Could mobile telephony be harnessed for development in Papua New Guinea?

Could mobile telephony be harnessed for development in Papua New Guinea (PNG)? Could mobile phones be utilised to enhance the security and prosperity of rural communities? Could mobile phones be a useful tool in the achievement of the PNG 2050 Vision targets? This paper is based on literature review around use of mobile phones in development in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. It also draws on discussions with key players in PNG, such as NGOs, UN agencies, donor partners, telecommunication companies and the government of PNG. Anticipated benefits of mobile phone availability have not been fully realised in rural areas of PNG to date due to pricing, difficulties with recharging handset batteries in communities which do not have mains electricity supply, and also concerns about negative social changes related to mobile telephony, for example parental stress over youth forming unsuitable relationships. Nonetheless, there are manifest possible ways for mobile phone technology to change user communication patterns positively regarding economic output. In sectors as diverse as health, education and law and justice, discussions are currently underway to establish how mobile phones could be used to increase service delivery, particularly to rural and marginal communities.

Social and environmental accounting research : major contributions and future directions for developing countries

A review is provided of major contributions in social and environmental accounting literature focusing on the issues of developing countries. The review of prior research shows that the major contributions have been related to the motivations for social and environmental disclosure. However, other important research areas such as ethical/accountability issues and how to cost externalities which have already been considered within the developing country context. Contemporary social and environmental issues such as climate change and greenhouse gas emissions affecting the global community also appear to be key issues of research to scholars in both developed and developing countries. Finally, some future research directions are identified.

Video-based training combined with flotation tank recovery does not improve three-point shooting in basketball

Video-based training combined with flotation tank recovery may provide an additional stimulus for improving shooting in basketball. A pre-post controlled trial was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a 3 wk intervention combining video-based training and flotation tank recovery on three-point shooting performance in elite female basketball players. Players were assigned to an experimental (n=10) and control group (n=9). A 3 wk intervention consisted of 2 x 30 min float sessions a week which included 10 min of video-based training footage, followed by a 3 wk retention phase. A total of 100 three-point shots were taken from 5 designated positions on the court at each week to assess three-point shooting performance. There was no clear difference in the mean change in the number of successful three-point shots between the groups (-3%; ±18%, mean; ±90% confidence limits). Video-based training combined with flotation recovery had little effect on three-point shooting performance.

Reflexive professionalism : reclaiming the voice of authority in shaping the discourses of education policy

The nature and value of ‘professionalism’ has long been contested by both producers and consumers of policy. Most recently, governments have rewritten and redefined professionalism as compliance with externally imposed ‘standards’. This has been achieved by silencing the voices of those who inhabit the professional field of education. This paper uses Foucauldian archaeology to excavate the enunciative field of professionalism by digging through the academic and institutional (political) archive, and in doing so identifies two key policy documents for further analysis. The excavation shows that while the voices of (academic) authority speak of competing discourses emerging, with professional standards promulgated as the mechanism to enhance professionalism, an alternative regime of truth identifies the privileged use of (managerial) voices from outside the field of education to create a discourse of compliance. There has long been a mismatch between the voices of authority on discourses around professionalism from the academic archive and those that count in contemporary and emerging Australian educational policy. In this paper, we counter this mismatch and argue that reflexive educators’ regimes of truth are worthy of attention and should be heard and amplified.

Basic cognitive experiences and definitions in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

This study applies theories of cognitive linguistics to the compilation of English learners’ dictionaries. Specifically, it employs the concepts of basic level categories and image schemas, two basic cognitive experiences, to examine the ‘definition proper’ of English dictionaries for foreign learners. In the study, the definition proper refers to the constituent part of a reference work that provides an explanation of the meanings of a word, phrase or term. This rationalization mainly consists of defining vocabulary, sense division and arrangement, as well as the means of defining (i.e. paraphrase, true definition, functional definition, and pictorial illustration). The aim of the study is to suggest ways of aligning the consultation and learning of definitions with dictionary users’ cognitive experiences. For this purpose, an analysis of the definition proper of the fourth edition of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE4) from the perspective of basic cognitive experiences has been undertaken. The study found that, generally, the lexicographic practices of LDOCE4 are consistent with theories of cognitive linguistics. However, there exist shortcomings that result from disregarding basic cognitive experiences.

Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam

Vietnam is currently undergoing a metamorphosis from a relatively closed society with a centrally planned economy, to a rapidly urbanising one with a global outlook. These changes have been the catalyst for an exciting ferment of activity in popular culture. This volume contains contributions from scholars engaged in the most up-to-date social research in Vietnam, as well as some of Vietnam's most popular cultural producers who are forging new ways of imagining the present whilst at the same time engaging actively in reinterpreting the past. The diverse ways that Vietnam is culturally and socially negotiating the future are examined as the book addresses issues of indigenisation of cultural influences, ambivalence surrounding change, and the consistent blurring of boundaries between informal, non-state cultural activities and formal institutional structures in the evolution of a civil society in Vietnam.

Heteroscedastic probabilistic linear discriminant analysis for manifold learning in video-based face recognition

To recognize faces in video, face appearances have been widely modeled as piece-wise local linear models which linearly approximate the smooth yet non-linear low dimensional face appearance manifolds. The choice of representations of the local models is crucial. Most of the existing methods learn each local model individually meaning that they only anticipate variations within each class. In this work, we propose to represent local models as Gaussian distributions which are learned simultaneously using the heteroscedastic probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA). Each gallery video is therefore represented as a collection of such distributions. With the PLDA, not only the within-class variations are estimated during the training, the separability between classes is also maximized leading to an improved discrimination. The heteroscedastic PLDA itself is adapted from the standard PLDA to approximate face appearance manifolds more accurately. Instead of assuming a single global within-class covariance, the heteroscedastic PLDA learns different within-class covariances specific to each local model. In the recognition phase, a probe video is matched against gallery samples through the fusion of point-to-model distances. Experiments on the Honda and MoBo datasets have shown the merit of the proposed method which achieves better performance than the state-of-the-art technique.

Triple Helix: Film Noir, Neo Noir and Los Angeles – imagining history and remembering the future in the most contemporary city

Modern and Postmodern Los Angeles is examined through the lens of film noir and neo noir. The unique relationship between the city of Los Angeles and cinema is discussed in terms of a historiography emphasizing the role played by these defining film styles and genres. The research draws and extends on the work conducted by Edward Dimendberg, Paula Rabinowitz and Mike Davis, and urban theory approaches associated with the Los Angeles School of Urbanism.

Supermassive

“Supermassive” is a synchronised four-channel video installation with sound. Each video channel shows a different camera view of an animated three-dimensional scene, which visually references galactic or astral imagery. This scene is comprised of forty-four separate clusters of slowly orbiting white text. Each cluster refers to a different topic that has been sourced online. The topics are diverse with recurring subjects relating to spirituality, science, popular culture, food and experiences of contemporary urban life. The slow movements of the text and camera views are reinforced through a rhythmic, contemplative soundtrack. As an immersive installation, “Supermassive” operates somewhere between a meditational mind map and a representation of a contemporary data stream. “Supermassive” contributes to studies in the field of contemporary art. It is particularly concerned with the ways that graphic representations of language can operate in the exploration of contemporary lived experiences, whether actual or virtual. Artists such as Ed Ruscha and Christopher Wool have long explored the emotive and psychological potentials of graphic text. Other artists such as Doug Aitken and Pipilotti Rist have engaged with the physical and spatial potentials of audio-visual installations to create emotive and symbolic experiences for their audiences. Using a practice-led research methodology, “Supermassive” extends these creative inquiries. By creating a reflective atmosphere in which divergent textual subjects are pictured together, the work explores not only how we navigate information, but also how such navigations inform understandings of our physical and psychological realities. “Supermassive” has been exhibited internationally at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California in 2013 and nationally with GBK as part of Art Month Sydney, also in 2013. It has been critically reviewed in The Los Angeles Times.

Tranquility falls

“Tranquility Falls” depicts a computer-generated waterfall set to sentimental stock music. As the water gushes, text borrowed from a popular talk show host’s self-help advice fade in and out graphically down the screen. As the animated phrases increase in tempo, the sounds of the waterfall begin to overwhelm the tender music. By creating overtly fabricated sensations of inspiration and awe, the work questions how and where we experience contemplation, wonderment and guidance in a contemporary context. “Tranquility Falls” contributes to studies in the field of contemporary art. It is particularly concerned with representations of spirituality and nature. These have been important themes in art practice for some time. For example, artists such as Olafur Eliasson and James Turrell have created artificial insertions in nature in order to question contemporary experiences of the natural environment. Other artists such as Nam Jun Paik have more directly addressed the changing relationship between spirituality and popular culture. Using a practice-led research methodology, “Tranquility Falls” extends these creative inquiries. By presenting an overtly synthetic but strangely evocative pun on a ‘fountain of knowledge’, it questions whether we are informed less by traditional engagements with organised religions and natural wonder, and instead, increasingly reliant on the mechanisms of popular culture for moments of insight and reflection. “Tranquility Falls” has been exhibited internationally at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California in 2013 and nationally with GBK as part of Art Month Sydney, also in 2013. It has been critically reviewed in The Los Angeles Times.

User-driven quality of experience modelling for mobile video optimisation

The increasing demand for mobile video has attracted much attention from both industry and researchers. To satisfy users and to facilitate the usage of mobile video, providing optimal quality to the users is necessary. As a result, quality of experience (QoE) becomes an important focus in measuring the overall quality perceived by the end-users, from the aspects of both objective system performance and subjective experience. However, due to the complexity of user experience and diversity of resources (such as videos, networks and mobile devices), it is still challenging to develop QoE models for mobile video that can represent how user-perceived value varies with changing conditions. Previous QoE modelling research has two main limitations: aspects influencing QoE are insufficiently considered; and acceptability as the user value is seldom studied. Focusing on the QoE modelling issues, two aims are defined in this thesis: (i) investigating the key influencing factors of mobile video QoE; and (ii) establishing QoE prediction models based on the relationships between user acceptability and the influencing factors, in order to help provide optimal mobile video quality. To achieve the first goal, a comprehensive user study was conducted. It investigated the main impacts on user acceptance: video encoding parameters such as quantization parameter, spatial resolution, frame rate, and encoding bitrate; video content type; mobile device display resolution; and user profiles including gender, preference for video content, and prior viewing experience. Results from both quantitative and qualitative analysis revealed the significance of these factors, as well as how and why they influenced user acceptance of mobile video quality. Based on the results of the user study, statistical techniques were used to generate a set of QoE models that predict the subjective acceptability of mobile video quality by using a group of the measurable influencing factors, including encoding parameters and bitrate, content type, and mobile device display resolution. Applying the proposed QoE models into a mobile video delivery system, optimal decisions can be made for determining proper video coding parameters and for delivering most suitable quality to users. This would lead to consistent user experience on different mobile video content and efficient resource allocation. The findings in this research enhance the understanding of user experience in the field of mobile video, which will benefit mobile video design and research. This thesis presents a way of modelling QoE by emphasising user acceptability of mobile video quality, which provides a strong connection between technical parameters and user-desired quality. Managing QoE based on acceptability promises the potential for adapting to the resource limitations and achieving an optimal QoE in the provision of mobile video content.

Video-based road commentary training improves hazard perception of young drivers in a dual task

This study used a video-based hazard perception dual task to compare the hazard perception skills of young drivers with middle aged, more experienced drivers and to determine if these skills can be improved with video-based road commentary training. The primary task required the participants to detect and verbally identify immediate hazard on video-based traffic scenarios while concurrently performing a secondary tracking task, simulating the steering of real driving. The results showed that the young drivers perceived fewer immediate hazards (mean = 75.2%, n = 24, 19 females) than the more experienced drivers (mean = 87.5%, n = 8, all females), and had longer hazard perception times, but performed better in the secondary tracking task. After the road commentary training, the mean percentage of hazards detected and identified by the young drivers improved to the level of the experienced drivers and was significantly higher than that of an age and driving experience matched control group. The results will be discussed in the context of psychological theories of hazard perception and in relation to road commentary as an evidence-based training intervention that seems to improve many aspects of unsafe driving behaviour in young drivers.

Facebook : a 24 hour studio environment for contemporary architectural education

The popularity of Web 2.0 technology amongst tertiary students has become an increased talking point due to its pedagogical capabilities. The purpose of this research was to incorporate the social network Facebook within an architectural design studio to reintroduce the social interaction that was once generated within the traditional, 24 hour setting. This interaction has proven vital to an architect’s future as here they develop the initial peer network within the industry. The study draws upon existing literature to gage the effectiveness of introducing Facebook within the contemporary university environment, further, a case study was established within a second year architectural class. The correspondence was monitored at five intervals across the semester, with the information that was shared, quantified. The aim of this research was to provide the necessary foundation for the feasibility on the possible inclusion of Facebook within architectural tertiary education.

Reconnection : a contemporary development in cultural landscape theory contributing to rehabilitation strategies for Australian open-cut coal mining landscapes

A value-shift began to influence global political thinking in the late 20th century, characterised by recognition of the need for environmentally, socially and culturally sustainable resource development. This shift entailed a move away from thinking of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ as separate entities – the former existing to serve the latter – toward the possibility of embracing the intrinsic worth of the nonhuman world. Cultural landscape theory recognises ‘nature’ as at once both ‘natural’, and a ‘cultural’ construct. As such, it may offer a framework through which to progress in the quest for ‘sustainable development’. This study makes a contribution to this quest by asking whether contemporary developments in cultural landscape theory can contribute to rehabilitation strategies for Australian open-cut coal mining landscapes. The answer is ‘yes’. To answer the research question, a flexible, ‘emergent’ methodological approach has been used, resulting in the following outcomes. A thematic historical overview of landscape values and resource development in Australia post-1788, and a review of cultural landscape theory literature, contribute to the formation of a new theoretical framework: Reconnecting the Interrupted Landscape. This framework establishes a positive answer to the research question. It also suggests a method of application within the Australian open-cut coal mining landscape, a highly visible exemplar of the resource development landscape. This method is speculatively tested against the rehabilitation strategy of an operating open-cut coal mine, concluding with positive recommendations to the industry, and to government.

Personality & video game genre preferences

This research has been conducted to ascertain whether people with certain personality types exhibit preferences for particular game genres. Four hundred and sixty-six participants completed an online survey in which they described their preference for various game genres and provided measures of personality. Personality types were measured using the five-factor model of personality. Significant relationships between personality types and game genres were found. The results are interpreted in the context of the features of particular game genres and possible matches between personality traits and these features.