivery value chain (CDVC) for advanced cancer, we innovated 'Annshin Card' system. 'Annshin means comfort in Japan. This card functions as a key among the patients, home nursing teams and us. We analyzed 772 patients from the tumor registry of our hospital from 7/12/2010 to 12/31/2012. The following factors were evaluated: (1) the overall incidence rate of emergency visit among patients with an 'Annshin cards', (2) the length of hospitalization and the rate of mortality at our palliative care unit (PCU) as hospitalizing indicators and (3) the medical profession income and expenditure rate as an indicator of cost-benefit. Results: (1) Of 772 patients, 419 patients were adopted 'Annshin card' system. Among patients with an 'Annshin card', the overall incidence rate of an emergency visit was 2.0 visits per 100 patients per month (/100/month). (2) Of 772 patients, 411 patients have been hospitalized in PCU and 748 events of hospitalization to PCU occurred. On 748 events, the average length of hospitalization was 19.8 [ 0-263 ] days; leaving hospital mortality was 274 events (36.6%). (3) On the medical profession income and expenditure rate, before vs. after launching our system, 85.3% vs. 95.8%, respectively. Conclusions: Our CDVC for advanced cancer not only reduced the emergency visit rate, but improved the indicators of hospitalization. Furthermore this system brought cost-benefit. We suppose that the concept of care cycles is effective for cancer patient management.

Orally delivered drugs offer significant benefits in the fight against viral infections, and cost-effective production is critical to their impact on pandemic response in low- and middle-income countries. One example, molnupiravir, a COVID-19 therapy developed by Emory, Ridgeback, and Merck & Co., had potential to benefit from significant cost of goods (COGs) reductions for its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), including starting materials. A holistic approach to identifying, developing, and evaluating optimized synthetic routes, which includes detailed COGs modeling, provides a rapid means to increase the availability, uptake and application of molnupiravir and other antivirals in global markets. Identification and development of alternate processes for the synthesis of molnupiravir has been conducted by the Medicines for All Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University (M4ALL) and the Green and Turner Labs at the University of Manchester. Both groups developed innovative processes based on synthetic route design and biocatalysis aimed at lowering costs and improving global access. The authors then performed COGs modeling to assess cost saving opportunities. This included a focus on manufacturing environments and facilities amenable to global public health and the identification of key parameters using sensitivity analyses. While all of the evaluated routes provide efficiency benefits, the best options yielded 3-6 fold API COGs reductions leading to treatment COGs as low as <$3/regimen. Additionally, key starting materials and cost drivers were quantified to evaluate the robustness of the savings. Finally, COGs models can continue to inform the focus of future development efforts on the most promising routes for additional cost savings. While the full price of a treatment course includes other factors, these alternative API synthetic approaches have significant potential to help facilitate broader access in low- and middle-income countries. As other promising therapeutics are developed, a similar process could enable rapid cost reductions while enhancing global access.

Purpose – Numerous scholars have studied the propensity and related determinants of marital infidelity across socioeconomic and demographic groups. However, the broader social and economic consequences of infidelity remain an unexplored question, particularly the macroeconomic consequences from the individual impacts on families and households. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Using income data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to analyze the relationship between the probability of infidelity and income and second, to quantify the cost of marital infidelity on individual families and taxpayers. The results confirm that infidelity makes individual households poorer, but goes further to reveal widespread negative externalities that fall to taxpayers from the consequences of family fragmentation. Findings – The results of this study indicate a review of government policy since numerous government policies contradict the incentive to stay married. Future research should consider additional estimations of the full range of costs related to infidelity and family fragmentation with particular focus on the public programs that may absorb the brunt of the negative externalities resulting from divorce. Research limitations/implications – This research confirms earlier research that infidelity has a high probability of causing divorce. Combined with this research, the analysis confirms a statistically significant negative relationship between infidelity and income and that when infidelity causes divorce, the results are substantial public economic and social costs. By definition public economic and social costs are borne by society, resulting in increased taxpayer burdens for society at large. Practical implications – Previously, the consequences of infidelity were a largely unexplored question. There had been some work on the probability of infidelity but little beyond this. Further, there had been minimal literature on the social efficiency of infidelity, especially research focussing on the external costs imposed on third parties such as children and taxpayers (Smith, 2012). This work took earlier research further by first confirming the negative impact on household income based on the probability of infidelity. Additionally, this is the only study that has examined the economic consequences of divorce due to infidelity. This research confirms that the presence of infidelity, especially when it leads to divorce, results in substantial economic and social externalities resulting from family fragmentation. Future research would benefit from a more in depth understanding of the characteristics that relate to the increased probability of infidelity, separate from and in conjunction with divorce. Furthermore, examining costs as they relate to specific programs, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, may clarify the impact of family fragmentation on specific programs. Additionally, the results from this study can be incorporated into larger sets of findings focussing on government policy to better understand the full range of social implications from infidelity. Social implications – Future research should consider additional estimations of the full range of costs related to infidelity and family fragmentation, with particular focus on the public programs that may absorb the brunt of the negative externalities resulting from divorce. The most pertinent policies influencing the rate of marriage and divorce in the USA are the income tax code, Social Security spousal and survivor benefits, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child support enforcement, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps, Medical, Supplemental Security Income, and WIC (Burstein, 2007). A review of these policies and their incentive structure related to family cohesiveness should be considered as a part of larger cost/benefit analysis of these programs. Originality/value – This work took earlier research further by first confirming the negative impact on household income based on the probability of infidelity. Additionally, this is the only study that has examined the economic consequences of divorce due to infidelity. This research confirms that the presence of infidelity, especially when it leads to divorce, results in substantial economic and social externalities resulting from family fragmentation.

There is strong interest in both developing and developed countries toward expanding health insurance coverage. How should the benefits, and costs, of expanded coverage be measured? While the value of reducing the financial risks that result from insurance coverage have long been recognized, there has been less attention in how best to measure such benefits. In this paper, we first provide a framework for assessing the financial value from health insurance. We focus on three distinct potential benefits: Pooling the risk of unexpected medical expenditures between healthy and sick households, redistributing resources from high- to low-income recipients and smoothing consumption over time. We then use this theoretical framework and an illustrative example to provide practical guidelines for benefit-cost analysis in capturing the full benefits (and costs) of expanding health insurance coverage. We conclude by considering other potential financial effects of broad insurance coverage, such as the ability to consolidate purchases and thus lower input prices.

Background Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the strongest known risk factor for tuberculosis (TB) through its impairment of T-cell immunity. Tuberculosis preventive treatment (TPT) is recommended for people living with HIV (PLHIV) by the World Health Organization, as it significantly reduces the risk of developing TB disease. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of modeling studies to summarize projected costs, risks, benefits, and impacts of TPT use among PLHIV on TB-related outcomes. Methods and findings We searched MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science from inception until December 31, 2020. Two reviewers independently screened titles, abstracts, and full texts; extracted data; and assessed quality. Extracted data were summarized using descriptive analysis. We performed quantile regression and random effects meta-analysis to describe trends in cost, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness outcomes across studies and identified key determinants of these outcomes. Our search identified 6,615 titles; 61 full texts were included in the final review. Of the 61 included studies, 31 reported both cost and effectiveness outcomes. A total of 41 were set in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), while 12 were set in high-income countries (HICs); 2 were set in both. Most studies considered isoniazid (INH)-based regimens 6 to 2 months long (n = 45), or longer than 12 months (n = 11). Model parameters and assumptions varied widely between studies. Despite this, all studies found that providing TPT to PLHIV was predicted to be effective at averting TB disease. No TPT regimen was substantially more effective at averting TB disease than any other. The cost of providing TPT and subsequent downstream costs (e.g. post-TPT health systems costs) were estimated to be less than $1,500 (2020 USD) per person in 85% of studies that reported cost outcomes (n = 36), regardless of study setting. All cost-effectiveness analyses concluded that providing TPT to PLHIV was potentially cost-effective compared to not providing TPT. In quantitative analyses, country income classification, consideration of antiretroviral therapy (ART) use, and TPT regimen use significantly impacted cost-effectiveness. Studies evaluating TPT in HICs suggested that TPT may be more effective at preventing TB disease than studies evaluating TPT in LMICs; pooled incremental net monetary benefit, given a willingness-to-pay threshold of country-level per capita gross domestic product (GDP), was $271 in LMICs (95% confidence interval [CI] −$81 to $622, p = 0.12) and was $2,568 in HICs (−$32,115 to $37,251, p = 0.52). Similarly, TPT appeared to be more effective at averting TB disease in HICs; pooled percent reduction in active TB incidence was 20% (13% to 27%, p < 0.001) in LMICs and 37% (−34% to 100%, p = 0.13) in HICs. Key limitations of this review included the heterogeneity of input parameters and assumptions from included studies, which limited pooling of effect estimates, inconsistent reporting of model parameters, which limited sample sizes of quantitative analyses, and database bias toward English publications. Conclusions The body of literature related to modeling TPT among PLHIV is large and heterogeneous, making comparisons across studies difficult. Despite this variability, all studies in all settings concluded that providing TPT to PLHIV is potentially effective and cost-effective for preventing TB disease.

The experiment was conducted to determine the organ weight characteristics, carcass yield and cost benefits of Kano Brown goats fed cassava root sievate and cassava leaf meal (CRSCLM) based diets as supplement to (Pennisetum purpureum) using 36 Kano Brown goats of 8 to 10 months of age.Four diets T1, T2, T3,and T4, were formulated at the levels of 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% CRSCLM respectivelyin a completely randomized design. Each animal received a designated treatment diet in the morning for 97 days. Feed offered was based on 3.5% body weight per day; the animals in addition were fed a kg wilted chopped P. purpureum later in the day as basal diet to enhance rumination and fine chewing. Results on carcass indices showed significant (p<0.05) response on live weight at slaughter, empty carcass weight, warm carcass weight, dressing percentage, shoulder, leg, loin, end and shank with T4having relatively best results. The dressing percentage was numerically (49.59%) best at T4. On the offal weights, head and full guts were significantly (p<0.05) improved for T4and T1goats. The organ characteristic proved the safety of using CRSCLM through the significantly (p<0.05) lower organ weights at T4goats. Cost per kg feed, feed cost/weight gainand cost/benefit ratio were positively influenced (p<0.05) at T4with expected income of 4.79 / 1 invested. It could therefore be concluded that Kano Brown goats fed 60% CRSCLM had the best carcass and organ yields at a reduced feed cost. Keywords: Pennisetum purpureum, Kano brown goats, Cassava leaf meal, Cassava root sievate,

Abstract Objectives Improved methods for measuring and valuing the full range of benefits for multi-sector nutrition programs is needed to demonstrate their overall impact and strengthen use of economic evaluation evidence. The objective of this study was to identify and characterize the range of benefits measured in economic evaluations of nutrition programs. Methods A systematic review was conducted of peer-reviewed cost-benefit, -effectiveness, or -utility studies of nutrition programs in low- and middle-income countries from 2010 and after. The nutrition interventions searched for were selected from the Scaling Up Nutrition United Nations Network's Compendium of Actions for Nutrition and categorized into four sectors (food/agriculture, health, social protection, and water/sanitation) to identify variation across disciplines. For each study, two reviewers assessed the types of economic analysis and benefits included in the comparison of costs and outcomes. Results A total of 64 studies comparing costs and benefits were identified. These studies assessed 39 types of nutrition interventions (out of 79 considered), and most commonly were within the health sector (45%), followed by food/agriculture (27%). Eight studies (13%) assessed programs across more than one sector. 38% of the studies conducted cost-utility analyses (calculated cost per disability- or quality-adjusted life year), 58% calculated cost-effectiveness (cost per any other outcome), and 34% calculated cost-benefit analyses (converted all benefits to monetary values to compare with program costs). In terms of types of benefits measured, the majority of studies focused on nutrition disorders and associated morbidity as their main outcome, while food consumption and other nutrition-related practices were relatively rare (less than 5%). Several studies included cost savings from improved nutrition, including both direct costs (e.g., health system and out-of-pocket costs for treating nutrition disorders) and indirect costs (lost productive time due to illness). Conclusions Economic evaluations do not yet exist for a wide range of recommended nutrition actions, and future research should work to address these gaps. In doing so, special consideration should be given to incorporating benefits beyond reduction of nutrition disorders. Funding Sources Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Purpose The purpose of 2017 ALEX® Benefits Communication Survey is to explore what employees think of the ways their companies talk to them about their benefits. Specifically, the survey focuses on whether employees understand the benefits communication material that is put in front of them, and it tries to provide insights on how employers can help employees improve their ability to make informed decisions about their healthcare options. Design/methodology/approach The survey was conducted online from February 24 to March 17, 2017, by Harris Poll on behalf of Jellyvision. It included 2,043 US adults (ages 18+) who were employed full-time, eligible for company-provided benefits and did not currently have health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid or the VA. Data were weighted where necessary by age, gender, race/ethnicity, region, education, income, marital status, household size and propensity to be online for aligning them with their actual proportions in the population. Results of this research were compared with Jellyvision’s April 2016 survey of 2,105 employed adults. Findings Of the employees whose companies offer health insurance benefits, approximately half (49 per cent) say making health insurance decisions is “always very stressful” for them, and 55 per cent say that they would like help from their employer when choosing a plan. One in five employees (21 per cent) say they often regret the benefit choices they make during open enrollment. Further, while 89 per cent say they generally understand their options, only 59 per cent can actually identify the different elements involved in the full cost of their health care. In terms of communication preferences, 65 per cent of employees prefer to look over benefit enrollment instructions outside of working hours. Originality/value Jellyvision commissioned this study to provide employers with valuable insights about how employees process and respond to benefit communications. The data can help employers understand the sources of enrollment-related stress and critical gaps in health insurance and benefits knowledge, which can lead to poor decision-making and regret among employees. The survey also reveals employee communication preferences, which employers can use to optimize their content, drive engagement, and empower employees to make more informed benefit enrollment decisions.

Even though international travel restrictions are being used to keep the COVID-19 pandemic under control, these measures cannot be considered as long-term solutions to the ongoing crisis. Limitations on traveling activities have tremendous adverse consequences on a country’s economy, particularly leading in radically expanding economic downturn and a shrinking tourism industry. To overcome this hardship, several countries have eased COVID-19 travel restrictions. However, there are still questions concerning the benefit to society as the impact assessment of this implementation transmitting to an economy has not been explicitly investigated. In response to this, we aim to assess the impacts of this implementation as to provide a guideline to global countries for their future adoption. By calculating the output and household income multipliers from the tourism input–output table, this study utilizes a case study from Thailand to indicate that prolonging the full mobility restrictions of international tourists, which results in a yearly loss of revenue in Thai tourism industry, would cost country production up to 144.97 billion USD and up to 45.4 billion USD for loss of household income. When international travel limitations were relaxed, production and household damage would fall to 142.24 billion USD (+1.88%) and 44.7 billion USD (+1.54%), respectively. At individual sectors level, our calculation identified that the most damage of production activities would exist in public utility, agriculture, and food manufacturing sectors. In the perspective of household income, those in the agricultural sector would have greatest impact. This impact results from the Thai tourism industry positioned as a buyer in an economy, having most impact on sectors selling their products or inputs to the tourism industry. As suggested by the input–output multipliers, we emphasize that strengthening the resilience of tourism-related sectors and reforming the tourism industry in relation to potential consumption and production patterns are critical for sustainable tourism development.

Genomic prediction uses marker genotypes distributed throughout the genome to track the inheritance of chromosome fragments and quantify their contribution to the superiority or inferiority of breeding merit. It does this by using a so-called training population of historical animals with both genotype and phenotypic measures. Genotyping adds additional costs to an improvement program, so these costs must be offset elsewhere for there to be net benefit from adopting genomics in pig improvement. Genomic information is used implicitly or explicitly to predict the merit of young selection candidates more reliably than is the case when using only pedigree and phenotypic performance information. More accurate genomic prediction of index merit in young selection candidates results in faster genetic progress. Further, the technology allows good use to be made of phenotypic measures from non-traditional sources, including descendants of nucleus animals whose performance is measured in the commercial sector. This facilitates nucleus selection to include more reliable predictions for disease-resistance, and carcass and meat-quality traits, other traits with low heritability or those measured late in life, and to directly target selection for crossbred rather than purebred performance. Collectively, these features allow genomic prediction to provide a more balanced response to selection with respect to the entire portfolio of traits that influence income and costs in pig-production systems. Achieving the full cost–benefit potential from using genomics will not occur from simply genotyping nucleus animals and using this information in prediction, it requires innovation, ongoing phenotyping and genotyping, and re-examination of all the systems and processes involved in pig improvement.

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of feed supplementation on growth performance of Jinding duckling in Haor Household. Nine hundred unsexed day old ducklings were considered for the feeding trial. Duckling were divided into three dietary treatments having 3 replications (50 duckling per replication) and reared on littered floor in an open sided house by providing 0.14 m² floor space per bird. Dietary treatments Group 0 was considered as control or full scavenging group, fed mash feed to the other group 25 g and 50 g per duck per day. Body weight and body weight gain were improved significantly (p<0.05) with the increasing levels of feed supplementation compared to no feed supplementation group during the period of 4-12 weeks. The average net return of per duckling of 25 g dietary group was significantly (p<0.05) higher than that of no supplementation group and 50 g dietary group throughout the experimental period. Net return per batch were 1924 BDT in 25 g feed supplementation group at 12 weeks and yearly net profit was 6735 BDT by rearing of 50 ducklings. Benefit–cost ratio was 1:1.30. The result revealed that duck intervention increased duck production, reduce duckling mortality and improved haor women’s source of income and significantly contributes to rural livelihoods. Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. March 2020, 6(1): 73-80

The study was conducted at Dingapota Haor under Mohongonj Upazila in Netrakona District during April 2011 to March 2012 to examine the profitability of individual farming systems namely crop-livestock-poultry–fishcatching (C-LP- FC), crop-livestock-fish catching-labour selling (C-L-FC-LS), fish catching– labour selling (FC-LS), crop-livestock (C-L), crop-livestock-fish catching (C-L-FC) and crop-livestock-poultry (C-L-P). A total of 60 farm households under six farming systems were selected that analyzed the level of input used in different enterprises. The results showed that the highest net return of C-L-FC farming system was Tk. 119214 and lowest for C-L-P farming system which was Tk. 25131.The estimated total costs of C-L-P-FC, C-L-FC-LS, C-L, C-L-FC and C-L-P farming systems were Tk. 287959, 304430, 62316, 255624, 322654 and Tk. 241354 respectively. Again for C-L-P-FC, C-L-FC-LS, FC-LS and C-L farming systems, the net returns were Tk. 66238, 107578, 74673 and 42967 respectively. Among the farming systems, C-L-FC produced the highest gross margin of Tk. 424859 and CL- P produced the lowest which was Tk. 266486. The benefit cost ratio of all the farming systems was more than 1 which indicates that all of these were profitable. The gross margin, net return and BCR for C-L-FC farming system was reasonably high and the system earned positive management income indicating that the farming systems were economically viable even under all possible full cost assumptions. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/pa.v22i1-2.16483 Progress. Agric. 22(1 & 2): 223-239, 2011

Abstract: This paper reviews applications of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in climate policy assessment at the US national and global scales. Two different but related major application types are addressed. First there are global-scale analyses that focus on calculating optimal global carbon emissions trajectories and carbon prices that maximize global welfare. The second application is the use of the same tools to compute the social cost of carbon (SCC) for use in US regulatory processes. The SCC is defined as the climate damages attributable to an increase of one metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions above a baseline emissions trajectory that assumes no new climate policies. The paper describes the three main quantitative models that have been used in the optimal carbon policy and SCC calculations and then summarizes the range of results that have been produced using them. The results span an extremely broad range (up to an order of magnitude) across modeling platforms as well as across the plausible ranges of input assumptions to a single model. This broad range of results sets the stage for a discussion of the five key challenges that face BCA practitioners participating in the national and global climate change policy analysis arenas: (1) including the possibility of catastrophic outcomes; (2) factoring in equity and income distribution considerations; (3) addressing intertemporal discounting and intergenerational equity; (4) projecting baseline demographics, technological change, and policies inside and outside the energy sector; and (5) characterizing the full set of uncertainties to be dealt with and designing a decision-making process that updates and adapts new scientific and economic information into that process in a timely and productive manner. The paper closes by describing how the BCA models have been useful in climate policy discussions to date despite the uncertainties that pervade the results that have been produced.

IntroductionOveruse of cardiovascular healthcare services, defined as the provision of low-value (ineffective, harmful, cost-ineffective) tests, medications and procedures, may be common and associated with increased patient harm and health system inefficiencies and costs. We seek to systematically review the evidence for overuse of different cardiovascular healthcare services in high-income countries.Methods and analysisWe will search MEDLINE, EMBASE and Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews from 2010 onwards. Two investigators will independently review titles and abstracts and full-text studies. We will include published English-language studies conducted in high-income countries that enrolled adults (mean/median age ≥18 years) and reported the incidence or prevalence of overuse of cardiovascular tests, medications or procedures; adjusted risk factors for overuse; or adjusted associations between overuse and outcomes (reported estimates of morbidity, mortality, costs or lengths of hospital stay). Acceptable methods of defining low-value care will include literature review and multidisciplinary iterative panel processes, healthcare services with reproducible evidence of a lack of benefit or harm, or clinical practice guideline or Choosing Wisely recommendations. Two investigators will independently extract data and evaluate study risk of bias in duplicate. We will calculate summary estimates of the incidence and prevalence of overuse of different cardiovascular healthcare services across studies unstratified and stratified by country; method of defining low-value care; the percentage of included females, different races, and those with low and high socioeconomic status or cardiovascular risk; and study risks of bias using random-effects models. We will also calculate pooled estimates of adjusted risk factors for overuse and adjusted associations between overuse and outcomes overall and stratified by country using random-effects models. We will use the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation to determine certainty in estimates.Ethics and disseminationNo ethics approval is required for this study as it deals with published data. Results will be presented at meetings and published in a peer-reviewed journal.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42021257490.

Biomass-fired cogeneration not only is an environmentally friendly energy production, but also possesses high energy conversion efficiency. Generally, the wood product industry requires both heat and electricity. Combined heat and power generation cogeneration) using wood residue has a three-fold benefit: waste minimization, reduction of an energy-related production cost and additional income from selling the excess electricity to the utility. In reality, the process heat demand fluctuates according to the production activities in the factory. The fluctuation of process heat demand affects the cogeneration efficiency and the electricity output and, consequently, the financial return, since the prices of heat and electricity are different. A study by computer simulation to establish a guideline for optimum operation of a process heat fluctuating cogeneration power plant is presented. The power plant was designed for a sawmill and an adjacent plywood factory using wood wastes from these two processes. The maximum boiler thermal load is 81.9 MW while the electricity output is in the range 19-24 MW and the process heat 10-30 MW. Two modes of operation were studies, namely the full (boiler) load and the partial (boiler) load. In the full load operation, the power plant is operated at a maximum boiler thermal load, while the extracted steam is varied to meet the steam demand of the wood-drying kilns and the plywood production. The partial load operation was designed for the partially fuelled boiler to provide sufficient steam for the process and to generate electricity at a desired capacity ranging from the firmed contract of 19 MW to the turbine maximum capacity of 24 MW. It was found that the steam for process heat has an allowable extracting range, which is limited by the low pressure feed water heater. The optimum operation for both full and partial load occurs at the lower limit of the extracting steam. A guideline for optimum operation at various combinations of electricity output and steam demand is presented. The maximum achievable overall efficiency is 64.6 per cent when the power plant is operated at partial (boiler) load condition for 19 MW electricity and 30 MW process heat. The full load operation, although having lower overall efficiency, is preferable financially because of the higher unit price of electricity in comparison with heat.

ObjectiveTo identify and analyse the interventions delivered opportunistically in secondary or tertiary medical settings, focused on improving routine vaccination uptake in children and young people.DesignScoping review.Search strategyWe searched CINAHL, Web of Science, Medline, Embase and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for studies in English published between 1989 and 2021 detailing interventions delivered in secondary or tertiary care that aimed to improve childhood vaccination coverage. Title, abstract and full-text screening were performed by two independent reviewers.ResultsAfter deduplication, the search returned 3456 titles. Following screening and discussion between reviewers, 53 studies were included in the review. Most papers were single-centre studies from high-income countries and varied considerably in terms of their study design, population, target vaccination, clinical setting and intervention delivered. To present and analyse the study findings, and to depict the complexity of vaccination interventions in hospital settings, findings were presented and described as a sequential pathway to opportunistic vaccination in secondary and tertiary care comprising the following stages: (1) identify patients eligible for vaccination; (2) take consent and offer immunisations; (3) order/prescribe vaccine; (4) dispense vaccine; (5) administer vaccine; (6) communicate with primary care; and (7) ongoing benefits of vaccination.ConclusionsMost published studies report improved vaccination coverage associated with opportunistic vaccination interventions in secondary and tertiary care. Children attending hospital appear to have lower baseline vaccination coverage and are likely to benefit from vaccination interventions in these settings. Checking immunisation status is challenging, however, and electronic immunisation registers are required to enable this to be done quickly and accurately in hospital settings. Further research is required in this area, particularly multicentre studies and cost-effectiveness analysis of interventions.

Background: Asia is the largest, most populous and most heterogeneous continent in the world. The number of patients with end-stage renal disease is growing rapidly in Asia. Summary: A fully informed report on the status of dialysis therapies including hemodialysis (HD) is limited by the lack of systematic registries. Available data suggest remarkable heterogeneities, with some countries like Taiwan, Japan and Korea exhibiting well-established HD systems, high prevalence and universal access to all patients, while low- and low-middle income countries are unable to provide HD to eligible patients because of high cost and poor healthcare systems. Many Asian countries have unregulated dialysis units, with poor standards of delivery, quality control and outcome reporting. This leads to high mortality due to preventable complications like infections. Modeling data suggest that at least 2.9 million people need dialysis in Asia, which represents a gap in availability of dialysis to the tune of -66%. The population is projected to grow rapidly in the coming years. Several countries are expanding access to HD. Innovative modifications in dialysis practice are being made to optimize outcomes. It is important to develop robust systems of documentation and outcome reporting to evaluate the effects of such changes. HD needs to develop in conjunction with effective preventive programs and improvement of health systems. Key Messages: The practice of HD in Asia is growing and evolving. Rapid expansion will improve the currently dismal access to care for large sections of the population. Quality issues need to be addressed if the full benefit of this therapy is to reach the population. Developed countries of Asia can provide substantial messages to developing economies. HD programs must develop in conjunction with prevention efforts. Facts from East and West: (1) While developed Western and Asian countries provide end-stage renal disease patients full access to HD, healthcare systems from South and South-East Asia can offer access to HD only to a limited fraction of the patients in need. Even though the annual costs of HD are much lower in less developed countries (for instance 30 times lower in India compared to the US), patients often cannot afford costs not covered by health insurance. (2) The recommended dialysis pattern in the West is at least three sessions weekly with high-flux dialyzers. Studies from Shanghai and Taiwan might however indicate a benefit of twice versus thrice weekly sessions. In less developed Asian countries, a twice weekly pattern is common, sometimes with dialyzer reuse and inadequate water treatment. A majority of patients decrease session frequency or discontinue the program due to financial constraint. (3) As convective therapies are gaining popularity in Europe, penetration in Asia is low and limited by costs. (4) In Asian countries, in particular in the South and South-East, hepatitis and tuberculosis infections in HD patients are higher than in the West and substantially increase mortality. (5) Progress has recently been made in countries like Thailand and Brunei to provide universal HD access to all patients in need. Nevertheless, well-trained personnel, reliable registries and better patient follow-up would improve outcomes in low-income Asian countries.

Most of the agroforestry systems (AFS) in Nepal are traditional, and deliberate management of trees, crops and livestock as an integrated and interactive agroecosystem, albeit its enormous socio-economic and ecological benefits, is limited. The objective of this review paper is to understand the prospects, analyze challenges and suggest practical solution for promoting agroforestry as a viable system balancing economic, social and environmental concerns. We develop this paper based on practical experience on the ground and an in-depth review of relevant literature and highlights the prospects, challenges and ways forward of AFS, both farm-based and forest-based, in Nepal. Nepal has enormous agroecological diversity, suitable land availability for agroforestry, traditional knowledge, skill and labor forces, and huge prospects of adapting new technologies and developing market systems, especially considering emerging markets for developing remunerative and environment friendly value chains. However, the prospective value chains of the mountain agroforestry products face many challenges, including i) socio-economic constraints of the farmers mainly because of high initial adoption costs, limited information on benefit-cost of agroforestry practices, limited knowledge on full benefits of agroforestry, and limited markets and marketing information; ii) institutional constraints because of unclear policy to support agroforestry, the lack of extension services and undefined administrative boundaries; and iii) inadequate scientific knowledge, expertise and technologies to address management complexity of agroforestry system. We therefore suggest having a scan of those challenges and find out solutions, especially for promoting growth and competitiveness of the sector with poverty reduction strategy ensuring availability of food, fuel, fodder and employment opportunity for local communities. The paper provides a few successful cases of AFS and finally suggests ways forward to promote AFS and a business model which could help achieve the untapped potentials for enhancing income and employment opportunity, achieving food and nutrition security, and building sustainable land use systems.

Background Rising health care costs and limited resources necessitate trade-offs between resources allocated toward prevention and those toward treatment. Information from opinion polls suggests citizens favor spending a higher proportion of all health care dollars on prevention rather than treatment. Objectives To assess the policy implications of willingness to pay (WTP) for use in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as a method for capturing individual preferences for prevention and treatment in the context of resource allocation decisions. Methods The authors recruited a random sample of 1456 US residents age 18 years and greater by telephone using random-digit dialing. The survey was designed as a 3-stage (phone-mail-phone) process and was conducted between December 1998 and March 1999. For all persons completing the survey (N = 1104), the authors 1st collected respondents’ opinions about the costs and effectiveness of prevention versus treatment programs in general. Half of respondents were then asked to state their WTP for a hypothetical prevention scenario and half were asked to state their WTP for a hypothetical treatment scenario. Both scenarios were specific to the same health context and included an identical reduction in mortality risk. Results WTP for treatment was significantly greater than WTP for prevention, $665 and $223, respectively. Prior opinions on the relative effectiveness afforded by preventive and treatment interventions moderately influenced the WTP estimates for persons randomized to either scenario. Prior opinions on costs had no significant effect on WTP estimates for either scenario. WTP significantly increased with age and household income in the full sample but was not significantly affected by gender or educational attainment. Conclusions The aggregated WTP responses from the prevention and treatment scenarios presented in our study would imply that treatment is more strongly preferred by society than prevention when the health context is the same and benefits of each are held constant. A better understanding is needed of the discrepancy between citizens’ stated preferences for prevention (e.g., through polling) and our findings that they were willing to pay substantially more for treatment than for prevention.

The creation is pushing ahead on a quick leap, and the recognition goes to regularly developing innovation. One such idea is Internet of things with which robotization is never again an augmented simulation. IOT interfaces different nonliving articles through the web and empowers them to impart data to their locale system to computerize forms for people and makes their lives simpler. The paper shows what's to come difficulties of IoT ,, for example, the specialized (network , similarity and life span , guidelines , insightful investigation and activities , security), business ( venture , unassuming income model and so forth ), cultural (evolving requests , new gadgets, cost, client certainty and so forth ) and lawful difficulties ( laws, guidelines, methodology, approaches and so on ). An area additionally examines the different fantasies that may hamper the advancement of Internet of things, security of information being the most basic factor of all. An idealistic way to deal with individuals in embracing the unfurling changes brought by IOT will likewise benefit in its development. Internet of Things (IoT) is a new paradigm that has changed the traditional way of living into a high tech life style. Smart city, smart homes, pollution control, energy saving, smart transportation, smart industries are such transformations due to IoT. A lot of crucial research studies and investigations have been done in order to enhance the technology through IoT. However, there are still a lot of challenges and issues that need to be addressed to achieve the full potential of IoT. These challenges and issues must be considered from various aspects of IoT such as applications, challenges, enabling technologies, social and environmental impacts etc. The main goal of this review article is to provide a detailed discussion from both technological and social perspective. The article discusses different challenges and key issues of IoT, architecture and important application domains. Also, the article bring into light the existing literature and illustrated their contribution in different aspects of IoT. Moreover, the importance of big data and its analysis with respect to IoT has been discussed. This article would help the readers and researcher to understand the IoT and its applicability to the real world.

Grassland has always had a difficult economic–ecological relationship, as coordination between its ecological conservation and the sustainable development of animal husbandry is required. Nature-based Solutions (NbS), who make full use of the natural ecosystem services, have successfully solved some economic–ecological issues, but still have unclear implementation prospects for grassland management. The Xilin Gol grassland is one of the most typical pastoral areas in China; there is a village chief named Bateer, who has already used NbS for grassland management. To confirm whether the solutions employed by Bateer have been effective for both increasing economic profits and protecting grassland ecosystem, we interviewed him, and many other herdsmen, using questionnaires about their livelihood. Based on these questionnaires, we calculated and compared their income–cost ratios. Meanwhile, we analyzed the NDVI variations inside their rangelands through high-resolution remote sensing images. The results showed that the herdsmen in Bateer’s village had a much higher disposable income and income–cost ratio than others, and their rangelands also had a higher value and a more obvious increasing trend of NDVI. Bateer’s success proves that the NbS can also play a positive role in grassland management, which can provide a valuable guidance for economic–ecological coordination in pastoral areas.

We’ll have trouble now!The Archaeological Society of Jutland was founded on Sunday, 11 March 1951. As with most projects with which P.V Glob was involved, this did not pass off without drama. Museum people and amateur archaeologists in large numbers appeared at the Museum of Natural History in Aarhus, which had placed rooms at our disposal. The notable dentist Holger Friis, the uncrowned king of Hjørring, was present, as was Dr Balslev from Aidt, Mr and Mrs Overgaard from Holstebro Museum, and the temperamental leader of Aalborg Historical Museum, Peter Riismøller, with a number of his disciples. The staff of the newly-founded Prehistoric Museum functioned as the hosts, except that one of them was missing: the instigator of the whole enterprise, Mr Glob. As the time for the meeting approached, a cold sweat broke out on the foreheads of the people present. Finally, just one minute before the meeting was to start, he arrived and mounted the platform. Everything then went as expected. An executive committee was elected after some discussion, laws were passed, and then suddenly Glob vanished again, only to materialise later in the museum, where he confided to us that his family, which included four children, had been enlarged by a daughter.That’s how the society was founded, and there is not much to add about this. However, a few words concerning the background of the society and its place in a larger context may be appropriate. A small piece of museum history is about to be unfolded.The story begins at the National Museum in the years immediately after World War II, at a time when the German occupation and its incidents were still terribly fresh in everyone’s memory. Therkel Mathiassen was managing what was then called the First Department, which covered the prehistoric periods.Although not sparkling with humour, he was a reliable and benevolent person. Number two in the order of precedence was Hans Christian Broholm, a more colourful personality – awesome as he walked down the corridors, with his massive proportions and a voice that sounded like thunder when nothing seemed to be going his way, as quite often seemed to be the case. Glob, a relatively new museum keeper, was also quite loud at times – his hot-blooded artist’s nature manifested itself in peculiar ways, but his straight forward appearance made him popular with both the older and the younger generations. His somewhat younger colleague C.J. Becker was a scholar to his fingertips, and he sometimes acted as a welcome counterbalance to Glob. At the bottom of the hierarchy was the student group, to which I belonged. The older students handled various tasks, including periodic excavations. This was paid work, and although the salary was by no means princely, it did keep us alive. Student grants were non-existent at the time. Four of us made up a team: Olfert Voss, Mogens Ørsnes, Georg Kunwald and myself. Like young people in general, we were highly discontented with the way our profession was being run by its ”ruling” members, and we were full of ideas for improvement, some of which have later been – or are being – introduced.At the top of our wish list was a central register, of which Voss was the strongest advocate. During the well over one hundred years that archaeology had existed as a professional discipline, the number of artefacts had grown to enormous amounts. The picture was even worse if the collections of the provincial museums were taken into consideration. We imagined how it all could be registered in a card index and categorised according to groups to facilitate access to references in any particular situation. Electronic data processing was still unheard of in those days, but since the introduction of computers, such a comprehensive record has become more feasible.We were also sceptical of the excavation techniques used at the time – they were basically adequate, but they badly needed tightening up. As I mentioned before, we were often working in the field, and not just doing minor jobs but also more important tasks, so we had every opportunity to try out our ideas. Kunwald was the driving force in this respect, working with details, using sections – then a novelty – and proceeding as he did with a thoroughness that even his fellow students found a bit exaggerated at times, although we agreed with his principles. Therkel Mathiassen moaned that we youngsters were too expensive, but he put up with our excesses and so must have found us somewhat valuable. Very valuable indeed to everyon e was Ejnar Dyggve’s excavation of the Jelling mounds in the early 1940s. From a Danish point of view, it was way ahead of its time.Therkel Mathiassen justly complained about the economic situation of the National Museum. Following the German occupation, the country was impoverished and very little money was available for archaeological research: the total sum available for the year 1949 was 20,000 DKK, which corresponded to the annual income of a wealthy man, and was of course absolutely inadequate. Of course our small debating society wanted this sum to be increased, and for once we didn’t leave it at the theoretical level.Voss was lucky enough to know a member of the Folketing (parliament), and a party leader at that. He was brought into the picture, and between us we came up with a plan. An article was written – ”Preserve your heritage” (a quotation from Johannes V. Jensen’s Denmark Song) – which was sent to the newspaper Information. It was published, and with a little help on our part the rest of the media, including radio, picked up the story.We informed our superiors only at the last minute, when everything was arranged. They were taken by surprise but played their parts well, as expected, and everything went according to plan. The result was a considerable increase in excavation funds the following year.It should be added that our reform plans included the conduct of exhibitions. We found the traditional way of presenting the artefacts lined up in rows and series dull and outdated. However, we were not able to experiment within this field.Our visions expressed the natural collision with the established ways that comes with every new generation – almost as a law of nature, but most strongly when the time is ripe. And this was just after the war, when communication with foreign colleagues, having been discontinued for some years, was slowly picking up again. The Archaeological Society of Jutland was also a part of all this, so let us turn to what Hans Christian Andersen somewhat provocatively calls the ”main country”.Until 1949, only the University of Copenhagen provided a degree in prehistoric archaeology. However, in this year, the University of Aarhus founded a chair of archaeology, mainly at the instigation of the Lord Mayor, Svend Unmack Larsen, who was very in terested in archaeology. Glob applied for the position and obtained it, which encompassed responsibility for the old Aarhus Museum or, as it was to be renamed, the Prehistoric Museum (now Moesgaard Museum).These were landmark events to Glob – and to me, as it turned out. We had been working together for a number of years on the excavation of Galgebakken (”Callows Hill”) near Slots Bjergby, Glob as the excavation leader, and I as his assistant. He now offered me the job of museum curator at his new institution. This was somewhat surprising as I had not yet finished my education. The idea was that I was to finish my studies in remote Jutland – a plan that had to be given up rather quickly, though, for reasons which I will describe in the following. At the same time, Gunner Lange-Kornbak – also hand-picked from the National Museum – took up his office as a conservation officer.The three of us made up the permanent museum staff, quickly supplemented by Geoffrey Bibby, who turned out to be an invaluable colleague. He was English and had been stationed in the Faeroe Islands during the war, where he learned to speak Danish. After 1945 he worked for some years for an oil company in the Gulf of Persia, but after marrying Vibeke, he settled in her home town of Aarhus. As his academic background had involved prehistoric cultures he wanted to collaborate with the museum, which Glob readily permitted.This small initial flock governed by Glob was not permitted to indulge inidleness. Glob was a dynamic character, full of good and not so good ideas, but also possessing a good grasp of what was actually practicable. The boring but necessary daily work on the home front was not very interesting to him, so he willingly handed it over to others. He hardly noticed the lack of administrative machinery, a prerequisite for any scholarly museum. It was not easy to follow him on his flights of fancy and still build up the necessary support base. However, the fact that he in no way spared himself had an appeasing effect.Provincial museums at that time were of a mixed nature. A few had trained management, and the rest were run by interested locals. This was often excellently done, as in Esbjerg, where the master joiner Niels Thomsen and a staff of volunteers carried out excavations that were as good as professional investigations, and published them in well-written articles. Regrettably, there were also examples of the opposite. A museum curator in Jutland informed me that his predecessor had been an eager excavator but very rarely left any written documentation of his actions. The excavated items were left without labels in the museum store, often wrapped in newspapers. However, these gave a clue as to the time of unearthing, and with a bit of luck a look in the newspaper archive would then reveal where the excavation had taken place. Although somewhat exceptional, this is not the only such case.The Museum of Aarhus definitely belonged among the better ones in this respect. Founded in 1861, it was at first located at the then town hall, together with the local art collection. The rooms here soon became too cramped, and both collections were moved to a new building in the ”Mølleparken” park. There were skilful people here working as managers and assistants, such as Vilhelm Boye, who had received his archaeological training at the National Museum, and later the partners A. Reeh, a barrister, and G.V. Smith, a captain, who shared the honour of a number of skilfully performed excavations. Glob’s predecessor as curator was the librarian Ejler Haugsted, also a competent man of fine achievements. We did not, thus, take over a museum on its last legs. On the other hand, it did not meet the requirements of a modern scholarly museum. We were given the task of turning it into such a museum, as implied by the name change.The goal was to create a museum similar to the National Museum, but without the faults and shortcomings that that museum had developed over a period of time. In this respect our nightly conversations during our years in Copenhagen turned out to be useful, as our talk had focused on these imperfections and how to eradicate them.We now had the opportunity to put our theories into practice. We may not have succeeded in doing so, but two areas were essentially improved:The numerous independent numbering systems, which were familiar to us from the National Museum, were permeating archaeological excavation s not only in the field but also during later work at the museum. As far as possible this was boiled down to a single system, and a new type of report was born. (In this context, a ”report” is the paper following a field investigation, comprising drawings, photos etc. and describing the progress of the work and the observations made.) The instructions then followed by the National Museum staff regarding the conduct of excavations and report writing went back to a 19th-century protocol by the employee G.V. Blom. Although clear and rational – and a vast improvement at the time – this had become outdated. For instance, the excavation of a burial mound now involved not only the middle of the mound, containing the central grave and its surrounding artefacts, but the complete structure. A large number of details that no one had previously paid attention to thus had to be included in the report. It had become a comprehensive and time-consuming work to sum up the desultory notebook records in a clear and understandable description.The instructions resulting from the new approach determined a special records system that made it possible to transcribe the notebook almost directly into a report following the excavation. The transcription thus contained all the relevant information concerning the in vestigation, and included both relics and soil layers, the excavation method and practical matters, although in a random order. The report proper could then bereduced to a short account containing references to the numbers in the transcribed notebook, which gave more detailed information.As can be imagined, the work of reform was not a continuous process. On the contrary, it had to be done in our spare hours, which were few and far between with an employer like Glob. The assignments crowded in, and the large Jutland map that we had purchased was as studded with pins as a hedge hog’s spines. Each pin represented an inuninent survey, and many of these grew into small or large excavations. Glob himself had his lecture duties to perform, and although he by no means exaggerated his concern for the students, he rarely made it further than to the surveys. Bibby and I had to deal with the hard fieldwork. And the society, once it was established, did not make our lives any easier. Kuml demanded articles written at lightning speed. A perusal of my then diary has given me a vivid recollection of this hectic period, in which I had to make use of the evening and night hours, when the museum was quiet and I had a chance to collect my thoughts. Sometimes our faithful supporter, the Lord Mayor, popped in after an evening meeting. He was extremely interested in our problems, which were then solved according to our abilities over a cup of instant coffee.A large archaeological association already existed in Denmark. How ever, Glob found it necessary to establish another one which would be less oppressed by tradition. Det kongelige nordiske Oldsskriftselskab had been funded in 1825 and was still influenced by different peculiarities from back then. Membership was not open to everyone, as applications were subject to recommendation from two existing members and approval by a vote at one of the monthly lecture meetings. Most candidates were of course accepted, but unpopular persons were sometimes rejected. In addition, only men were admitted – women were banned – but after the war a proposal was brought forward to change this absurdity. It was rejected at first, so there was a considerable excitement at the January meeting in 1951, when the proposal was once again placed on the agenda. The poor lecturer (myself) did his best, although he was aware of the fact that just this once it was the present and not the past which was the focus of attention. The result of the voting was not very courteous as there were still many opponents, but the ladies were allowed in, even if they didn’t get the warmest welcome.In Glob’s society there were no such restrictions – everyone was welcome regardless of sex or age. If there was a model for the society, it was the younger and more progressive Norwegian Archaeological Society rather than the Danish one. The main purpose of both societies was to produce an annual publication, and from the start Glob’s Kuml had a closer resemblance to the Norwegian Viking than to the Danish Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie. The name of the publication caused careful consideration. For a long time I kept a slip of paper with different proposals, one of which was Kuml, which won after having been approved by the linguist Peter Skautrup.The name alone, however, was not enough, so now the task became to find so mething to fill Kuml with. To this end the finds came in handy, and as for those, Glob must have allied him self with the higher powers, since fortune smiled at him to a considerable extent. Just after entering upon his duties in Aarhus, an archaeological sensation landed at his feet. This happened in May 1950 when I was still living in the capital. A few of us had planned a trip to Aarhus, partly to look at the relics of th e past, and partly to visit our friend, the professor. He greeted us warmly and told us the exciting news that ten iron swords had been found during drainage work in the valley of lllerup Aadal north of the nearby town of Skanderborg. We took the news calmly as Glob rarely understated his affairs, but our scepticism was misplaced. When we visited the meadow the following day and carefully examined the dug-up soil, another sword appeared, as well as several spear and lance heads, and other iron artefacts. What the drainage trench diggers had found was nothing less than a place of sacrifice for war booty, like the four large finds from the 1800s. When I took up my post in Aarhus in September of that year I was granted responsibility for the lllerup excavation, which I worked on during the autumn and the following six summers. Some of my best memories are associated with this job – an interesting and happy time, with cheerful comradeship with a mixed bunch of helpers, who were mainly archaeology students. When we finished in 1956, it was not because the site had been fully investigated, but because the new owner of the bog plot had an aversion to archaeologists and their activities. Nineteen years later, in 1975, the work was resumed, this time under the leadership of Jørgen Ilkjær, and a large amount of weaponry was uncovered. The report from the find is presently being published.At short intervals, the year 1952 brought two finds of great importance: in Februar y the huge vessel from Braa near Horsens, and in April the Grauballe Man. The large Celtic bronze bowl with the bulls’ heads was found disassembled, buried in a hill and covered by a couple of large stones. Thanks to the finder, the farmer Søren Paaske, work was stopped early enough to leave areas untouched for the subsequent examination.The saga of the Grauballe Man, or the part of it that we know, began as a rumour on the 26th of April: a skeleton had been found in a bog near Silkeborg. On the following day, which happened to be a Sunday, Glob went off to have a look at the find. I had other business, but I arrived at the museum in the evening with an acquaintance. In my diary I wrote: ”When we came in we had a slight shock. On the floor was a peat block with a corpse – a proper, well-preserved bog body. Glob brought it. ”We’ll be in trouble now.” And so we were, and Glob was in high spirits. The find created a sensation, which was also thanks to the quick presentation that we mounted. I had purchased a tape recorder, which cost me a packet – not a small handy one like the ones you get nowadays, but a large monstrosity with a steel tape (it was, after all, early days for this device) – and assisted by several experts, we taped a number of short lectures for the benefit of the visitors. People flocked in; the queue meandered from the exhibition room, through the museum halls, and a long way down the street. It took a long wait to get there, but the visitors seemed to enjoy the experience. The bog man lay in his hastily – procured exhibition case, which people circled around while the talking machine repeatedly expressed its words of wisdom – unfortunately with quite a few interruptions as the tape broke and had to be assembled by hand. Luckily, the tape recorders now often used for exhibitions are more dependable than mine.When the waves had died down and the exhibition ended, the experts examined the bog man. He was x-rayed at several points, cut open, given a tooth inspection, even had his fingerprints taken. During the autopsy there was a small mishap, which we kept to ourselves. However, after almost fifty years I must be able to reveal it: Among the organs removed for investigation was the liver, which was supposedly suitable for a C-14 dating – which at the time was a new dating method, introduced to Denmark after the war. The liver was sent to the laboratory in Copenhagen, and from here we received a telephone call a few days later. What had been sent in for examination was not the liver, but the stomach. The unfortunate (and in all other respects highly competent) Aarhus doctor who had performed the dissection was cal1ed in again. During another visit to the bogman’s inner parts he brought out what he believed to be the real liver. None of us were capable of deciding th is question. It was sent to Copenhagen at great speed, and a while later the dating arrived: Roman Iron Age. This result was later revised as the dating method was improved. The Grauballe Man is now thought to have lived before the birth of Christ.The preservation of the Grauballe Man was to be conservation officer Kornbak’s masterpiece. There were no earlier cases available for reference, so he invented a new method, which was very successful. In the first volumes of Kuml, society members read about the exiting history of the bog body and of the glimpses of prehistoric sacrificial customs that this find gave. They also read about the Bahrain expeditions, which Glob initiated and which became the apple of his eye. Bibby played a central role in this, as it was he who – at an evening gathering at Glob’s and Harriet’s home in Risskov – described his stay on the Persian Gulf island and the numerous burial mounds there. Glob made a quick decision (one of his special abilities was to see possibilities that noone else did, and to carry them out successfully to everyone’s surprise) and in December 1952 he and Bibby left for the Gulf, unaware of the fact that they were thereby beginning a series of expeditions which would continue for decades. Again it was Glob’s special genius that was the decisive factor. He very quickly got on friendly terms with the rulers of the small sheikhdoms and interested them in their past. As everyone knows, oil is flowing plentifully in those parts. The rulers were thus financially powerful and some of this wealth was quickly diverted to the expeditions, which probably would not have survived for so long without this assistance. To those of us who took part in them from time to time, the Gulf expeditions were an unforgettable experience, not just because of the interesting work, but even more because of the contact with the local population, which gave us an insight into local manners and customs that helped to explain parts of our own country’s past which might otherwise be difficult to understand. For Glob and the rest of us did not just get close to the elite: in spite of language problems, our Arab workers became our good friends. Things livened up when we occasionally turned up in their palm huts.Still, co-operating with Glob was not always an easy task – the sparks sometimes flew. His talent of initiating things is of course undisputed, as are the lasting results. He was, however, most attractive when he was in luck. Attention normally focused on this magnificent person whose anecdotes were not taken too seriously, but if something went wrong or failed to work out, he could be grossly unreasonable and a little too willing to abdicate responsibility, even when it was in fact his. This might lead to violent arguments, but peace was always restored. In 1954, another museum curator was attached to the museum: Poul Kjærum, who was immediately given the important task of investigating the dolmen settlement near Tustrup on Northern Djursland. This gave important results, such as the discovery of a cult house, which was a new and hitherto unknown Stone Age feature.A task which had long been on our mind s was finally carried out in 1955: constructing a new display of the museum collections. The old exhibitio n type consisted of numerous artefacts lined up in cases, accompaied ony by a brief note of the place where it was found and the type – which was the standard then. This type of exhibition did not give much idea of life in prehistoric times.We wanted to allow the finds to speak for themselves via the way that they were arranged, and with the aid of models, photos and drawings. We couldn’t do without texts, but these could be short, as people would understand more by just looking at the exhibits. Glob was in the Gulf at the time, so Kjærum and I performed the task with little money but with competent practical help from conservator Kornbak. We shared the work, but in fairness I must add that my part, which included the new lllerup find, was more suitable for an untraditional display. In order to illustrate the confusion of the sacrificial site, the numerous bent swords and other weapons were scattered a.long the back wall of the exhibition hall, above a bog land scape painted by Emil Gregersen. A peat column with inlaid slides illustrated the gradual change from prehistoric lake to bog, while a free-standing exhibition case held a horse’s skeleton with a broken skull, accompanied by sacrificial offerings. A model of the Nydam boat with all its oars sticking out hung from the ceiling, as did the fine copy of the Gundestrup vessel, as the Braa vessel had not yet been preserved. The rich pictorial decoration of the vessel’s inner plates was exhibited in its own case underneath. This was an exhibition form that differed considerably from all other Danish exhibitions of the time, and it quickly set a fashion. We awaited Glob’s homecoming with anticipation – if it wasn’t his exhibition it was still made in his spirit. We hoped that he would be surprised – and he was.The museum was thus taking shape. Its few employees included Jytte Ræbild, who held a key position as a secretary, and a growing number of archaeology students who took part in the work in various ways during these first years. Later, the number of employees grew to include the aforementioned excavation pioneer Georg Kunwald, and Hellmuth Andersen and Hans Jørgen Madsen, whose research into the past of Aarhus, and later into Danevirke is known to many, and also the ethnographer Klaus Ferdinand. And now Moesgaard appeared on the horizon. It was of course Glob’s idea to move everything to a manor near Aarhus – he had been fantasising about this from his first Aarhus days, and no one had raised any objections. Now there was a chance of fulfilling the dream, although the actual realisation was still a difficult task.During all this, the Jutland Archaeological Society thrived and attracted more members than expected. Local branches were founded in several towns, summer trips were arranged and a ”Worsaae Medal” was occasionally donated to persons who had deserved it from an archaeological perspective. Kuml came out regularly with contributions from museum people and the like-minded. The publication had a form that appealed to an inner circle of people interested in archaeology. This was the intention, and this is how it should be. But in my opinion this was not quite enough. We also needed a publication that would cater to a wider public and that followed the same basic ideas as the new exhibition.I imagined a booklet, which – without over-popularsing – would address not only the professional and amateur archaeologist but also anyone else interested in the past. The result was Skalk, which (being a branch of the society) published its fir t issue in the spring of 1957. It was a somewhat daring venture, as the financial base was weak and I had no knowledge of how to run a magazine. However, both finances and experience grew with the number of subscribers – and faster than expected, too. Skalk must have met an unsatisfied need, and this we exploited to the best of our ability with various cheap advertisements. The original idea was to deal only with prehistoric and medieval archaeology, but the historians also wanted to contribute, and not just the digging kind. They were given permission, and so the topic of the magazine ended up being Denmark’s past from the time of its first inhabitant s until the times remembered by the oldest of us – with the odd sideways leap to other subjects. It would be impossible to claim that Skalk was at the top of Glob’s wish list, but he liked it and supported the idea in every way. The keeper of national antiquities, Johannes Brøndsted, did the same, and no doubt his unreserved approval of the magazine contributed to its quick growth. Not all authors found it easy to give up technical language and express themselves in everyday Danish, but the new style was quickly accepted. Ofcourse the obligations of the magazine work were also sometimes annoying. One example from the diary: ”S. had promised to write an article, but it was overdue. We agreed to a final deadline and when that was overdue I phoned again and was told that the author had gone to Switzerland. My hair turned grey overnight.” These things happened, but in this particular case there was a happy ending. Another academic promised me three pages about an excavation, but delivered ten. As it happened, I only shortened his production by a third.The 1960s brought great changes. After careful consideration, Glob left us to become the keeper of national antiquities. One important reason for his hesitation was of course Moesgaard, which he missed out on – the transfer was almost settled. This was a great loss to the Aarhus museum and perhaps to Glob, too, as life granted him much greater opportunities for development.” I am not the type to regret things,” he later stated, and hopefully this was true. And I had to choose between the museum and Skalk – the work with the magazine had become too timeconsuming for the two jobs to be combined. Skalk won, and I can truthfully say that I have never looked back. The magazine grew quickly, and happy years followed. My resignation from the museum also meant that Skalk was disengaged from the Jutland Archaeological Society, but a close connection remained with both the museum and the society.What has been described here all happened when the museum world was at the parting of the ways. It was a time of innovation, and it is my opinion that we at the Prehistoric Museum contributed to that change in various ways.The new Museum Act of 1958 gave impetus to the study of the past. The number of archaeology students in creased tremendously, and new techniques brought new possibilities that the discussion club of the 1940s had not even dreamt of, but which have helped to make some of the visions from back then come true. Public in terest in archaeology and history is still avid, although to my regret, the ahistorical 1960s and 1970s did put a damper on it.Glob is greatly missed; not many of his kind are born nowadays. He had, so to say, great virtues and great fault s, but could we have done without either? It is due to him that we have the Jutland Archaeological Society, which has no w existed for half a century. Congr tulat ion s to the Society, from your offspring Skalk.Harald AndersenSkalk MagazineTranslated by Annette Lerche Trolle

AbstractThis systematic review aimed to comprehensively synthesize cost-effectiveness evidences of bariatric surgery by pooling incremental net monetary benefits (INB). Twenty-eight full economic evaluation studies comparing bariatric surgery with usual care were identified from five databases. In high-income countries (HICs), bariatric surgery was cost-effective among mixed obesity group (i.e., obesity with/without diabetes) over a 10-year time horizon (pooled INB = $53,063.69; 95% CI $42,647.96, $63,479.43) and lifetime horizon (pooled INB = $101,897.96; 95% CI $79,390.93, $124,404.99). All studies conducted among obese with diabetes reported that bariatric surgery was cost-effective. Also, the pooled INB for obesity with diabetes group over lifetime horizon in HICs was $80,826.28 (95% CI $32,500.75, $129,151.81). Nevertheless, no evidence is available in low- and middle-income countries. Graphical abstract

A cost benefit analysis of pasture renewal for sheep and deer systems is presented for cultivatable land in Otago and Southland. Pasture renewal was costed at between $400/ha (direct drilling) and $550/ha (full cultivation). The benefits from new pastures were assumed to peak at between 2 and 4 years after sowing and to last for 10 years. Sheep farm productivity was improved by up to 132%, and deer production by 60% with these models. The cost benefit analyses showed that net income increased by $409/ha and $184/ha when sowing improved ryegrass pastures for sheep and deer systems, respectively. The inclusion of chicory increased the advantage to $503/ha and $304/ha for sheep and deer systems, respectively. Increasing annual pasture renewal rate from 5% to 10%, 15% and 20% on a sheep and beef property improved net returns per hectare by $191/ha, $332/ha, $370/ ha and $409/ha respectively. In conclusion, when actively managed by farmers, pasture renewal benefits gained through improved seasonality of supply and increased pasture quality are highly profitable when realised through higher stocking rates and per head performance. Keywords: cost:benefit, deer, modelling, pasture renewal, profitability, sheep

Pineapple is a tropical fruit with high nutritive value and fine flavour. It has been an encouraging potential of commercial crop for income and export earnings in Malaysia. Despite its popularity, there are little empirical data on the costs and profitability of its production in Malaysia. Therefore, this study attempts to determine profitability of pineapple production in Johor which focuses on calculation of the production costs incurred, the income earned, as well as analyse the feasibility of growing pineapples among smallholders. A simple random sampling technique was used to obtain information from 191 respondents using random sampling. Data from interviews were then analysed using descriptive statistics and budgetary technique. Results indicated that majority of the farmers were males, middle aged, engaged full time in pineapple production, possessed small scale farm and had a background in pineapple farming for at least twenty years. Most respondents cultivated Josapine variety and grew pineapple on a peat soil. The result showed that the pineapple production business is profitable and returning more to the farmer than the original investment in terms of purchased inputs as indicated by benefit cost ratio of 1.72. Additionally, the result of regression analysis revealed pineapple production was significantly affected by working experience, planting area, pineapple variety, pineapple price and cost of inputs.

Abstract For at least fifty years economists have argued that vertically-aggregated marginal willingness to pay, when set equal to marginal provision cost, will result in optimal public good provision levels. This methodological approach would be expected to yield an exact analog, in terms of optimal levels of public good provision, to efficient provision of private goods in a perfect market setting. There is, however, a potentially serious flaw in the approach as actually practiced, since initial incomes are implicitly–and wrongly–taken to be optimal. From a given income, the output demand revelation problem has long been recognized–that there will be difficulty inferring true demands for public goods at that income (the traditional `free rider' problem). But what has failed to receive widespread recognition among theoreticians, and especially among practitioners, is that there will also be a concomitant `input demand revelation' problem. In any situation where workers cannot individually increment a class of goods by increasing their income (e.g. public goods), they will have no incentive to generate the income that would have been devoted to that class of goods. They will only generate income that is optimal to pay the higher taxes or prices associated with whatever initial public goods levels are provided. As a consequence, the benefit-cost practitioner will, even if somehow able to accurately guess marginal willingness-to-pay out of current income, observe only one apparent optima. There are an infinite number of such optima, one for each level of free riding in input markets, where aggregated marginal willingness-to-pay will appear to equal marginal provision cost. The one true Samuelson `optimum optimorum' occurs when there is free riding in neither output nor input markets (that is, when the `full' demand revelation problem is solved). As a consequence, pure public goods, as well as other `non-incrementable' goods and goods for which non-use values are of importance will be undervalued, hence under-provided. Evidence is presented that the problem raised here might be of importance, undermining the practical significance of the Coase theorem vis-à-vis Pigouvian taxation.

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the carcass yield, organ characteristics and economics of production of West African Dwarf (WAD) goats fed cassava root sieviate-cassava leaf meal (CRSCLM) based diets as supplement to Panicum maximum using 36 WAD goats of about 8 to 10 months of age. Four diets T1, T2, T3, and T4, were formulated at the levels of 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% CRSCLM respectively, in a completely randomized design. Each animal received a designated treatment diet in the morning for 97 days. Feed offered was based on 3.5% body weight per day; the animals in addition were fed a kg wilted chopped Panicum maximum later in the day as basal diet to enhance rumination and chime chewing. Result on carcass indices showed significant (p<0.05) influence on live weight at slaughter, empty carcass weight, warm carcass weight, dressing percentage, shoulder, leg, lion, end and shank with T4 having relatively best results. The dressing percentage was numerically (49.59%) best at T4. On the offal weights, head and full guts were significantly (p<0.05) improved for T4 and T1 goats. The organ characteristic proved the safety of using CRSCLM through the significantly (p<0.05) lower organ weights at T4 goats. Cost per kg feed, feed cost/weight gain and cost/benefit ratio were positive influenced (p<0.05) at T4 with expected income of ^4.79 per ^1 invested. It could therefore be concluded that WAD goats fed 60% CRSCLM had the best carcass and organ yields at a reduced feed cost.Keyword: WAD goat, Cassava leaf meal, cassava root sieviate, cost/benefit ratio

Economic evidence is increasingly being used for informing health policies. However, the underlining principles of health economic analyses are not always fully understood by non-health economists, and inappropriate types of analyses, as well as inconsistent methodologies, may be being used for informing health policy decisions. In addition, there is a lack of open access information and methodological guidance targeted to public health professionals, particularly those based in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) settings. The objective of this review is to provide a comprehensive and accessible introduction to economic evaluations for public health professionals with a focus on LMIC settings. We cover the main principles underlining the most common types of full economic evaluations used in healthcare decision making in the context of priority setting (namely cost-effectiveness/cost-utility analyses, cost-benefit analyses), and outline their key features, strengths and weaknesses. It is envisioned that this will help those conducting such analyses, as well as stakeholders that need to interpret their output, gain a greater understanding of these methods and help them select/distinguish between the different approaches. In particular, we highlight the need for greater awareness of the methods used to place a monetary value on the health benefits of interventions, and the potential for such estimates to be misinterpreted. Specifically, the economic benefits reported are typically an approximation, summarising the health benefits experienced by a population monetarily in terms of individual preferences or potential productivity gains, rather than actual realisable or fiscal monetary benefits to payers or society.

AbstractIn Uganda, potato is primarily grown as a cash crop and smallholder farmers sell majority of their produce immediately after harvest. Only a few farmers store ware potato for later sale using various traditional storage methods. Main reasons are farmers’ immediate need for cash, the low volumes of potato harvested, fear of loss during storage due to pests and diseases, and a lack of adequate storage facilities. In order to exploit the seasonal market price fluctuations and increase the economic return of potato farming, improved individual and collective ambient ware potato storage units were introduced. Unlike traditional storage facilities that maintain the marketability of stored potato up to five weeks only, improved ambient stores can maintain their marketability up to nine weeks. This article uses cost-benefit analysis methods to compare the economic performance of improved ambient stores with traditional storage facilities. Results indicate that few of the traditional and improved collective storage units generated profit, an aspect that was attributed to management challenges. The improved individual stores performed overall well, generating higher profit margins than improved collective stores. Improved individual stores had an average payback period of three to four years that could even be reduced to less than one year if used at full capacity. Due to their characteristics, improved individual ambient ware potato stores thus seem to be particularly suitable to substantially increase the income of potato farming households.

On May 18, 2003, the Australian Minister for Education, Brendon Nelson, appeared on the Channel Nine Sunday programme. The Yoda of political journalism, Laurie Oakes, attacked him personally and professionally. He disclosed to viewers that the Minister for Education, Science and Training had suffered a false start in his education, enrolling in one semester of an economics degree that was never completed. The following year, he commenced a medical qualification and went on to become a practicing doctor. He did not pay fees for any of his University courses. When reminded of these events, Dr Nelson became agitated, and revealed information not included in the public presentation of the budget of that year, including a ‘cap’ on HECS-funded places of five years for each student. He justified such a decision with the cliché that Australia’s taxpayers do not want “professional students completing degree after degree.” The Minister confirmed that the primary – and perhaps the only – task for university academics was to ‘train’ young people for the workforce. The fact that nearly 50% of students in some Australian Universities are over the age of twenty five has not entered his vision. He wanted young people to complete a rapid degree and enter the workforce, to commence paying taxes and the debt or loan required to fund a full fee-paying place. Now – nearly two years after this interview and with the Howard government blessed with a new mandate – it is time to ask how this administration will order education and value teaching and learning. The curbing of the time available to complete undergraduate courses during their last term in office makes plain the Australian Liberal Government’s stance on formal, publicly-funded lifelong learning. The notion that a student/worker can attain all required competencies, skills, attributes, motivations and ambitions from a single degree is an assumption of the new funding model. It is also significant to note that while attention is placed on the changing sources of income for universities, there have also been major shifts in the pattern of expenditure within universities, focusing on branding, marketing, recruitment, ‘regional’ campuses and off-shore courses. Similarly, the short-term funding goals of university research agendas encourage projects required by industry, rather than socially inflected concerns. There is little inevitable about teaching, research and education in Australia, except that the Federal Government will not create a fully-funded model for lifelong learning. The task for those of us involved in – and committed to – education in this environment is to probe the form and rationale for a (post) publicly funded University. This short paper for the ‘order’ issue of M/C explores learning and teaching within our current political and economic order. Particularly, I place attention on the synergies to such an order via phrases like the knowledge economy and the creative industries. To move beyond the empty promises of just-in-time learning, on-the-job training, graduate attributes and generic skills, we must reorder our assumptions and ask difficult questions of those who frame the context in which education takes place. For the term of your natural life Learning is a big business. Whether discussing the University of the Third Age, personal development courses, self help bestsellers or hard-edged vocational qualifications, definitions of learning – let alone education – are expanding. Concurrent with this growth, governments are reducing centralized funding and promoting alternative revenue streams. The diversity of student interests – or to use the language of the time, client’s learning goals – is transforming higher education into more than the provision of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. The expansion of the student body beyond the 18-25 age group and the desire to ‘service industry’ has reordered the form and purpose of formal education. The number of potential students has expanded extraordinarily. As Lee Bash realized Today, some estimates suggest that as many as 47 percent of all students enrolled in higher education are over 25 years old. In the future, as lifelong learning becomes more integrated into the fabric of our culture, the proportion of adult students is expected to increase. And while we may not yet realize it, the academy is already being transformed as a result. (35) Lifelong learning is the major phrase and trope that initiates and justifies these changes. Such expansive economic opportunities trigger the entrepreneurial directives within universities. If lifelong learning is taken seriously, then the goals, entry standards, curriculum, information management policies and assessments need to be challenged and changed. Attention must be placed on words and phrases like ‘access’ and ‘alternative entry.’ Even more consideration must be placed on ‘outcomes’ and ‘accountability.’ Lifelong learning is a catchphrase for a change in purpose and agenda. Courses are developed from a wide range of education providers so that citizens can function in, or at least survive, the agitation of the post-work world. Both neo-liberal and third way models of capitalism require the labeling and development of an aspirational class, a group who desires to move ‘above’ their current context. Such an ambiguous economic and social goal always involves more than the vocational education and training sector or universities, with the aim being to seamlessly slot education into a ‘lifestyle.’ The difficulties with this discourse are two-fold. Firstly, how effectively can these aspirational notions be applied and translated into a real family and a real workplace? Secondly, does this scheme increase the information divide between rich and poor? There are many characteristics of an effective lifelong learner including great personal motivation, self esteem, confidence and intellectual curiosity. In a double shifting, change-fatigued population, the enthusiasm for perpetual learning may be difficult to summon. With the casualization of the post-Fordist workplace, it is no surprise that policy makers and employers are placing the economic and personal responsibility for retraining on individual workers. Instead of funding a training scheme in the workplace, there has been a devolving of skill acquisition and personal development. Through the twentieth century, and particularly after 1945, education was the track to social mobility. The difficulty now – with degree inflation and the loss of stable, secure, long-term employment – is that new modes of exclusion and disempowerment are being perpetuated through the education system. Field recognized that “the new adult education has been embraced most enthusiastically by those who are already relatively well qualified.” (105) This is a significant realization. Motivation, meta-learning skills and curiosity are increasingly being rewarded when found in the already credentialed, empowered workforce. Those already in work undertake lifelong learning. Adult education operates well for members of the middle class who are doing well and wish to do better. If success is individualized, then failure is also cast on the self, not the social system or policy. The disempowered are blamed for their own conditions and ‘failures.’ The concern, through the internationalization of the workforce, technological change and privatization of national assets, is that failure in formal education results in social exclusion and immobility. Besides being forced into classrooms, there are few options for those who do not wish to learn, in a learning society. Those who ‘choose’ not be a part of the national project of individual improvement, increased market share, company competitiveness and international standards are not relevant to the economy. But there is a personal benefit – that may have long term political consequences – from being ‘outside’ society. Perhaps the best theorist of the excluded is not sourced from a University, but from the realm of fictional writing. Irvine Welsh, author of the landmark Trainspotting, has stated that What we really need is freedom from choice … People who are in work have no time for anything else but work. They have no mental space to accommodate anything else but work. Whereas people who are outside the system will always find ways of amusing themselves. Even if they are materially disadvantaged they’ll still find ways of coping, getting by and making their own entertainment. (145-6) A blurring of work and learning, and work and leisure, may seem to create a borderless education, a learning framework uninhibited by curriculum, assessment or power structures. But lifelong learning aims to place as many (national) citizens as possible in ‘the system,’ striving for success or at least a pay increase which will facilitate the purchase of more consumer goods. Through any discussion of work-place training and vocationalism, it is important to remember those who choose not to choose life, who choose something else, who will not follow orders. Everybody wants to work The great imponderable for complex economic systems is how to manage fluctuations in labour and the market. The unstable relationship between need and supply necessitates flexibility in staffing solutions, and short-term supplementary labour options. When productivity and profit are the primary variables through which to judge successful management, then the alignments of education and employment are viewed and skewed through specific ideological imperatives. The library profession is an obvious occupation that has confronted these contradictions. It is ironic that the occupation that orders knowledge is experiencing a volatile and disordered workplace. In the past, it had been assumed that librarians hold a degree while technicians do not, and that technicians would not be asked to perform – unsupervised – the same duties as librarians. Obviously, such distinctions are increasingly redundant. Training packages, structured through competency-based training principles, have ensured technicians and librarians share knowledge systems which are taught through incremental stages. Mary Carroll recognized the primary questions raised through this change. If it is now the case that these distinctions have disappeared do we need to continue to draw them between professional and para-professional education? Does this mean that all sectors of the education community are in fact learning/teaching the same skills but at different levels so that no unique set of skills exist? (122) With education reduced to skills, thereby discrediting generalist degrees, the needs of industry have corroded the professional standards and stature of librarians. Certainly, the abilities of library technicians are finally being valued, but it is too convenient that one of the few professions dominated by women has suffered a demeaning of knowledge into competency. Lifelong learning, in this context, has collapsed high level abilities in information management into bite sized chunks of ‘skills.’ The ideology of lifelong learning – which is rarely discussed – is that it serves to devalue prior abilities and knowledges into an ever-expanding imperative for ‘new’ skills and software competencies. For example, ponder the consequences of Hitendra Pillay and Robert Elliott’s words: The expectations inherent in new roles, confounded by uncertainty of the environment and the explosion of information technology, now challenge us to reconceptualise human cognition and develop education and training in a way that resonates with current knowledge and skills. (95) Neophilliacal urges jut from their prose. The stress on ‘new roles,’ and ‘uncertain environments,’ the ‘explosion of information technology,’ ‘challenges,’ ‘reconceptualisations,’ and ‘current knowledge’ all affirms the present, the contemporary, and the now. Knowledge and expertise that have taken years to develop, nurture and apply are not validated through this educational brief. The demands of family, work, leisure, lifestyle, class and sexuality stretch the skin taut over economic and social contradictions. To ease these paradoxes, lifelong learning should stress pedagogy rather than applications, and context rather than content. Put another way, instead of stressing the link between (gee wizz) technological change and (inevitable) workplace restructuring and redundancies, emphasis needs to be placed on the relationship between professional development and verifiable technological outcomes, rather than spruiks and promises. Short term vocationalism in educational policy speaks to the ordering of our public culture, requiring immediate profits and a tight dialogue between education and work. Furthering this logic, if education ‘creates’ employment, then it also ‘creates’ unemployment. Ironically, in an environment that focuses on the multiple identities and roles of citizens, students are reduced to one label – ‘future workers.’ Obviously education has always been marinated in the political directives of the day. The industrial revolution introduced a range of technical complexities to the workforce. Fordism necessitated that a worker complete a task with precision and speed, requiring a high tolerance of stress and boredom. Now, more skills are ‘assumed’ by employers at the time that workplaces are off-loading their training expectations to the post-compulsory education sector. Therefore ‘lifelong learning’ is a political mask to empower the already empowered and create a low-level skill base for low paid workers, with the promise of competency-based training. Such ideologies never need to be stated overtly. A celebration of ‘the new’ masks this task. Not surprisingly therefore, lifelong learning has a rich new life in ordering creative industries strategies and frameworks. Codifying the creative The last twenty years have witnessed an expanding jurisdiction and justification of the market. As part of Tony Blair’s third way, the creative industries and the knowledge economy became catchwords to demonstrate that cultural concerns are not only economically viable but a necessity in the digital, post-Fordist, information age. Concerns with intellectual property rights, copyright, patents, and ownership of creative productions predominate in such a discourse. Described by Charles Leadbeater as Living on Thin Air, this new economy is “driven by new actors of production and sources of competitive advantage – innovation, design, branding, know-how – which are at work on all industries.” (10) Such market imperatives offer both challenges and opportunity for educationalists and students. Lifelong learning is a necessary accoutrement to the creative industries project. Learning cities and communities are the foundations for design, music, architecture and journalism. In British policy, and increasingly in Queensland, attention is placed on industry-based research funding to address this changing environment. In 2000, Stuart Cunningham and others listed the eight trends that order education, teaching and learning in this new environment. The Changes to the Provision of Education Globalization The arrival of new information and communication technologies The development of a knowledge economy, shortening the time between the development of new ideas and their application. The formation of learning organizations User-pays education The distribution of knowledge through interactive communication technologies (ICT) Increasing demand for education and training Scarcity of an experienced and trained workforce Source: S. Cunningham, Y. Ryan, L. Stedman, S. Tapsall, K. Bagdon, T. Flew and P. Coaldrake. The Business of Borderless Education. Canberra: DETYA Evaluation and Investigations Program [EIP], 2000. This table reverberates with the current challenges confronting education. Mobilizing such changes requires the lubrication of lifelong learning tropes in university mission statements and the promotion of a learning culture, while also acknowledging the limited financial conditions in which the educational sector is placed. For university scholars facilitating the creative industries approach, education is “supplying high value-added inputs to other enterprises,” (Hartley and Cunningham 5) rather than having value or purpose beyond the immediately and applicably economic. The assumption behind this table is that the areas of expansion in the workforce are the creative and service industries. In fact, the creative industries are the new service sector. This new economy makes specific demands of education. Education in the ‘old economy’ and the ‘new economy’ Old Economy New Economy Four-year degree Forty-year degree Training as a cost Training as a source of competitive advantage Learner mobility Content mobility Distance education Distributed learning Correspondence materials with video Multimedia centre Fordist training – one size fits all Tailored programmes Geographically fixed institutions Brand named universities and celebrity professors Just-in-case Just-in-time Isolated learners Virtual learning communities Source: T. Flew. “Educational Media in Transition: Broadcasting, Digital Media and Lifelong Learning in the Knowledge Economy.” International Journal of Instructional Media 29.1 (2002): 20. There are myriad assumptions lurking in Flew’s fascinating table. The imperative is short courses on the web, servicing the needs of industry. He described the product of this system as a “learner-earner.” (50) This ‘forty year degree’ is based on lifelong learning ideologies. However Flew’s ideas are undermined by the current government higher education agenda, through the capping – through time – of courses. The effect on the ‘learner-earner’ in having to earn more to privately fund a continuance of learning – to ensure that they keep on earning – needs to be addressed. There will be consequences to the housing market, family structures and leisure time. The costs of education will impact on other sectors of the economy and private lives. Also, there is little attention to the groups who are outside this taken-for-granted commitment to learning. Flew noted that barriers to greater participation in education and training at all levels, which is a fundamental requirement of lifelong learning in the knowledge economy, arise in part out of the lack of provision of quality technology-mediated learning, and also from inequalities of access to ICTs, or the ‘digital divide.’ (51) In such a statement, there is a misreading of teaching and learning. Such confusion is fuelled by the untheorised gap between ‘student’ and ‘consumer.’ The notion that technology (which in this context too often means computer-mediated platforms) is a barrier to education does not explain why conventional distance education courses, utilizing paper, ink and postage, were also unable to welcome or encourage groups disengaged from formal learning. Flew and others do not confront the issue of motivation, or the reason why citizens choose to add or remove the label of ‘student’ from their bag of identity labels. The stress on technology as both a panacea and problem for lifelong learning may justify theories of convergence and the integration of financial, retail, community, health and education provision into a services sector, but does not explain why students desire to learn, beyond economic necessity and employer expectations. Based on these assumptions of expanding creative industries and lifelong learning, the shape of education is warping. An ageing population requires educational expenditure to be reallocated from primary and secondary schooling and towards post-compulsory learning and training. This cost will also be privatized. When coupled with immigration flows, technological changes and alterations to market and labour structures, lifelong learning presents a profound and personal cost. An instrument for economic and social progress has been individualized, customized and privatized. The consequence of the ageing population in many nations including Australia is that there will be fewer young people in schools or employment. Such a shift will have consequences for the workplace and the taxation system. Similarly, those young workers who remain will be far more entrepreneurial and less loyal to their employers. Public education is now publically-assisted education. Jane Jenson and Denis Saint-Martin realized the impact of this change. The 1980s ideological shift in economic and social policy thinking towards policies and programmes inspired by neo-liberalism provoked serious social strains, especially income polarization and persistent poverty. An increasing reliance on market forces and the family for generating life-chances, a discourse of ‘responsibility,’ an enthusiasm for off-loading to the voluntary sector and other altered visions of the welfare architecture inspired by neo-liberalism have prompted a reaction. There has been a wide-ranging conversation in the 1990s and the first years of the new century in policy communities in Europe as in Canada, among policy makers who fear the high political, social and economic costs of failing to tend to social cohesion. (78) There are dense social reorderings initiated by neo-liberalism and changing the notions of learning, teaching and education. There are yet to be tracked costs to citizenship. The legacy of the 1980s and 1990s is that all organizations must behave like businesses. In such an environment, there are problems establishing social cohesion, let alone social justice. To stress the product – and not the process – of education contradicts the point of lifelong learning. Compliance and complicity replace critique. (Post) learning The Cold War has ended. The great ideological battle between communism and Western liberal democracy is over. Most countries believe both in markets and in a necessary role for Government. There will be thunderous debates inside nations about the balance, but the struggle for world hegemony by political ideology is gone. What preoccupies decision-makers now is a different danger. It is extremism driven by fanaticism, personified either in terrorist groups or rogue states. Tony Blair (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp) Tony Blair, summoning his best Francis Fukuyama impersonation, signaled the triumph of liberal democracy over other political and economic systems. His third way is unrecognizable from the Labour party ideals of Clement Attlee. Probably his policies need to be. Yet in his second term, he is not focused on probing the specificities of the market-orientation of education, health and social welfare. Instead, decision makers are preoccupied with a war on terror. Such a conflict seemingly justifies large defense budgets which must be at the expense of social programmes. There is no recognition by Prime Ministers Blair or Howard that ‘high-tech’ armory and warfare is generally impotent to the terrorist’s weaponry of cars, bodies and bombs. This obvious lesson is present for them to see. After the rapid and successful ‘shock and awe’ tactics of Iraq War II, terrorism was neither annihilated nor slowed by the Coalition’s victory. Instead, suicide bombers in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Indonesia and Israel snuck have through defenses, requiring little more than a car and explosives. More Americans have been killed since the war ended than during the conflict. Wars are useful when establishing a political order. They sort out good and evil, the just and the unjust. Education policy will never provide the ‘big win’ or the visible success of toppling Saddam Hussein’s statue. The victories of retraining, literacy, competency and knowledge can never succeed on this scale. As Blair offered, “these are new times. New threats need new measures.” (ht tp://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp) These new measures include – by default – a user pays education system. In such an environment, lifelong learning cannot succeed. It requires a dense financial commitment in the long term. A learning society requires a new sort of war, using ideas not bullets. References Bash, Lee. “What Serving Adult Learners Can Teach Us: The Entrepreneurial Response.” Change January/February 2003: 32-7. Blair, Tony. “Full Text of the Prime Minister’s Speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet.” November 12, 2002. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp. Carroll, Mary. “The Well-Worn Path.” The Australian Library Journal May 2002: 117-22. Field, J. Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 2000. Flew, Terry. “Educational Media in Transition: Broadcasting, Digital Media and Lifelong Learning in the Knowledge Economy.” International Journal of Instructional Media 29.1 (2002): 47-60. Hartley, John, and Cunningham, Stuart. “Creative Industries – from Blue Poles to Fat Pipes.” Department of Education, Science and Training, Commonwealth of Australia (2002). Jenson, Jane, and Saint-Martin, Denis. “New Routes to Social Cohesion? Citizenship and the Social Investment State.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 28.1 (2003): 77-99. Leadbeater, Charles. Living on Thin Air. London: Viking, 1999. Pillay, Hitendra, and Elliott, Robert. “Distributed Learning: Understanding the Emerging Workplace Knowledge.” Journal of Interactive Learning Research 13.1-2 (2002): 93-107. Welsh, Irvine, from Redhead, Steve. “Post-Punk Junk.” Repetitive Beat Generation. Glasgow: Rebel Inc, 2000: 138-50. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Brabazon, Tara. "Freedom from Choice: Who Pays for Customer Service in the Knowledge Economy?." M/C Journal 7.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/02-brabazon.php>. APA Style Brabazon, T. (Jan. 2005) "Freedom from Choice: Who Pays for Customer Service in the Knowledge Economy?," M/C Journal, 7(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/02-brabazon.php>.

Depending on your perspective, Non-Fungible Token (NFT) artworks are inaugurating an exciting new chapter in the history of art, or a dangerous new chapter in the history of online market bubbles. NFTs index artworks, and are typically strings of characters stored on a blockchain such as Ethereum. NFTs are not exclusively used to index artworks, and have been used to index a range of collectibles, but it is the sale of NFTs associated with artworks that has launched the phenomenon into public consciousness. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the digital artist Beeple’s sale of an NFT for the equivalent of $69 million (Krastrenakes). For some, such staggering prices suggest NFTs are poised to become the next Beanie Babies—i.e., commodities without utility that sell at vastly inflated prices. Despite such cynicism, some argue that NFTs have revolutionary technical import, such that they could overturn many common and unequal practices within the contemporary art market (Rennie et al.). Chief among these is the supposed disposability of digital artworks, which are viewed as difficult to sell, resell, and protect from piracy. Such issues are thought to be ameliorated by NFTs, since they function as a token that is understood to stand as a “definitive indicator of ownership” of digital artworks (Mackenzie and Bērziņa 2). Or, as Rachel O’Dwyer has summarised, NFT art auctions like the Ethereal Summit held in New York in 2018 allow individuals to bid for the “ownership and provenance details of the works of art encrypted in the Ethereum blockchain and represented by a token” (O’Dwyer). Unlike a more conventional artwork, such as a painting, NFT artworks typically take the form of JPEGs or GIFs, and therefore circulate the Internet widely, regardless of who owns the token that designates ownership. While reproductions and printed documentations of traditional artworks are commonplace—e.g., art gallery giftshops will often sell relatively low-cost posters of masterpieces like Picasso’s Guernica, or coffee table books showcasing the masterworks of influential movements like post-impressionism—there are obvious material differences between the reproduction and the original. In the case of the typically digital NFT artworks, this distinction does not apply. Accordingly, the academic and popular discussions that surround NFT artworks have reignited theoretical questions around the ontological status of artworks, and the source of their economic value. For some, the NFT market is a financial bubble and the prices attracted by particular NFT-linked artworks have no underlying value (BBC News). For others, the value of NFTs can be explained through an appeal to the value subjectively attributed to the image or animation by the purchaser (Nguyen), while for others the value of NFTs should be understood in terms of digital scarcity and provenance (Rennie et al.; Joselit) or as a technological means for artists to maintain a greater share of their artwork’s value (Kugler). While the NFT market is novel, and is worthy of study in terms of its specific technological and economic forms, this article will argue that NFTs can be placed in a longer history of the emergence of what Luc Boltanski and Arnauld Esquerre have called the “enrichment economy”. In their Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities, Boltanski and Esquerre argue that, since at least the last quarter of the twentieth century, a new site of valorisation has emerged in post-industrial economies. According to Boltanski and Esquerre, globalisation and deindustrialisation provoked many economies to embrace tourism, luxury good production, and the commodification of heritage and culture as new sites of extraction. As the viability of the mass production of commodities has receded, the production of unique commodities and transient yet “unforgettable” experiences have become more economically significant. For Boltanski and Esquerre, enrichment refers both to the often-discursive refining and redefining of existing commodities—such that they fetch greater prices—and a greater emphasis on an economy for those with disposable income—such as tourists, art collectors, and the wealthy more generally (3-4). Often, Boltanski and Esquerre argue, the enrichment economies of art and luxury tend to mine and exploit the “underlying substratum that is purely and simply the past” (2). For this reason, the enrichment economy requires the production of new forms of authenticity, “aura”, and belief, such that the overlooked or taken-for-granted objects of the past can be reframed as unique and worthy of investment or consumption. The interesting question, then, is not necessarily that of why someone would pay a large sum of money to own a piece of code on a blockchain, but, instead, that of how a particular piece of contemporary art or an NFT comes to be “enriched” with authenticity and aura. While a thoroughgoing discussion of this topic would require a longer piece, this article will nevertheless attempt to open up connections between art history, debates around the production of artistic value during and after Modernism, and the newly emerging NFT art market. While many have declared that NFTs are “disrupting the art market” (Tripathi)—supposedly evinced by the staggering growth of the NFT market, and emerging institutional recognition, such as ArtReview’s decision to place an NFT at the top of their Power 100 List for 2021—this article seeks to locate the NFT explosion within a slightly longer timeframe, one in which NFTs would feature as a continuation—albeit a non-linear one—rather than a disruption of ongoing cultural and economic logics. Value and Void Despite the incredulity that commonly meets NFT artworks, the contemporary art market similarly flaunts conventional understandings of aesthetic and economic value. While many would surely agree with journalist Amy Castor’s claim that “it’s hard to justify that a Bored Ape NFT is worth $300,000 based on the art” (quoted in Artnet), almost identical criticisms have been raised around the contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan’s 2019 work Comedian. Released in an edition of three, Comedian consisted of a banana duct-taped to a wall, with two of the three selling for $120,000 each. As Sara Callahan puts it, works like Comedian reignited debates around “what makes something a high-priced artwork when another, seemingly identical, object is not?” (Callahan). While NFTs are reawakening interest in the question of artistic value, the financialisation of cheaply made and mass-produced artworks has a much longer history. Indeed, by the 1960s, a booming secondary art market that traded in increasingly expensive, yet cheap-to-produce avant-garde works—often requiring relatively small amounts of time and inexpensive materials—raised suspicions that art was becoming indistinguishable from more traditional financial assets. In response, in 1968 the influential art critic Leo Steinberg argued that, “avant-garde art, lately Americanized, is for the first time associated with big money. … Another decade, and we shall have mutual funds based on securities in the form of pictures held in bank vaults” (quoted in Beech 300). As Dave Beech has shown, in the ensuing period, “art’s relationship to finance capital has outstripped Steinberg’s worst fears” (Beech 301). By the 1980s, banks allowed individuals to borrow large sums of money against the value of their art collections, and investment in artworks became a normal practice of portfolio diversification (Beech 299–300). When interest rates are low, investments in productive capital offer low levels of liquidity, and international markets appear vulnerable to shocks, artworks—whether physical or in the form of an NFT—offer a means of hedging against future losses. Furthermore, in both the contemporary art market and the NFT market, purchases of artworks at inflated prices often allow an individual to prevent “the bottom from falling out of a market they have already invested in” (O’Dwyer). The fact that artworks could hold a value well in excess of the cost of the materials or labour time required to produce them, was not solely recognised by art collectors and investors. Instead, this period saw a great number of artists explicitly playing with the aporia that had emerged around art’s economic value—insofar as ready-made artworks could now fetch prices typically reserved for laboriously produced and unique masterpieces. Take, for example, Yves Klein’s project Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility, which he developed over the late 1950s and early 1960s. In these works, Klein offered collectors the opportunity to purchase a void or “immaterial zone” for varying quantities of gold, with “20 grams (3/4 ounce) of pure gold for the Zones of series no. 1, the least expensive, to 1,280 grams (27/8 pounds) for those of series no. 7, the most expensive” (Cras 24). In exchange for the gold, the void-owner would receive a receipt as proof of purchase. However, for the work to be completed, Klein requested that the receipt be burned by the collector, and in response Klein would throw half of the received gold into the river Seine (Cras 24). By destroying the proof of purchase, and by releasing some of the gold into the river, the collector would receive “the full authentic immaterial value of the work” (Klein quoted in Cras 24). We see some resemblances here between Klein’s Zones and NFTs—and here Klein is no exception, since, as Cras has documented, the 1960s were replete with artists experimenting with the production of artworks as novel financial assets. For Cras, it was a time in which “the problem of attaching a price to works of art and offering them for sale, traditionally considered to be external to creation in this domain, was now incorporated in artistic practice” (Cras 3). If artists were increasingly embracing the artwork’s status as an asset, and if the price of artworks became divorced from luxurious materials or skilled production, how were artworks able to assert themselves as valuable and worthy of collection and investment? How is that, rather than the decoupling of artworks from some secure material base of value diminishing their market value, such decoupling has instead led to immense growth in the art market? In order to pursue this question, in the next section we will turn to Beech’s rethinking of the Marxist labour theory of value in the context of the art market. Value and Labour Here, it is worthwhile to turn to Beech’s distinction between the price of the artwork and the value of the artwork. For Beech, an artwork’s price is whatever sum of money it can be exchanged for in the market. Most neoclassical economists treat price and value as being synonymous, and, from this position, it makes no sense to ask if an artwork is worth—or if its value is equivalent—to its current price. As Beech writes, “neoclassical economics claims to be able to treat the sale of artworks as a standard transaction with prices determined entirely by demand and the subjective perception of utility by wealthy purchasers” (Beech 291). Against this view, Beech offers a Marxist interpretation of artistic value, one that emphasises labour-time in the production of artistic reputation. Reputation is key here, as Beech dismisses the notion that an increase in artistic labour-time increases the value of an artwork. Against neoclassical economists, Beech (311) writes that “the increase or decrease in the price of artworks is not ‘a floating crap game’, but is determined by the changing circumstances of the artwork itself vis-à-vis the esteem it is held in by the art community”. Accordingly, Beech states that the prices of artworks are seriously affected—perhaps even driven—by the non-purchasing “consumers” of art, namely academics, commentators, and other artists, who determine the general reputation of artworks. Accordingly, if we want to understand the prices of artworks at the marketplace, we need to focus our attention on art’s evaluative discourses, the production of knowledge, and the practices of producing objects that provide an assessment and legacy for a work or body of work, such as photographic reproductions and monographs. Artistic value as reputation is not only expressed through the economic consumption of products, but in the activities of learning from them, asking questions of them, reconfiguring them in new products, combining them and rejecting them. The high prices of art derive from the high status of the work within the discourses of art (Beech 312). Whereas the conventional Marxist labour theory of value focusses on the socially necessary labour time for the production of a commodity, Beech emphasises the labour of the consumer rather than that of the producer. As we have shown, an artwork that takes very little time to produce—such as Cattelan’s Comedian—can attract a much larger price than a painting by a lesser-known artist who spends months in the studio. Nevertheless, Beech argues that the greater the labour time of the non-purchasing consumers of art, the greater the artwork’s value. By maintaining a distinction between price—the quantity of money an artwork can be exchanged for—and value—the total of labour-time expended in discussing, viewing, and reproducing an artwork—Beech provides us with a framework for understanding how prices emerge, without exaggerating the predictive powers of such a framework. If an artist’s work is priced relatively low, but the discourse around their work is expanding rapidly, there is the potential to make a purchase below value, even if this investment is still speculative. By contrast, the neoclassical perspective renders this approach to the price/value relationship unthinkable. What, then, distinguishes artistic—or artworld—discourse from marketing? Beyond the simple observation that marketing teams are directly employed by capitalists in order to push a message that is directly related to increasing surplus-value, Beech argues that “it is a condition of the contribution of art discourse to the inflation of the value of art that it is independent from the economic interests at stake” (Beech 313). Though Beech does not put it this way, we could argue that the gap between artistic discourse and those who stand to financially benefit from the inflation of an artwork’s value produces the “aura” of the artwork. Coca-Cola’s marketing team is unlikely to change its opinion about its famous product, whereas art discourse is produced—for the most part—by a decentralised “artworld” of curators, critics, museologists, historians, philosophers, artists, and viewers, all of whom gravitate towards certain works at certain times—and it is arguably the uncertainty and uncoordinated nature of these shifts in reputational favour that make certain works feel miraculous. While, in the short term, a Bored Ape, and an artwork like Comedian, can attract a high price, it is unlikely that these artworks will maintain that price overtime—for this to happen, one would have to imagine an ongoing process of enrichment, one that would find new conversations to have about such works beyond the novelty of their unlikely price tags. Enriching the Blockchain While recent years have seen the publication of impressive and sophisticated quantitative studies of the NFT market, such studies have focussed on the quantifiable aspects of value and reputation (Vasan et al.; Nadini et al.). While such research has shown that connection to prominent collectors, and visibility on popular crypto-platforms, is an indicator of the expected price of an NFT, Beech’s research suggests that a range of difficult-to-quantify factors must be taken into consideration. While quantifiable forms of influence are of course important, the capacity for an artwork—linked to an NFT or not—to be discursively enriched, such that its status as historically and culturally significant appears independent from the testimony of those who would financially benefit from its revaluation, appears vital for its long-term enrichment and accrual of value. Some have attempted to articulate the emerging value of the NFT market in such terms. For example, Paul Dylan-Ennis claims that in order to understand CryptoPunks—one of the older artistic series to be linked to NFTs, and which can sell for up to $1.6 million—we must appreciate that they “are sought after because of their age, like blockchain antiques” (Dylan-Ennis). For Dylan-Ennis, NFTs like Cryptopunks are valuable insofar as they are “the oldest NFTs”, and, accordingly, it is “their ‘metadata’” or their “longevity on the blockchain” that is desired (Dylan-Ennis). In Dylan-Ennis’s account, NFTs are worth investing in because their past will one day be historically significant, hence his injunction for us to “look past the art and look at the medium to get what is going on” (Dylan-Ennis). But rather than looking at the medium, perhaps it is more fruitful to look to the institutional forms that nurture, generate, and circulate the reputational discourses that modify artistic value. In doing so, we will not only avoid the conservative move of denouncing NFT artworks on the basis of an arbitrary aesthetic standard, but also the utopian move of associating NFTs with the fantasy of a future “in which the subject is free from coercive mediating institutions, the state chief among them, wielding data certainty as a means of freedom and social transformation” (Jutel 4). Rather than NFTs freeing the digital artist from the problems imposed by ease of reproduction, we can see that the reputational value of the artwork linked to a non-fungible token requires the fungibility of reproduction, circulation, commentary, and discussion. NFT boosters have been quick to critique the institutions that have traditionally provided the training that fosters such discourse and expertise—in the form of the non-purchasing consumers discussed by Beech— as gatekeepers that exploit artists. While we should acknowledge the gross inequities of the artworld and academia, such institutions have nevertheless been relatively historically successful in their attempt to produce large audiences that can participate in the enrichment of past objects, and the connection of new objects to that past. The challenge that the cryptoworld will face, is whether, like the artworld, it can marshal similar long-term discursive labour in the process of enrichment. If it cannot, we may ironically see the same “gatekeeping” institutions of the artworld invoked to bolster the value of the NFT market. References Artnet. “‘They’ve Created Perceived Value Out of Thin Air’: The Whole Bored Ape Yacht Club Phenomenon, Explained.” 8 April 2022 <https://news.artnet.com/multimedia/the-art-angle-podcast-bored-ape-yacht-club-2094073>. BBC News. “What Are NFTs and Why Are Some Worth Millions?” 23 Sep. 2021. <https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56371912>. Beech, Dave. Art and Value: Art’s Economic Exceptionalism in Classical, Neoclassical and Marxist Economics. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Boltanski, Christian, and Arnauld Esquerre. Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities. Trans. Catherine Porter. London: Polity, 2020. Callahan, Sara. “The Value of a Banana: Understanding Absurd and Ephemeral Artwork.” The Conversation 8 Oct. 2020. <https://theconversation.com/the-value-of-a-banana-understanding-absurd-and-ephemeral-artwork-147689>. Cras, Sophie. The Artist as Economist: Art and Capitalism in the 1960s. Trans. Malcolm DeBevoise. Massachusetts: Yale UP, 2019. Dylan-Ennis, Paul. “NFT Art: The Bizarre World Where Burning a Banksy Can Make It More Valuable.” The Conversation 6 Mar. 2021. <https://theconversation.com/nft-art-the-bizarre-world-where-burning-a-banksy-can-make-it-more-valuable-156605>. Krastrenakes, Jacob. “Beeple Sold an NFT for $69 Million.” The Verge 11 Mar. 2021. <https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325054/beeple-christies-nft-sale-cost-everydays-69-million>. Kugler, Logan. “Non-Fungible Tokens and the Future of Art.” Communications of the ACM 64.9 (2021). DOI: 10.1145/3474355. Mackenzie, Simon, and Diāna Bērziņa. “NFTs: Digital Things and Their Criminal Lives.” Crime Media Culture (2021). DOI: 10.1177/17416590211039797. Nadini, Matthieu, et al. “Mapping the NFT Revolution: Market Trends, Trade Networks, and Visual Features.” Scientific Reports 11.20902 (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598021000538. Nguyen, Terry. “The Value of NFTs, Explained by an Expert: How Emotional Attachment to Certain Items and Gifts Could Affect Our Understanding of Value.” Vox 31 Mar. 2021. <https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22358262/value-of-nfts-behavioral-expert>. O’Dwyer, Rachel. “A Celestial Cyberdimension: Art Tokens and the Artwork as Derivative.” Circa Art Magazine 3 Dec. 2018. <https://circaartmagazine.net/a-celestial-cyberdimension-art-tokens-and-the-artwork-as-derivative/#_ftn21>. Joselit, David. “NFTs, or the Readymade Reversed.” October 175 (2021): 3–4. Jutel, Olivier. “Blockchain Imperialism in the Pacific.” Big Data & Society (2021). DOI: 10.1177/2053951720985249. Rennie, Ellie, et al. “Provocation Paper: Blockchain and the Creative Industries.” RMIT, 2019. <https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2019-11/apo-nid267131.pdf>. Tripathi, Smita. “How NFTs Are Disrupting the Art World.” Business Today 20 Feb. 2022. <https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/luxury-lifestyle/story/how-nfts-are-disrupting-the-art-world-321706-2022-02-15>. Vasan, Kishore, et al. “Quantifying NFT-Driven Networks in Crypto Art.” Scientific Reports 12.2769 (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-05146-6.

IntroductionBallarat’s Theatre Royal was the first permanent theatre built in inland Australia. Upon opening in 1858, it was acclaimed as having “the handsomest theatrical exterior in the colony” (Star, “Editorial” 7 Dec. 1889) and later acknowledged as “the grandest playhouse in all Australia” (Spielvogel, Papers Vol. 1 160). Born of Gold Rush optimism, the Royal was loved by many, yet the over-arching story of its ill-fated existence has failed to surface, in any coherent fashion, in official history. This article takes some first steps toward retrieving lost knowledge from fragmented archival records, and piecing together the story of why this purpose-built theatre ceased operation within a twenty-year period. A short history of the venue will be provided, to develop context. It will be argued that while a combination of factors, most of which were symptomatic of unfortunate timing, destroyed the longevity of the Royal, the principal problem was one of stigmatisation. This was an era in which the societal pressure to visibly conform to conservative values was intense and competition in the pursuit of profits was fierce.The cultural silence that befell the story of the Royal, after its demise, is explicable in relation to history being written by the victors and a loss of spokespeople since that time. As theatre arts historiographer McConachie (131) highlights, “Theatres, like places for worship and spectator sports, hold memories of the past in addition to providing a practical and cognitive framework for performance events in the present.” When that place, “a bounded area denoted by human agency and memory” (131), is lost in time, so too may be the socio-cultural lessons from the period, if not actively recalled and reconsidered. The purpose of this article is to present the beginning of an investigation into the disjointed narrative of Ballarat’s Theatre Royal. Its ultimate failure demonstrates how dominant community based entertainment became in Ballarat from the 1860s onwards, effectively crushing prospects for mid-range professional theatre. There is value in considering the evolution of the theatre’s lifespan and its possible legacy effects. The connection between historical consciousness and the performing arts culture of by-gone days offers potential to reveal specks of cross-relevance for regional Australian theatrical offerings today.In the BeginningThe proliferation of entertainment venues in Ballarat East during the 1850s was a consequence of the initial discovery of surface alluvial gold and the ongoing success of deep-lead mining activities in the immediate area. This attracted extraordinary numbers of people from all over the world who hoped to strike it rich. Given the tough nature of life on the early gold diggings, most disposable income was spent on evening entertainment. As a result, numerous venues sprang into operation to cater for demand. All were either canvas tents or makeshift wooden structures: vibrant in socio-cultural activity, however humble the presentation values. It is widely agreed (Withers, Bate and Brereton) that noteworthy improvements occurred from 1856 onwards in the artistry of the performers, audience tastes, the quality of theatrical structures and living standards in general. Residents began to make their exit from flood and fire prone Ballarat East, moving to Ballarat West. The Royal was the first substantial entertainment venture to be established in this new, affluent, government surveyed township area. Although the initial idea was to draw in some of the patronage which had flourished in Ballarat East, Brereton (14) believed “There can be no doubt that it was [primarily] intended to attract those with good taste and culture”. This article will contend that how society defined ‘good taste’ turned out to be problematic for the Royal.The tumultuous mid-1850s have attracted extensive academic and popular attention, primarily because they were colourful and politically significant times. The period thereafter has attracted little scholarly interest, unless tied to the history of surviving organisations. Four significant structures designed to incorporate theatrical entertainment were erected and opened in Ballarat from 1858 onwards: The Royal was swiftly followed by the Mechanics Institute 1859, Alfred Hall 1867 and Academy of Music 1874-75. As philosopher Albert Borgmann (41) highlighted, the erection of “magnificent settings in which the public could gather and enjoy itself” was the dominant urban aspiration for cultural consumption in the nineteenth century. Men of influence in Victorian cities believed strongly in progress and grand investments as a conscious demonstration of power, combined with Puritan vales, teetotalism and aggressive self-assertiveness (Briggs 287-88). At the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone for the Royal on 20 January 1858, eminent tragedian, Gustavos Brooke, announced “… may there be raised a superstructure perfect in all its parts, and honourable to the builder.” He proclaimed the memorial bottle to be “a lasting memento of the greatness of Ballarat in erecting such a theatre” and philosophised that “the stage not only refines the manners, but it is the best teacher of morals, for it is the truest and most intelligible picture of life. It stamps the image of virtue on the mind …” (Star, “Laying” 21 Jan. 1858). These initial aspirations seem somewhat ambitious when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. Ballarat’s Theatre Royal opened in December 1858, ironically with Jerrold’s comedy ‘Time Works Wonders’. The large auditorium holding around 1500 people “was crowded to overflowing and was considered altogether brilliant in its newness and beauty” by all in attendance (Star, “Local and General” 30 Dec. 1858). Generous descriptions abound of how splendid it was, in architectural terms, but also in relation to scenery, decorations and all appointments. Underneath the theatre were two shops, four bars, elegant dining rooms, a kitchen and 24 bedrooms. A large saloon was planned to be attached soon-after. The overall cost of the build was estimated at a substantial 10,000 pounds.The First Act: 1858-1864In the early years, the Royal was deemed a success. The pleasure-seeking public of Ballarat came en masse and the glory days seemed like they might continue unabated. By the early 1860s, Ballarat was known as a great theatrical centre for performing arts, its population was famous both nationally and internationally for an appreciation of good acting, and the Royal was considered the home of the best dramatic art in Ballarat (Withers 260). Like other theatres of the 1850s diggings, it had its own resident company of actors, musicians, scenic artists and backstage crew. Numerous acclaimed performers came to visit and these were prosperous and happy times for the Royal’s lively theatrical community. As early as 1859, however, there was evident rivalry between the Royal and the Mechanics Institute, as suggested on numerous occasions in the Ballarat Star. As a multi-purpose venue for education and the betterment of the working classes, the latter venue had the distinct advantage of holding the moral high ground. Over time this competition increased as audiences decreased. As people shifted to family-focussed entertainments, these absorbed their time and attention. The transformation of a transient population into a township of families ultimately suffocated prospects for professional entertainment in Ballarat. Consumer interest turned to the growth of strong amateur societies with the establishment of the Welsh Eisteddfod 1863; Harmonic Society 1864; Bell Ringers’ Club 1866 and Glee and Madrigal Union 1867 (Brereton 38). By 1863, the Royal was reported to have “scanty patronage” and Proprietor Symonds was in financial trouble (Star, “News and Notes” 15 Sep. 1864). It was announced that the theatre would open for the last time on Saturday, 29 October 1864 (Australasian). On that same date, the Royal was purchased by Rowlands & Lewis, the cordial makers. They promptly on-sold it to the Ballarat Temperance League, who soon discovered that there was a contract in place with Bouchier, the previous owner, who still held the hotel next door, stating that “all proprietors … were bound to keep it open as a theatre” (Withers 260-61). Having invested immense energy into the quest to purchase it, the Temperance League backed out of the deal. Prominent Hotelier Walter Craig bought it for less than 3,000 pounds. It is possible that this stymied effort to quell the distribution of liquor in the heart of the city evoked the ire of the Protestant community, who were on a dedicated mission “to attack widespread drunkenness, profligacy, licentiousness and agnosticism,” and forming an interdenominational Bible and Tract Society in 1866 (Bate 176). This caused a segment of the population to consider the Royal a ‘lost cause’ and steer clear of it, advising ‘respectable’ families to do the same, and so the stigma grew. Social solidarity of this type had significant impact in an era in which people openly demonstrated their morality by way of unified public actions.The Second Act: 1865-1868The Royal closed for renovations until May 1865. Of the various alterations made to the interior and its fittings, the most telling was the effort to separate the ladies from the ‘town women’, presumably to reassure ‘respectable’ female patrons. To this end, a ladies’ retiring room was added, in a position convenient to the dress circle. The architectural rejuvenation of the Royal was cited as an illustration of great progress in Sturt Street (Ballarat Star, “News and Notes” 27 May 1865). Soon after, the Royal hosted the Italian Opera Company.However, by 1866 there was speculation that the Royal may be converted into a dry goods store. References to what sort of impression the failing of theatre would convey to the “old folks at home” in relation to “progress in civilisation'' and "social habits" indicated the distress of loyal theatre-goers. Impassioned pleas were written to the press to help preserve the “Temple of Thespus” for the legitimate use for which it was intended (Ballarat Star, “Messenger” and “Letters to the Editor” 30 Aug. 1866). By late 1867, a third venue materialised. The Alfred Hall was built for the reception of Ballarat’s first Royal visitor, the Duke of Edinburgh. On the night prior to the grand day at the Alfred, following a private dinner at Craig’s Hotel, Prince Alfred was led by an escorted torchlight procession to a gala performance at Craig’s very own Theatre Royal. The Prince’s arrival caused a sensation that completely disrupted the show (Spielvogel, Papers Vol. 1 165). While visiting Ballarat, the Prince laid the stone for the new Temperance Hall (Bate 159). This would not have been required had the League secured the Royal for their use three years earlier.Thereafter, the Royal was unable to reach the heights of what Brereton (15) calls the “Golden Age of Ballarat Theatre” from 1855 to 1865. Notably, the Mechanics Institute also experienced financial constraints during the 1860s and these challenges were magnified during the 1870s (Hazelwood 89). The late sixties saw the Royal reduced to the ‘ordinary’ in terms of the calibre of productions (Brereton 15). Having done his best to improve the physical attributes and prestige of the venue, Craig may have realised he was up against a growing stigma and considerable competition. He sold the Royal to R.S. Mitchell for 5,500 pounds in 1868.Another New Owner: 1869-1873For the Saturday performance of Richard III in 1869, under the new Proprietor, it was reported that “From pit to gallery every seat was full” and for many it was standing room only (Ballarat Star, “Theatre Royal” 1 Feb. 1869). Later that year, Othello attracted people with “a critical appreciation of histrionic matters” (Ballarat Star, “News and Notes” 19 July 1869). The situation appeared briefly promising. Unfortunately, larger economic factors were soon at play. During 1869, Ballarat went ‘mad’ with mine share gambling. In 1870 the economic bubble burst, and hundreds of people in Ballarat were financially ruined. Over the next ten years the population fell from 60,000 to less than 40,000 (Spielvogel, Papers Vol. 3 39). The last surviving theatre in Ballarat East, the much-loved Charles Napier, put on its final show in September 1869 (Brereton 15). By 1870 the Royal was referred to as a “second-class theatre” and was said to be such bad repute that “it would be most difficult to draw respectable classes” (Ballarat Star, “News and Notes” 17 Jan. 1870). It seems the remaining theatre patrons from the East swung over to support the Royal, which wasn’t necessarily in the best interests of its reputation. During this same period, family-oriented crowds of “the pleasure-seeking public of Ballarat” were attending events at the newly fashionable Alfred Hall (Ballarat Courier, “Theatre Royal” June 1870). There were occasional high points still to come for the Royal. In 1872, opera drew a crowded house “even to the last night of the season” which according to the press, “gave proof, if proof were wanting, that the people of Ballarat not only appreciate, but are willing to patronise to the full any high-class entertainment” (Ballarat Courier, “Theatre Royal” 26 Aug. 1872). The difficulty, however, lay in the deterioration of the Royal’s reputation. It had developed negative connotations among local temperance and morality movements, along with their extensive family, friendship and business networks. Regarding collective consumption, sociologist John Urry wrote “for those engaged in the collective tourist gaze … congregation is paramount” (140). Applying this socio-cultural principle to the behaviour of Victorian theatre-going audiences of the 1870s, it was compelling for audiences to move with the masses and support popular events at the fresh Alfred Hall rather than the fading Royal. Large crowds jostling for elbow room was perceived as the hallmark of a successful event back then, as is most often the case now.The Third Act: 1874-1878An additional complication faced by the Royal was the long-term effect of the application of straw across the ceiling. Acoustics were initially poor, and straw was intended to rectify the problem. This caused the venue to develop a reputation for being stuffy and led to the further indignity of the Royal suffering an infestation of fleas (Jenkins 22); a misfortune which caused some to label it “The Royal Bug House” (Reid 117). Considering how much food was thrown at the stage in this era, it is not surprising that rotten debris attracted insects. In 1873, the Royal closed for another round of renovations. The interior was redesigned, and the front demolished and rebuilt. This was primarily to create retail store frontage to supplement income (Reid 117). It was reported that the best theatrical frontage in Australasia was lost, and in its place was “a modestly handsome elevation” for which all play-goers of Ballarat should be thankful, as the miracle required of the rebuild was that of “exorcising the foul smells from the old theatre and making it bright and pretty and sweet” (Ballarat Star, “News and Notes” 26 Jan. 1874). The effort at rejuvenation seemed effective for a period. A “large and respectable audience” turned out to see the Fakir of Oolu, master of the weird, mystical, and strange. The magician’s show “was received with cheers from all parts of the house, and is certainly a very attractive novelty” (Ballarat Courier, “Theatre Royal” 29 Mar. 1875). That same day, the Combination Star Company gave a concert at the Mechanics Institute. Indicating the competitive tussle, the press stated: “The attendance, however, doubtless owing to attractions elsewhere, was only moderately large” (Courier, “Concert at the Mechanics’” 29 Mar. 1875). In the early 1870s, there had been calls from sectors of society for a new venue to be built in Ballarat, consistent with its status. The developer and proprietor, Sir William Clarke, intended to offer a “higher class” of entertainment for up to 1700 people, superior to the “broad farces” at the Royal (Freund n.p.) In 1875, the Academy of Music opened, at a cost of twelve thousand pounds, just one block away from the Royal.As the decade of decreasing population wore on, it is intriguing to consider an unprecedented “riotous” incident in 1877. Levity's Original Royal Marionettes opened at the Royal with ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to calamitous response. The Company Managers, Wittington & Lovell made clear that the performance had scarcely commenced when the “storm” arose and they believed “the assault to be premeditated” (Wittington and Lovell in Argus, “The Riot” 6 Apr. 1877). Paid thuggery, with the intent of spooking regular patrons, was the implication. They pointed out that “It is evident that the ringleaders of the riot came into the theatre ready armed with every variety of missiles calculated to get a good hit at the figures and scenery, and thereby create a disturbance.” The mob assaulted the stage with “head-breaking” lemonade bottles, causing costly damage, then chased the frightened puppeteers down Sturt Street (Mount Alexander Mail, “Items of News” 4 Apr. 1877). The following night’s performance, by contrast, was perfectly calm (Ballarat Star, “News and Notes” 7 Apr. 1877). Just three months later, Webb’s Royal Marionette pantomimes appeared at the Mechanics’ Institute. The press wrote “this is not to be confounded, with the exhibition which created something like a riot at the Theatre Royal last Easter” (Ballarat Star, “News and Notes” 5 July 1877).The final performance at the Royal was the American Rockerfellers’ Minstrel Company. The last newspaper references to the Royal were placed in the context of other “treats in store” at The Academy of Music, and forthcoming offerings at the Mechanics Institute (Star, “Advertising” 3 July 1878). The Royal had experienced three re-openings and a series of short-term managements, often ending in loss or even bankruptcy. When it wound up, investors were left to cover the losses, while the owner was forced to find more profitable uses for the building (Freund n.p.). At face value, it seemed that four performing arts venues was one too many for Ballarat audiences to support. By August 1878 the Royal’s two shop fronts were up for lease. Thereafter, the building was given over entirely to retail drapery sales (Withers 260). ReflectionsThe Royal was erected, at enormous expense, in a moment of unbridled optimism, after several popular theatres in Ballarat East had burned to the ground. Ultimately the timing for such a lavish investment was poor. It suffered an inflexible old-fashioned structure, high overheads, ongoing staffing costs, changing demographics, economic crisis, increased competition, decreased population, the growth of local community-based theatre, temperance agitation and the impact of negative rumour and hear-say.The struggles endured by the various owners and managers of, and investors in, the Royal reflected broader changes within the larger community. The tension between the fixed nature of the place and the fluid needs of the public was problematic. Shifting demographics meant the Royal was negatively affected by conservative values, altered tastes and competing entertainment options. Built in the 1850s, it was sound, but structurally rigid, dated and polluted with the bacterial irritations of the times. “Resident professional companies could not compete with those touring from Melbourne” by whom it was considered “… hard to use and did not satisfy the needs of touring companies who required facilities equivalent to those in the metropolitan theatres” (Freund n.p.). Meanwhile, the prevalence of fund-raising concerts, created by charitable groups and member based community organisations, detracted from people’s interest in supporting professional performances. After-all, amateur concerts enabled families to “embrace the values of British middle class morality” (Doggett 295) at a safe distance from grog shops and saloons. Children aged 5-14 constituted only ten percent of the Ballarat population in 1857, but by 1871 settler families had created a population in which school aged children comprised twenty-five of the whole (Bate 146). This had significant ramifications for the type of theatrical entertainments required. By the late sixties, as many as 2000 children would perform at a time, and therefore entrance fees were able to be kept at affordable levels for extended family members. Just one year after the demise of the Royal, a new secular improvement society became active, holding amateur events and expanding over time to become what we now know as the Royal South Street Society. This showed that the appetite for home-grown entertainment was indeed sizeable. It was a function that the Royal was unable to service, despite several ardent attempts. Conclusion The greatest misfortune of the Royal was that it became stigmatised, from the mid 1860s onwards. In an era when people were either attempting to be pure of manners or were considered socially undesirable, it was hard for a cultural venue to survive which occupied the commercial middle ground, as the Royal did. It is also conceivable that the Royal was ‘framed’, by one or two of its competitor venues, or their allies, just one year before its closure. The Theatre Royal’s negative stigma as a venue for rough and intemperate human remnants of early Ballarat East had proven insurmountable. The Royal’s awkward position between high-class entrepreneurial culture and wholesome family-based community values, both of which were considered tasteful, left it out-of-step with the times and vulnerable to the judgement of those with either vested interests or social commitments elsewhere. This had long-term resonance for the subsequent development of entertainment options within Ballarat, placing the pendulum of favour either on elite theatre or accessible community based entertainments. The cultural middle-ground was sparse. The eventual loss of the building, the physical place of so much dramatic energy and emotion, as fondly recalled by Withers (260), inevitably contributed to the Royal fading from intergenerational memory. The telling of the ‘real story’ behind the rise and fall of the Ballarat Theatre Royal requires further exploration. If contemporary cultural industries are genuinely concerned “with the re-presentation of the supposed history and culture of a place”, as Urry believed (154), then untold stories such as that of Ballarat’s Theatre Royal require scholarly attention. This article represents the first attempt to examine its troubled history in a holistic fashion and locate it within a context ripe for cultural analysis.ReferencesBate, Weston. Lucky City: The First Generation at Ballarat 1851–1901. Carlton South: Melbourne UP, 1978.Brereton, Roslyn. Entertainment and Recreation on the Victorian Goldfields in the 1850s. BA (Honours) Thesis. Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 1967.Borgmann, Albert. Crossing the Postmodern Divide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Briggs, Asa. Victorian Cities: Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Melbourne. London: Penguin, 1968.Doggett, Anne. “And for Harmony Most Ardently We Long”: Musical Life in Ballarat, 1851-187. PhD Thesis. Ballarat: Ballarat University, 2006.Freund, Peter. Her Maj: A History of Her Majesty's Theatre. Ballarat: Currency Press, 2007.Hazelwood, Jennifer. A Public Want and a Public Duty: The Role of the Mechanics Institute in the Cultural, Social and Educational Development of Ballarat from 1851 to 1880. PhD Thesis. Ballarat: University of Ballarat 2007.Jenkins, Lloyd. Another Five Ballarat Cameos. Ballarat: Lloyd Jenkins, 1989.McConachie, Bruce. Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to Spectating in the Theatre. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008.Reide, John, and John Chisholm. Ballarat Golden City: A Pictorial History. Bacchus Marsh: Joval Publications, 1989.Spielvogel, Nathan. Spielvogel Papers, Volume 1. 4th ed. Bakery Hill: Ballarat Historical Society, 2016.Spielvogel, Nathan. Spielvogel Papers, Volume 3. 4th ed. Bakery Hill: Ballarat Historical Society, 2016.Urry, John. Consuming Places. London: Routledge, 1995.Withers, William. History of Ballarat (1870) and some Ballarat Reminiscences (1895/96). Ballarat: Ballarat Heritage Services, 1999.NewspapersThe Age.The Argus (Melbourne).The Australasian.The Ballarat Courier.The Ballarat Star.Coolgardie Miner.The Malcolm Chronicle and Leonora Advertiser.Mount Alexander Mail.The Star (Ballarat).

Introduction Almost all industries in Australia today have adopted digital media in some way. However, uses in large scale activities such as mining may seem to be different from others. This article looks at mining practices with a media studies approach, and concludes that, just as many other industries, mining and media have converged. Many Australian mine sites are adopting new media for communication and control to manage communication, explore for ore bodies, simulate forces, automate drilling, keep records, and make transport and command robotic. Beyond sharing similar digital devices for communication and computation, new media in mining employ characteristic digital media operations, such as numerical operation, automation and managed variability. This article examines the implications of finding that some of the most material practices have become mediated by new media. Mining has become increasingly mediated through new media technologies similar to GPS, visualisation, game remote operation, similar to those adopted in consumer home and mobile digital media. The growing and diversified adoption of digital media championed by companies like Rio Tinto aims not only ‘improve’ mining, but to change it. Through remediating practices of digital mining, new media have become integral powerful tools in prospective, real time and analytical environments. This paper draws on two well-known case studies of mines in the Pilbara and Western NSW. These have been documented in press releases and media reports as representing changes in media and mining. First, the West Angelas mines in the Pilbara is an open cut iron ore mine introducing automation and remote operation. This mine is located in the remote Pilbara, and is notable for being operated remotely from a control centre 2000km away, near Perth Airport, WA. A growing fleet of Komatsu 930E haul trucks, which can drive autonomously, traverses the site. Fitted with radars, lasers and GPS, these enormous vehicles navigate through the open pit mine with no direct human control. Introducing these innovations to mine sites become more viable after iron ore mining became increasingly profitable in the mid-2000s. A boom in steel building in China drove unprecedented demand. This growing income coincided with a change in public rhetoric from companies like Rio Tinto. They pointed towards substantial investments in research, infrastructure, and accelerated introduction of new media technologies into mining practices. Rio Tinto trademarked the term ‘Mine of the future’ (US Federal News Service 1), and publicised their ambitious project for renewal of mining practice, including digital media. More recently, prices have been more volatile. The second case study site is a copper and gold underground mine at Northparkes in Western NSW. Northparkes uses substantial sensing and control, as well as hybrid autonomous and remote operated vehicles. The use of digital media begins with prospecting, and through to logistics of transportation. Engineers place explosives in optimal positions using computer modelling of the underground rock formations. They make heavy use of software to coordinate layer-by-layer use of explosives in this advanced ‘box cut’ mine. After explosives disrupt the rock layer a kilometre underground, another specialised vehicle collects and carries the ore to the surface. The Sandvik loader-hauler-dumper (LHD) can be driven conventionally by a driver, but it can also travel autonomously in and out of the mine without a direct operator. Once it reaches a collection point, where the broken up ore has accumulated, a user of the surface can change the media mode to telepresence. The human operator then takes control using something like a games controller and multiple screens. The remote operator controls the LHD to fill the scoop with ore. The fully-loaded LHD backs up, and returns autonomously using laser senses to follow a trail to the next drop off point. The LHD has become a powerful mediator, reconfiguring technical, material and social practices throughout the mine. The Meanings of Mining and Media Are Converging Until recently, mining and media typically operated ontologically separately. The media, such as newspapers and television, often tell stories about mining, following regular narrative scripts. There are controversies and conflicts, narratives of ecological crises, and the economics of national benefit. There are heroic and tragic stories such as the Beaconsfield mine collapse (Clark). There are new industry policies (Middelbeek), which are politically fraught because of the lobbying power of miners. Almost completely separately, workers in mines were consumers of media, from news to entertainment. These media practices, while important in their own right, tell nothing of the approaching changes in many other sectors of work and everyday life. It is somewhat unusual for a media studies scholar to study mine sites. Mine sites are most commonly studied by Engineering (Bellamy & Pravica), Business and labour and cultural histories (McDonald, Mayes & Pini). Until recently, media scholarship on mining has related to media institutions, such as newspapers, broadcasters and websites, and their audiences. As digital media have proliferated, the phenomena that can be considered as media phenomena has changed. This article, pointing to the growing roles of media technologies, observes the growing importance that media, in these terms, have in the rapidly changing domain of mining. Another meaning for ‘media’ studies, from cybernetics, is that a medium is any technology that translates perception, makes interpretations, and performs expressions. This meaning is more abstract, operating with a broader definition of media — not only those institutionalised as newspapers or radio stations. It is well known that computer-based media have become ubiquitous in culture. This is true in particular within the mining company’s higher ranks. Rio Tinto’s ambitious 2010 ‘Mine of the Future’ (Fisher & Schnittger, 2) program was premised on an awareness that engineers, middle managers and senior staff were already highly computer literate. It is worth remembering that such competency was relatively uncommon until the late 1980s. The meanings of digital media have been shifting for many years, as computers become experienced more as everyday personal artefacts, and less as remote information systems. Their value has always been held with some ambivalence. Zuboff’s (387-414) picture of loss, intimidation and resistance to new information technologies in the 1980s seems to have dissipated by 2011. More than simply being accepted begrudgingly, the PC platform (and variants) has become a ubiquitous platform, a lingua franca for information workers. It became an intimate companion for many professions, and in many homes. It was an inexpensive, versatile and generalised convergent medium for communication and control. And yet, writers such as Gregg observe, the flexibility of networked digital work imposes upon many workers ‘unlimited work’. The office boundaries of the office wall break down, for better or worse. Emails, utility and other work-related behaviours increasingly encroach onto domestic and public space and time. Its very attractiveness to users has tied them to these artefacts. The trail that leads the media studies discipline down the digital mine shaft has been cleared by recent work in media archaeology (Parikka), platform studies (Middelbeek; Montfort & Bogost; Maher) and new media (Manovich). Each of these redefined Media Studies practices addresses the need to diversify the field’s attention and methods. It must look at more specific, less conventional and more complex media formations. Mobile media and games (both computer-based) have turned out to be quite different from traditional media (Hjorth; Goggin). Kirschenbaum’s literary study of hard drives and digital fiction moves from materiality to aesthetics. In my study of digital mining, I present a reconfigured media studies, after the authors, that reveals heterogeneous media configurations, deserving new attention to materiality. This article also draws from the actor network theory approach and terminology (Latour). The uses of media / control / communications in the mining industry are very complex, and remain under constant development. Media such as robotics, computer modelling, remote operation and so on are bound together into complex practices. Each mine site is different — geologically, politically, and economically. Mines are subject to local and remote disasters. Mine tunnels and global prices can collapse, rendering active sites uneconomical overnight. Many technologies are still under development — including Northparkes and West Angelas. Both these sites are notable for their significant use of autonomous vehicles and remote operated vehicles. There is no doubt that the digital technologies modulate all manner of the mining processes: from rocks and mechanical devices to human actors. Each of these actors present different forms of collusion and opposition. Within a mining operation, the budgets for computerised and even robotic systems are relatively modest for their expected return. Deep in a mine, we can still see media convergence at work. Convergence refers to processes whereby previously diverse practices in media have taken on similar devices and techniques. While high-end PCs in mining, running simulators; control data systems; visualisation; telepresence, and so on may be high performance, ruggedised devices, they still share a common platform to the desktop PC. Conceptual resources developed in Media Ecology, New Media Studies, and the Digital Humanities can now inform readings of mining practices, even if their applications differ dramatically in size, reliability and cost. It is not entirely surprising that some observations by new media theorists about entertainment and media applications can also relate to features of mining technologies. Manovich argues that numerical representation is a distinctive feature of new media. Numbers have always already been key to mining engineering. However, computers visualise numerical fields in simulations that extend out of the minds of the calculators, and into visual and even haptic spaces. Specialists in geology, explosives, mechanical apparatuses, and so on, can use plaftorms that are common to everyday media. As the significance of numbers is extended by computers in the field, more and more diverse sources of data provide apparently consistent and seamless images of multiple fields of knowledge. Another feature that Manovich identifies in new media is the capacity for automation of media operations. Automation of many processes in mechanical domains clearly occurred long before industrial technologies were ported into new media. The difference with new media in mine sites is that robotic systems must vary their performance according to feedback from their extra-system environments. For our purposes, the haul trucks in WA are software-controlled devices that already qualify as robots. They sense, interpret and act in the world based on their surroundings. They evaluate multiple factors, including the sensors, GPS signals, operator instructions and so on. They can repeat the path, by sensing the differences, day after day, even if the weather changes, the track wears away or the instructions from base change. Automation compensates for differences within complex and changing environments. Automation of an open-pit mine haulage system… provides more consistent and efficient operation of mining equipment, it removes workers from potential danger, it reduces fuel consumption significantly reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and it can help optimize vehicle repairs and equipment replacement because of more-predictable and better-controlled maintenance. (Parreire and Meech 1-13) Material components in physical mines tend to become modular and variable, as their physical shape lines up with the logic of another of Manovich’s new media themes, variability. Automatic systems also make obsolete human drivers, who previously handled those environmental variations, for better or for worse, through the dangerous, dull and dirty spaces of the mine. Drivers’ capacity to control repeat trips is no longer needed. The Komatsu driverless truck, introduced to the WA iron ore mines from 2008, proved itself to be almost as quick as human drivers at many tasks. But the driverless trucks have deeper advantages: they can run 23 hours each day with no shift breaks; they drive more cautiously and wear the equipment less than human drivers. There is no need to put up workers and their families up in town. The benefit most often mentioned is safety: even the worst accident won’t produce injuries to drivers. The other advantage less mentioned is that autonomous trucks don’t strike. Meanwhile, managers of human labour also need to adopt certain strategies of modulation to support the needs and expectations of their workers. Mobile phones, televisions and radio are popular modes of connecting workers to their loved ones, particularly in the remote and harsh West Angelas site. One solution — regular fly-in-fly out shifts — tends also to be alienating for workers and locals (Cheshire; Storey; Tonts). As with any operations, the cost of maintaining a safe and comfortable environment for workers requires trade-offs. Companies face risks from mobile phones, leaking computer networks, and espionage that expose the site to security risks. Because of such risks, miners tend be subject to disciplinary regimes. It is common to test alcohol and drug levels. There was some resistance from workers, who refused to change to saliva testing from urine testing (Latimer). Contesting these machines places the medium, in a different sense, at the centre of regulation of the workers’ bodies. In Northparkes, the solution of hybrid autonomous and remote operation is also a solution for modulating labour. It is safer and more comfortable, while also being more efficient, as one experienced driver can control three trucks at a time. This more complex mode of mediation is necessary because underground mines are more complex in geology, and working environments to suit full autonomy. These variations provide different relationships between operators and machines. The operator uses a games controller, and watches four video views from the cabin to make the vehicle fill the bucket with ore (Northparkes Mines, 9). Again, media have become a pivotal element in the mining assemblage. This combines the safety and comfort of autonomous operation (helping to retain staff) with the required use of human sensorimotor dexterity. Mine systems deserve attention from media studies because sites are combining large scale physical complexity with increasingly sophisticated computing. The conventional pictures of mining and media rarely address the specificity of subjective and artefactual encounters in and around mine sites. Any research on mining communication is typically within the instrumental frames of engineering (Duff et al.). Some of the developments in mechanical systems have contributed to efficiency and safety of many mines: larger trucks, more rock crushers, and so on. However, the single most powerful influence on mining has been adopting digital media to control, integrate and mining systems. Rio Tinto’s transformative agenda document is outlined in its high profile ‘Mine of the Future’ agenda (US Federal News Service). The media to which I refer are not only those in popular culture, but also those with digital control and communications systems used internally within mines and supply chains. The global mining industry began adopting digital communication automation (somewhat) systematically only in the 1980s. Mining companies hesitated to adopt digital media because the fundamentals of mining are so risky and bound to standard procedures. Large scale material operations, extracting and processing minerals from under the ground: hardly to be an appropriate space for delicate digital electronics. Mining is also exposed to volatile economic conditions, so investing in anything major can be unattractive. High technology perhaps contradicts an industry ethos of risk-taking and masculinity. Digital media became domesticated, and familiar to a new generation of formally educated engineers for whom databases and algorithms (Manovich) were second nature. Digital systems become simultaneously controllers of objects, and mediators of meanings and relationships. They control movements, and express communications. Computers slide from using meanings to invoking direct actions over objects in the world. Even on an everyday scale, computer operations often control physical processes. Anti-lock Braking Systems regulate a vehicle’s braking pressure to avoid the danger when wheels lock-up. Or another example, is the ATM, which involves both symbolic interactions, and also exchange of physical objects. These operations are examples of the ‘asignifying semiotic’ (Guattari), in which meanings and non-meanings interact. There is no operation essential distinction between media- and non-media digital operations. Which are symbolic, attached or non-consequential is not clear. This trend towards using computation for both meanings and actions has accelerated since 2000. Mines of the Future Beyond a relatively standard set of office and communications software, many fields, including mining, have adopted specialised packages for their domains. In 3D design, it is AutoCAD. In hard sciences, it is custom modelling. In audiovisual production, it may be Apple and Adobe products. Some platforms define their subjectivity, professional identity and practices around these platforms. This platform orientation is apparent in areas of mining, so that applications such as the Gemcom, Rockware, Geological Database and Resource Estimation Modelling from Micromine; geology/mine design software from Runge, Minemap; and mine production data management software from Corvus. However, software is only a small proportion of overall costs in the industry. Agents in mining demand solutions to peculiar problems and requirements. They are bound by their enormous scale; physical risks of environments, explosive and moving elements; need to negotiate constant change, as mining literally takes the ground from under itself; the need to incorporate geological patterns; and the importance of logistics. When digital media are the solution, there can be what is perceived as rapid gains, including greater capacities for surveillance and control. Digital media do not provide more force. Instead, they modulate the direction, speed and timing of activities. It is not a complete solution, because too many uncontrolled elements are at play. Instead, there are moment and situations when the degree of control refigures the work that can be done. Conclusions In this article I have proposed a new conception of media change, by reading digital innovations in mining practices themselves as media changes. This involved developing an initial reading of the operations of mining as digital media. With this approach, the array of media components extends far beyond the conventional ‘mass media’ of newspapers and television. It offers a more molecular media environment which is increasingly heterogeneous. It sometimes involves materiality on a huge scale, and is sometimes apparently virtual. The mining media event can be a semiotic, a signal, a material entity and so on. It can be a command to a human. It can be a measurement of location, a rock formation, a pressure or an explosion. The mining media event, as discussed above, is subject to Manovich’s principles of media, being numerical, variable and automated. In the mining media event, these principles move from the aesthetic to the instrumental and physical domains of the mine site. The role of new media operates at many levels — from the bottom of the mine site to the cruising altitude of the fly-in-fly out aeroplanes — has motivated significant changes in the Australian industry. When digital media and robotics come into play, they do not so much introduce change, but reintroduce similarity. This inversion of media is less about meaning, and more about local mastery. Media modulation extends the kinds of influence that can be exerted by the actors in control. In these situations, the degrees of control, and of resistance, are yet to be seen. Acknowledgments Thanks to Mining IQ for a researcher's pass at Mining Automation and Communication Conference, Perth in August 2012. References Bellamy, D., and L. 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