Can an Australian rap fan be a social actor in the African-American social movements?

I live in the Sydney North Shore suburb of Northbridge. In many ways it is a white middle class enclave, comparable to places like Cabramatta that are identified with a specifically represented ethnic group. Gated primarily by the inflated property prices, it is a location that marks a territory principally for the white middle class. It is not a place of African-American movements. Or is it? Radio, television, film and Internet increasingly constitute a large portion of the sonic and visual landscapes of our suburban lives. In our lounge rooms and in our cars we are presented texts that take us beyond our local environments, into the places of other nations. This paper will explore the position of a fan of rap music, physically located beyond the cultural and political circumstances that drive sustained action for the movements of African-Americans. It will analyze whether such a fandom can indicate membership, as a social actor, in this group and in doing so illuminate the boundaries of movement activity in an information society.

‘I now know I can do this now’: Indigenous women and writing in the Australian higher education sector

This paper explores the challenges of writing and publishing faced by Indigenous women who work in the Australian higher education sector. It demonstrates that Indigenous women are under-represented in the academy and argues that Indigenous styles of writing are typically not valued for broader publication. The authors describe a writing mentoring and support program specifically developed for Indigenous academic women in Australia. The Tiddas Writin’ Up Workshop provided a safe and culturally-appropriate space for women to learn about academic writing and develop their writing skills. The workshop led to the publication of a special issue of the Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues – known as the Tiddas Collection. The authors highlight the power and strength of well-developed support programs to address skills development, confidence, inequities and under-representation of Indigenous women within the higher education workforce.

Time to face the fats : What can mass spectrometry reveal about the structure of lipids and their interactions with proteins?

Since the 1950s, X-ray crystallography has been the mainstay of structural biology, providing detailed atomic-level structures that continue to revolutionize our understanding of protein function. From recent advances in this discipline, a picture has emerged of intimate and specific interactions between lipids and proteins that has driven renewed interest in the structure of lipids themselves and raised intriguing questions as to the specificity and stoichiometry in lipid-protein complexes. Herein we demonstrate some of the limitations of crystallography in resolving critical structural features of ligated lipids and thus determining how these motifs impact protein binding. As a consequence, mass spectrometry must play an important and complementary role in unraveling the complexities of lipid-protein interactions. We evaluate recent advances and highlight ongoing challenges towards the twin goals of (1) complete structure elucidation of low, abundant, and structurally diverse lipids by mass spectrometry alone, and (2) assignment of stoichiometry and specificity of lipid interactions within protein complexes.

Multi-shot person re-identification via relational stein divergence

Person re-identification is particularly challenging due to significant appearance changes across separate camera views. In order to re-identify people, a representative human signature should effectively handle differences in illumination, pose and camera parameters. While general appearance-based methods are modelled in Euclidean spaces, it has been argued that some applications in image and video analysis are better modelled via non-Euclidean manifold geometry. To this end, recent approaches represent images as covariance matrices, and interpret such matrices as points on Riemannian manifolds. As direct classification on such manifolds can be difficult, in this paper we propose to represent each manifold point as a vector of similarities to class representers, via a recently introduced form of Bregman matrix divergence known as the Stein divergence. This is followed by using a discriminative mapping of similarity vectors for final classification. The use of similarity vectors is in contrast to the traditional approach of embedding manifolds into tangent spaces, which can suffer from representing the manifold structure inaccurately. Comparative evaluations on benchmark ETHZ and iLIDS datasets for the person re-identification task show that the proposed approach obtains better performance than recent techniques such as Histogram Plus Epitome, Partial Least Squares, and Symmetry-Driven Accumulation of Local Features.

Effect of crack depth and specimen width on fracture toughness of a carbon steel in the ductile-brittle transition region

The effects of crack depth (a/W) and specimen width W on the fracture toughness and ductile±brittle transition have been investigated using three-point bend specimens. Finite element analysis is employed to obtain the stress-strain fields ahead of the crack tip. The results show that both normalized crack depth (a/W) and specimen width (W) affect the fracture toughness and ductile±brittle fracture transition. The measured crack tip opening displacement decreases and ductile±brittle transition occurs with increasing crack depth (a/W) from 0.1 to 0.2 and 0.3. At a fixed a/W (0.2 or 0.3), all specimens fail by cleavage prior to ductile tearing when specimen width W increases from 25 to 40 and 50 mm. The lower bound fracture toughness is not sensitive to crack depth and specimen width. Finite element analysis shows that the opening stress in the remaining ligament is elevated with increasing crack depth or specimen width due to the increase of in-plane constraint. The average local cleavage stress is dependent on both crack depth and specimen width but its lower bound value is not sensitive to constraint level. No fixed distance can be found from the cleavage initiation site to the crack tip and this distance increases gradually with decreasing inplane constraint.

Australian Aboriginal English and cultural conceptions : can they affect policing?

It is well established that there are inherent difficulties involved in communicating across cultural boundaries. When these difficulties are encountered within the justice system the innocent can be convicted and witnesses undermined. A large amount of research has been undertaken regarding the implications of miscommunication within the courtroom but far less has been carried out on language and interactions between police and Indigenous Australians. It is necessary that officers of the law be made aware of linguistic issues to ensure they conduct their investigations in a fair, effective and therefore ethical manner. This paper draws on Cultural Schema Theory to illustrate how this could be achieved. The justice system is reliant upon the skills and knowledge of the police, therefore, this paper highlights the need for research to focus on the linguistic and non‐verbal differences between Australian Aboriginal English and Australian Standard English in order to develop techniques to facilitate effective communication.

Can the use of quality assurance tools reduce the impact of surgical complications on the well-being of obstetricians and gynaecologists in Australia and New Zealand?

Background While adverse events primarily affect the patient, surgeons involved can also experience considerable distress. Aims The aim of the survey was to assess the impact of complications on the day-to-day life, work and health of Australian and New Zealand obstetricians and gynaecologists and to evaluate existing support systems and coping strategies. Methods A 43-question survey on self-assessment, quality assurance (QA) tools, impact of complications on individuals’ health and relationships, and support available was emailed to fellows, trainees, subspecialists and subspecialty trainees of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RANZCOG). We collected 606 responses from a target population of 2296 (response rate 26.3%). Results When complications occur, sleep was affected of 80%, family and social relationships of 55% and physical health of 48% of respondents. The major sources of support were from colleagues (83%), family (82%) and medical defence organisations (73%), with professional bodies perceived as providing least support. Nearly 80% of respondents felt the need to talk to someone they trust during times of complications. Overall, 100% of respondents used at least one QA tool (62% used two, 26% three and 9% four QA strategies). There were significant differences between respondent groups in use of the QA tools. Conclusions Surgical complications have a significant impact on the well-being of Australian and New Zealand obstetricians and gynaecologists. Existing support comes from colleagues and family, but structured, unbiased support for surgeons from a professional source is urgently warranted.

Numerical investigation on stable crack growth in plane stress

Large deformation finite element analysis has been carried out to investigate the stress-strain fields ahead of a growing crack for compact tension .a=W D 0:5/ and three-point bend .a=W D 0:1 and 0:5/ specimens under plane stress condition. The crack growth is controlled by the experimental J -integral resistance curves measured by Sun et al. The results indicate that the distributions of opening stress, equivalent stress and equivalent strain ahead of a growing crack are not sensitive to specimen geometry. For both stationary and growing cracks, similar distributions of opening stress and triaxiality can be found along the ligament. During stable crack growth, the crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD) resistance curve and the cohesive fracture energy in the fracture process zone are independent of specimen geometry and may be suitable criteria for characterizing stable crack growth in plane stress.

Indemnity costs - whether indemnity costs can be ordered in Magistrates Court

In Asset Loan Management v Mamap Pty Ltd [2005] QDC 295, McGill DCJ held that costs may be recovered in Magistrates Courts on the indemnity basis. His Honour was satisfied his conclusion in this respect was not precluded by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Beardmore v Franklins Management Services Pty Ltd [2002] QCA 60

Vertical alignment of process models – how can we get there?

There is a wide variety of drivers for business process modelling initiatives, reaching from business evolution and process optimisation over compliance checking and process certification to process enactment. That, in turn, results in models that differ in content due to serving different purposes. In particular, processes are modelled on different abstraction levels and assume different perspectives. Vertical alignment of process models aims at handling these deviations. While the advantages of such an alignment for inter-model analysis and change propagation are out of question, a number of challenges has still to be addressed. In this paper, we discuss three main challenges for vertical alignment in detail. Against this background, the potential application of techniques from the field of process integration is critically assessed. Based thereon, we identify specific research questions that guide the design of a framework for model alignment.

The free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit: the shifting values of Wikipedia editors

Wikipedia is often held up as an example of the potential of the internet to foster open, free and non-commercial collaboration. However such discourses often conflate these values without recognising how they play out in reality in a peer-production community. As Wikipedia is evolving, it is an ideal time to examine these discourses and the tensions that exist between its initial ideals and the reality of commercial activity in the encyclopaedia. Through an analysis of three failed proposals to ban paid advocacy editing in the English language Wikipedia, this paper highlights the shift in values from the early editorial community that forked encyclopaedic content over the threat of commercialisation, to one that today values the freedom that allows anyone to edit the encyclopaedia.

What contribution can International Relations make to the evolving global health agenda?

This article presents two approaches that have dominated International Relations in their approach to the international politics of health. The statist approach, which is primarily security-focused, seeks to link health initiatives to a foreign or defence policy remit. The globalist approach, in contrast, seeks to advance health not because of its intrinsic security value but because it advances the well-being and rights of individuals. This article charts the evolution of these approaches and demonstrates why both have the potential to shape our understanding of the evolving global health agenda. It examines how the statist and globalist perspectives have helped shape contemporary initiatives in global health governance and suggests that there is evidence of an emerging convergence between the two perspectives. This convergence is particularly clear in the articulation of a number of UN initiatives in this area—especially the One World, One Health Strategic Framework and the Oslo Ministerial Declaration (2007) which inspired the first UN General Assembly resolution on global health and foreign policy in 2009 and the UN Secretary-General's note ‘Global health and foreign policy: strategic opportunities and challenges'. What remains to be seen is whether this convergence will deliver on securing states’ interest long enough to promote the interests of the individuals who require global efforts to deliver local health improvements.

In-vehicle railway level crossing warning systems : can intelligent transport systems deliver?

Intelligent Transport System (ITS) technology is seen as a cost-effective way to increase the conspicuity of approaching trains and the effectiveness of train warnings at level crossings by providing an in-vehicle warning of an approaching train. The technology is often seen as a potential low-cost alternative to upgrading passive level crossings with traditional active warning systems (flashing lights and boom barriers). ITS platforms provide sensor, localization and dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) technologies to support cooperative applications such as collision avoidance for road vehicles. In recent years, in-vehicle warning systems based on ITS technology have been trialed at numerous locations around Australia, at level crossing sites with active and passive controls. While significant research has been conducted on the benefits of the technology in nominal operating modes, little research has focused on the effects of the failure modes, the human factors implications of unreliable warnings and the technology adoption process from the railway industry’s perspective. Many ITS technology suppliers originate from the road industry and often have limited awareness of the safety assurance requirements, operational requirements and legal obligations of railway operators. This paper aims to raise awareness of these issues and start a discussion on how such technology could be adopted. This paper will describe several ITS implementation cenarios and discuss failure modes, human factors considerations and the impact these scenarios are likely to have in terms of safety, railway safety assurance requirements and the practicability of meeting these requirements. The paper will identify the key obstacles impeding the adoption of ITS systems for the different implementation scenarios and a possible path forward towards the adoption of ITS technology.

Follow the leader if you can, hedge if you must

Follow-the-Leader (FTL) is an intuitive sequential prediction strategy that guarantees constant regret in the stochastic setting, but has poor performance for worst-case data. Other hedging strategies have better worst-case guarantees but may perform much worse than FTL if the data are not maximally adversarial. We introduce the FlipFlop algorithm, which is the first method that provably combines the best of both worlds. As a stepping stone for our analysis, we develop AdaHedge, which is a new way of dynamically tuning the learning rate in Hedge without using the doubling trick. AdaHedge refines a method by Cesa-Bianchi, Mansour, and Stoltz (2007), yielding improved worst-case guarantees. By interleaving AdaHedge and FTL, FlipFlop achieves regret within a constant factor of the FTL regret, without sacrificing AdaHedge’s worst-case guarantees. AdaHedge and FlipFlop do not need to know the range of the losses in advance; moreover, unlike earlier methods, both have the intuitive property that the issued weights are invariant under rescaling and translation of the losses. The losses are also allowed to be negative, in which case they may be interpreted as gains.