Perspectives on Australian bankruptcy law through the prism of the World Bank report on the treatment of the insolvency of natural persons

The insolvency of natural persons raises questions not only for a nation’s economy but also for its concern for equity. The World Bank has recently released a Report on the Treatment of the Insolvency of Natural Persons to guide nations in addressing the issues raised by an individual debtor’s insolvency. A brief review of Australia’s personal insolvency laws shows that it addresses many of the issues raised by the Report. However two areas are identified as worthy of further investigation by policy-makers and scholars to better address a concern for equity.

Citizens and social media in times of natural disaster: Exploring information experience

Introduction. Social media is becoming a vital source of information in disaster or emergency situations. While a growing number of studies have explored the use of social media in natural disasters by emergency staff, military personnel, medial and other professionals, very few studies have investigated the use of social media by members of the public. The purpose of this paper is to explore citizens’ information experiences in social media during times of natural disaster. Method. A qualitative research approach was applied. Data was collected via in-depth interviews. Twenty-five people who used social media during a natural disaster in Australia participated in the study. Analysis. Audio recordings of interviews and interview transcripts provided the empirical material for data analysis. Data was analysed using structural and focussed coding methods. Results. Eight key themes depicting various aspects of participants’ information experience during a natural disaster were uncovered by the study: connected; wellbeing; coping; help; brokerage; journalism; supplementary and characteristics. Conclusion. This study contributes insights into social media’s potential for developing community disaster resilience and promotes discussion about the value of civic participation in social media when such circumstances occur. These findings also contribute to our understanding of information experiences as a new informational research object.

The evolving landscape of natural resource planning and governance in Australia

Australia’s governance of land and natural resources involves multiple polycentric domains of decision-making from global through to local levels. Although certainly complex, these arrangements have not necessarily translated into better decision-making or better environmental outcomes as evidenced by the growing concerns over the health and future of the Great Barrier Reef, (GBR). However within this system, arrangements for natural resource management (NRM) and reef water quality, which both use Australia’s integrated regional NRM model, have showed signs of improving decision-making and environmental outcomes in the GBR. In this paper we describe the latest evolutions in the governance and planning for natural resource use and management in Australia. We begin by reviewing the experience with first generation NRM as published in major audits and evaluations. As our primary interest is the health and future of the GBR, we then consider the impact of changes of second generation planning and governance outcomes in Queensland. We find that first generation plans, although developed under a relatively cohesive governance context, faced substantial problems in target setting, implementation, monitoring and review. Despite this, they were able to progress improvements in water quality in the Great Barrier Reef Regions. Second generation plans, currently being developed, face an even greater risk of failure due to the lack of bilateralism and cross-sectoral cooperation across the NRM governance system. The findings highlight the critical need to re-build and enhance the regional NRM model for NRM planning to have a positive impact on environmental outcomes in the GBR.

When sex doesn't sell: Using sexualized images of women reduces support for ethical campaigns

Images of scantily clad women are used by advertisers to make products more attractive to men. This ‘‘sex sells’’ approach is increasingly employed to promote ethical causes, most prominently by the animal-rights organization PETA. Yet sexualized images can dehumanize women, leaving an unresolved paradox – is it effective to advertise an ethical cause using unethical means? In Study 1, a sample of Australian male undergraduates (N = 82) viewed PETA advertisements containing either sexualized or non-sexualized images of women. Intentions to support the ethical organization were reduced for those exposed to the sexualized advertising, and this was explained by their dehumanization of the sexualized women, and not by increased arousal. Study 2 used a mixed-gender community sample from the United States (N = 280), replicating this finding and extending it by showing that behaviors helpful to the ethical cause diminished after viewing the sexualized advertisements, which was again mediated by the dehumanization of the women depicted. Alternative explanations relating to the reduced credibility of the sexualized women and their objectification were not supported. When promoting ethical causes, organizations may benefit from using advertising strategies that do not dehumanize women.

Exploring the usefulness of structural-functional approaches to systematically assess the functionality of governance arrangements for natural resource management planning in two Australian case studies

This research developed and applied an evaluative framework to analyse multiple scales of decision-making for environmental management planning. It is the first exploration of the sociological theory of structural-functionalism and its usefulness to support evidence based decision-making in a planning context. The framework was applied to analyse decision-making in Queensland's Cape York Peninsula and Wet Tropics regions.

Design and synthesis of a screening library using the natural product scaffold 3-chloro-4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid

The fungal metabolite 3-chloro-4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid (1) was utilized in the generation of a unique drug-like screening library using parallel solution-phase synthesis. A 20-membered amide library (3–22) was generated by first converting 1 to methyl (3-chloro-4-hydroxyphenyl)acetate (2), then reacting this scaffold with a diverse series of primary amines via a solvent-free aminolysis procedure. The structures of the synthetic analogues (3–22) were elucidated by spectroscopic data analysis. The structures of compounds 8, 12, and 22 were confirmed by single X-ray crystallographic analysis. All compounds were evaluated for cytotoxicity against a human prostate cancer cell line (LNCaP) and for antiparasitic activity toward Trypanosoma brucei brucei and Plasmodium falciparum and showed no significant activity at 10 μM. The library was also tested for effects on the lipid content of LNCaP and PC-3 prostate cancer cells, and it was demonstrated that the fluorobenzyl analogues (12–14) significantly reduced cellular phospholipid and neutral lipid levels.

Exit polls, turnout, and bandwagon voting: Evidence from a natural experiment

We exploit a voting reform in France to estimate the causal effect of exit poll information on turnout and bandwagon voting. Before the change in legislation, individuals in some French overseas territories voted after the election result had already been made public via exit poll information from mainland France. We estimate that knowing the exit poll information decreases voter turnout by about 11 percentage points. Our study is the first clean empirical design outside of the laboratory to demonstrate the effect of such knowledge on voter turnout. Furthermore, we find that exit poll information significantly increases bandwagon voting; that is, voters who choose to turn out are more likely to vote for the expected winner.

Enhancing the teaching and learning of mathematical visual images

The literacy demands of mathematics are very different to those in other subjects (Gough, 2007; O'Halloran, 2005; Quinnell, 2011; Rubenstein, 2007) and much has been written on the challenges that literacy in mathematics poses to learners (Abedi and Lord, 2001; Lowrie and Diezmann, 2007, 2009; Rubenstein, 2007). In particular, a diverse selection of visuals typifies the field of mathematics (Carter, Hipwell and Quinnell, 2012), placing unique literacy demands on learners. Such visuals include varied tables, graphs, diagrams and other representations, all of which are used to communicate information.

Effective emergency messaging during natural disasters: An application of message compliance theories

Study/Objective This research examines the types of emergency messages used in Australia during the response and early recovery phases of a natural disaster. The aim of the research is to develop theory-driven emergency messages that increase individual behavioural compliance during a disaster. Background There is growing evidence of non-compliant behaviour in Australia, such as refusing to evacuate and travelling through hazardous areas. This can result in personal injury, loss of life, and damage to (or loss of) property. Moreover, non-compliance can place emergency services personnel in life-threatening situations when trying to save non-compliant individuals. Drawing on message compliance research in psychology and sociology, a taxonomy of message types was developed to ascertain how emergency messaging can be improved to produce compliant behaviour. Method A review of message compliance literature was conducted to develop the taxonomy of message types previously found to achieve compliance. Seven categories were identified: direct-rational, manipulation, negative phrasing, positive phrasing, exchange appeals, normative appeals, and appeals to self. A content analysis was then conducted to assess the emergency messages evident in the Australian emergency management context. The existing messages were aligned with the literature to identify opportunities to improve emergency messaging. Results & Conclusion The results suggest there is an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of emergency messaging to increase compliance during the response and early recovery phases of a natural disaster. While some message types cannot legally or ethically be used in emergency communication (e.g. manipulative messaging), there is an opportunity to create more persuasive messages (e.g. appeals to self) that personalise the individual’s perception of risk, triggering them to comply with the message.

Towards robust automatic affective classification of images using facial expressions for practical applications

Affect is an important feature of multimedia content and conveys valuable information for multimedia indexing and retrieval. Most existing studies for affective content analysis are limited to low-level features or mid-level representations, and are generally criticized for their incapacity to address the gap between low-level features and high-level human affective perception. The facial expressions of subjects in images carry important semantic information that can substantially influence human affective perception, but have been seldom investigated for affective classification of facial images towards practical applications. This paper presents an automatic image emotion detector (IED) for affective classification of practical (or non-laboratory) data using facial expressions, where a lot of “real-world” challenges are present, including pose, illumination, and size variations etc. The proposed method is novel, with its framework designed specifically to overcome these challenges using multi-view versions of face and fiducial point detectors, and a combination of point-based texture and geometry. Performance comparisons of several key parameters of relevant algorithms are conducted to explore the optimum parameters for high accuracy and fast computation speed. A comprehensive set of experiments with existing and new datasets, shows that the method is effective despite pose variations, fast, and appropriate for large-scale data, and as accurate as the method with state-of-the-art performance on laboratory-based data. The proposed method was also applied to affective classification of images from the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) in a task typical for a practical application providing some valuable insights.

Public and private mitigation for natural disasters in Japan

An increasing number of studies analyze the relationship between natural disaster damage and income levels, but they do not consider the distinction between public and private disaster mitigation. This paper empirically distinguishes these two types of mitigation using Japanese prefectural panel data from 1975 to 2007. Our results show that public mitigation rather than private mitigation has contributed to mitigating the total damage resulting from natural disasters. Our estimation of cost-benefit ratios for each prefecture confirms that the mitigation efforts of urban prefectures are less effective than those of rural prefectures in focusing on both large and frequent/small disasters. Hence, urban prefectures need to reassess their public mitigation measures. Furthermore, to lessen the damage resulting from extreme catastrophes, policy makers are required to invest in improved mitigation infrastructures when faced with a high probability of disasters.

Not learning from the past: Adaptive governance challenges for Australian natural resource management

Australia’s governance arrangements for NRM have evolved considerably over the last thirty years. The impact of changes in governance on NRM planning and delivery requires assessment. We undertake a multi-method program evaluation using adaptive governance principles as an analytical frame and apply this to Queensland to assess the impacts of governance change on NRM planning and governance outcomes. Data to inform our analysis includes: 1) a systematic review of sixteen audits/evaluations of Australian NRM over a fifteen-year period; 2) a review of Queensland’s first generation NRM Plans; and 3) outputs from a Queensland workshop on NRM planning. NRM has progressed from a bottom-up grassroots movement into a collaborative regional NRM model that has been centralised by the Australian Government. We found that while some adaptive governance challenges have been addressed, others remained unresolved. Results show that collaboration and elements of multi-level governance under the regional model were positive moves, but also that NRM arrangements contained structural deficiencies across multiple governance levels in relation to public involvement in decision-making and knowledge production for problem responsiveness. These problems for adaptive governance have been exacerbated since 2008. We conclude that the adaptive governance framework for NRM needs urgent attention so that important environmental management problems can be addressed.

Near infrared spectroscopy of marble from Chillagoe, Australia and in comparison with other selected natural carbonates

Marble from the Chillagoe deposits was extensively used in the construction of Australia’s parliament house. Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been applied to study the quality of marble from the Chillagoe marble deposits and to distinguish between different types of marble in the Chillagoe deposits. A comparison of the NIR spectra of marble with dolomite and monohydrocalcite is made. The spectrum of the marble closely resembles that of monohydrocalcite and is different from that of dolomite. The infrared spectra of the minerals are characterised by OH and water stretching vibrations. Both the first and second fundamental overtones of these bands are observed in the NIR spectra. Marble is characterised by NIR bands at 4005, 4268 and 4340 cm–1, attributed to carbonate combination bands and overtones. Marble also shows NIR bands at 5005, 5106, 5234 and 5334 cm–1 assigned to water combination bands. Finally the NIR spectrum of the marble displays broad low-intensity features centred upon 6905 cm–1 attributed to the water first overtones. It appears feasible to identify marble through the use of NIR spectroscopy.

Near infrared spectroscopy of selected natural magnesium carbonates: implications for geosequestration

The approach to remove greenhouse gases by pumping liquid CO2 several kilometres below the ground implies that many carbonate containing minerals will be formed. Among these minerals, the formation of hydromagnesite, dypingite and nesquehonite are possible, thus necessitating a study of such minerals. These minerals with a hydrotalcite-related formulae have been characterised by a combination of infrared and near infrared spectroscopy. Layered double hydroxides (also known as anionic clays or hydrotalcites) are a group of layered clay minerals described by the general formula: [M1–x2+Mx3+(OH)2]x+[An–]x/n∙mH2O. The infrared spectra of the minerals are characterised by OH and water stretching vibrations. Both the first and second fundamental overtones of these bands are observed in the NIR spectra in the 7030–7235 cm–1 and 10,490–10,570 cm–1 spectral ranges. Intense (CO3)2– symmetrical and anti-symmetrical stretching vibrations confirm the distortion of the carbonate anion. The position of the water bending vibration indicates water is strongly hydrogen-bonded to the carbonate anion in the mineral structure. NIR spectroscopy offers a method for quickly analysing such materials.

Phenomenology and Extreme Sports in Natural Landscapes

Husserl reminded us of the imperative to return to the Lebensweldt, or life-world. He was preoccupied with the crisis of Western science which alienated the experiencing self from the world of immediate experience. Immediate experience provides a foundation for what it means to be human. Heidegger, building upon these ideas, foresaw a threat to human nature in the face of ‘technicity’. He argued for a return to a relationship between ‘authentic self’ and nature predicated upon the notion of ‘letting be’ in which humans are open to the mystery of being. Self and nature are not conceived as alienated entities but as aspects of a single entity. In modern times, separation between self and the world is further evidenced by scientific rational modes of being exemplified through consumerism and the incessant use of screen-based technology which dominate human experience. In contrast, extreme sports provide an opportunity for people to return to the life-world by living in relation to the natural world. Engagement in extreme sports enables a return to authenticity as we rediscover self as part of nature.