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During Environment Southland's air quality management plan review process, community and industrial feedback suggested that the burning of used oil was an issue of concern that should be addressed. A project was undertaken to investigate how common the practice of burning used oil in Southland was and what health impacts may be occurring. An investigation to identify community members who burn used oil for various uses was undertaken and a survey was undertaken of volunteer members of the community to develop a database of used oil burning sites. A communication plan was developed with Environment Southland to undertake this community engagement, and adverts were used to reach out to the community along with individually targeting known companies and communities who source used oil for heating purposes. Ten key sites were identified and visited to obtain an understanding of the size, duration and frequency of the activity. While the duration, size and frequency of the burning of used oil was able to be quantified during this study, along with potential contaminants of concerns and health effects, it was also discovered during the visits to community how important it was to understand the social aspects of why and how used oil is used for heating in the region. The information from the study will be used by Environment Southland to inform the development of the industrial rules in their updated Southland air quality management plan. This paper presents a summary of the process and outcomes of Environment Southland's used oil Study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports upon the first formal academic analysis of the deployment of a dialogue based and explicitly non-coercive 'Police Liaison Team' (PLT) within the public order policing operation surrounding a football fixture. The study uses an approach based upon Participant Action Research to first generate changes to operational practices and then to analyse the consequences of these changes upon the dynamics of the event and of the public order policing operation itself. Data is drawn from multiple sources including direct observation and post event focus groups. It is argued that the PLT played an important role in terms of enhancing police capacity for dialogue and communication with 'risk' fans, adding depth and quality to risk assessment as well as assisting in the avoidance of 'disorder' and police coercion. Problems were identified in terms of strategy, inappropriate deployment of the resource by police commanders and resistance to change among police staff. The implication of the study for understanding 'risk' is discussed along with the role of PLTs in helping to achieve proportionality and efficiency in the policing of football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the prospects for expert systems in the field of accounting. Computer performance of tasks requiring human intelligence is called artificial intelligence (AI). One subfield of applied AI is knowledge engineering, the process of acquiring knowledge from human experts and embedding the knowledge in a computer program. The product of knowledge engineering is knowledge-based systems, called expert systems. One example of what to do rather than how to do it is the operation of spreadsheet programs. Programs with English-like command structures, implemented with natural language processing, are other examples of context-sensitive systems. The appeal of expert systems stems from the opportunity they present for capturing and disseminating scarce and costly expertise in organizations. Expert systems to manage checklists could tailor the list to the current situation and maintain the responses for later processing and evaluation. An expert system whose knowledge base included relevant tax provisions could help individuals and companies minimize their tax liability. Expert systems in accounting can reduce costs and improve decision making depending on the choice of applications and the effectiveness of their implementations. Like other computer systems, however, expert systems only manipulate symbols. Users must be able to decide when to ignore a system's conclusions if they are based on faulty reasoning or inadequate information.