Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Perhaps the key question of debate among neorealist scholars of international political economy concerns the manner in which cooperation may or may not be secured in the global economic order "after hegemony," a question posed by Robert Keohane. A second broad question of interest to scholars of international politics concerns the manner in which weaker states attempt to influence stronger ones. A conflation of these two questions could cause scholars and practitioners alike to pay closer attention than they have in the past to coalitions of the weak as vehicles for cooperation and regime building in the global political economy. This article offers a case study of one recent exercise in coalition building as an attempt to foster cooperation in a "nonhegemonic" environment. Specifically, it examines the role of the Cairns Group of Fair Trading Nations in its attempts to foster reform in global agricultural trade within the current Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. The Cairns Group is shown to be an atypical, single-issue driven, transregional coalition. Led by Australia, the Group's actions represent an interesting exercise in "middle power" politics in a global economic order whose decisionmaking processes are increasingly more fragmented and complex and whose major actors need coaxing toward processes of cooperative economic management.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Within the field of evidence-based practice, policy makers, health care professionals and consumers require timely reviews to inform decisions on efficacious health care and treatments. Rapid evidence assessment (REA), also known as rapid review, has emerged in recent years as a literature review methodology that fulfils this need. It highlights what is known in a clinical area to the target audience in a relatively short time frame. METHODS: This article discusses the lack of transparency and limited critical appraisal that can occur in REA, and goes on to propose general principles for conducting a REA. The approach that we describe is consistent with the principles underlying systematic review methodology, but also makes allowances for the rapid delivery of information as required while utilizing explicit and reproducible methods at each stage. RESULTS: Our method for conducting REA includes: developing an explicit research question in consultation with the end-users; clear definition of the components of the research question; development of a thorough and reproducible search strategy; development of explicit evidence selection criteria; and quality assessments and transparent decisions about the level of information to be obtained from each study. In addition, the REA may also include an assessment of the quality of the total body of evidence. CONCLUSIONS: Transparent reporting of REA methodologies will provide greater clarity to end-users about how the information is obtained and about the trade-offs that are made between speed and rigour.

As Iran continues its apparent pursuit of a nuclear weapons breakout capability and North Korea resists efforts to roll back its proliferation, policy makers in Washington eager to prevent further proliferation in both regions regard security guarantees to allies as crucial tools. But recent scholarship calls into question whether security guarantees ameliorate proliferation risks. Relying on a combination of large- N quantitative analysis and a case study of South Korea from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, this article argues that, consistent with policy makers’ conventional wisdom, security guarantees significantly reduce proliferation proclivity among their recipients.

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse the causality between exports and GDP of Namibia and to evaluate the relationship of these variables for the period 1970 to 2005. Time‐series econometric techniques (Granger causality and cointegration) are applied to test the hypothesis of a growth strategy led by exports. It tests whether export Granger causes GDP, or whether the causality runs from GDP to exports, or if there is bi‐directional causality between exports and GDP. The results revealed that exports Granger cause GDP and GDP per capita. This suggests that the export‐led growth strategy through various incentives has a positive influence on growth.

This report summarises Australian passive surveillance data for adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration for 2007, and describes reporting trends over the 8-year period 2000 to 2007. There were 1,538 AEFI records for vaccines administered in 2007. This is an annual AEFI reporting rate of 7.3 per 100,000 population, the highest since 2003 and an 85% increase compared with 2006 (835 AEFI records; 4.0 records per 100,000 population). The increase was almost entirely due to reports following the commencement of the national 3-dose human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine program for females aged 12 to 26 years in April 2007 (n = 705 reports) and the national infant rotavirus vaccine program in July 2007 (n = 72 reports). AEFI reporting rates in 2007 were 2.3 per 100,000 administered doses of influenza vaccine for adults aged > or = 18 years, 18.6 per 100,000 administered doses of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine for those aged > or = 65 years and 12.7 per 100,000 administered doses of scheduled vaccines for children aged < 7 years. The majority of the 1,538 AEFI reports for 2007 described non-serious events while 9% (n = 141) were classified as serious. Two deaths temporally associated with immunisation were reported; there was no evidence to suggest a causal association. The most significant AEFI reported following HPV vaccine were anaphylaxis (n = 11) and convulsion (n = 18), mostly associated with syncope. The most commonly reported reactions were allergic reaction, injection site reaction, headache and nausea. The data confirm that, despite the low rate of AEFI reporting in Australia, the passive surveillance system is sufficiently robust to detect safety signals which are expected following changes in the immunisation program, allowing these to be investigated further.

Abstract A new nationalist mood is visible in I ndonesia, expressed in increasingly bellicose rejection of alleged foreign interference in I ndonesia's affairs and in demands for greater international recognition of I ndonesia's power and status. This new mood has been visible for several years, but became particularly marked during the 2014 presidential election and under the new J oko W idodo administration. This article analyses I ndonesia's new nationalism, especially as manifested in economic, cultural and territorial spheres, noting both continuities with past episodes, and novel features. A chief novelty is contemporary nationalism's markedly non‐ideological and non‐intellectual form; continuity is visible in its discursive style, with many contemporary nationalists anachronistically reproducing tropes rooted in earlier periods. The article concludes by identifying forces driving the contemporary resurgence of nationalism, notably the effects of democratisation as well as deeper feelings of insecurity about I ndonesia's achievements.

(1994). Ideas, identity and policy coordination in the Asia‐Pacific. The Pacific Review: Vol. 7, Ideas, Policy Networks and International Policy Coordination in the Asia‐Pacific, pp. 367-379.

Demersal reef fishes of the Indo-Pacific are under increasing pressure as a fisheries resource, yet many of the important life history characteristics required for suitable management are poorly known. The three fish species, eightbar grouper (Hyporthodus octofasciatus), ruby snapper (Etelis carbunculus) and the spangled emperor (Lethrinus nebulosus), are important components of fisheries and ecosystems throughout the Indo-Pacific. Despite their importance, age and growth information is incomplete. Age has been estimated for E. carbunculus and L. nebulosus, but validated age beyond the first few years is lacking and for H. octofasciatus no age estimates exist. Bomb radiocarbon dating can provide age estimates that are independent of growth-zone counting, but only if appropriate reference Δ14C chronologies exist. In this study, a series of Δ14C records from hermatypic corals was assembled to provide a basis for bomb radiocarbon dating in the western Indo-Pacific region. Results provided (1) valid age estimates for comparison to age estimates from two facilities investigating growth-zones in otolith thin sections; (2) support for age estimation protocols using otolith thin sections; and (3) the information necessary for further refinement of age estimation procedures. Estimates of longevity from bomb radiocarbon dating agree with some prior studies: H. octofasciatus, E. carbunculus and L. nebulosus all being long-lived species with life spans of at least 43, 35 and 28 years respectively.

"One consequence of economic reform in China has been the greatly accelerated migration of labour from rural areas to cities. Estimates suggest an annual migrant labour flow of around 50-60 million people, of whom 10-15 million have settled permanently in cities. This article surveys the information that has become available from a number of population and labour surveys. It covers the volume, spatial and temporal dimension of rural-to-urban migration, the characteristics of migrant labourers, the determinants of migration and the impact of migration on China's rural and urban economy."

BACKGROUND: Family-integrated care (FICare) is an innovative model of care developed at Mount Sinai Hospital, Canada, to better integrate parents into the team caring for their infant in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The effects of FICare on neonatal outcomes and parental anxiety were assessed in an international multicenter randomized trial. As an Australian regional level 3 NICU that was randomized to the intervention group, we aimed to explore parent and staff perceptions of the FICare program in our dual occupancy NICU. SUBJECTS AND DESIGN: This qualitative study took place in a level 3 NICU with 5 parent participants and 8 staff participants, using a post implementation review design. METHODS: Parents and staff perceptions of FICare were explored through focus group methodology. Thematic content analysis was done on focus group transcripts. RESULTS: Parents and staff perceived the FICare program to have had a positive impact on parental confidence and role attainment and thought that FICare improved parent-to-parent and parent-to-staff communication. Staff reported that nurses working with families in the program performed less hands-on care and spent more time educating and supporting parents. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: FICare may change current NICU practice through integrating and accepting parents as active members of the infant's care team. In addition, nurse's roles may transition from bedside carer to care coordinator, educating and supporting parents during their journey through the NICU. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH: Further research is needed to assess the long-term impact of FICare on neonates, parents, and staff.

This book examines gender, state and social power in Indonesia, focusing in particular on state regulation of divorce from 1965 to 2005 and its impact on women. Indonesia experienced high divorce rates in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by a remarkable decline. Already falling divorce rates were reinforced by the 1974 Marriage Law, which for the first time regulated marriage for both Muslim and non-Muslim Indonesians and restricted access to divorce. This law defined the roles of men and women in Indonesian society, vesting household leadership with husbands and the management of the household with wives. Drawing on a wide selection of primary sources, including court records, legal codes, newspaper reports, fiction, interviews and case studies, this book provides a detailed historical account of this period of important social change, exploring fully the impact and operation of state regulation of divorce, including the New Order government’s aims in enacting this legal framework, its effects in practice and how it was utilised by citizens (both men and women) to advance their own agendas. It argues that the Marriage Law was a tool of social control enacted by the New Order government in response to the social upheaval and protests experienced in the mid 1970s. However, it also shows that state power was not hegemonic: it was both contested and co-opted by citizens, with men and women enjoying different degrees of autonomy from the state. This book explores all of these issues, providing important insights on the nature of the New Order regime, social power and gender relations, both during the years of its rule and since its collapse.

This study reports on the results of a survey of 300 state‐owned, collective and foreign‐funded industrial enterprises conducted in three of China's coastal provinces; Guangdong, Fujian and Shanghai‐shi in 1993.’ Its major focus and policy relevance is to identify which of China's recent enterprise, market and ownership reforms have been most effective in improving the productivity performance of China's state owned enterprises. The study concludes that productivity growth (measured by total factor productivity) has been significantly higher for non‐state‐owned than for state‐owned enterprises and for firms located in the special economic zones of Shenzhen and Xiamen and the open city of Guangzhou than for firms in the more centrally planned Shanghai. Export‐orientated enterprises also had higher total factor productivity growth than non‐export‐orientated ones. At a lower level of significance, enterprises that controlled their own decision‐making produced a lower proportion of output for the plan, procured a higher proportion of their investment finance from loans (rather than budgetary allocations) and achieved higher total factor productivity growth. Finally, labour‐intensive industries in general had higher total factor productivity growth than did capital‐intensive ones. A number of policy conclusions may be drawn from these results.

Models of athlete decisions to use performance‐enhancing substance and method (PESM) lack an empirical base. In this paper, the validity of the content (variables thought to influence use) and process (how the variables come together) of these models is assessed. Reporting the second qualitative stage of a broader choice modelling study, n = 20 interviews (conducted from August 2007 to January 2008) and three follow‐up focus groups (n = 29; June 2008) with athletes, coaches, sports nutritionists, physiotherapists, sports administrators and sports scientists were used to generate a grounded model of athlete PESM use. Ten factors, organised around four themes, emerged (objective of PESM use, about the PESM, the deterrence system and consequences if prosecuted). The model suggested by these factors provides confidence in terms of what variables influence athlete PESM use (content), although questions remain as to whether rationality reflects how the behaviour manifests. This latter point remains to be tested in the third quantitative stage of this research programme.

Research into how virtual reality (VR) can be a beneficial technology for new and emerging large, complex data visualizations for data scientists is ongoing. In this paper, we evaluate three-dimensional VR navigation technique for data visualizations and test their effectiveness with a large graph visualization. We evaluate two prominent navigation techniques employed in VR (Teleportation and One-Handed Flying) against two less common methods (Two-Handed Flying and Worlds In Miniature) and evaluate their performance and effectiveness through a series of tasks. We found Steering Patterns (One-Handed Flying and Two-Handed Flying) to be faster and preferred by participants for completing searching tasks in comparision to Teleportation. Worlds-In-Miniature was the least physically demanding of the navigations, and was preferred by participants for tasks that required an overview of the graph such as triangle counting.

This article examines the role that place naming has played in the rescaling of the Pacific waters along the Canada/United States border as the “Salish Sea.” Drawing upon archival materials and a series of semi‐structured interviews, we argue that the scalar framing of such waters as a delimited spatial “unit” was dependent upon the performative reiteration of citational practices that were employed over a period of two decades to discursively assemble these fluid multiplicities into a cartographically bounded space. Although one of the ostensible aims of this geographical designation was to acknowledge the longstanding presence of Coast Salish peoples in the region, the naming of the Salish Sea has also had the political effect of reinforcing neocolonial relations of socio‐spatial dispossession by further entrenching the powers of the state as the final arbiter of geographical naming conventions. Décoloniser la carte ? Les enjeux politiques de la toponymie et le transfert d'échelle de la mer des Salish Cet article étudie le rôle que la dénomination de la « mer des Salish » le long de la frontière canado‐américaine a joué dans le changement d'échelle des eaux du Pacifique. Des documents issus de fonds d'archives et une série d'entretiens semi‐dirigés servent d'appui pour défendre l'idée selon laquelle la conception scalaire de ces eaux en tant qu'unité spatiale délimitée découlait de la réitération performative des pratiques citationnelles adoptées depuis deux décennies afin de traduire de manière discursive cette abondance aqueuse dans un espace cartographique circonscrit. Bien que l'un des objectifs apparents de cette appellation géographique fût de reconnaître l'ancienneté de l'établissement dans la région des peuples Salish de la côte, l'appellation de la mer des Salish a eu comme impact politique de renforcer les relations néocoloniales de la dépossession socio‐spatiale en consolidant les pouvoirs étatiques comme arbitre final des conventions existantes en matière de toponymie. Mots clés : décolonisation, performativité, mer des Salish, toponymie, échelle

[Extract] Although many travelers are concerned about their personal safety when traveling abroad, it is an often neglected area in travel medicine. Personal safety is one of the most important areas for travel health advisers to cover when giving advice to travelers going to virtually any country. Individual responsibility is paramount, as fewer people are going on programmed package tours.1 Travelers should also be advised about important safety nets, such as health and travel insurance, and finding medical assistance abroad. Half of general practitioners (GPs) in a New Zealand study reported giving safety advice to travelers,2 but GPs who saw a greater proportion of travelers were more likely to give safety advice.2 Seventy percent of travel health advisers in travel clinics usually advised travelers about personal safety.3 A recent study of inflight magazines in Australia revealed a paucity of advice concerning personal safety of travelers.

Abstract The emergence of quantum information technologies with potential application across diverse industrial, consumer and technical domains has thrown into relief the need for practical approaches to their governance. Technology governance must balance multiple objectives including facilitating technological development while meeting legal requirements, normative expectations and managing risks regarding the use of such technology. In this paper, we articulate a variety of idealised governance models and approaches for synthesising these complementary and sometimes competing objectives. We set out a comparative analysis of quantum governance in the context of existing models of technological governance. Using this approach, we develop an actor-instrument model for quantum governance, denoted the ‘quantum governance stack’, across a governance hierarchy from states and governments through to public and private institutions. Our model sets out key characteristics that quantum governance should exhibit at each level in the stack, including identification of stakeholder rights, interests and obligations impacted by quantum technologies and the appropriate instruments by which such impacts are managed. We argue that quantum governance must be responsive based on (a) the state of technology at the time; (b) resource and economic requirements for its development; and (c) assessments and estimates of the near-term and future impacts of such technology. Our work provides a pragmatic introduction to quantum governance by (a) specifying a taxonomy of governance actors and instruments and (b) providing examples of how different stakeholders within the stack might implement governance responses to quantum information technologies. It is intended for use by stakeholders in government, industry, academia and civil society to help inform their governance response to the quantum technology revolution.

BACKGROUND: The burden of healthcare costs for persons approaching death is of increasing concern. This study examines cost savings associated with access to palliative care (PC) during a hospital episode ending in death for a large sample of elderly patients. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study of administrative data for the Department of Veterans' Affairs clients identified patient demographics, hospital characteristics, utilisation data and component costs for the hospital terminal episode for patients aged ≥ 70 years who died in hospital between July 2011 and June 2015. Differences between patients with and without access to PC were analysed with descriptive statistics and negative binomial regression models. RESULTS: Access to PC service was reported for 33.2% of patients, 59.5% for those with a cancer diagnosis and 24.3% for other patients. Rates were significantly lower in private hospitals for all patient groups. For the complete sample, PC access was associated with significantly lower rates of admission into the intensive care unit (1.9% vs 10.6%, P < 0.001), fewer coded procedures and lower costs for hospital accommodation, medical and diagnostic services. Mean total cost for terminal episodes was $10 801 for PC patients and $16 165 for those with no recorded PC access (P < 0.001). All differences remained significant after adjustment for patient age, comorbidity and hospital type. CONCLUSION: In a hospital episode ending in death, access to PC services was associated with significantly lower rates of medical interventions and total hospital costs.

BACKGROUND: Vegetables are an essential element in healthy diets, but intakes are low around the world and there is a lack of systematic knowledge on how to improve diets through food system approaches. METHODS: This scoping review assessed how studies of food systems for healthy diets have addressed the role of vegetables in low- and middle-income countries. We apply the PRISMA guidelines for scoping reviews to narratively map the literature to an accepted food systems framework and identify research gaps. RESULTS: We found 1383 relevant articles, with increasing numbers over 20 years. Only 6% of articles looked at low-income countries, and 93% looked at single-country contexts. Over half of articles assessed vegetables as a food group, without looking at diversity within the food group. 15% looked at traditional vegetables. Issues of physical access to food were among the least studied food system topics in our review (7% of articles). Only 15% of articles used a comprehensive food system lens across multiple dimensions. There is also a research gap on the impacts of different policy and practice interventions (13% of articles) to enable greater vegetable consumption. CONCLUSIONS: Food system studies necessarily drew on multiple disciplines, methods and metrics to describe, analyze, and diagnose parts of the system. More work is needed across disciplines, across contexts, and across the food system, including understanding interventions and trade-offs, and impacts and change for diets particularly of marginalized population groups. Filling these gaps in knowledge is necessary in order to work toward healthy vegetable-rich diets for everyone everywhere.

This report summarises Australian passive surveillance data for adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for 2010, and describes reporting trends over the 11-year period 2000 to 2010. There were 3,894 AEFI records for vaccines administered in 2010, the highest number reported in any year, and a 63% increase over the 2,396 in 2009. The increase was almost entirely attributable to the large number of reports following seasonal influenza (n = 2,354) and pandemic H1N1 (pH1N1) influenza vaccines (n = 514). In children < 7 years of age, the number of reports following influenza vaccine increased almost 100-fold from 17 in 2009 to 1,693 in 2010 and, for people aged > or =18 years, from 135 to 496. For seasonal influenza vaccine, a disproportionate number of reports were from Western Australia (34%), consistent with more widespread influenza vaccination of children in that state, and 79% were identified as being associated with Fluvax or Fluvax junior (CSL Biotherapies). For pH1N1 vaccine, the number of reports in children < 7 years of age increased from 23 in 2009 to 329 in 2010, but was available for this age group for only 1 month (December) in 2009. In those aged > or = 18 years, for whom the pH1N1 vaccine was available from late September 2009, pH1N1 vaccine reports decreased from 1,209 in 2009 to 109 in 2010. For influenza vaccines, 79% of reports included fever, 45% allergic reactions and 15% malaise. In children aged < 7 years, there were 169 reports of convulsions (127 febrile), compared with 19 in 2009. In contrast, for non-influenza vaccines, reporting rates in children < 7 years of age increased only marginally from 14.1 per 100,000 in 2009 to 19.3 per 100,000 in 2010. Four deaths temporally associated with immunisation were reported but none were considered to have a causal association.