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Topic Review
Weaponization of Finance
The term weaponization of finance refers to the foreign policy strategy of using incentives (access to capital markets) and penalties (varied types of sanctions) as tools of coercive diplomacy. The term was first coined by political scientists Ian Bremmer and Cliff Kupchan. It became one of the main themes of the Eurasia Group’s Top Risks 2015 report. It is a reference to the new ways in which the United States is using its influence to affect global outcomes. Rather than rely on traditional elements of America’s security advantage – including US-led alliances such as NATO and multi-lateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – Washington is now ‘weaponizing finance’ by limiting access to the US marketplace and US banks as an instrument of its foreign and security policy.
  • 1.6K
  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Underwater Connectors
Underwater connectors are very essential and complex components of deep-sea engineering equipment and their design and manufacture have apparent multidisciplinary characteristics. Wet-mateable connectors (WMCs) represent the highest level of technology in this field, and only a very few countries in the world can produce WMCs. So, WMCs are likely to be a constraining factor to some maritime powers that might try to achieve breakthroughs in this field, constraining the innovation-driven development of deep-sea equipment.
  • 1.6K
  • 19 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Informal Sector Employment and Economic Growth
Originating in the context of third-world countries, the informal sector constitutes a dominant part of the economy and is identified as an untapped reservoir of opportunities in terms of employment and the entrepreneurial capabilities of developing countries; it is often called the subordinate zone of the overall economy that can play a significant role in the growth and socio-economic development of countries across the world. The informal sector accounts for almost half of the economic activities in developing countries. These activities were initially backed by the core assumptions of the classical theory that the informal economy would wither away after achieving persistent growth. However, the new view of the informal economy features it as contemporary growth that should proceed as a result of the changed economic context of countries. The prevalent feature of the informal economy around the globe provides support to the new view of informality, mentioned as a dichotomist’s approach, which indicates that the informal economy will not wither away; rather, it will be contested in an arrangement of interdependent coexistence with distinctively different conditions, notably in terms of employment arrangements.
  • 1.6K
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Bioethanol Production Using Seawater
  Bioethanol has many environmental and practical benefits as a transportation fuel. It is one of the best alternatives to replace fossil fuels due to its liquid nature, which is similar to the gasoline and diesel fuels traditionally used in transportation. In addition, bioethanol production technology has the capacity for negative carbon emissions, which is vital for solving the current global warming dilemma. However, conventional bioethanol production takes place based on an inland site and relies on freshwater and edible crops (or land suitable for edible crop production) for production, which has led to the food vs. fuel debate. Establishing a coastal marine biorefinery (CMB) system for bioethanol production that is based on coastal sites and relies on marine resources (seawater, marine biomass and marine yeast) could be the ultimate solution. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the environmental impact of using seawater for bioethanol production at coastal locations as a step toward the evaluation of a CMB system. Hence, a life cycle assessment for bioethanol production was conducted using the proposed scenario, named Coastal Seawater, and compared to the conventional scenario, named Inland Freshwater (IF). The impact of each scenario in relation to climate change, water depletion, land use and fossil depletion was studied for comparison. The Coastal Seawater scenario demonstrated an improvement upon the conventional scenario in all the selected impact categories. In particular, the use of seawater in the process had a significant effect on water depletion, showing an impact reduction of 31.2%. Furthermore, reductions were demonstrated in natural land transformation, climate change and fossil depletion of 5.5%, 3.5% and 4.2%, respectively. This indicates the positive impact of using seawater and coastal locations for bioethanol production and encourages research to investigate the CMB system.
  • 1.6K
  • 21 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Workers’ Right to Access Restroom
Workers' right to access restroom refers to the rights of employees to take a break when they need to use the bathroom. The right to access a bathroom is a basic human need. Unless both the employee and employer agree to compensate the employee on rest breaks an employer cannot take away the worker's right to access a restroom while working. There is limited information on the rights workers have to access bathrooms among the world's legal systems. The law is not clear in New Zealand, United Kingdom , or the United States of America as to the amount of time a worker is entitled to use a restroom while working. Nor is there clarification on what constitutes a 'reasonable' amount of access to a restroom. Consequently, the lack of access to toilet facilities has become a health issue for many workers. Issues around workplace allowance to use a restroom has given light on issues such as workers having to ask permission to use a toilet and some workers having their pay deducted for the mere human right of using a bathroom when they need to.
  • 1.5K
  • 30 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Value-Free Analysis of Values
The Culture-Based Development (CBD) approach suggests that the value-free analysis of values needs: (i) to use positive methods to classify a value as local or universal; (ii) to examine the existence of what is termed the Aristotelian Kuznets curve of values (i.e., to test for the presence of an inflection point in the economic impact from the particular value) and (iii) to account for Platonian cultural relativity (i.e., the cultural embeddedness expressed in the geographic nestedness of the empirical data about values). In short, the value-free analysis of values is a novel methodological protocol that ensures an accurate and precise analysis of the impact from a particular cultural value on a specific socio-economic outcome of interest.  
  • 1.5K
  • 21 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Privatization in Australia
Privatization in Australia is the process of transiting a public service or good to the private sector through a variety of mechanisms that was commenced by the Federal Government in the 1990s, receiving bipartisan support. More generally, privatization is a set of economic policies that is part of a broader system of deregulation of government services, underpinned by the ideology of neoliberalism, in order to achieve economic outcomes of growth, efficiency and productivity. Some examples of sectors that have been privatized include finance, telecommunications and infrastructure. Australia's public service has also transformed with the introduction of New Public Management (NPM) in the late twentieth century which altered public administration models to appear more "business-like" through performance evaluations that emphasize efficiency, productivity and service delivery. Another definition of privatization is reliance on "more on private institutions and less on government, to satisfy people’s needs”. The concept of privatization can be construed in a narrow or broad sense. The narrow scope of privatization is portrayed as the sale of public goods, while the broader understanding of privatization involves the transfer of "ownership, management, finance and control" of public goods to private actors. Historically, the Australian government played an influential role in society as the idea of a strong state was prevalent to the Australian story since Federation. This changed in the twentieth-century, as Australia’s adoption of privatization as a set of government policies, reflected the rise of privatization across the Western world, specifically in the United States and United Kingdom. The Australian experience of privatization involves substituting government ownership, provision and funding to the private sector, in an attempt to liberalize the economy. The effectiveness of such policies is contested, as the motivations of privatization are widely debated.
  • 1.5K
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Flybuys (Australia)
flybuys is an Australia n loyalty program owned and operated by Coles, with the main participating retail outlets being Coles Supermarkets, Coles Express, Kmart, Liquorland, First Choice Liquor and Target stores. It is one of Australia's largest loyalty programs, with over 10 million flybuys cardholders in over 5.5 million Australian households. Members earn points from household consumer purchases (and through credit card use) and subsequently exchange points for gift cards, merchandise, flights and other rewards.
  • 1.5K
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Purchasing Power Parity and Balassa–Samuelson Effects
The Balassa–Samuelson (BS) hypothesis is often criticized for one of its fundamental, but oversimplified assumptions related to Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) holding which can be confirmed for cronss-country tradables’ prices, implying nontraded-sector prices are solely responsible for inducing trend deviations in real exchange rate. The assumption, when empirically tested, does not always hold valid, revealing a price difference in tradables for Asian countries against the world (U.S.), a potential driver of their trend in real exchange rate deviations (appreciation). 
  • 1.5K
  • 14 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Knowledge Management for Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) offers optimum productivity and efficiency via automation, expert systems, and artificial intelligence. The Fourth Industrial Revolution deploys smart sensors, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Services (IoS), big data and analytics, Augmented Reality (AR), autonomous robots, additive manufacturing (3D Printing), and cloud computing for optimization purposes. Knowledge management (KM) is the process of acquiring, constructing, managing, and disseminating knowledge throughout an organization in order to improve project efficiency and effectiveness. In times of crisis, knowledge management has been shown to be a critical tool in healthcare, allowing people all over the world to cope with and manage massive amounts of data in the event of a pandemic.
  • 1.5K
  • 29 Jun 2022
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