judith meskill's knowledge notes...

WEF said in statement on Thursday that this year's Summit is unique in that it brings together international organizations and the Chinese government in close partnership.

The meeting, "China Business Summit 2003 and the World Economic Development Declaration," with more than 600 participants from foreign and Chinese companies, will tackle discussions around the Summit theme of China under New Leadership.

International partners include the International Finance Corporation (IFC), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), while the local partner for the Summit is the China Enterprise Confederation.

As China's leading forum for local and foreign business, the Summit will draw upon a rigorous program that captures and charts China's growth and development.

WEF said the program will also benefit from the participation of the Chinese government at all levels, led by Executive Vice-Premier Huang Ju, who will give a special address to update participants on priorities and strategies for sustaining economic growth and developing the environment for business.

Wei Che-ho, minister for the NSC, said at a press conference yesterday that people's daily lives have been deeply influenced by ongoing scientific and technological developments. To most laypeople, however, the technical terms used to describe the developments are incomprehensible.

Warner will speak about the necessity of focusing on smaller job employers in southside Virginia rather than taking the 'rifle approach' and basing the whole economy on the large manufacturing companies, said Ellen Qualls, Warner's spokesperson.

Across the board, however, service industries are unlikely to be able to drive living standards forward at the same pace as those that transform raw materials into goods. Factories take the lead, even in the information revolution.

Over the past three years, for instance, output per hour worked in the UK economy has grown 3.8 per cent. Over the same period, output per hour worked in manufacturing grew 9.5 per cent. Other production industries such as energy were not far behind.

These were not vintage years. The thingmakers have been suffering from global economic stagnation, relatively high interest rates and a relative high pound. The CBI's latest survey found that two thirds of the sector was suffering from excess capacity. In spite of the the euro strengthening, order books and prices have fallen relentlessly and there has been little respite from years of falling output. If the thingmakers had enjoyed a better run, the whole economy would have grown faster.

The US economy is healthier than ours to an important extent because, after a short but worse recession, its knowledge-based high-tech manufacturing is stronger. We cannot achieve that by intervention or subsidy. The City is perennially hostile to thingmakers because risks are often higher and results less predictable than those of the more solid consumer services.

"Nobody has succeeded without taking a risk; if you want to succeed you will have to take calculated risks," the President said yesterday while flying from Sudan to the Bulgarian capital. Kalam was sharing his impressions of the visit to the United Arab Emirates with the reporters accompanying him.

PhD candidate Paulo Gottgtroy is studying at the Knowledge and Engineering Research Discovery Institute (KEDRI), located at AUT's Technology Park in Penrose.

The scholarship, worth $28,000 per year over three years, was awarded by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, a government funding body that invests in innovation with a view to fostering the creation of new knowledge.

Paulo Gottgtroy's research involves building an ontology, or conceptual framework, that makes biomedical knowledge and concepts that are sharable over computer applications and reusable for several purposes.

The ontology will bring together different techniques including statistical analysis, neural networking and ontology to find correlations in the information discovered.

Southern New Jersey can - in fact, must - evolve to compete in the knowledge economy. The region already has many assets: a hub for shipping and transportation, proximity to major markets, and good inventory for offices.

However, historic strengths in manufacturing and agriculture no longer provide the level of employment that South Jersey demands, and so we must look toward the knowledge economy to spur the continued vitality of this region.

We cannot move forward in the knowledge-based economy until the research capacity of the region's institutions is significantly expanded across a wide area of disciplines.

South Jersey needs a constant flow of science and technology research that can be adapted for commercial purposes.

That requires a sizeable mass of scholars producing these innovations and, collectively, becoming a magnet for attracting new enterprises.

South Jersey requires added research capacity in a wide array of disciplines.

Systems biology, information technology security, genomic research, geriatric medicine, nutraceuticals, nanotechnology, environmental science, molecular biology, biochemistry, software engineering, culturally competent health care and pharmaceuticals are prime examples of fields that will create new approaches to combating bioterrorism, developing new technologies, reclaiming brownfields, and improving healthcare and the quality of life for all residents.

The Environment Minister, Marian Hobbs, derides those who oppose lifting the moratorium as Luddites who are anti-research. Decisions around GM need, she says, to be made with rational consideration.

But who is being irrational here? It is increasingly difficult to discern a rational argument for lifting the moratorium next Wednesday.

We have been told that lifting the moratorium is the only economically responsible path. But where is the evidence that pursuing a GM path will result in economic benefit?

We have spent millions building a clean, green image. Research carried out by Lincoln University for the Ministry for the Environment indicated that GM release would substantially devalue that brand. ...

Is it rational to sacrifice our existing agricultural and tourism market advantage for the advantage of intellectual property ownership that may well end up overseas? Where is the policy work to ensure that this does not happen?