Do left and right asymmetries of hemispheric preference interact with attention to predict local and global performance in applied tasks?

Many cognitive neuroscience studies show that the ability to attend to and identify global or local information is lateralised between the two hemispheres in the human brain; the left hemisphere is biased towards the local level, whereas the right hemisphere is biased towards the global level. Results of two studies show attention-focused people with a right ear preference (biased towards the left hemisphere) are better at local tasks, whereas people with a left ear preference (biased towards the right hemisphere) are better at more global tasks. In a third study we determined if right hemisphere-biased followers who attend to global stimuli are likely to have a stronger relationship between attention and globally based supervisor ratings of performance. Results provide evidence in support of this hypothesis. Our research supports our model and suggests that the interaction between attention and lateral preference is an important and novel predictor of work-related outcomes.

A platform - independent product library for BIM

There is considerable interest internationally in developing product libraries to support the use of BIM. Product library initiatives are driven by national bodies, manufacturers and private companies who see their potential. A major issue with the production and distribution of product information for BIM is that separate library objects need to be produced for all of the different software systems that are going to use the library. This increases the cost of populating product libraries and also increases the difficulty in maintaining consistency between the representations for the different software over time. This paper describes a project which uses “software transformation” technology from the field of software engineering to support the definition of a single generic representation of a product which can then be automatically converted to the format required by receiving software. The paper covers the current state of implementation of the product library, the technology underlying the transformations for the currently supported software and the business model for creating a national library in Australia. This is placed within the context of other current product library systems to highlight the differences. The responsibilities of the various actors involved in supporting the product library are also discussed.

An approach for extending Building Information Models (BIM) to specifications

The Construction industry accounts for a tenth of global GDP. Still, challenges such as slow adoption of new work processes, islands of information, and legal disputes, remain frequent, industry-wide occurrences despite various attempts to address them. In response, IT-based approaches have been adopted to explore collaborative ways of executing construction projects. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an exemplar of integrative technologies whose 3D-visualisation capabilities have fostered collaboration especially between clients and design teams. Yet, the ways in which specification documents are created and used in capturing clients' expectations based on industry standards have remained largely unchanged since the 18th century. As a result, specification-related errors are still common place in an industry where vast amounts of information are consumed as well as produced in the course project implementation in the built environment. By implication, processes such as cost planning which depend on specification-related information remain largely inaccurate even with the use of BIM-based technologies. This paper briefly distinguishes between non-BIM-based and BIM-based specifications and reports on-going efforts geared towards the latter. We review exemplars aimed at extending Building Information Models to specification information embedded within the objects in a product library and explore a viable way of reasoning about a semi-automated process of specification using our product library.

Towards a global framework for advertising self regulation

One of the forces which has indelibly shaped marketing is the internet. It has not only changed the way we communicate, but our marketing practices and our advertising self-regulation process (Kerr, Mortimer, Dickinson and Waller 2012). This special session seeks to build a new global framework to regulate advertising activity in this uncharted online environment. It looks back to how advertising has been traditionally self-regulated and looks forward to identify the key issues for marketers, consumers, regulators and the media. This special session explores and reinforces the fundamental purpose of the conference, as well as addressing the urgent needs of marketers, consumers and regulators.

Remodeling of purinergic receptor-mediated Ca 2+ signaling as a consequence of EGF-induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition in breast cancer cells

Background The microenvironment plays a pivotal role in tumor cell proliferation, survival and migration. Invasive cancer cells face a new set of environmental challenges as they breach the basement membrane and colonize distant organs during the process of metastasis. Phenotypic switching, such as that which occurs during epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), may be associated with a remodeling of cell surface receptors and thus altered responses to signals from the tumor microenvironment. Methodology/Principal Findings We assessed changes in intracellular Ca 2+ in cells loaded with Fluo-4 AM using a fluorometric imaging plate reader (FLIPR TETRA) and observed significant changes in the potency of ATP (EC 50 0.175 μM (-EGF) versus 1.731 μM (+EGF), P<0.05), and the nature of the ATP-induced Ca 2+ transient, corresponding with a 10-fold increase in the mesenchymal marker vimentin (P<0.05). We observed no change in the sensitivity to PAR2-mediated Ca 2+ signaling, indicating that these alterations are not simply a consequence of changes in global Ca 2+ homeostasis. To determine whether changes in ATP-mediated Ca 2+ signaling are preceded by alterations in the transcriptional profile of purinergic receptors, we analyzed the expression of a panel of P2X ionotropic and P2Y metabotropic purinergic receptors using real-time RT-PCR and found significant and specific alterations in the suite of ATP-activated purinergic receptors during EGF-induced EMT in breast cancer cells. Our studies are the first to show that P2X 5 ionotropic receptors are enriched in the mesenchymal phenotype and that silencing of P2X 5 leads to a significant reduction (25%, P<0.05) in EGF-induced vimentin protein expression. Conclusions The acquisition of a new suite of cell surface purinergic receptors is a feature of EGF-mediated EMT in MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells. Such changes may impart advantageous phenotypic traits and represent a novel mechanism for the targeting of cancer metastasis.

Using social media to create a participatory library service : an Australian study

Public libraries are increasingly using social media in an attempt to meet users in their own spaces. Social media can be useful when used to create a participatory library service – to engage with users. However, there has been little empirical investigation into the success of social media use by public libraries. This article reports on the findings of a research project that explored the use of social media by Australian public libraries. Two organisations participated in case studies that involved interviews, document analysis, and social media observation. To contextualise the use of social media in the case study organisations, a sub study was undertaking involving observation of an additional 24 public libraries across Australia. This article focuses on the findings from the observation sub study. It presents and applies a methodology for classifying social media content to determine whether the sample libraries’ social media use is indicative of a participatory approach to service delivery. This article explores how a range of social media platforms are used by the sample libraries and considers what ‘best practice’ in participatory library service looks like. The two case study organisations’ use of social media is highlighted as exemplary practice.

High-frequency global navigation satellite system’s receivers for airborne gravimetry

The development of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) provides a solution of many applied problems with increasingly higher quality and accuracy nowadays. Researches that are carried out by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich (BAW) in the field of airborne gravimetry are based on sophisticated data processing from high frequency GNSS receiver for kinematic aircraft positioning. Applied algorithms for inertial acceleration determination are based on the high sampling rate (50Hz) and on reducing of such factors as ionosphere scintillation and multipath at aircraft /antenna near field effects. The quality of the GNSS derived kinematic height are studied also by intercomparison with lift height variations collected by a precise high sampling rate vertical scale [1]. This work is aimed at the ways of more accurate determination of mini-aircraft altitude by means of high frequency GNSS receivers, in particular by considering their dynamic behaviour.

The IHR (2005), disease surveillance, and the individual in global health politics

Since the revisions to the International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005, much attention has turned to two concerns relating to infectious disease control. The first is how to assist states to strengthen their capacity to identify and verify public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC). The second is the question of how the World Health Organization (WHO) will operate its expanded mandate under the revised IHR. Very little attention has been paid to the potential individual power that has been afforded under the IHR revisions – primarily through the first inclusion of human rights principles into the instrument and the allowance for the WHO to receive non-state surveillance intelligence and informal reports of health emergencies. These inclusions mark the individual as a powerful actor, but also recognise the vulnerability of the individual to the whim of the state in outbreak response and containment. In this paper we examine why these changes to the IHR occurred and explore the consequence of expanding the sovereignty-as-responsibility concept to disease outbreak response. To this end our paper considers both the strengths and weaknesses of incorporating reports from non-official sources and including human rights principles in the IHR framework.

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.

Book reviews : "Biosecurity interventions: global health and security in question"

International Relations’ engagement with global health governance has proliferated in the last decade. There are a number of excellent works that seek to understand how the relationship between politics and health shapes and informs people’s lives and governments’ policies. However, the overt securitization of health by the IR field has, Biosecurity interventions argues, remained relatively unproblematized...

Global Politics of Health

International responses to the outbreak of SARS, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and the promotion of health as a human right all demonstrate how global politics have a profound effect on the way we think about and respond to major health challenges. Despite a growing interest in the relationship between health and international relations there has yet to be a systematic study of the links between them. Global Health Issues aims to fill this gap – ultimately showing how world politics can be good, or bad, for your health. This book calls for a more nuanced understanding of the nature of the current global health crisis and the political dilemmas faced by those responsible for the development and implementation of responses to it. By charting these debates and showing how they shape the way actors think about key issues relating to health, such as people movement; infectious disease; the business of health; and the consequences of war; this volume provides an innovative and comprehensive introduction to health and international relations for students of global politics, health studies and related disciplines.

Global and local Hollywood

The term ‘Global Hollywood’ describes the international reach of the major Hollywood studios, and the internationalisation of financing, production, distribution and exhibition of films made by the majors, or by their subsidiaries and partners. In this article we describe how one place, the Gold Coast in the Australian state of Queensland, became a ‘Local Hollywood’ or a regular location for such international film and television production.

Indonesian LIS professionals’ understanding of Library 2.0 : a pilot study

The literature around Library 2.0 remains largely theoretical with few empirically studies and is particularly limited in developing countries such as Indonesia. This study addresses this gap and aims to provide information about the current state of knowledge on Indonesian LIS professionals’ understanding of Library 2.0. The researchers used qualitative and quantitative approaches for this study, asking thirteen closed- and open-ended questions in an online survey. The researchers used descriptive and in vivo coding to analyze the responses. Through their analysis, they identified three themes: technology, interactivity, and awareness of Library 2.0. Respondents demonstrated awareness of Library 2.0 and a basic understanding of the roles of interactivity and technology in libraries. However, overreliance on technology used in libraries to conceptualize Library 2.0 without an emphasis on its core characteristics and principles could lead to the misalignment of limited resources. The study results will potentially strengthen the research base for Library 2.0 practice, as well as inform LIS curriculum in Indonesia so as to develop practitioners who are able to adapt to users’ changing needs and expectations. It is expected that the preliminary data of this study could be used to design a much larger and more complex future research project in this area.

Law and Global Health

Law and Global Health, the sixteenth volume in the Current Legal Issues series, offers an insight into the scholarship examining the relationship between global health and the law. Covering a wide range of areas from all over the world, articles in the volume look at areas of human rights, vulnerable populations, ethical issues, legal responses and governance.

The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy : Global Perspectives

The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy brings together a range of international experts to critically analyze the ways that governmental actors and non-governmental entities attempt to influence the production and implementation of urban policies directed at the arts, culture, and creative activity. Presenting a global set of case studies that span five continents and 22 cities, the essays in this book advance our understanding of how the dynamic interplay between economic and political context, institutional arrangements, and social networks affect urban cultural policy-making and the ways that these policies impact urban development and influence urban governance. The volume comparatively studies urban cultural policy-making in a diverse set of contexts, analyzes the positive and negative outcomes of policy for different constituencies, and identifies the most effective policy directions, emerging political challenges, and most promising opportunities for building effective cultural policy coalitions. The volume provides a comprehensive and in-depth engagement with the political process of urban cultural policy and urban development studies around the world. It will be of interest to students and researchers interested in urban planning, urban studies and cultural studies.