Transactions with chance in the garden

This paper discusses change and chance in order to develop a language that can then be used to discuss change in the garden. In the process, it puts forward the idea that to garden is to meddle with the teleonomy of the plants, their “will” to grow as they should. Different design conceptions of change are discussed, particularly the relation of style to design, suggesting that there is the possibility for a material language that both the discourses of gardening and landscape architecture shares that could negotiate this breach. A model or “transactions” between gardener and garden is put forward to begin to get to grips with the particular methods of “working at a remove”, that is, curating conditions rather than designing objects. The paper finally proposes that landscape architecture has to move away from a paranoid engagement with specifiable objects, to one where the designer grooms conditions and sensibilities, and gets out of the office.

Generative systems as relational bridges

Generative media systems present an opportunity for users to leverage computational systems to make sense of complex media forms through interactive and collaborative experiences. Generative music and art are a relatively new phenomenon that use procedural invention as a creative technique to produce music and visual media. These kinds of systems present a range of affordances that can facilitate new kinds of relationships with music and media performance and production. Early systems have demonstrated the potential to provide access to collaborative ensemble experiences to users with little formal musical or artistic expertise. This paper examines the relational affordances of these systems evidenced by selected field data drawn from the Network Jamming Project. These generative performance systems enable access to unique ensemble with very little musical knowledge or skill and they further offer the possibility of unique interactive relationships with artists and musical knowledge through collaborative performance. In this presentation I will focus on demonstrating how these simulated experiences might lead to understandings that may be of educational and social benefit. Conference participants will be invited to jam in real time using virtual interfaces and to view video artifacts that demonstrate an interactive relationship with artists.

A FR.E.S.H idea

This paper explores the possibility of including human factoring in a business process model. The importance of doing so is twofold: (1) The organization becomes transparent in its processes as all participants (human, activities and events) are identifiable. (2) Including human factoring allows organizations to hire accordingly to the process needs. (3) Human factoring alleviates the current work related stress that is being encountered. (4) Enable quicker transition for newer employees into job scope. This was made possible by including a human behaviour layer in between pools within a process to depict human behaviour and feeling. Future work includes having a human thought symbol and a human interaction symbol included into the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN).

Science education policy-making : eleven emerging issues

The Perth Declaration on Science and Technology Education of 2007 expresses strong concern about the state of science and technology education worldwide and calls on governments to respond to a number of suggestions for establishing the structural conditions for their improved practice. The quality of school education in science and technology has never before been of such critical importance to governments. There are three imperatives for its critical importance. The first relates to the traditional role of science in schooling, namely the identification, motivation and initial preparation of those students who will go on to further studies for careers in all those professional fi elds that directly involve science and technology. A suffi cient supply of these professionals is vital to the economy of all countries and to the health of their citizens. In the 21st century they are recognised everywhere as key players in ensuring that industrial and economic development occurs in a socially and environmentally sustainable way. In many countries this supply is now falling seriously short and urgently needs to be addressed. The second imperative is that sustainable technological development and many other possible societal applications of science require the support of scientifically and technologically informed citizens. Without the support and understanding of citizens, technological development can all too easily serve short term and sectional interests. The longer term progress of the whole society is overlooked, citizens will be confused about what should, and what should not be supported, and reactive and the environment will continue to be destroyed rather than sustained. Sustainable development, and the potential that science and technology increasingly offers, involves societies in ways that can often interact strongly, with traditional values, and hence, making decisions about them involve major moral decisions. All students need to be prepared through their science and technology education to be able to participate actively as persons and as responsible citizens in these essential and exciting possibilities. This goal is far from being generally achieved at present, but pathways to it are now more clearly understood. The third imperative derives from the changes that are resulting from the application of digital technologies that are the most rapid, the most widespread, and probably the most pervasive influence that science has ever had on human society. We all, wherever we live, are part of a global communication society. Information exchange and access to it that have been hitherto the realm of the few, are now literally in the hands of individuals. This is leading to profound changes in the World of Work and in what is known as the Knowledge Society. Schooling is now being challenged to contribute to the development in students of an active repertoire of generic and subject-based competencies. This contrasts very strongly with existing priorities, in subjects like the sciences that have seen the size of a student’s a store of established knowledge as the key measure of success. Science and technology education needs to be a key component in developing these competencies. When you add to these imperatives, the possibility that a more effective education in science and technology will enable more and more citizens to delight in, and feel a share in the great human enterprise we call Science, the case for new policy decisions is compellingly urgent. What follows are the recommendations (and some supplementary notes) for policy makers to consider about more operational aspects for improving science and technology education. They are listed under headings that point to the issues within each of these aspects. In the full document, a background is provided to each set of issues, including the commonly current state of science and technology education. Associated with each recommendation for consideration are the positive Prospects that could follow from such decision making, and the necessary Prerequisites, if such bold policy decisions are to fl ow, as intended, into practice in science and technology classrooms.

A phenomenological explication of dream interpretation among rural and urban Nguni people

Psychologists investigating dreams in non-Western cultures have generally not considered the meanings of dreams within the unique meaning-structure of the person in his or her societal context. The majority of dream studies in African societies are no exception. Researchers approaching dreams within rural Xhosa and Zulu speaking societies have either adopted an anthropological or a psychodynamic orientation. The latter approach particularly imposes a Western perspective in the interpretation of dream material. There have been no comparable studies of dream interpretation among urban blacks participating in the African Independent Church Movement. The present study focuses on the rural Xhosa speaking people and the urban black population who speak one of the Nguni languages and identify with the African Independent Church Movement. The study is concerned with understanding the meanings of dreams within the cultural context in which they occur. The specific aims of the study are: 1. To explicate the indigenous system of dream interpretation as revealed by acknowledged dream experts. 2. To examine the commonalities and the differences between the interpretation of dreams in two groups, drawn from a rural and urban setting respectively. 3. To elaborate upon the life-world of the participants by the interpretations gained from the above investigation. One hundred dreams and interpretations are collected from two categories of participants referred to as the Rural Group and the Urban Group. The Rural Group is made up of amagqira [traditional healers] and their clients, while the Urban Group consists of prophets and members of the African Independent Churches. Each group includes acknowledged dream experts. A phenomenological methodology is adopted in explicating the data. The methodological precedure involves a number of rigorous stages of expl ication whereby the original data is reduced to Constituent Profiles leading to the construction of a Thematic Index File. By searching and reflect ing upon the data, interpretative themes are identified. These themes are explicated to provide a rigorous description of the interpretative-reality of each group. Themes explicated w i thin the Rural Group are: the physiognomy of the dreamer's life-world as revealed by ithongo, the interpretation of ithongo as revealed through action, the dream relationship as an anticipatory mode-of-existence, iphupha as disclosing a vulnerable mode-of-being, human bodiliness as revealed in dream interpretations and the legitimation of the interpretative-reality within the life-world. Themes explicated within the Urban Group are: the phys iognomy of the dreamer's life-world revealed in their dream-existence, the interpretative-reality revealed through the enaction of dreams, tension between the newer Christian-based cosomology and the traditional cultural-based cosmology, a moral imperative, prophetic perception and human bodiliness, as revealed in dream interpretations and the legitimation of the interpretative-reality within the life-world. The essence of the interpretative-reality of both groups is very similar and is expressed in the notion of relatedness to a cosmic mode-of-being. The cosmic mode-of-being includes a numinous dimension which is expressed through divine presence in the form of ancestors, Holy Spirit or God. These notions cannot be apprehended by theoretical constructs alone but may be grasped and given form in meaning-disclosing intuitions which are expressed in the lifeworld in terms of bodiliness, revelatory knowledge, action and healing. Some differences b e tween the two groups are evident and reveal some conflict between the monotheistic Christian cosmology and the traditional cosmology. Unique aspects of the interpetative-reality of the Urban Group are expressed in terms of difficulties in the urban social environment and the notion of a moral imperative. It is observed that cul tural self-expression based upon traditional ideas continues to play a significant role in the urban environment. The apparent conflict revealed between the respective cosmologies underlies an integration of the aditional meanings with Christian concepts. This finding is consistent with the literature suggesting that the African Independent Church is a syncretic movement. The life-world is based upon the immediate and vivid experience of the numinous as revealed in the dream phenomenon. The participants' approach to dreams is not based upon an explicit theory, but upon an immediate and pathic understanding of the dream phenomenon. The understanding is based upon the interpreter's concrete understanding of the life-world, which includes the possibility of cosmic integration and continuity between the personal and transpersonal realms of being. The approach is characterized as an expression of man's primordial attunement with the cosmos. The approach of the participants to dreams may not b e consistent with a Western rational orientation, but neverthele ss, it is a valid approach . The validity is based upon the immediate life-world of experience which is intelligible, coherent, and above all, it is meaning-giving in revealing life-possibility within the context of human existence.

Biochemical characterization of Aprataxin, the protein deficient in Ataxia with Oculomotor Apraxia type 1

Neurodegenerative disorders are heterogenous in nature and include a range of ataxias with oculomotor apraxia, which are characterised by a wide variety of neurological and ophthalmological features. This family includes recessive and dominant disorders. A subfamily of autosomal recessive cerebellar ataxias are characterised by defects in the cellular response to DNA damage. These include the well characterised disorders Ataxia-Telangiectasia (A-T) and Ataxia-Telangiectasia Like Disorder (A-TLD) as well as the recently identified diseases Spinocerebellar ataxia with axonal neuropathy Type 1 (SCAN1), Ataxia with Oculomotor Apraxia Type 2 (AOA2), as well as the subject of this thesis, Ataxia with Oculomotor Apraxia Type 1 (AOA1). AOA1 is caused by mutations in the APTX gene, which is located at chromosomal locus 9p13. This gene codes for the 342 amino acid protein Aprataxin. Mutations in APTX cause destabilization of Aprataxin, thus AOA1 is a result of Aprataxin deficiency. Aprataxin has three functional domains, an N-terminal Forkhead Associated (FHA) phosphoprotein interaction domain, a central Histidine Triad (HIT) nucleotide hydrolase domain and a C-terminal C2H2 zinc finger. Aprataxins FHA domain has homology to FHA domain of the DNA repair protein 5’ polynucleotide kinase 3’ phosphatase (PNKP). PNKP interacts with a range of DNA repair proteins via its FHA domain and plays a critical role in processing damaged DNA termini. The presence of this domain with a nucleotide hydrolase domain and a DNA binding motif implicated that Aprataxin may be involved in DNA repair and that AOA1 may be caused by a DNA repair deficit. This was substantiated by the interaction of Aprataxin with proteins involved in the repair of both single and double strand DNA breaks (XRay Cross-Complementing 1, XRCC4 and Poly-ADP Ribose Polymerase-1) and the hypersensitivity of AOA1 patient cell lines to single and double strand break inducing agents. At the commencement of this study little was known about the in vitro and in vivo properties of Aprataxin. Initially this study focused on generation of recombinant Aprataxin proteins to facilitate examination of the in vitro properties of Aprataxin. Using recombinant Aprataxin proteins I found that Aprataxin binds to double stranded DNA. Consistent with a role for Aprataxin as a DNA repair enzyme, this binding is not sequence specific. I also report that the HIT domain of Aprataxin hydrolyses adenosine derivatives and interestingly found that this activity is competitively inhibited by DNA. This provided initial evidence that DNA binds to the HIT domain of Aprataxin. The interaction of DNA with the nucleotide hydrolase domain of Aprataxin provided initial evidence that Aprataxin may be a DNA-processing factor. Following these studies, Aprataxin was found to hydrolyse 5’adenylated DNA, which can be generated by unscheduled ligation at DNA breaks with non-standard termini. I found that cell extracts from AOA1 patients do not have DNA-adenylate hydrolase activity indicating that Aprataxin is the only DNA-adenylate hydrolase in mammalian cells. I further characterised this activity by examining the contribution of the zinc finger and FHA domains to DNA-adenylate hydrolysis by the HIT domain. I found that deletion of the zinc finger ablated the activity of the HIT domain against adenylated DNA, indicating that the zinc finger may be required for the formation of a stable enzyme-substrate complex. Deletion of the FHA domain stimulated DNA-adenylate hydrolysis, which indicated that the activity of the HIT domain may be regulated by the FHA domain. Given that the FHA domain is involved in protein-protein interactions I propose that the activity of Aprataxins HIT domain may be regulated by proteins which interact with its FHA domain. We examined this possibility by measuring the DNA-adenylate hydrolase activity of extracts from cells deficient for the Aprataxin-interacting DNA repair proteins XRCC1 and PARP-1. XRCC1 deficiency did not affect Aprataxin activity but I found that Aprataxin is destabilized in the absence of PARP-1, resulting in a deficiency of DNA-adenylate hydrolase activity in PARP-1 knockout cells. This implies a critical role for PARP-1 in the stabilization of Aprataxin. Conversely I found that PARP-1 is destabilized in the absence of Aprataxin. PARP-1 is a central player in a number of DNA repair mechanisms and this implies that not only do AOA1 cells lack Aprataxin, they may also have defects in PARP-1 dependant cellular functions. Based on this I identified a defect in a PARP-1 dependant DNA repair mechanism in AOA1 cells. Additionally, I identified elevated levels of oxidized DNA in AOA1 cells, which is indicative of a defect in Base Excision Repair (BER). I attribute this to the reduced level of the BER protein Apurinic Endonuclease 1 (APE1) I identified in Aprataxin deficient cells. This study has identified and characterised multiple DNA repair defects in AOA1 cells, indicating that Aprataxin deficiency has far-reaching cellular consequences. Consistent with the literature, I show that Aprataxin is a nuclear protein with nucleoplasmic and nucleolar distribution. Previous studies have shown that Aprataxin interacts with the nucleolar rRNA processing factor nucleolin and that AOA1 cells appear to have a mild defect in rRNA synthesis. Given the nucleolar localization of Aprataxin I examined the protein-protein interactions of Aprataxin and found that Aprataxin interacts with a number of rRNA transcription and processing factors. Based on this and the nucleolar localization of Aprataxin I proposed that Aprataxin may have an alternative role in the nucleolus. I therefore examined the transcriptional activity of Aprataxin deficient cells using nucleotide analogue incorporation. I found that AOA1 cells do not display a defect in basal levels of RNA synthesis, however they display defective transcriptional responses to DNA damage. In summary, this thesis demonstrates that Aprataxin is a DNA repair enzyme responsible for the repair of adenylated DNA termini and that it is required for stabilization of at least two other DNA repair proteins. Thus not only do AOA1 cells have no Aprataxin protein or activity, they have additional deficiencies in PolyADP Ribose Polymerase-1 and Apurinic Endonuclease 1 dependant DNA repair mechanisms. I additionally demonstrate DNA-damage inducible transcriptional defects in AOA1 cells, indicating that Aprataxin deficiency confers a broad range of cellular defects and highlighting the complexity of the cellular response to DNA damage and the multiple defects which result from Aprataxin deficiency. My detailed characterization of the cellular consequences of Aprataxin deficiency provides an important contribution to our understanding of interlinking DNA repair processes.

Democracy, participation and convergent media : case studies in contemporary online news journalism in Australia

The shift from 20th century mass communications media towards convergent media and Web 2.0 has raised the possibility of a renaissance of the public sphere, based around citizen journalism and participatory media culture. This paper will evaluate such claims both conceptually and empirically. At a conceptual level, it is noted that the question of whether media democratization is occurring depends in part upon how democracy is understood, with some critical differences in understandings of democracy, the public sphere and media citizenship. The empirical work in this paper draws upon various case studies of new developments in Australian media, including online- only newspapers, developments in public service media, and the rise of commercially based online alternative media. It is argued that participatory media culture is being expanded if understood in terms of media pluralism, but that implications for the public sphere depend in part upon how media democratization is defined.

New routes for the field trip

As with the broader field of education research, most writing on the subject of school excursions and field trips has centred around progressive/humanist concerns for building pupil’s self-esteem and for the development of the ‘whole child’. Such research has also stressed the importance of a broad, grounded, and experiential curriculum - as exemplified by subjects containing these extra-school activities - as well as the possibility of strengthening the relationship between student and teacher. Arguing that this approach to the field trip is both exhausted of ideas and conceptually flawed, this paper proposes some alternate routes into the area for the prospective researcher. First, it is argued that by historicising the subject matter, it can be seen that school excursions are not simply the product of the contemporary humanist desire for diverse and fulfilling educational experiences, rather they can, in part, be traced to eighteenth century beliefs among the English gentry that travel formed a crucial component of a good education, to the advent of an affordable public rail system, and to school tours associated with the Temperance movement. Second, field trips can be understood from within the associated framework of concerns over the governance of tourism and the organisation of disciplinary apparatuses for the production of an educated and regulated citizenry. Far from being a simple learning experience, museums and art galleries form part of a complex of disciplinary and power relations designed to produce a populace with very specific capacities, aspirations and styles of public conduct. Finally, rather than allowing children ‘freedom’ from the constraints of the classroom, on the contrary, through the medium of the field-trip, children can become accustomed to having their activities governed in the broader domain of the generalised community . School excursions thereby constitute an effective tactic through which young people have their conduct managed, and their social and scholastic identities shaped and administered.

Uncertainty budget in the measurement of typical airborne number, surface area and mass particle distributions

The effects of particulate matter on environment and public health have been widely studied in recent years. A number of studies in the medical field have tried to identify the specific effect on human health of particulate exposure, but agreement amongst these studies on the relative importance of the particles’ size and its origin with respect to health effects is still lacking. Nevertheless, air quality standards are moving, as the epidemiological attention, towards greater focus on the smaller particles. Current air quality standards only regulate the mass of particulate matter less than 10 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM10) and less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5). The most reliable method used in measuring Total Suspended Particles (TSP), PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 is the gravimetric method since it directly measures PM concentration, guaranteeing an effective traceability to international standards. This technique however, neglects the possibility to correlate short term intra-day variations of atmospheric parameters that can influence ambient particle concentration and size distribution (emission strengths of particle sources, temperature, relative humidity, wind direction and speed and mixing height) as well as human activity patterns that may also vary over time periods considerably shorter than 24 hours. A continuous method to measure the number size distribution and total number concentration in the range 0.014 – 20 μm is the tandem system constituted by a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) and an Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS). In this paper, an uncertainty budget model of the measurement of airborne particle number, surface area and mass size distributions is proposed and applied for several typical aerosol size distributions. The estimation of such an uncertainty budget presents several difficulties due to i) the complexity of the measurement chain, ii) the fact that SMPS and APS can properly guarantee the traceability to the International System of Measurements only in terms of number concentration. In fact, the surface area and mass concentration must be estimated on the basis of separately determined average density and particle morphology. Keywords: SMPS-APS tandem system, gravimetric reference method, uncertainty budget, ultrafine particles.

Cough-generated aerosols of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other Gram Negative Bacteria from cystic fibrosis patients.

Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most common bacterial pathogen in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Current infection control guidelines aim to prevent transmission via contact and respiratory droplet routes and do not consider the possibility of airborne transmission. We hypothesized that with coughing, CF subjects produce viable, respirable bacterial aerosols. Methods: Cross-sectional study of 15 children and 13 adults with CF, 26 chronically infected with P. aeruginosa. A cough aerosol sampling system enabled fractioning of respiratory particles of different size, and culture of viable Gram negative non-fermentative bacteria. We collected cough aerosols during 5 minutes voluntary coughing and during a sputum induction procedure when tolerated. Standardized quantitative culture and genotyping techniques were used. Results: P. aeruginosa was isolated in cough aerosols of 25 (89%) subjects of whom 22 produced sputum samples. P. aeruginosa from sputum and paired cough aerosols were indistinguishable by molecular typing. In 4 cases the same genotype was isolated from ambient room air. Approximately 70% of viable aerosols collected during voluntary coughing were of particles ≤ 3.3 microns aerodynamic diameter. P. aeruginosa, Burkholderia cenocepacia Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and Achromobacter xylosoxidans were cultivated from respiratory particles in this size range. Positive room air samples were associated with high total counts in cough aerosols (P=0.003). The magnitude of cough aerosols were associated with higher FEV1 (r=0.45, P=0.02) and higher quantitative sputum culture results (r=0.58, P=0.008). Conclusion: During coughing, CF patients produce viable aerosols of P. aeruginosa and other Gram negative bacteria of respirable size range, suggesting the potential for airborne transmission.

A conceptual framework for a systematic mapping of layout design principles by using Yin and Yang theory

There are various principles for layout design such as balance, rhythm, unity and harmony, but each principle has often been introduced as a separate concept rather than within an integrated and systematic structure, so that designers and design students have to keep practices for the acquisition of skills. The paper seeks to develop a conceptual framework for a systematic mapping of layout design principles by using Yin and Yang and the Five Elements. Yin and Yang theory explains all natural phenomena with its own conceptual model and facilitates finding harmony and balance between the visual elements in terms of systematic and organic relations. Most common and well-known layout design principles are defined with 10 different resources such as design books and articles, and have been remapped following with the structure of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements. A systematic framework explaining the relationships of design principles was created and 32 design students participated in its efficiency test. The outcome suggests there is a high possibility that the framework can be used in professional fields and design education.

Anti-cancer activity of zoledronic acid in breast cancer

Background: Zoledronic acid is used to prevent the bone loss associated with antioestrogen treatments in subjects with breast cancer. Preclinical studies suggest that zoledronic acid may have anticancer activity in its own right. This anticancer possibility with zoledronic acid has not been investigated extensively in clinical trials. Objectives/methods: This evaluation is of a large clinical trial that investigated the effect of zoledronic acid on cancer outcomes in premenopausal women with breast cancer. Results: The trial showed that after 4 years, 94.0% of subjects who were treated with zoledronic acid were disease-free compared with 90.8% of those not treated with zoledronic acid. Recurrence survival was a secondary end point; this occurred in 94.0% with, and 90.9% without, zoledronic acid treatment. Conclusions: Zoledronic acid does have anticancer activity in premenopausal women with cancer.

A distributed knowledge management infrastructure based on a Topic Map grid

Modern enterprise knowledge management systems typically require distributed approaches and the integration of numerous heterogeneous sources of information. A powerful foundation for these tasks can be Topic Maps, which not only provide a semantic net-like knowledge representation means and the possibility to use ontologies for modelling knowledge structures, but also offer concepts to link these knowledge structures with unstructured data stored in files, external documents etc. In this paper, we present the architecture and prototypical implementation of a Topic Map application infrastructure, the ‘Topic Grid’, which enables transparent, node-spanning access to different Topic Maps distributed in a network.

Bactrocera dorsalis Preference for and performance on two mango varieties at three stages of ripeness

Most tropical fruit flies only lay into mature fruit, but a small number can also oviposit into unripe fruit. Little is known about the link between adult oviposition preference and offspring performance in such situations. In this study we examine the influence of different ripening stages of two mango Mangifera indica L. (Anacardiaceae) varieties on the preference and performance of the Oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae), a fly known to be able to develop in unripe fruit. Work was carried out as a series of laboratory-based choice and no-choice oviposition experiments and larval growth trials. In oviposition choice trials, female B. dorsalis demonstrated a preference for ripe fruit of mango variety Namdorkmai over variety Oakrong, but generally the dependent variable most influencing oviposition results was fruit ripening stage. Ripe and fully-ripe mangoes were most preferred for oviposition by B. dorsalis. In contrast, unripe mango was infrequently used by ovipositing females, particularly in choice trials. Consistent with the results of oviposition preference, ripe and fully-ripe mangoes were also best for offspring survival, with a higher percentage of larval survival to pupation and shorter development times in comparison to unripe mango. Changes in Total Soluble Solids, TSS, and skin toughness correlate with changing host use across the ripening stages. Regardless of the mango variety or ripeness stage, B. dorsalis had difficulty penetrating the pericarp of our experimental fruit. Larval survival was also often poor. We discuss the possibility that there may be differences in the ability of laboratory and wild flies to penetrate fruit for oviposition, or that in the field flies more regularly utilize natural fruit wounds as oviposition sites.

Contradictions : Genre, causal layered analysis and analysis of institutional change

In what follows, I put forward an argument for an analytical method for social science that operates at the level of genre. I argue that generic convergence, generic hybridity, and generic instability provide us with a powerful perspectives on changes in political, cultural, and economic relationships, most specifically at the level of institutions. Such a perspective can help us identify the transitional elements, relationships, and trajectories that define the place of our current system in history, thereby grounding our understanding of possible futures.1 In historically contextualising our present with this method, my concern is to indicate possibilities for the future. Systemic contradictions indicate possibility spaces within which systemic change must and will emerge. We live in a system currently dominated by many fully-expressed contradictions, and so in the presence of many possible futures. The contradictions of the current age are expressed most overtly in the public genres of power politics. Contemporary public policy—indeed politics in general-is an excellent focus for any investigation of possible futures, precisely because of its future-oriented function. It is overtly hortatory; it is designed ‘to get people to do things’ (Muntigl in press: 147). There is no point in trying to get people to do things in the past. Consequently, policy discourse is inherently oriented towards creating some future state of affairs (Graham in press), along with concomitant ways of being, knowing, representing, and acting (Fairclough 2000).