Costabile,Angela & Spears,Barbara A ed (2012) The impact of technology on relationships in educational settings David Fulton (Routledge,Abingdon UK & New York) isbn 978‐0‐415‐61008‐7 217 pp £29.99 http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415610087/

Teachers interested in harnessing the internet for positive purposes will enjoy this book—it lays bare some myths, challenges perceptions, and provides evidence of interventions which hold great promise for ameliorating negative misuse, such as cyber‐bullying. Case studies from European, American and Australian practitioners highlight the work being done to harness the positive power of social networking and connectedness. If the content of this book is likely to be relevant to you, I recommend that you arrange to borrow a copy for a while. Robyn Smyth     

Crabs in the grey cup: Baltimore's Canadian football Sojourn, 1994–95

During the early 1990s, Baltimore had a problem: replacing its professional football team, which moved to Indiana in 1984. Fans, politicians, and entrepreneurs plotted, begged, and spent millions trying to gain a replacement. But the National Football League was diffident. With scads of ardent civic suitors, the NFL played hard-to-get. By 1994, Baltimore remained on the outside, feeling desperate. At the same time, North America's “other” professional football operation, the Canadian Football League, faced troubles, too. Older than the more high-profile NFL, the CFL lagged behind its media-savvy American counterpart. Across Canada, the CFL discerned disturbing signs of ennui in its fan base. The solution came suddenly: expand the CFL into the United States, injecting elements of nationalistic competition into the staid league, and granting pigskin-hungry American cities teams to call their own. What followed was a brief, bizarre, and culturally significant episode pin North American sport history. The CFL added five American franchises, while fretting that its distinctively Canadian identity might dilute or evaporate. Most American franchises met scant fan approval. Only in Baltimore did the experiment succeed, because there singular conditions brewed a blend of civic parochialism matching Canadian nationalism.     

Research on the Free Trade Zone Policy and the Development of International Logistics at Ports

The port is an important link in the transportation system of international logistics. The paper discusses the issue of a free trace zone policy and the development of international logistics in ports, showing the positive effects of the performance of a free trade zone policy on constructing international logistics hubs, strengthening the transshipment functions of ports and enhancing the competitiveness of the port enterprises.     

The welfare and equity implications of competition in television broadcasting: the role of viewer tastes

This paper studies the behavior of commercial television broadcasters in markets where the distribution of viewer tastes varies. Our results show that a highly “clustered” market enables the broadcaster to offer a program of a popular type but with lower quality (i.e., lower production values) than is the case when viewers have more diffused tastes. We find that viewer equity in the television market (i.e., the percentage of all potential viewers who have at least one program they consider worth watching) and viewer welfare (i.e., total consumer surplus) may not coincide. Depending upon the distribution of viewer tastes and the cost of providing quality programming, the number of broadcasters required to fully cover the market to avoid market failure may be greater than the number of broadcasters that produce greater viewer welfare. The study suggests that regulatory bodies need to pay attention to the distribution pattern of viewer tastes and the broadcasters' desire for return on programming investments, since both factors have important implications for competitive outcomes and viewer well-being.