Ruling Class Men: Money, Sex, Power

What is it like to be a master of the universe? The authors have researched the desires and fears of the world's most powerful men. The Murdochs, Packers, Kennedys, Agnellis and other men like them, directly determine the fates of thousands and influence the future of the world like no other people. Described as 'sacred monsters' by one of their own, they are carefully created to be what they are and to enjoy shaping the world in their own likeness. To learn about these often reclusive men, the authors extended the life-history technique to interrogate autobiographies, diaries and biographies and have created a composite picture, a collective portrait, of tycoons over three generations. The book carefully explores the childhoods, schooling, work and play, sexual activities, marriages and deaths of the wealthiest men who have ever lived. It exposes the nature of ruling-class masculinity itself.

Space, place and power : the spatial turn in literacy research

Place matters to literacy because the meanings of our language and actions are always materially and socially placed in the world (Scollon & Scollon, 2003). We cannot interpret signs, whether an icon, symbol, gesture, word, or action, without taking into account their associations with other meanings and objects in places. This chapter maps an emergent strand of literacy research that foregrounds place and space as constitutive, rather than a backdrop for the real action. Space and place are seen as relational and dynamic, not as fixed and unchanging. Space and place are socially produced, and hence, can be contested, re-imagined and re-made. In bringing space and place into the frame of literacy studies we see a subtle shift – a rebalancing of the semiotic with the materiality of lived, embodied, and situated experience. ...

Multimodal and monomodal discourses of marketization in higher education : power, ideology, and the absence of the image

The ubiquity of multimodality in hypermedia environments is undeniable. Bezemer and Kress (2008) have argued that writing has been displaced by image as the central mode for representation. Given the current technical affordances of digital technology and user-friendly interfaces that enable the ease of multimodal design, the conspicuous absence of images in certain domains of cyberspace is deserving of critical analysis. In this presentation, I examine the politics of discourses implicit within hypertextual spaces, drawing textual examples from a higher education website. I critically examine the role of writing and other modes of production used in what Fairclough (1993) refers to as discourses of marketisation in higher education, tracing four pervasive discourses of teaching and learning in the current economy: i) materialization, ii) personalization, iii) technologisation, and iv) commodification (Fairclough, 1999). Each of these arguments is supported by the critical analysis of multimodal texts. The first is a podcast highlighting the new architectonic features of a university learning space. The second is a podcast and transcript of a university Open Day interview with prospective students. The third is a time-lapse video showing the construction of a new science and engineering precinct. These three multimodal texts contrast a final web-based text that exhibits a predominance of writing and the powerful absence or silencing of the image. I connect the weightiness of words and the function of monomodality in the commodification of discourses, and its resistance to the multimodal affordances of web-based technologies, and how this is used to establish particular sets of subject positions and ideologies through which readers are constrained to occupy. Applying principles of critical language study by theorists that include Fairclough, Kress, Lemke, and others whose semiotic analysis of texts focuses on the connections between language, power, and ideology, I demonstrate how the denial of image and the privileging of written words in the multimodality of cyberspace is an ideological effect to accentuate the dominance of the institution.

A new analytic approach for power system fault diagnosis employing the temporal information of alarm messages

Traditional analytic models for power system fault diagnosis are usually formulated as an unconstrained 0–1 integer programming problem. The key issue of the models is to seek the fault hypothesis that minimizes the discrepancy between the actual and the expected states of the concerned protective relays and circuit breakers. The temporal information of alarm messages has not been well utilized in these methods, and as a result, the diagnosis results may be not unique and hence indefinite, especially when complicated and multiple faults occur. In order to solve this problem, this paper presents a novel analytic model employing the temporal information of alarm messages along with the concept of related path. The temporal relationship among the actions of protective relays and circuit breakers, and the different protection configurations in a modern power system can be reasonably represented by the developed model, and therefore, the diagnosed results will be more definite under different circumstances of faults. Finally, an actual power system fault was served to verify the proposed method.

Excess power circulation in distribution networks containing distributed energy resources

The presence of large number of single-phase distributed energy resources (DERs) can cause severe power quality problems in distribution networks. The DERs can be installed in random locations. This may cause the generation in a particular phase exceeds the load demand in that phase. Therefore the excess power in that phase will be fed back to the transmission network. To avoid this problem, the paper proposes the use of distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM) that needs to be connected at the first bus following a substation. When operated properly, the DSTATCOM can facilitate a set of balanced current flow from the substation, even when excess power is generated by DERs. The proposals are validated through extensive digital computer simulation studies using PSCAD and MATLAB.

Reinvigorating the domestic violence sector : systemically addressing conflict, power and practitioner turnover

The purpose of this exploratory Australian study was to consider methods of retaining skilled and experienced staff within the domestic violence sector. The antecedents that might influence turnover of practitioners were investigated and analysed. Antecedents broadly included the work-related factors, organisational factors and professional factors. The changing nature of the domestic violence sector was also examined, in particular, feminist identity and feminist practice frameworks. It became evident, however, that the primary reasons for the turnover of study participants can be described as parallel power processes. The concept of parallel power processes as developed through this research aims to capture how workplace behaviours can strongly mirror, or parallel, behaviours used by domestic violence perpetrators. As such, it appears that some domestic violence practitioners are experiencing their own abusive relationship, not within the confines of their home, but within their workplace. Additionally, parallel power processes are compounded by ineffective conflict management processes within the workplace. These concepts directly contribute to practitioners leaving their workplace and, sometimes, the sector. This qualitative study utilised a feminist research epistemology and focused strongly on practitioners' stories. Interviews were undertaken with fifteen domestic violence practitioners from three services within South-East Queensland, Australia. Two sets of semi-structured interviews provided in-depth information based on practitioners‘ experiences of working within this specialised sector. Analysis was conducted using a thematic analytical frame, drawing attention to the key themes as mentioned above. From these findings, it is suggested that in order to retain practitioners, domestic violence services must identify and address parallel power processes through effective conflict management processes. In an operational sense, it is recommended that education and training be undertaken within all staffing levels, in particular management committees. Lastly, it is recommended that the sector itself places greater attention on the re-invigoration of the feminist principles and philosophy that has traditionally guided the sector.

Developing a creative cluster in a post-industrial city : the Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS) and Manchester

This article takes the establishment and demise of Manchester’s Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS) as an exemplary case study for the ways in which creative industry policy has intersected with urban economic policy over the last decade. The authors argue that the creative industries required specific kinds of economic development agencies that would be able to act as “intermediaries” between the distinct languages of policymakers and “creatives.” They discuss the tensions inherent in such an approach and how CIDS attempted to manage them and suggest that the main reason for the demise of the CIDS was the domination of the “economic” over the “cultural” logic, both of which are present within the creative industries policy discourse.

Buy, boycott or blog : exploring online consumer power to share, discuss and distribute controversial advertising messages

The availability of new media as a universal communication tool has an impact on the power of the general public to comment on a variety of issues. This paper examines this increase in consumer power with respect to bloggers. The research context is controversial advertising, and specifically Tourism Australia’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign. By utilising Denegri-Knott’s (2006) four on-line power strategies, a content analysis of weblogs reveals that consumers are distributing information, opinion and even banned advertising material, thereby forming power hubs of like-minded people, with the potential to become online pressure groups. The consequences and implications of this augmented power on regulators, advertisers and bloggers are explored. The findings contribute to the understanding of blogs as a new communication platform and bloggers as a new demographic of activists in the process of advertising.

Loss to assets : production of power from speed breaker

In this work, prospect and feasibility of power generation by using speed breakers has been investigated. In this project a mechanism to generate power by converting the potential energy generated by a vehicle going up on a speed breaker into kinetic energy. This arrangement is made one rotation as soon as the vehicle moves over the speed breaker and has been increased using gears. After the production electricity, a storing unit has been used to hoard the generated electricity during the day and will be used during the night. Two prototypes have made using rack and pinion gear, spur gear, springs and generator .From which a considerable amount of energy is obtained. Nonetheless the cost of the prototype was inexpensive which proves the feasibility of this project and the idea can be applied on heavy traffic roads. Further investigation is being carried on to introduce the technology for practical approach.

School-aged workers : industrial citizens in waiting?

While the literature points to significant shifts in young peoples’ labour market participation and the social, economic and political context in which this has occurred, it tells us little about whether and in what sense young people can be considered as industrial citizens. We explored the notion of youth citizenship using data derived from 48 focus groups conducted with 216 young people (13-16 years of age) at 19 high schools in Australia. The findings reveal the ways in which several key dimensions of industrial citizenship come to be shaped and have implications for addressing the vulnerability of youth in employment and informing policy and action.

Challenges in passenger terminal design : a conceptual model of passenger experience

In recent years, de-regulation in the airline industry and the introduction of low-cost carriers have conspired to produce significant changes in the airport landscape. From an airport operator’s perspective, one of the most notable has been the shift of capital revenue from traditional airline sources (through exclusive use, long term lease arrangements) to passengers (by way of fees collected from ticket sales). As a result of these developments, passengers have become recognized as major stakeholders who have the power to influence airport profitability. This link between passenger satisfaction and profitability has generated industry wide interest in the “passenger experience”. In this paper, we define the factors which influence passenger experience, namely (a) artifacts, (b) services and (c) the terminal building, and explore the challenges that exist in the current approaches to terminal design. On the basis of these insights, we propose a conceptual model of passenger experience, and motivate its use as a framework for further research into improving terminal design from a passenger oriented perspective.