Patient Safety - A Psychological Perspective

This comprehensive book takes a psychological perspective on patient safety. It is based on the most recent theoretical and empirical research evidence from psychology (including clinical, work, and organizational psychology) and adjacent social and behavioral sciences such as human factors. Factors that influence safety-related experiences, behaviors, and outcomes of patients and professionals working in clinical settings such as medical practices and hospitals are reviewed, structured, and critically evaluated. Consistent with the complexity of the topic, the author takes a multi-level approach to patient safety, which includes a review of individual, team, and organizational factors and outcomes. The book describes how these factors, by themselves and in combination, can facilitate or impede patient safety. Individual factors include safety-relevant knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality traits such as conscientiousness and emotional stability. Team factors include group communication, training, and leadership. Finally, organizational factors include the safety culture and climate. Throughout the book, different evidence-based intervention programs are described that can help practitioners promote patient safety and prevent accidents. The book is a valuable resource for both researchers and practitioners interested in understanding, maintaining, and improving patient safety in a variety of applied settings. It is based on the most up-to-date research evidence from psychology and neighboring disciplines, and it is written in a clear and non-technical language understandable for a wide audience.

Making the most of spatial information in health: A tutorial in Bayesian disease mapping for areal data

Disease maps are effective tools for explaining and predicting patterns of disease outcomes across geographical space, identifying areas of potentially elevated risk, and formulating and validating aetiological hypotheses for a disease. Bayesian models have become a standard approach to disease mapping in recent decades. This article aims to provide a basic understanding of the key concepts involved in Bayesian disease mapping methods for areal data. It is anticipated that this will help in interpretation of published maps, and provide a useful starting point for anyone interested in running disease mapping methods for areal data. The article provides detailed motivation and descriptions on disease mapping methods by explaining the concepts, defining the technical terms, and illustrating the utility of disease mapping for epidemiological research by demonstrating various ways of visualising model outputs using a case study. The target audience includes spatial scientists in health and other fields, policy or decision makers, health geographers, spatial analysts, public health professionals, and epidemiologists.

'Insider-other': spectator-dancer relationships fostered through open rehearsals

This thesis addresses audience engagement challenges during professional mainstream ballet and contemporary dance company performances by examining spectator-dancer relationships. Focusing on the open rehearsal as an audience engagement tool, this project presents a new line of enquiry in dance reception studies. The findings signify that open rehearsal attendance can contribute to more meaningful and enjoyable performance experiences for audience members by opening up the possibility of different relationships with dancers.

Transitioning from university to the workplace: Stakeholder perceptions of academic and professional writing demands

This study provides a detailed insight into the changing writing demands from the last year of university study to the first year in the workforce of engineering and accounting professionals. The study relates these to the demands of the writing component of IELTS, which is increasingly used for exit testing. The number of international and local students whose first language is not English and who are studying in English-medium universities has increased significantly in the past decade. Many of these students aim to start working in the country they studied in; however, some employers have suggested that graduates seeking employment have insufficient language skills. This study provides a detailed insight into the changing writing demands from the last year of university study to the first year in the workforce of engineering and accounting professionals (our two case study professions). It relates these to the demands of the writing component of IELTS, which is increasingly used for exit or professional entry testing, although not expressly designed for this purpose. Data include interviews with final year students, lecturers, employers and new graduates in their first few years in the workforce, as well as professional board members. Employers also reviewed both final year assignments, as well as IELTS writing samples at different levels. Most stakeholders agreed that graduates entering the workforce are underprepared for the writing demands in their professions. When compared with the university writing tasks, the workplace writing expected of new graduates was perceived as different in terms of genre, the tailoring of a text for a specific audience, and processes of review and editing involved. Stakeholders expressed a range of views on the suitability of the use of academic proficiency tests (such as IELTS) as university exit tests and for entry into the professions. With regard to IELTS, while some saw the relevance of the two writing tasks, particularly in relation to academic writing, others questioned the extent to which two timed tasks representing limited genres could elicit a representative sample of the professional writing required, particularly in the context of engineering. The findings are discussed in relation to different test purposes, the intersection between academic and specific purpose testing and the role of domain experts in test validation.

The business of myth-making: Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers and the Disney effect

In just one of the many extraordinary moments during the spectacular Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games, thirty Mary Poppinses floated into the stadium on their umbrellas to battle a 40 foot-long inflatable Lord Voldemort. This multi-million pound extravaganza was telecast to a global audience of over one billion people, highlighting in an extremely effective manner the grandeur and eccentricities of the host nation, and featuring uniquely British icons such as Mr Bean, James Bond, The Beatles and Harry Potter, as well as those quintessential icons of Englishness, the Royal Family, double-decker red buses and the National Health Service.

The Hot Topic Community: Videoconferencing to reduce the professional isolation of teachers in rural Western Australia

Access to quality professional learning and the opportunity to collaborate with other educators can be limited for teachers in rural and remote areas of Western Australia. A recognised need to enhance the skills of rural teaching professionals and encourage teachers in small communities to join collegial networks was established by the members of several professional organisations. A working group consisting of representatives from the Australian College of Educators-WA (ACE-WA), the Rural and Remote Education Advisory Council (RREAC), the Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia (SPERA) and the School of Isolated and Distance Education (SIDE) provided teachers in rural areas with the opportunity to reduce professional isolation through the provision of relevant, convenient, and cost effective in-service education. Through a videoconferencing system, accessed within the Western Australian Telecentre Network and other educational organisations, the audience connected and participated with the presenter and studio based audience for two Hot Topics Seminars in 2008. This paper reports on the challenges and successes encountered by the working group and the findings of the research conducted throughout 2008.

Displaying and celebrating the "other": A study of the mission, scope, and roles of ethnic museums in Los Angeles

In the last thirty years, ethnic museums have mushroomed in American cities. Although this is certainly a national phenomenon, it has been particularly evident in Los Angeles. In this paper we examine the genesis and evolution of these emerging institutions. We survey the mission, scope, and role of ethnic museums in Los Angeles, and we contrast them with the stated mission and scope of “mainstream” museums in the city. We further present case studies of three Los Angeles ethnic museums. The museums vary considerably in the ways they perceive their role in the community, the city, and the nation and in the preservation and display of ethnic culture. At their best, ethnic museums serve to make new art and histories more accessible and visible and provide a forum in which to debate contemporary issues of politics and identity. The paper highlights some of the tensions faced by ethnic museums as they seek to define their audience and role(s) in multi-ethnic, twenty-first century Los Angeles.

Zarathustra’s Cave

In 'Zarathustra’s Cave' the iconic apartment set from 90’s sitcom 'Seinfeld' is presented devoid of actors or action of any kind. Instead the ‘apartment’ sits empty, accompanied by the ambient noise of the screen-space and the distant sound of city traffic. At irregular intervals this relative silence is punctuated by the laughter of an off-screen audience. Unprompted by any on-screen action, this spontaneous audience response ranges from raucous fits of cheering and applause to singular guffaws and giggles. The work is the product of a deep engagement with its subject matter, the result of countless hours of re-watching and editing to isolate the aural and visual spaces presented on the screen. In its resolute emptiness, the installation addresses the notion of narrative expectation. It creates a ‘nothing-space’, where a viewer can experientially oscillate between a sense of presence and absence, tension and pathos, or even between humour and existential crisis. The work was first exhibited in ‘NEW14’, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne.

A stunning experience

‘A Stunning Experience’ pits Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman against each other in an infinite interview. Through simple editing and compositing, both parties are rendered mute, positioned at either edge of a black void. The interviewer/interviewee dynamic is playfully reconfigured into an awkward exchange comprised entirely of blinks, breaths and head-nods. Accompanied by the sound of a curious and whispering studio audience, this wordless clash between the two talk show titans becomes emblematic of their infamous sixteen-year feud. The quasi-staring contest upends the cult of personality surrounding these iconic television hosts, while also creating and proposing a space for reflection upon the experiential and even meditative potential of watching television.

Chasing Infinite Junctures

A collaborative solo exhibition at Boxcopy, Brisbane. For Chasing Infinite Junctures, Caitlin Franzmann presented an installation as an open site for affect, response and collaboration. The exhibition began with an architectural intervention, which was available for exchange and transformation involving other artists, events and the sensing body of the audience. For five weeks, Caitlin provided a space for new junctures to unfold – artists including Andrew McLellan, Ross Manning, Henry Mills, Louise Bennett, Leena Riethmuller and Sandra Selig will gather, experiment and create in the space.

Oh Holly, The Fish is Dead

From Kurt Vonnegut to Stephen King, many novelists use metanarrative techniques to insert fictional versions of themselves in the stories they tell. The function of deploying such techniques is often to draw attention to the liminal space between the fictional constructs inherent in the novel as a form, and the real world from which the constructs draw inspiration, and indeed, are read by an audience. For emerging writers working in short form narratives, however, the structural demands of the short story or flash fiction make the use of similar techniques problematic in the level of depth to which they can be deployed. ‘Oh Holly, the fish is dead’ is the fourth in a series of short stories that work to overcome the structural limitations of a succinct form by developing a fractured fictional version of the author over a number of pieces and published across a range of sites. The accumulative affect is a richer metanarrative textual arrangement that also allows for the individual short stories to function independently.

Swing Low

From Kurt Vonnegut to Stephen King, many novelists use metanarrative techniques to insert fictional versions of themselves in the stories they tell. The function of deploying such techniques is often to draw attention to the liminal space between the fictional constructs inherent in the novel as a form, and the real world from which the constructs draw inspiration, and indeed, are read by an audience. For emerging writers working in short form narratives, however, the structural demands of the short story or flash fiction make the use of similar techniques problematic in the level of depth to which they can be deployed. ‘Swing Low’ is the fifth in a series of short stories that work to overcome the structural limitations of a succinct form by developing a fractured fictional version of the author over a number of pieces and published across a range of sites. The accumulative affect is a richer metanarrative textual arrangement that also allows for the individual short stories to function independently.

Eating the Lonesome

From Kurt Vonnegut to Stephen King, many novelists use metanarrative techniques to insert fictional versions of themselves in the stories they tell. The function of deploying such techniques is often to draw attention to the liminal space between the fictional constructs inherent in the novel as a form, and the real world from which the constructs draw inspiration, and indeed, are read by an audience. For emerging writers working in short form narratives, however, the structural demands of the short story or flash fiction make the use of similar techniques problematic in the level of depth to which they can be deployed. ‘Eating The Lonesome’ is the sixth in a series of short stories that work to overcome the structural limitations of a succinct form by developing a fractured fictional version of the author over a number of pieces and published across a range of sites. The accumulative affect is a richer metanarrative textual arrangement that also allows for the individual short stories to function independently.

Conversation Pieces

This curated exhibition presented works by Australian artists Agatha Gothe-Snape, Alex Martinis Roe and Hannah Raisin and collaborative works by Catherine or Kate (Catherine Sagin and Kate Woodcroft), Scott Ferguson (Erika Scott and Brooke Ferguson) and Courtney Coombs and Caitlin Franzmann. These artists engage with ideas of contemporary feminism through processes of dialogue and exchange, exploring subjectivity, humour and intimacy in performance and installation artworks. These works are generated by physical, verbal or textual dialogues between collaborators, participants or the artist and audience; and spark a conversation about contemporary feminist art practice in Australia today.

Theatre, networked performance, and notions of ‘democratised’ spectatorship

The potential to cultivate new relationships with spectators has long been cited as a primary motivator for those using digital technologies to construct networked or telematics performances or para-performance encounters in which performers and spectators come together in virtual – or at least virtually augmented – spaces and places. Today, with Web 2.0 technologies such as social media platforms becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and increasingly easy to use, more and more theatre makers are developing digitally mediated relationships with spectators. Sometimes for the purpose of an aesthetic encounter, sometimes for critical encounter, or sometimes as part of an audience politicisation, development or engagement agenda. Sometimes because this is genuinely an interest, and sometimes because spectators or funding bodies expect at least some engagement via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. In this paper, I examine peculiarities and paradoxes emerging in some of these efforts to engage spectators via networked performance or para-performance encounters. I use examples ranging from theatre, to performance art, to political activism – from ‘cyberformaces’ on Helen Varley Jamieson’s Upstage Avatar Performance Platform, to Wafaa Bilal’s Domestic Tension installation where spectators around the world could use a webcam in a chat room to target him with paintballs while he was in residence in a living room set up in a gallery for a week, as a comment on use of drone technology in war, to Liz Crow’s Bedding Out where she invited people to physically and virtually join her in her bedroom to discuss the impact of an anti-disabled austerity politics emerging in her country, to Dislife’s use of holograms of disabled people popping up in disabled parking spaces when able bodied drivers attempted to pull into them, amongst others. I note the frequency with which these performance practices deploy discourses of democratisation, participation, power and agency to argue that these technologies assist in positioning spectators as co-creators actively engaged in the evolution of a performance (and, in politicised pieces that point to racism, sexism, or ableism, pushing spectators to reflect on their agency in that dramatic or daily-cum-dramatic performance of prejudice). I investigate how a range of issues – from the scenographic challenges in deploying networked technologies for both participant and bystander audiences others have already noted, to the siloisation of aesthetic, critical and audience activation activities on networked technologies, to conventionalised dramaturgies of response informed by power, politics and impression management that play out in online as much as offline performances, to the high personal, social and professional stakes involved in participating in a form where spectators responses are almost always documented, recorded and re-represented to secondary and tertiary sets of spectators via the circulation into new networks social media platforms so readily facilitate – complicate discourses of democratic co-creativity associated with networked performance and para-performance activities.