The Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers (opla) in the Houses of the Oireachtas – History, Functions and Recent Key Parliamentary Legal Issues

The Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers (opla) is the in-house legal team in the Irish national parliament. It provides specialist, non-partisan legal advice to Parliament on a broad range of parliamentary, constitutional and corporate legal issues. In recent years, the opla has been assigned additional functions within the legislative process, now providing legal policy analysis and legislative drafting services to non-Government Members in respect of private legislative proposals and advising Members in respect of Government Bills. This article will provide a history of the opla, will outline some recent key parliamentary legal issues and will elaborate on the recent development of legislative drafting and advisory services within the Office.

Simulating impact of climatic variability and extreme climatic events on crop production

Wide range of inter-annual climatic variability and frequent occurrence of extreme climatic events in Indian context is a great concern. There is a need to assess the impact of these events on agriculture production as well suggest the agri-management options for sustenance. The appropriate region specific agro-advisory needs to be established for the farmers and other stake holders. Crop simulation models are effective tools for assessing the crops’ response to these climate related events and for suggesting suitable adaptation procedures for ensuring higher agricultural production. Remote sensing and GIS are effective tools in this regard to prepare the regional based agro-advisories, by linking with the crop simulation models and relational database layers of bio-physical and socio-economic aspects. For effective agro-advisory services, there is a need to link the other biotic and abiotic stresses for accurate estimates and generating window of suitable agri-management options. Crop simulation models can effectively integrate these stresses for crop and soil processes understanding and ultimate yield formation. In this review article, we have discussed about the inter-annual/ seasonal climatic variability and occurrence of extreme climatic events in India and demonstrated the potential of crop models viz., INFOCROP, WTGROWS, DSSAT to assess the impact of these events (also including climate change) on growth and yield of crops and cropping systems and thereby suggesting appropriate adaptation strategies for sustenance. The potential of remote sensing for crop condition assessment and regional/national yield forecast has been demonstrated. Crop simulation tools coupled with remote sensing inputs through GIS can play an important role in evolving this unique operational platform of designing weather based agro-advisory services for India.

Concerns About the Quality and Influence of Proxy Advisors, and Its Implications for the Preparations of the Shareholders Meeting

After highlighting the importance of the votes cast by institutional investors in shareholders meetings of listed companies, and the role proxy advisors play in this respect, this article turns to the points of criticism that are strongly emphasized in American literature, as well as to the state of regulation on both sides of the Atlantic, also including the stern action the SEC has been taken recently with respect to proxy advisors. On the basis of a questionnaire issued to Dutch listed companies, I shed light on the perception of listed companies of the actions of proxy advisory services. I will conclude with a few reflective remarks, also about the consequences of the growing role of proxy advisors for the preparation of the shareholders meeting dynamics surrounding the shareholders meeting.

AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS, EXTENSION, FINANCE AND RURAL LOANS IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA: THE CASE OF LOGISTIC REGRESSION

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of the use of agricultural extension, advisory services and agricultural loans on the introduction of agricultural innovations in the Republic of Serbia. Agricultural innovations are incremental changes through which individuals and organizations introduce new or use significantly improved products, services or ways of organizing in order to increase the performance of agriculture. While agricultural extension involves agricultural knowledge, information and skills that are passed on to farmers, their associations and other value chains market actors, agricultural loans are one of the most important financial instruments available to them. In order to investigate the predictive power and influence of these variables, the paper applied the method of binary logistic regression due to the categorical nature of predictors and the dependent variable. Based on the conducted research, the article found that the use of agricultural loans does not have a statistically significant impact on the introduction of agricultural innovations in Serbia, while agricultural extension has. The article concludes that for the further flourishing of agricultural innovations, the development of advisory services, as well as for the development of various fiscal incentives and rural financial instruments, it is necessary to continuously develop the devastated Serbian village and invest more intensively in rural development. This is the only possible way to prevent further waves of rural population emigration to cities, as well as to improve their knowledge, propensity for innovations and livelihoods.

Changing Things so (Almost) Everything Stays the Same

The deployment of mixed reality systems in professional settings demands adaptation of the physical environment and practices. However, technology-driven changes to the environment are problematic in some contexts. Specifically, face-to-face advisory services rely on scripted material routines using specific tools. This manuscript explores challenges encountered during the development of LivePaper, a mixed-reality system for supporting financial advisory services. First, the article presents a range of design requirements derived from existing literature and multiple years of research experience concerning advisory services and physical collaborative environments. Second, it discusses technical and design challenges that emerged when building LivePaper along with those requirements. Third, the article describes a range of technical solutions and new design ideas implemented in a working system to mitigate the encountered problems. It explores potential alternative solutions and delivers empirical or conceptual arguments for the choices made. The manuscript concludes with implications for the advisory services, the systems used to support such encounters, and specific technical guidance for the developers of mixed reality solutions in institutional settings. Overall, the article advances the discourse on the application of technology in advisory services, the use of mixed-reality systems in professional environments, and the physical nature of collaboration.

A Q study: exploring the purpose of transdisciplinary dairy advisory services in Denmark

Background Structural changes in dairy farming increase farm complexity, thereby inducing a need to combine herd health management, technological solutions, legislation, and human relations among farmers, farm workers, and advisors. This complex situation may require ‘transdisciplinary advisory service’, i.e., a highly integrated network of both non-academic and different academic disciplines. While working in these networks, advisors need to offer specialized knowledge from their own field, interact in a dynamic relationship between different types of professions and facilitate complex processes. The objectives of this study were: (1) to identify and describe different advisor and farmer styles based on their reasons to engage in transdisciplinary advisory services at farm-level, (2) to identify any possible conflicting perspectives between advisors and farmers’ demand, and (3) to discuss these styles and conflicts in the context and future of advisory services for dairy herd health and production management. Results Using Q methodology, we explored the purpose of transdisciplinary advisory service on dairy farms. The results were derived from correlations between 40 statements for 25 advisors and 33 statements for nine farmers. We identified three similar styles among advisors and farmers, characterized as: (1) the teamwork and knowledge-focused style, (2) the production and economy-focused style, and (3) the economy and strategy-focused style. These styles included reflections on financial aspects, production, knowledge-exchange and the teamwork process itself. In addition, different emphasis on animal welfare, farm strategy and follow-up procedures between the styles became evident. Conclusions This Q-study suggests three comparable styles between advisors and farmers. The main differences between the styles related to the teamwork process and purpose, follow-up process, financial aspects, farm strategy, and operational production objectives. Therefore, styles and expectations should be explored and discussed to create a mutual understanding within a farmer-advisor(s)-team, and to clarify the farmer’s needs and demands, and how the advisors can best meet these expectations. This study illustrates the importance of exploring different advisor and farmer styles to get a mutual understanding of the purpose of the transdisciplinary collaboration.

Fiction readers' advisory services in New Zealand public libraries : an investigation into how personal reading habits and other factors affect the confidence of library staff who answer adult or young adult fiction readers' advisory queries

<p>Fiction readers' advisory is the act of assisting a library borrower to find their next piece of fiction to read for leisure purposes. This is a significant part of public library work for staff members who work face-to-face with library borrowers. The confidence of library staff members who provide these services is therefore an important issue. It was hypothesised that a number of factors would influence the confidence of staff who answer fiction readers' advisory enquiries, including the amount and kind of pleasure reading undertaken, library size, years of library experience, and training. An online questionnaire was used to survey a sample of frontline public library staff members in New Zealand to gather data about readers' advisory services in public libraries in this country, as very little research has been undertaken here in this area. There was an excellent response to the survey invitation, and 130 completed questionnaires were received. Survey respondents' confidence about answering fiction readers' advisory enquiries was positively correlated with several factors, including amount and breadth of personal reading, length of public library service, kind of training received, and number of readers' advisory tools available. Negative correlations were suggested between library qualifications and confidence, and library size and confidence. Other factors which may influence confidence were also identified, such as library staff morale, having sufficient time for answering enquiries properly, and time for pleasure reading.</p>