An attractive landscape is one of the main features which distinguish the business parks of the 1980s from the trading estates of the 1940s. Indeed it is arguable that location…
Abstract
An attractive landscape is one of the main features which distinguish the business parks of the 1980s from the trading estates of the 1940s. Indeed it is arguable that location, landscape and effective site security/management are the three main selling points in a successful business park. Certainly private sector developers have in the last five or six years been placing an increasing emphasis on landscape architecture as a way of improving the appearance and facilities of their developments. Landscape is featured in marketing brochures, it aids letting and it ought to enhance property values.
Enjoyment in employment is an essential ingredient of creativegrowth, innovative development and happy enterprise. This concept– Laughter Theory – is based on four key principles…
Abstract
Enjoyment in employment is an essential ingredient of creative growth, innovative development and happy enterprise. This concept – Laughter Theory – is based on four key principles – Human resources, humour resources: Work is a glorious “GO” – Goldmine Opportunity; Work is a form of play; Happy people produce happy results.
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This chapter examines US Africa Policy under Obama with a particular focus on the Southern African region. The author examines American policy from a historical perspective to…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter examines US Africa Policy under Obama with a particular focus on the Southern African region. The author examines American policy from a historical perspective to give credence to his view that while certain changes have occurred in American global and Africa Policy in particular, it is the issues that have changed, and the drivers of that policy change but the fundamental basis of the American policy has not changed much. American policy has remained anchored on global hegemony driven by the increasingly frayed Washington consensus as expressed initially in its Cold War rhetoric and stance against the former USSR and its perceived allies and now against terrorism.
Methodology
This work examines the existing literature on Southern African history and politics written by scholars and observers including regional heads of state like Nyerere of Tanzania and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia. This study also draws from the author’s knowledge and experiences as a citizen and observer over the years of the many facets of vicissitudes of regional politics and is interface with international foreign policy pressures and interests. This work thus, draws from the literature on and about regional politics and international relations over the years coupled by the author’s personal experiences.
Findings
This chapter makes clear link between Cold War politics and current American foreign policy on African and the Southern African region in particular. In fact the US anti-terrorism rhetoric has remained consistent during and after the Cold War. During the Cold War, liberation movements in Southern Africa fighting to end colonial rule and racist apartheid regime were declared terrorist movements and hence the subject of US hostility especially given these movements’ support for arms and materials from the USSR and China. USSR was manufactured as the organizer of international terrorism. Proxy wars were waged to deal with these movements and their supporters such as the war in Angola where the United States supported dubious and questionable characters like Jonas Savimbi of the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA) and Holden Robert of the Front for the National Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and Zairian dictator, Mobutu SeseSeko. While FNLA was widely accepted as a CIA outfit, Mobutu was imposed by US intelligence support (CIA) against a popular leader, Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated shortly after independence.
At the end of the Cold War a new form of terrorism manifested itself in the form of Muslim Jihadists who on the continent were seen to emerge in East Africa and the Horn of Africa and the American fascination has been to ensure that this terrorism does not afflict the rest of the continent and the Southern African region in particular. Support to African governments has shifted from the initial years of confused neglect complimented with ambivalent engagement and finally, to humanitarianism. This has taken the form of the support to Africa to fight HIV and AIDS so as to harvest a favourable ground among African governments. This was seen as helping to ensconce American support in the region and weaken the ground for the Al Qaeda intrusion, real or imagined. It was also hoped that this might help counter growing Chinese influence. It is not entirely surprising too that the economic and strategic focus has been to sustain a declining hegemonic position especially in a region where Chinese investments and influence have outstripped American and Western influence.
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Robert Haveman, Karen Holden, Barbara Wolfe, Paul Smith and Kathryn Wilson
In this paper, we provide an assessment of the intertemporal economic well-being of a representative sample of females who became new Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI…
Abstract
In this paper, we provide an assessment of the intertemporal economic well-being of a representative sample of females who became new Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries in 1982. We compare their economic circumstances over the 1982 to 1991 period with those of both disabled men who became new SSDI beneficiaries in 1982, and a matched sample of nondisabled females who had sufficient work experience for benefit eligibility should they have become disabled. In 1982, the new SSDI women beneficiaries were a relatively poor segment of U.S. society. One quarter of them lived in poverty, and 48 percent had incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line. Over the subsequent decade, some of those married in 1982 lost husbands and the income contributed by their husbands. Yet, as of 1991, over one half of these disabled women lived in families with income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Social Security benefits to disabled women have played an important, and growing, role in sustaining economic status. Nevertheless, the level of well-being of these women lies substantially below that of the comparison groups, and for some groups of the women, well-being trends were negative both absolutely and relative to the comparison groups. We statistically relate the poverty status of these new female recipients to sociodemographic factors that would be expected to contribute to low well-being, and simulate the effect of Social Security benefits in reducing poverty and replacing earnings. We suggest a number of SSDI-related policy changes that could, at low cost, reduce poverty among those women with the highest incidence rates.
Robert D. Handscombe, Elena Rodriguez‐Falcon and Eann A. Patterson
This paper aims to focus on the attempts to implement the challenges of teaching enterprise to science and engineering students by the embedding approach chosen by the White Rose…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on the attempts to implement the challenges of teaching enterprise to science and engineering students by the embedding approach chosen by the White Rose Centre for Enterprise (WRCE), one of the centres formed under the Science Engineering Challenge in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
WRCE's objective was to have departmental science and engineering staff teach enterprise modules as part of their overall departmental teaching and to have such modules integrated into the course provision. The WRCE approach emphasized the value of giving students some real life or simulated “real” experience and of developing a strand or track of enterprise through the years of the course.
Findings
The general propositions of WRCE are reviewed in the light of the outcomes in a number of departments, but most specifically within the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Sheffield, which would claim to be one of the most successful departmental interventions of WRCE. Whilst good examples of embedded modules exist, the successful results in Mechanical Engineering appear to depend on the appointment of non‐traditional staff, the integration of enterprise in a track broader than enterprise and leadership of that track that has the confidence and resource to deliver its agenda in part using external rather than internal teaching.
Originality/value
The embedding of enterprise learning into an engineering curriculum and a mechanical engineering degree program in particular, is discussed from the perspective of the programme leadership, the sponsoring body and the implementing instructor.
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[In view of the approaching Conference of the Library Association at Perth, the following note on the Leighton Library may not be inopportune. Dunblane is within an hour's railway…
Abstract
[In view of the approaching Conference of the Library Association at Perth, the following note on the Leighton Library may not be inopportune. Dunblane is within an hour's railway journey from Perth and has a magnificent cathedral, founded in the twelfth century, which is well worthy of a visit.]
After briefly covering Bill Freudenburg’s early years, this essay reviews his major scholarly contributions and professional accomplishments while a faculty member at Washington…
Abstract
After briefly covering Bill Freudenburg’s early years, this essay reviews his major scholarly contributions and professional accomplishments while a faculty member at Washington State University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California-Santa Barbara. Bill’s unique strengths – especially his keen sociological imagination – and crucial conceptual, theoretical and empirical contributions are highlighted, as well as his commitment to providing valuable mentoring for students and colleagues. The enduring importance of his work is ensured by the continuing application and extension of his ideas by other scholars.