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In an era of polyvocality and multi-stakeholder partnership, the authors trace the beginnings of an initiative of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) and other program partners in addressing food security concern through a devolved agricultural extension service. Building on interorganizational relations theory and partnership building, UPLB served as a partnership broker among the provincial governments, municipal governments, Department of Agriculture Regional Field Units, the local state universities and colleges, and civil society organizations. The paper documents the beginnings and nuances in brokering partnership and cites the challenges associated with promoting transdisciplinarity in UPLB known to protect specialized domains.

AbstractDrawing from the post‐structuralist discourse theory ofLaclau andMouffe and corpus linguistics techniques, we deconstruct the discursive strategies of theU.S.AtomicEnergyCommission (AEC) during the era of continental atmospheric atomic testing in southernNevada. The data consist ofAECpamphlets distributed in the "downwind" communities in 1953, 1955, and 1957 coincident with major test series. We illustrate discursive dominance hinged on the invocation of national security and instrumental rationality as key signifiers and portrayal of radioactive fallout as natural, ubiquitous, and controllable. Further,AECdiscourse was predicated upon casting officials in a paternalistic role and residents of the rural communities downwind as best served though acquiescence toAECauthority and expertise. We conclude by highlighting the empirical evidence regarding the deleterious health effects of atmospheric atomic testing between 1951 and 1962 and argue examination ofAECdiscursive hegemony offers important lessons applicable to contemporary socio‐technical controversies.

Rice is one of the main foods in Indonesia. A change of rice price will cause a major effect in the lives of consumers. On the other hand, there are so many factors that influence the rice price. Thus finding key factors which are significant to the rice price, as well as forecasting the consumer's rice price are needed in order to maintain the stabilization of rice price. The second objective is to find key factors which influence the rice price by using multiple linear regression models. The parameters were estimated by ordinary least square methods. There are 6 variables that are significant at α=5%, which are the consumer's rice price at the previous period, rice production at the current and previous period, farmer's GKP price, realization of domestic stock, and total rice import. The rice price will increase if the GKP price and realization of domestic stock increase whereas total rice import and the consumer's rice price at the previous period have negative influences towards the rice price. The impact of imported rice is negative towards domestic rice. This condition will also drive negative effect towards the farmer's income, in this case the price does not meet the farmers cost for production. To protect the farmers, the government applied a 430.00 Rp/Kg imported rice fee but this is not effective to decrease the amount of imported rice. In this model rice production at the current and previous period have positive signs, contradictory to the microeconomic theory where when the rice production increases, there will be an excess supply and the price will drop. That condition will occur only if the commodity is a free commodity and the rice is at the sufficiency level but in Indonesia, rice is affected by the government's policy and the rice productivity is left behind by the demand. Forecasting the consumer's rice price for the next five years was the last objective of this research. ARIMA Box–Jenkins Method, X-12 ARIMA, Winter's Method, and Trend Analysis were compared to find the best statistical model to forecast the consumer's rice price. X-12 ARIMA turns out to be the best method because it has the smallest MAPE, MAD, and MSD value. This result is a satisfactory because according to Findley et al. (1998) X-12 ARIMA has the capability to adjust seasonal and trading day factors which usually causes fluctuations in an economic time series data. Keyword : X-12 ARIMA

The term 'sustainable' has rapidly become a ubiquitous prefix for many contemporary issues, professions and disciplines. This paper contextualizes the debate by exploring how the term 'sustainable' has emerged within the field of architecture. The paper examines the semiotics of sustainability; how the meaning of this word has been produced from an assemblage of words, signs and practices. Adopting 'Actor-Network Theory' (ANT) methodology to examine the embedding of sustainability as the dominant paradigm in architecture. The creation of a definition of sustainability has been hybridized into a social, legal, economic, political and scientific framework. A process of 'sustainabilization' has occurred not only within architecture but across a number of different subjects. The research investigates how carbon-dioxide has played an important role in the promulgation of sustainability. The current framework within which 'sustainability' operates is currently too narrow and inflexible (i.e. black-boxed) with too much emphasis on CO2 to respond meaningfully to the demands from human development.

PurposeIn this study, the impact of owner-operator and non-owner operator rice mills on productive efficiency is investigated.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data collected from a survey of 111 rice mills in the Mwea region of Kenya are used. A metafrontier approach is employed to measure overall technical efficiency which is decomposed into managerial and organisational efficiency.FindingsThe results reveal no significant difference in overall technical and managerial efficiency between owner and non-owner operated mills. However, a significant difference exists in organisational efficiency of mills: non-owner operated mills were found to be performing significantly better than owner-operated.Practical implicationsThe authors provide supporting evidence to the study and discuss some of the significant policy implications stemming from the study.Originality/valueIt is recognised that for owners to take the risk of divesting control to a hired manager rather than manage the firm themselves can have major strategic, financial and often emotional consequences. However, there is little empirical evidence on how production efficiency will develop as a result of hiring a manager with the underlying economic theory providing ambiguous guidance. Standard economic theory assumes that firms behave as profit maximisers, which can be achieved by operating efficiently. However, this may not always be the case and as the literature indicates, this may especially be so for small businesses in low- and middle-income countries.

A model of the decision process of a small committee is presented in which there is no status quo proposal & no preset agenda. The model is dynamic, ie, the development of compromise in time is an integral part of the model, & factors affecting the outcome, which are traditionally difficult to measure, are modeled as random variables. Using probability theory & integration theory in a spatial context, the expected distribution of outcomes, expected utilities to individuals, & a theorem on the effect of freedom of proposal introduction on the outcome from minimal behavioral assumptions, are derived. AA.

The present study explores the central tenet of media richness theory, derived from contingency theory: when (1) information processing capabilities match (2) information processing demands, (3) performance will improve. This article tests whether using communication media that differ (1) in media richness or social presence (2) in conditions of differing task analyzability (3) affects self-reported performance components such as quality of work, effectiveness, productivity, ability to obtain information, decision-making ability, access to others, etc. The article first reviews the theoretical constructs of media richness and social presence, task characteristics, and performance, with particular reference to organizational computer-mediated communication media. It also identifies important but untested assumptions that media richness theory has, to date, made about the forms of the relationships among these variables. The theory assumes that use-performance relationships are nonmonotonic, that is, that the relationship between use and outcomes is positive when a medium's richness "fits" task requirements, and negative when it does not. The theory also assumes that use-performance relationships are symmetric, that is, that the relationship between use and outcomes in different task conditions is similar but opposite for "rich media" and "lean media." Hypotheses test the direction and form of relationships involving use of online databases in several pooled organizations, electronic mail in one organization, voice mail in two organizations, and videoconferencing in one organization, in task conditions varying in analyzability. Results are mixed, depending on analytical method and dataset used, but show modest support for the contingent effect of task condition on the relationship between use of these new media and performance components. Results are stronger for information-lean media than for information-rich media. The results are generally monotonic and asymmetric, thus qualifying prior media richness assumptions. Implications for theory and research include slight support but conceptual qualification of media richness theory, and an improved understanding of new organizational media. Implications for management and practice include a need to appreciate appropriate uses of and opportunities for different communication media in organizational contexts. This paper is written with the assistance of: Paul J. Hart, Ph.D., Computer and Information Systems Department, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida; Jack Torobin, Ph.D., Delphi Communication Services, Los Angeles, California; Douglas Shook, Ph.D., Communication Sciences, Los Angeles, California; Joyce E. Tyler, M.A., Arthur Andersen, Inc., Alexandria, Virginia; Lynne Svenning, Ph.D., Telecommunications Research Group, Wilmington, Delaware; John Ruchinskas, Ph.D., Telecommunications Research Group, Los Angeles, California, and Arden, Delaware.

Determining the factors that influence intentions towards organic farming (IOF) is a challenge. This research applied the theory of planned behaviour to determine factors which influence farmers'. There are six causal factors: attitudes towards farming behaviour, group-norm influences on farming behaviour, perceived behavioural control of farmers, comparative usefulness of behaviours, perceived of risk of farming and support of government policy. The purpose of this article is to explore the influential factors for conserving and cumulating organic farming behaviours, which are compared between organic and conventional rice farmers. The result provides government agencies an outline of how to increase organic farming, especially for smallholder farmers, and the long-term benefits will decrease poisonous contamination and increase human health.

I use rice prices in three cities to analyze the efficiency of the marketing system and the institutional framework of Javanese agriculture, 1823–1853. I show that imperfections in rural capital markets caused the extreme fluctuations in rice prices and that the segmentation of the capital market modifies the McCloskey and Nash interpretation of the relationship between seasonal fluctuations of grain (or rice) prices and interest rates. I argue that these fluctuations proxy peasants' stress. Finally, I hypothesize that institutional and market failures explain the "noneconomic" behavior of Javanese peasants in Boeke's theory of dualistic economic development.

This paper uses data from a program of customer interviews and focus group research conducted by the Australian government to develop an electronic services evaluation and design framework. A proven theory building approach has been used to develop and confirm the various components of electronic government (e-government) use and satisfaction from original government studies conducted in Australia and to create the new evaluation framework. Building on the extant e-government literature, the reintroduction of the original data into the framework yielded some emergent observations and insights for future e-government design, including the somewhat paradoxical importance of human contacts and interactions in electronic channels, service efficiency and process factors that impinge on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and a potential growth trajectory for telephony based e-government for older segments of the community.

This dissertation considers unresolved questions of the indexical real in documentary studies, drawing from media phenomenology on cinematic embodiment, feminist performance theory on liveness, and affect theory as critical angles on the observational tradition and sensory ethnographic film. The rise of digital imagery provoked a crisis in documentary cinema theory starting in the 1990s. The easy pliability of images constituted of digital code seemed to counter the analog photograph's supposedly mechanical, indexical imperative to represent actual-world objects, exposing shortcomings in neo-Marxist positions arguing for the documentary's clout to stand as material evidence of historical events. Starting from the premise that documentary production and reception are subjective experiences rather than artifacts of a recording technology, this dissertation theorizes the documentary real as an affective charge in the body elicited through the subject's contingent, ephemeral perception of contact with history in objects, films, gestures, and performances. Case studies consider this phenomenon in the production and reception of time in sensory ethnographic films (or sensory cinema), documentary films and journalistic reporting on "cultural awareness" embodied simulation training in the post-2004 US military, and race and media use in the early 2000s historical reenactment of a lynching that originally occurred in Georgia in 1946. I conclude that the impetus toward mobility and immersion in digital culture reflects the internalization of the cinema apparatus into everyday perception and consciousness, and I suggest that the logic of reenactment informs both the production and reception of observational and ethnographic films in this context