Multinational corporate product strategy, spatial diversification and nationalisation: A Guyanese comparison

The imlications of corporate product strategy and spatial structure for nationalisation by developing countries have been neglected. Corporate spatial diversification to reduce the importance of the target field unit in the corporate system is an important pre-requisite of frictionless divestment. But Guyanese nationalisation suggests that even after spatial diversification a vertically integrated, dominant product strategy confers less divestment capacity than a diversified, multi-product strategy. The product strategy classification used here may provide the necessary framework within which to explain the locational behaviour of multinational corporations.     

A novel strategy to determine the insurance and risk control plan for natural disaster risk management

This study presents an extended framework for the analysis of economic effects of natural disaster risk management. It also attempts to define and evaluate the optimal insurance arrangements. A model, the economic utility constrained-maximization model, is proposed. The purpose of this study is to establish a strategy for determining an insurance and risk control plan in which consideration is given to balancing the economic effects (e.g., decrease in costs due to damage) by disaster mitigation. Furthermore, these values are compared with risk control actions for purposes of prioritization, to provide data to help evaluate the benefit of each risk control action. Disaster insurance policy premiums in contrast are based on actuarial data taken from situations in which risk control measures are not employed. This can make such contracts unfair to responsible enterprise managers who must take risk control measures. This represents an unfair aspect of insurance policies. Enterprise managers should be able to determine the optimum arrangement between natural disaster risk control and insurance given their budget limitations. The optimal strategies aim at the best applicability and balance between risk control and insurance capability for the enterprise manager. Risk control measures can generate several risk control options for enterprise managers. Premium discounts by insurers are given in this model.     

Use and abuse of the urban groundwater resource: Implications for a new management strategy

Various human activities threaten the groundwater quality and resource under urban areas, and yet residents increasingly depend on it for their livelihood. The anticipated expansion of the worlds urban population from 3 to 6 billion in the coming 50 years does not only pose a large water management threat but also provides an opportunity to conserve groundwater in a better way than up to now. The authors argue for a new way to manage urban activities in order to conserve the precious groundwater resource. The focus is on the quality of the discharged water after use in households. Restrictions on what is added to water while using it, e.g. detergents, excreta, paint residues, oils, and pharmaceuticals, are important to simplify the treatment and reuse of used water. Avoiding mixing different wastewater flows has the same positive effect. If increased volumes of wastewater can be treated and reused, the demand on the groundwater resource is reduced, as also occurs with demand management measures. Reduced discharge of polluted water to the environment from households and utilities also conserves the quality of groundwater and reduces sophisticated treatment costs.

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Resumen La urbanización lleva a una demanda elevada y concentrada de agua de calidad adecuada, acompañada por el vertido de volúmenes análogamente mayores de aguas residuales. Los alimentos se importan a ciudades donde los microorganismos y nutrientes de los excrementos humanos son descargados a ríos, lagos y, también, aguas subterráneas. Más aún, gran número de los bienes de consumo son eliminados vía las tuberías de las cloacas. Las deudas medioambientales, es decir, el empobrecimiento de las condiciones medioambientales, que requerirán de aportaciones humanas y económicas para rehabilitarlas, son comunes a todas las ciudades, sobretodo en el Hemisferio Sur, donde, según la Valoración Global de Suministro de Agua y Saneamiento (OMS y UNICEF), la mayor parte de las aguas residuales urbanas no son tratadas (65% en Asia, 86% en Latinoamérica, 100% en África). La tarea pendiente consiste en proteger los recursos de aguas subterráneas para que estén disponibles de forma rápida para los habitantes urbanos también el futuro. En los próximos 50 años, se espera que la población urbana aumente de 3,000 a 6,000 millones de personas, según estimaciones de las Naciones Unidas, por lo que es imperativo dejar de contaminar las aguas subterráneas existentes bajo las nuevas áreas urbanas en construcción. En este artículo, se escudriña la calidad de las aguas subterráneas y su protección a la luz de los cambios recientemente introducidos en las políticas del agua, esto es, desde la gestión de los abastecimientos de agua a la gestión de la demanda y, eventualmente, hastaa la gestión de la reutilitzación.

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Résumé Lurbanisation conduit à une demande élevée et concentrée deau de qualité adéquate, accompagnée du rejet dimportants volumes correspondants deaux usées. La nourriture est importée dans les villes tandis que les micro-organismes et les nutriments provenant des excrétas humains sont rejetés dans les rivières, les lacs et aussi les eaux souterraines. De plus, une large gamme de biens de consommation est évacuée par les égouts. Les créances environnementales, cest-à-dire lappauvrissement des conditions environnementales qui demandera des apports humains et économiques pour la réhabilitation, sont habituelles dans toutes les villes, et pas seulement dans lhémisphère sud, comme cela est indiqué dans le rapport sur lalimentation en eau et la santé publique du monde (publié par lOMS et UNICEF), établissant que la plupart des eaux résiduaires des zones urbaines reste non traitée (65% en Asie, 86% en Amérique latine et 100% en Afrique). La tâche à réaliser pour lhomme est de protéger les ressources en eau souterraine en sorte quelle reste disponible pour les habitants des villes dans le futur. Dans les prochaines 50 années, il faut sattendre à ce que la population urbaine saccroisse de 3 à 6 milliards de personnes selon les estimations des Nations Unies; aussi il est impératif de ne pas continuer à polluer les eaux souterraines sous les nouvelles zones urbaines en cours de construction. Dans cet article, nous analyserons la qualité des eaux souterraines et leur protection à la lumière des récents changements de politique de leau, cest-à-dire de la gestion de lalimentation en eau jusquà une gestion de la demande et en abordant éventuellement la période de gestion du recyclage.

     

辽河西部凹陷沙河街组页岩油聚集条件及资源计算

为查明辽河坳陷西部凹陷页岩油勘探潜力,明确页岩油富集控制因素,分析了沙三段页岩油成藏条件。以沙三段泥页岩为研究对象,通过FIB-SEM、自动氦孔隙度测定及BET-BJH等测试手段,结合地震、测井资料,以富有机质泥页岩生烃潜力、储集性能及含油性评价为重点,对辽河西部凹陷沙河街组页岩油资源计算方法进行探讨。分析结果表明:(1)TOC含量1.0%~8.54%,众值为2.15%;Ro为0.32%~1.57%,众值为0.65%,处于生油窗内;(2)泥页岩发育粒间孔、粒内孔和微裂缝等6种微孔缝类型,其中微孔以3.9~20nm的中孔为主;(3)西部凹陷沙三段发现工业油流1处,富含油2层,油斑16层,具有较好的含油性;(4)结合概率统计、类比法、权重赋值等手段,利用单元划分—分步计算—累加求和原理,初步探讨了页岩油资源计算方法——单元计算法。通过方法试用,认为沙三段具有较好的页岩油成藏条件和勘探前景。在辽河坳陷页岩油勘探实践中,宜将有机碳含量高、成熟度适中、孔渗性好及含油率高的区域作为有利选区优先领域,尽量避免热演化程度低、黏土矿物含量高的区域。     

Mining shareholder value: Institutional shareholders,transnational corporations and the geography of gold mining

The ownership and activism of institutional investors in large publicly traded gold mining companies have re-oriented business strategies toward maximising value for shareholders. This paper examines these strategies in the context of the commodity boom (and bust) of 2003–2015. A study of the activities of some of the largest gold mining companies reveals a re-alignment of their operations to satisfy the yield requirements, investment motives, and risk tolerance of institutional investors. By prying open the black-box of corporate decision-making, the expansion and subsequent contraction of mining activities are shown to have in part been enabled and constrained by the investment appetite of a particular class of investors. The findings make the case for a more situated analysis of corporations, a key but understudied actor in political ecology studies.     

Migrant pathways to resource access in Lampung’s political forest: Gender, citizenship and creative conjugality

An important theme in studies of enclosure and resource access in Southeast Asian hinges on the concept of the ‘political forest’, a particular constellation of power constituted by ideas, practices and institutions that seek to regulate peoples’ access to resources, providing recognition and legitimacy to some, whilst excluding and criminalizing others. Whilst issues of class and ‘race’ underpin work in this vein, in Indonesia, much less attention has been directed towards the ways in which gender inheres in the regularisation of land and livelihood, and the ordering of upland spaces. Drawing on recent feminist and queer theorizing of the links between citizenship, recognition and hetero-normativity, and on analyses of the social relationships through which resource access is negotiated and realized, the paper presents a feminist political ecology of the gender dynamics inherent in the power plays of resource access as land-poor rural migrants negotiate a shifting landscape of enclosure in Lampung province. Through an analysis of three periods of resource governance and control in the province, the paper shows how the negotiation of resource access is simultaneously a process of self-regulation and subject-making that draws on particular ideas about family and conjugal partnership, inculcating gendered and hetero-normative ideologies of the “ideal citizen”. Through particular representational strategies - positionings - necessary to qualify for resource access, and through the material practices necessary to realize the benefits of resource access, conjugal partnership is reiterated and remade as an important social relationship through which resource access may be realised, for men as well as for women.