Property insurance considerations in loss prevention expenditures

Certain components comprise the Property Insurance premium. The sensitivity of those components to changes in the risk are analyzed considering the insurance market. The cyclic nature of the insurance market can also impact a Property Insurance program in other, less tangible, ways. Tangible premium charges and other intangible costs of risk which are dependent upon Loss Prevention expenditures are broadly quantified. Those factors which can be useful in determining the cost effectiveness of loss prevention expenditures are discussed in detail.     

Pricing Sydney water*

The paper estimates an aggregate daily water demand for Sydney using rainfall, temperature, and price data from 2001 to 2005, and a dummy variable to account for reductions in demand following the introduction of water restrictions in October 2003. Analyses based on the estimated price elasticity, and also values one and two standard errors above and below this estimate, are used to model the effects of different pricing and water supply scenarios. The simulations indicate that without a fundamental change in water policy (pricing and supply) Sydney faces the possibility of critical water shortages in the short- to medium-term should there be a continuation of low rainfall events.     

Development of a Technology Education Cascading Theory through community engagement site-based support

If teachers are not equipped to teach Technology Education subject nationally and internationally, the continent of Africa will continue to bear the brunt of unsavoury results unless radical interventions are implemented to transform the situation. It is against this background that action research methods became a useful site-based support to empower Technology teachers at three sampled schools from Tshwane South Circuit in Gauteng Province of South Africa. The purpose of this study was to share fresh perspectives on how a sample of Technology teachers responded to content-related classroom practices during reflective action research activities that took place during community engagement contact sessions. These teachers, who are under qualified and unqualified to teach this subject, were engaged in circular and spiral action research cycles. The teachers’ engagement brought forth the development of Technology Education Cascading Theory. It was evident that community engagement activities served as a podium to transform teachers’ teaching of Technology Education and enhance learners’ achievement. The study was underpinned by cooperative enquiry theory and engaged participants in reflective practices of developmental action paradigm. Interaction with Technology Education teachers further revealed that most of them need their schools to budget for this Technology subject they are teaching.     

Critical competencies and developmental experiences for top HR executives

This article describes the context and methodology used in formulating and validating a senior-level human resource competency model for professional development. The development and implementation of the architecture for the model, including the provision of various developmental tools and experiences, was undertaken by the Society of Human Resource Management, a professional association dedicated to the advancement of the human resource profession. The purpose of this effort is to specify benchmarks for professional competence building and to reposition the emerging role and processes associated with the human resource function in responding to the changing organizational and competitive challenges facing United States-based, multinational organizations. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Are Chinese nationals’ attitudes to wildlife tourist attractions different from those of other nationalities?

Many wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs) have negative impacts on animal welfare and species conservation. In the absence of regulation, raising standards requires tourists to create market pressure by choosing to attend WTAs with benefits for wildlife. We surveyed respondents from five countries – China, Australia, Canada, UK, and USA – to quantify how attitudes to captive animals, and towards WTAs’ outputs and standards, may vary with nationality. Our aim was to provide a firm basis for behaviour change interventions to alter current patterns of tourist consumption of WTAs. All respondents agreed on the importance of conservation and animal welfare, but Chinese respondents were twice as likely to believe that WTAs would not be allowed to exist if they were bad for animals, and that WTAs’ promotional materials were reliable indicators of welfare and conservation standards. These findings indicate Chinese respondents had fundamentally similar attitudes to those from the other countries, but differed in how those attitudes were likely to be applied. Chinese tourists may experience more barriers to aligning their actions with their values with respect to WTAs. Removing these barriers may require information campaigns to highlight the lack of regulation, and the unreliability of some WTAs’ promotional materials and tourists’ reviews.     

Unethical use of wildlife in tourism: what's the problem,who is responsible,and what can be done?

Wildlife tourism is a huge global market, the revenue from which can promote local livelihoods and tourist education, enact conservation, and improve animal welfare. Such benefits arise if wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs) prioritise ethical deliverables above financial profit, but recent work has shown that the majority of WTAs have substantial negative animal welfare and conservation impacts. In the absence of global regulatory authorities, tourist revenue has become the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes acceptable use of animals in WTAs. Tourists, however, are not adequate assessors of WTAs’ animal welfare and conservation impacts: they lack the specialist knowledge required and are subject to a number of psychological biases that obscure the ethical dimensions of decisions to attend particular WTAs. This inadequacy is evidenced, and compounded, by overwhelmingly positive reviews on TripAdvisor (the industry-leading review site), even for WTAs with objectively poor ethical standards. Our suggested solution is to empower tourists by presenting unequivocal assessments of WTAs' animal welfare and conservation impacts, hosted in the fora that tourists already use to make their travel decisions. We would thereby promote a subjective norm that tourists should consider and limit their individual negative impacts when choosing which WTAs to visit.     

Optimal surveillance against foot‐and‐mouth disease: the case of bulk milk testing in Australia

Previous foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks and simulation‐based analyses suggest substantial payoffs from detecting an incursion early. However, no economic measures for early detection have been analysed in an optimising framework. We investigate the use of bulk milk testing (BMT) for active surveillance against an FMD incursion in Australia. We find that BMT can be justified, but only when the FMD entry probability is sufficiently high or the cost of BMT is low. However, BMT is well suited for post‐outbreak surveillance, to shorten the length of time and size of an epidemic and to facilitate an earlier return to market.