This research focuses on a sample of European and Chinese elite universities for the period 2011–2015. We adopt a meta-frontier methodology to decompose their overall productivity in three main determinants: (1) technical efficiency compared with contemporaneous technology, (2) change in technical efficiency and (3) technology relative superiority of the two groups of universities. The results reveal different patterns of evolution: Chinese institutions’ productivity grows faster than that of their European counterparts (+ 7.15%/year vs 4.51%/year), however the latter maintain a higher level of technology in efficient production as a group.

The empirical analysis of the cost structure of local government has traditionally employed population as a proxy for municipal output, despite longstanding reservations as to its suitability, especially in terms of local service provision (Boyne, 1995). Based on alternative proxies for local government output, and employing data drawn from the South Australian local government system over 2015/16, the present paper examines per household expenditure dispersion by comparing estimates based on population size with estimates based on the number of households and businesses. We then consider how exogenous variables affect the per household expenditure structure of local councils in South Australia. Policy recommendations are drawn for improvement in South Australian municipalities.

A central tenet of river science is the interaction between flow and the physical habitat template—hydrogeomorphology—that governs biophysical structure and function. While studies have shown how this interplay shapes structural river ecosystem attributes, our knowledge of their influence on ecosystem function is limited. Using geomorphological, hydrological, and stable isotope ratio data for basal resources and primary and secondary consumers from 88 rivers, we test hypotheses on relationships between hydrogeomorphology and food chain length. A significant curvilinear relationship between the physical heterogeneity of a river reach and food chain length was found. Low flow variance was shown to have an additive influence on food chain length; longer food chain lengths occurred in reaches that experienced permanent flow but not the frequency of overbank floods. Ecosystem size had no effect on food chain length. The results of this study suggest reach-scale hydrogeomorphology has a direct influence on ecological function—food chain length—in riverine landscapes. We suggest that the spatial heterogeneity of physical character is a primary driver of ecosystem function that provides a template upon which flow variability acts as a regulator of food chain length. Understanding biocomplexity, the interplay of spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability, is critical to predicting responses of riverine landscapes to natural and human-derived disturbances.

The increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse nature of the educational landscape in Australia requires teachers to implement classroom practice that responds to the changes, demands and challenges of a diverse and highly technologised world. In this study, it is suggested that implementing multiliteracies classroom practice is a relational and situated process in which English as an Additional Language (EAL) teachers draw on their perspective of EAL students and themselves. Informed by positioning theory and the personal interpretive framework, the study examined the positioning that EAL teachers ascribed to EAL students (interactive positioning) and to themselves (reflexive positioning) in relation to the implementation of multiliteracies pedagogy. Analysis of data from individual interviews with six EAL teachers shows that the teachers positioned EAL learners as having diverse learning styles and needs and as users of technology. Subsequently, their self-positioning as multiliteracies teachers involved a range of pedagogical strategies for catering for diverse learners and leveraging learners' multiliteracies skills. The findings suggest that multiliteracies classroom practice can be promoted by teachers' understanding of learners' diverse needs and development of responsive pedagogies.