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This report examines editorial workflow at NUVO magazine, a lifestyle quarterly for the Canadian sophisticate. The report discusses magazine editorial standards in Canada; presents a case study of NUVO’s editorial philosophy, mix, and structure; and tracks the life of a story from initial idea to final page proofs, recommending best practices at each stage of the editorial process. The report also examines special considerations for a quarterly publication, including its timeliness, the scheduling of the editorial workflow throughout a three-month period, and audience retention between issues. Lastly, the report considers the move to online content and how evolving technology in publishing is helping, changing, expanding, and challenging the editorial process. It looks at both the threats and opportunities for NUVO magazine as it increases its digital presence in 2013 and proposes additions and modifications to its editorial workflow. All figures and statistics are accurate as of August 2012.

What kind of computer games do girls like? Games developers, various games theorists, and educators who are keen to exploit the apparent pedagogic potentials of computer games without alienating female students, have all pondered this question. In this paper I address this question via my observation of computer gaming sessions with year 8 girls at a single sex state school in South London. What emerged is that gaming preferences are alterable and site specific. Girls in the mood to exploit the social potentials of the situation choose dual-player ‘pick-up-and-play’ driving or fighting games, and preferred to use the consoles. Girls who wanted to play alone put on headphones and used the PCs to play games that rewarded a deeper investment of time and attention, such as action adventure or simulation games. Some participants would swing between these options from week to week. As this implies, preferences are not static – our choices depend on where we are and what we have had previous access to, they reflect what we know, who we know, what we’ve tried, or tired of, and what we will admit to. The question of ‘preference’ is explored as it relates to a set of commercial games offered to a group of players in a particular context. I am concerned with unpicking the notion of preference itself, by cataloguing the various factors that impinge on users’ choices, rather than merely reiterating that (or if) girls are predisposed towards particular game genres, or with how their level of enthusiasm might compare with their male peers. Preferences are informed by a variety of factors (such as previous exposure, access, peer culture) and these factors are shaped by gender – in other words it is not gender per se that is accountable for any differences in taste between male and female computer game players. Such distinctions reflect patterns in games access and consumption that spring from gendered cultural and social practices. Access and situation shape inclinations, and simply offering these users access to alternative games in new contexts was sufficient to generate changes in their stated preferences. I made a point of including several games with strong female leads, expecting that these games would generate a higher degree of interest than others, if female central characters were of import to these particular users - but this was not the case. What did become apparent is that the girls’ increasing gaming competencies enabled them to identify and access the different potential play experiences offered by specific games, and to selectively actualise these potentials according to circumstance and prerogative. Thus, I argue, it makes sense to investigate games preferences, within a mobile and incremental paradigm: that of games literacy.

THEME: Internationalism: Worlds at Play Abstract Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds An examination of the role of Massively Multiplayer Online Games as an extension of and venue for cultural dialogue, exchange and identity. Background Over the past decade, communications technologies have evolved more rapidly than has our ability to understand them. Since the early 1990s, we have witnessed a communication revolution, fueled by advances in computer technology, mobile and wireless communication, new information communication technologies, the expansion of broadcast through cable television and most significantly, the Internet. One element of this transformation has been the emergence of "many-to-many" networks, communication networks that allow large numbers of users to communicate with each other, without interference from gatekeepers, regulators or editorial influence. The global information culture is fundamentally shifting from a broadcast environment to a topology where broadcast amplifies, and is amplified by, many-to-many networks that are increasingly enabled by information technologies – including web services, publicly accessible databases, social software (weblogs, wikis, buddy lists, online games, file-sharing networks), mobile devices (camera phones, text messaging, global positioning systems), and the tools and technologies that blur the line between online and real-world spaces (web cams, wi-fi, distributed sensors, Internet cafes, MeetUp and other smart-mob phenomena). This transformation of the global information culture has deep and fundamental implications for politics and public diplomacy – dampening (or reversing) the effectiveness of traditional public diplomacy campaigns while opening up new opportunities that are not on the radar of public affairs people doing "business as usual." For example, relationships formed in the virtual gaming world transcend traditional geopolitical and geosocial boundaries; weblogs played a key role in the last Korean election, and text messages sparked rallies during the recent Spanish elections. Radical movements of every political stripe, from left-wing antiglobalists to religious fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim, Hindu), are fully conversant with the dynamics of these technologies, while their governments are not. The bureaucratic obesity of national governments, often precludes awareness of, much less a well informed response to, these emergent phenomena as they happen. These changes present new research challenges, as well as new opportunities for developing projects with long-term, real world social impact. The Study We are attempting to understand the relationships between many-to-many technologies – networked interaction on a mass scale – and public diplomacy. Our goal in this essay will be to describe how massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) or "virtual worlds" can facilitate intercultural dialogue among various groups. What is Public Diplomacy? Traditional definitions of public diplomacy include government-sponsored cultural, educational and informational programs, citizen exchanges and broadcasts used to promote the national interest of a country through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign audiences. We view the field much more broadly. In addition to government sponsored programs, we are equally concerned with aspects of what Joseph Nye has labeled "soft power." The impact of private activities - from popular culture to fashion to sports to news to the Internet - that inevitably, if not purposefully, have an impact on foreign policy and national security as well as on trade, tourism and other national interests. Why Virtual Worlds? Virtual worlds, mainly constructed through massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), function as communication networks in three different ways: • As one-to-many networks (developer to community). Virtual worlds, in other words, are created by a team of developers and include assumptions, values and beliefs in the structure, design, and art of the game. • As many-to-many networks. Virtual worlds are networked communication systems, which allow for interactive chat, internal email, and private and public messaging. Communication can occur among and between any of the online participants in a multitude of configurations. • As one-to-many networks (player to community). Virtual worlds also offer individual players increasing access to a new form of "broadcast." from things as basic as avatar appearance and selection to the ability to create and display objects or messages in public forums or virtual space. Each of these spaces provides us with research questions that can help us to better understand the role of virtual worlds in public diplomacy. Early research has confirmed that within these spaces, there is a unique opportunity to create, foster and sustain intercultural dialogue and that perception of national values, ideals, and character are both reinforced and altered by the real time interactions that occur in these spaces. Understanding Virtual Worlds • Cross Cultural Comparison. Our report will highlight representative examples of games produced in different countries (for example, United States, Korea, Finland, and England) with varied themes and designs in order to explore both the manner in which notions of nation, cultural values, and citizenship are reflected, integrated and assumed within the content of those games as well as the degree to which those representations are positive, negative or neutral. In doing so, we will ask three fundamental questions: 1. How does game content reflect issues of national identity and cultural values both of the producers and of the players? 2. In what ways are players encouraged or discouraged from engaging in intercultural dialogue and what opportunities exist for such dialogue? 3. What means do players have to reflect national identity or specific cultural values (private chat, avatar appearance and naming, object creation and placement) and how frequently do they engage in such opportunities? • Categorization. The answers to these questions (types and uses or networks, types of game design, and cultural content) provide us with extremely rich data to describe, measure, and access each MMOG’s facilitation of intercultural dialogue (from low to high effectiveness) within the three domains of design, content, and network. Those analyses, in turn, serve as the foundation for a typology that will provide categorical profiles of MMOGs according to combinations of the relative strengths and weakness in each of those domains with regards to fostering various forms of cultural dialogue. We will seek to identify nascent and novel manifestation of such dialogue. The typology overall and the categories elaborated within will offer a wide variety of useful tools to public diplomacy practitioners who are seeking to facilitate productive intercultural exchange during this time of intensifying globalization and technological change.

The Greater Vancouver metropolitan region has developed a long history of regional collaboration among local municipalities. The 1990s marked a period of highly collaborative intergovernmental planning, which - with the support of the provincial government - resulted in the creation of TransLink, a regional transportation agency that manages major roads, bridges and public transit in the Greater Vancouver metropolitan area. This thesis investigates the provincial government’s decision to not allow TransLink to implement a vehicle levy in 2001. The research uses qualitative methods to examine this decision and the motivating factors that contributed to the provincial government’s approach to regional transportation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The findings are that technical, organizational, and political factors influenced the provincial government’s vehicle levy decision. This thesis reveals how the provincial government’s political considerations were embedded within a series of events that framed the vehicle levy as a contentious issue. TransLink’s approach to the vehicle levy sparked public concern about fairness and equity, which led to cascading political problems and a lack of regional consensus, which thus resulted in the provincial government’s non-implementation of the levy.

The arts are a thriving business in Canada. The arts and culture sectors contribute 3% to the Canada’s GDP each year: a larger share than the agricultural, hospitality, or forest industries. However, professional artists—the core cultural labour force—are not as prosperous, and BC artists are worse off than most. The median income of artists in BC is the second lowest in Canada, well below the low-income cut-off. Although they are far more likely than the average worker to hold a university degree, BC artists earn an alarming 48% less than the provincial median for all workers. Women, visible minorities, and aboriginal people working as artists in BC earn even less.Using data collected from a jurisdictional scan, expert interviews, and an online survey of artists from across BC, I identify four potential policy measures to address the issue of low earnings in the arts sector. Options include an expansion of the existing project grants programs administered by the BC Arts Council, as well as three different plans to provide a monthly minimum income to artists. After analyzing each policy in terms of effectiveness, equity, budgetary cost, administrative complexity, and stakeholder acceptance, I recommend establishing a need-based but competitive grant stream providing a Basic Income to professional artists. Referring to survey data, I also propose a set of recommendations to enhance the accessibility, flexibility, and targeting of BC Arts Council programs.

Teck Highland Valley Copper is the largest copper mine in Canada. The operation requires annual sustaining capital funding in order to replace equipment and maintain capacity. The asset replacement strategy is to replace mine mobile equipment once it achieves a pre-determined asset life. The problem arises during a low commodity-pricing environment when sustaining capital funds are not readily available. The capacity loss in subsequent years can adversely affect the operating capacity and operating margin of the mine.This paper will look at two alternative options that can be utilised during low commodity pricing environments. The first option will be to procure a single asset to maintain capacity in the short term. The second will be to execute a targeted precision rebuild of the asset to maintain capacity going forward in the longer term and provide a cost effective alternative to asset replacement.

The goal of this study was to generate an optimal survey instrument for I’Hos Cultural Tours (ICT), a small scale guided marine tourism company operating out of Tla’amin Nation (formerly Sliammon First Nation). The five most commonly used visitor satisfaction models were delineated through an extensive literature review. The suitability of each model was then evaluated using an assessment framework with criteria drawn from a review of Tla’amin tourism planning documents. It was determined that a modified Importance-Performance Analysis was the most appropriate model for ICT’s visitor satisfaction survey. As a result of the research, an online survey was developed and pilot tested which confirmed content validity and internal reliability. The resulting custom-made survey instrument can be administered via ICT’s social media or email. It was designed to be user friendly, adaptable and time conscious. It facilitates data collection on visitor demographics for possible future market segmentation and performance benchmarking applications, and on levels of visitor satisfaction related to specific facets of the tourism operation. With this data ICT’s management will be able to direct attention and resources as needed.This resulting survey will be of immediate benefit to ICT and Tla’amin Nation, while the design methodology has broader implications for tourism operators seeking to develop surveys rooted in community or institutional values. Study limitations related to qualitative research, survey design, and online distribution are discussed and recommendations for future research applications are presented in conclusion.

This is a draft chapter for Sage Handbook of International Relations, 2nd Edition, which offers a critical assessment of bridge building and pluralism in contemporary international-relations (IR) theory. I begin by placing recent moves towards theoretical synthesis in context, asking why one saw an upsurge of interest in bridge-building only beginning in the mid-1990s. Then I assess these efforts in three areas – international institutions, normative theory, and studies of civil war – in each case, detailing how and to what extent theoretical pluralism has come to define a particular subfield. I argue that contemporary IR does look different, and better, thanks to synthesis and bridge building. In conclusion I note two challenges – theoretical cumulation and meta-theory. These, I argue, should be at the heart of a reinvigorated research program on synthesis, one where theory is taken seriously and epistemological divides are transgressed.

With the rapid growth of automation and technological advancement, the skills and competencies required across British Columbia’s economic development regions are evolving. As the province shifts towards a more digital, knowledge-based economy, it is important to consider the development of BC’s labour force. While there are a number of initiatives targeting the next generation of workers, few supports sufficiently address the needs of mid-career workers in medium-skill occupations, who are more likely to experience challenges in adapting to changing job requirements. The purpose of this study is to determine the role the provincial government can play in building labour market resilience among this group. Using a case-study analysis as the primary research methodology, this study evaluates public employment supports in Ontario, Québec and Australia to identify policy options that may aid in streamlining job-transitions in BC.