Migration, Ethnicity and Workforce Segmentation in the Asia-Pacific. Globalisation has produced new polarised patterns in working populations, including ethnically segmented labour. The related dynamics of work, ethnicity and labour segmentation have very significant long-term consequences. Systematic studies are available for advanced economies, but are far less developed for newly industrialised countries. This program investigates these changes in major Asia-Pacific urban-industrial centres. ....Migration, Ethnicity and Workforce Segmentation in the Asia-Pacific. Globalisation has produced new polarised patterns in working populations, including ethnically segmented labour. The related dynamics of work, ethnicity and labour segmentation have very significant long-term consequences. Systematic studies are available for advanced economies, but are far less developed for newly industrialised countries. This program investigates these changes in major Asia-Pacific urban-industrial centres. Innovative analyses from large-scale datasets and from strategic localised case studies will meet this shortfall in knowledge. They will also connect with more extensive ongoing studies of social transformations. Research outcomes and theoretical re-assessments will be presented in two workshops, and published in refereed journals and a book.Read moreRead less
Sustaining older workers' competence: Informing policy and practice. Maintaining the effective working life of older Australian workers is central for sustaining the economic and social health of the nation and for their workplace efficacy and sense of self as productive members of the community. This project will identify and recommend practices and policies for both Australian workplaces and educational institutions to sustain and develop further the skills of Australia's growing number of ol ....Sustaining older workers' competence: Informing policy and practice. Maintaining the effective working life of older Australian workers is central for sustaining the economic and social health of the nation and for their workplace efficacy and sense of self as productive members of the community. This project will identify and recommend practices and policies for both Australian workplaces and educational institutions to sustain and develop further the skills of Australia's growing number of older workers and effectively manage their work transitions. These outcomes will also be used to inform processes and practices to develop the capacities of older Australians in maintaining personally and economically productive working lives.Read moreRead less
A unified theory of performance in absolute identification tasks. The ability to identify stimuli is fundamentally important in human cognition and is studied in absolute identification tasks, where people must identify one out of a number of stimuli, varying on a single dimension, with an appropriate label. A remarkable finding is that people cannot reliably identify more than about seven different stimuli. This limit imposes severe practical restrictions on our ability to categorise stimuli an ....A unified theory of performance in absolute identification tasks. The ability to identify stimuli is fundamentally important in human cognition and is studied in absolute identification tasks, where people must identify one out of a number of stimuli, varying on a single dimension, with an appropriate label. A remarkable finding is that people cannot reliably identify more than about seven different stimuli. This limit imposes severe practical restrictions on our ability to categorise stimuli and constitutes a perplexing problem for cognitive theory. This project involves an international collaborative effort by five leading researchers in mathematical psychology to develop a comprehensive, integrative model of human performance in absolute identification tasks.
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Response style heterogeneity in empirical marketing research. This study aims to improve the validity of empirical studies by accounting for different ways in which respondents answer questionnaires (response styles) while analysing the data. Response styles have been shown to depend on the cultural background of respondents. This work therefore is of particular importance in Australia given the large number of cultural backgrounds residents come from. The proposed method will be empirically tes ....Response style heterogeneity in empirical marketing research. This study aims to improve the validity of empirical studies by accounting for different ways in which respondents answer questionnaires (response styles) while analysing the data. Response styles have been shown to depend on the cultural background of respondents. This work therefore is of particular importance in Australia given the large number of cultural backgrounds residents come from. The proposed method will be empirically tested in the context of surveys investigating sustainable tourism, public acceptance of alternative water sources and volunteering, three areas which are central to maintaining Australia's environmental sustainability and providing social and environmental services which are not covered by the commercial sector.Read moreRead less
Social Capital and Sustainable Development: An International Study. A collaborative international study of social capital and sustainability in local communities will address the following objectives: 1. to characterize the properties of networks that generate social capital and of network formation; and 2. to analyze the mechanisms by which social capital contributes to sustainable development. The project will involve intensive comparative case studies of five communities, three in Canada and ....Social Capital and Sustainable Development: An International Study. A collaborative international study of social capital and sustainability in local communities will address the following objectives: 1. to characterize the properties of networks that generate social capital and of network formation; and 2. to analyze the mechanisms by which social capital contributes to sustainable development. The project will involve intensive comparative case studies of five communities, three in Canada and two in Australia. Within each case community, an intensive qualitative and quantitative analysis will be conducted of the theorized mechanisms for the development of social capital and its mobilization for reconciliation of the ecological, economic and social imperatives required for sustainable development.
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Negotiation Support Systems for Groundwater Managment in Small Islands. Expanding populations and limited land area in small islands are increasing the pressures on fresh groundwater resources. The dilemma is how to protect shallow groundwater reserves without alienating traditional landowners and without generating costly conflicts. The problem is complex and involves the interaction of hydrologic and technical factors with socio-cultural, economic, policy and institutional factors. Multi Agent ....Negotiation Support Systems for Groundwater Managment in Small Islands. Expanding populations and limited land area in small islands are increasing the pressures on fresh groundwater resources. The dilemma is how to protect shallow groundwater reserves without alienating traditional landowners and without generating costly conflicts. The problem is complex and involves the interaction of hydrologic and technical factors with socio-cultural, economic, policy and institutional factors. Multi Agent Systems (MAS) have been developed to study the interaction between societies and the environment. Here we will use MAS to develop Negotiation Support Systems for groundwater management in small islands.Read moreRead less