Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of recent guidance from the FSA and industry, and recent case law regarding product providers and distributors

Explains current status of the guidance; provides overview of the guidance and its two component parts directed at “product providers” and “distributors”; discusses international dimensions; explains compliance implications; describes parallel trade association principles published in a July 2007 paper entitled Retail Structured Products: Principles for Managing the Provider‐Distributor Relationship; and summarizes three recent English judicial decisions relevant to the responsibilities and duties of providers and distributors.

The responsibilities of providers and distributors regarding retail structured products are being defined by an interaction of regulatory, common law, and soft law provisions. Just as the FSA's exercise of its regulatory powers is increasingly based less on detailed rules and more on general principles, so the judges' decision making is based less on doctrinal detail and more on a pragmatic assessment of the relevant facts as a whole.

Regarding retail products, the best approach for providers and distributors is to focus not only on detailed rules and contractual provisions but also on the factual detail of the arrangements, and whether the outcomes are fair to investors and meet their reasonable expectations as created by the firm.

Expert analysis provided by leading lawyers specialized in financial institutions.

While the use of the pragmatic sociology of critique has enjoyed increasing academic popularity, the relationship between justification and broader power relations remains unclear. Recent attention to the concept of ‘domination’ suggests the need for a greater focus on how employed public goods reinforce prevailing social arrangements. In this article we explore the public debate over the expansion of hydraulic fracturing of shale gas (so-called ‘fracking’) in the United Kingdom (UK). This technology has generated significant debate and controversy. Through a detailed examination of public inquiries into the technology we explore how different actors employ discursive strategies to justify their claims for the expansion or rejection of fracking. Through this analysis, the article identifies how some of these justifications enjoy precedence over others within the prevailing neoliberal political regime. By explaining how such a political regime is constituted, our study contributes to better understanding how different justifications support hegemonic political ideologies.

Educational institutions are caught between increasing their offer rates and attracting and retaining those prospective students who are most suited to course completion. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the influence of demographic and psychological constructs on students’ preferences when choosing to study in a particular faculty through the application and testing of a student choice logit model based on data collected from a survey of existing students.

Logistic regression techniques were used to estimate the probability of undergraduate prospective students’ choices with reference to a set of variables that allows for the prediction and classification of students (n=304) at an Australian university. Using the estimated coefficients of both student characteristics and psychological variables, probability outputs were constructed to compute the faculty membership for student groups. Outputs were also illustrated via a set of simulation analyses.

The results of the student choice logit model are highly significant suggesting demographic, socioeconomic and psychological variables play a role in the prediction of faculty membership of undergraduate students.

These findings have implications for researchers, educational policy makers and career planners. The study also suggests that these policies should take into account the complexities of multi-attribute influences on students’ decision-making choices.

This research offers an innovative marketing use of logistics regression techniques with application of the student choice logit model through predicting the likelihood of faculty membership in an education context.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically document, scrutinise and critically analyse the current research literature on higher education choice to: establish the scope of the studies; map the factors associated with choice; identify the key strengths and weaknesses in the research literature; critically analyse the extant research and make recommendations for further research in this field.

The authors conducted extensive searches of relevant and education and management databases. The search is limited to publications between 1992 and 2013 and is intended to cover national and international research. The review is based on 75 papers which focus on institutional choice, assembled on an Excel database (45 surveys, 13 secondary data studies, one experimental study, two longitudinal studies, 11 qualitative studies and three studies that use both qualitative and quantitative techniques).

Results are presented under thematic headings which emerged from the analysis: first, demographics and academic factors; second, factors which relate to the institution: quality, outcomes and benefits, facilities, and characteristics of institutions. Finally factors which affect both the institution and the students: price and price sensitivity, information and information sources, and travel and geographical factors are considered.

Comprehensive analysis of prior research in the field of institutional choice is long overdue. Theoretical models for future research are presented as a result of the findings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a University's at risk program and ask is the intervention strategy working? The program seeks to assist at risk students who may be experiencing difficulties transitioning, for example from school into university. The program also seeks to identify problems and suggest remediation strategies before attrition.

The effectiveness of the at risk programs is investigated across a population of at risk students from 2006 to 2010. Effectiveness is judged on the basis of outcomes in subsequent semesters where the University's preferred outcome is these students are not identified as at risk again.

The authors have found that the program has some success in assisting students to improve their academic performance; though simply engaging in the process is not enough to ensure improvement. Other variables are at work. At risk students located in Melbourne appear to be far more likely to be at risk again than those in Singapore.

The at risk program is intended to be part of the University's total system of pastoral care. As such it is designed to assist struggling students to successfully complete their studies. With this in mind, this paper has investigated the influence of student engagement in the at risk program on future academic performance.

This research assists Universities’ implementation of pastoral care programs and notes the roles of student characteristics in “success” at University.

To the authors’ understanding no other research of this kind has been conducted. Much of the previous research focuses on attrition, students already lost to a program. This research focuses on those not yet lost to a program, but at risk.

Myths matter. They are one of the ways by which we seek to make sense of the world; understanding myths helps us understand not only the world around us but ourselves as well. Governance myths – myths that we tell about the state and our relationship to it or about the structures and figures making up our government and our relationships to them – can serve as a valuable means of gaining insight into civil society and for illuminating the goals and values of good governance. Categorizing governance myths can aid in that process. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper develops a typology of governance myths, and then explores mythic types and their implications for governance.

A typology of myths facilitates systematic examination of fundamental stories told to explain and illustrate governance. Characteristics of myths at each level of governance may be used to better understand implicit expectations and assumptions about particular aspects of governance.

This typology can be used by scholars and practitioners to deconstruct stories told about governance and more effectively respond to citizens’ perceptions of the public sector.

Acrylamide is a compound found in several food products. Due to the toxicity of this compound, research also seeks strategies to modify industrial and homemade processes, impacting on the reduction of the compound. This paper aims to discuss the aspects surrounding the presence of acrylamide in foods.

Published literature on the presence of acrylamide in foods and on its effects has been reviewed. This paper explores the importance of this compound, summarizes the knowledge of its formation and gathers data on its incidence in food and the possibilities of mitigation. Special attention is given to an evaluation of the toxicological tests applied, to analyze whether acrylamide can be considered as a food safety problem.

Human exposure to food with high levels of acrylamide varies in their levels regarding the consumption of food in the diet and not only by the level of the compound present in them. Although the compound is well defined as toxic to humans, the association between its intake and most common cancers may not be directly related.

Depending on the approach of the researchers, contradictory results are obtained, showing the importance of this topic to the development of healthy food products. Further research is still needed to validate the potential effects of acrylamide on human health.