Lift@Weimar : sustainable interaction with food, technology, and the city (Workshop)

This workshop explores innovative approaches to understanding and cultivating sustainable food culture in urban environments via human-computer-interaction (HCI) design and ubiquitous technologies. We perceive the city as an intersecting network of people, place, and technology in constant transformation. Our 2009 OZCHI workshop, Hungry 24/7? HCI Design for Sustainable Food Culture, opened a new space for discussion on this intersection amongst researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds including academia, government, industry, and non-for-profit organisations. Building on the past success, this new instalment of the workshop series takes a more refined view on mobile human-food interaction and the role of interactive media in engaging citizens to cultivate more sustainable everyday human-food interactions on the go. Interactive media in this sense is distributed, pervasive, and embedded in the city as a network. The workshop addresses environmental, health, and social domains of sustainability by bringing together insights across disciplines to discuss conceptual and design approaches in orchestrating mobility and interaction of people and food in the city as a network of people, place, technology, and food.

Welcome to the jungle : HCI after dark

The transformation of urban spaces that occurs once darkness falls is simultaneously exhilarating and menacing, and over the past 20 months we have investigated the potential for mobile technology to help users manage their personal safety concerns in the city at night. Our findings subverted commonly held notions of vulnerability, with the threat of violence felt equally by men and women. But while women felt protected because of their mobile technology, men dismissed it as digital Man Mace. We addressed this macho design challenge by studying remote engineers in outback Australia to inspire our personal safety design prototype MATE (Mobile Artifact for Taming Environments).

Play in the city : Parkour and architecture

The ability to play freely in our cities is essential for sustainable wellbeing. When integrated successfully into our cities, Urban Play performs an important role; physically, socially and culturally contributing to the image of the city. While Urban Play is essential, it also finds itself in conflict with the city. Under modernist urban approaches play activities have become progressively segregated from the urban context through a tripartite of design, procurement and management practices. Despite these restrictions, emergent underground play forms overcome the isolation of play within urban space. One of these activities (parkour) is used as an evocative case study to reveal the hidden urban terrains of desire and fear as it re-interprets the fabric of the city, eliciting practice based discussions about procurement, design and management practice along its route.

Darkness and disaster in the city

People all over the world are regularly hit by floods, cyclones, and other natural disasters. Many use smart phones and social media to stay connected, seek help, improvise, and cope with crises or challenging situations. This column discusses these practices after dark or during disasters to unveil challenges and opportunities for innovative designs that increase resilience and safety.

Fixing the city one photo at a time : mobile logging of maintenance requests

We have designed a mobile application that takes advantage of the built-in features of smart phones such as camera and GPS that allow users to take geo-tagged photos while on the move. Urban residents can take pictures of broken street furniture and public property requiring repair, attach a brief description, and submit the information as a maintenance request to the local government organisation of their city. This paper discusses the design approach that led to the application, highlights a built-in mechanism to elicit user feedback, and evaluates the progress to date with user feedback and log statistics. It concludes with an outlook highlighting user requested features and our own design aspirations for moving from a reporting tool to a civic engagement tool.

Interactions between pedestrians and cyclists in the city centre

The city centre represents a complex environment for cycling with large volumes of pedestrians and motorised vehicles and frequent signalised intersections. Much of the previous literature has focused on cyclist-motor vehicle interactions because of the safety implications for cyclists, but there is increasing concern from pedestrians about the threats they perceive from cyclists. In the absence of objective data, this has the potential to lead to restrictions on cyclist access and behaviour. This presentation reports the development of a method to study the extent of cycling in the city centre and the frequency and nature of interactions between cyclists and pedestrians. Queensland is one of the few Australian jurisdictions that permits adults to cycle on the footpath and this was also of interest. 1992 cyclists were observed at six locations in the Brisbane city centre, during 7-9am, 9-11am, 2-4pm and 4-6pm on four weekdays in October 2010. The majority (85.5%) of cyclists were male, and 21.8% rode on the footpath. Females were more likely to travel on the footpath than males. One or more pedestrians were within 1m for 18.1% of observed cyclists, and one or more pedestrians were within 5m for 39.1% of observed cyclists. There were few conflicts, defined as an occasion where if no one took evasive action a collision would occur, between cyclists and pedestrians or vehicles (1.1% and 0.6% respectively) but they were more common for adolescents and riders not wearing (or not fastening) helmets.

Sections of the city : architecturalising the tools of urban morphology

The study of urban morphology has become an expanding field of research within the architectural discipline, providing theories to be used as tools in the understanding and design of urban landscapes from the past, the present and into the future. Drawing upon contemporary architectural design theory, this investigation reveals what a sectional analysis of an urban landscape can add to the existing research methods within this field. This paper conducts an enquiry into the use of the section as a tool for urban morphological analysis. Following the methodology of the British school of urban morphology, sections through the urban fabric of the case study city of Brisbane are compared. The results are categorised to depict changes in scale, components and utilisation throughout various timeframes. The key findings illustrate how the section, when read in conjunction with the plan can be used to interpret changes to urban form and the relationship that this has to the quality of the urban environment in the contemporary city.

A ‘Value Ecology’ approach to the performing arts

In recent years, ecological thinking has been applied to a range of social, cultural and aesthetic systems, including performing arts as a living system of policy makers, producers, organisations, artists and audiences. Ecological thinking is systems-based thinking which allows us to see the performing arts as a complex and protean ecosystem; to explain how elements in this system act and interact; and to evaluate its effects on Australia’s social fabric over time. According to Gallasch, ecological thinking is “what we desperately need for the arts.” It enables us to “defeat the fragmentary and utilitarian view of the arts that dominates, to make connections, to establish overviews of the arts that can be shared and debated” (Gallasch NP). John Baylis took up these issues in "Mapping Queensland Theatre" (2009), an Arts Queensland-funded survey designed to map practices in Brisbane and in Queensland more broadly, and to provide a platform to support future policy-making. In this paper, we propose a new approach to mapping Brisbane’s and Queensland’s theatre that extends Baylis’ ‘value chain’ into a ‘value ecology’ that provides a more textured picture of players, patterns, relationships and activity levels in local performing arts.

Culture, technology and the city

The 21st century has been described as the “century of cities”. By 2030, 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities, with the most rapid urbanization occurring in the developing world. This paper will draw up geographer Ed Soja’s concept of the “spatial turn” in social theory to consider how the culture of cities can act as a catalyst to innovation and the development of new technologies. In doing so, the paper will develop a three-layered approach to culture as: the arts; the way of life of people and communities; and the embedded structure underpinning socio-economic relations. It will also consider technology at a three-layered element, including devices, practices and ‘logics’ of technology, or what the Greeks termed techne. The paper will consider recent approaches to urban cultural policy, including cluster development and creative cities, and suggest some alternatives, noting that a problem with current approaches is that they focus excessively upon production (clusters) or consumption (creative cities). It will also consider the development of digital creative industries such as games, and the strategies of different cities to develop an innovation culture.

Risk-based approach to the management of on-site wastewater treatment facilities

Background On-site wastewater treatment system (OWTS) siting, design and management has traditionally been based on site specific conditions with little regard to the surrounding environment or the cumulative effect of other systems in the environment. The general approach has been to apply the same framework of standards and regulations to all sites equally, regardless of the sensitivity, or lack thereof, to the receiving environment. Consequently, this has led to the continuing poor performance and failure of on-site systems, resulting in environmental and public health consequences. As a result, there is increasing realisation that more scientifically robust evaluations in regard to site assessment and the underlying ground conditions are needed. Risk-based approaches to on-site system siting, design and management are considered the most appropriate means of improvement to the current standards and codes for on-site wastewater treatment systems. The Project Research in relation to this project was undertaken within the Gold Coast City Council region, the major focus being the semi-urban, rural residential and hinterland areas of the city that are not serviced by centralised treatment systems. The Gold Coast has over 15,000 on-site systems in use, with approximately 66% being common septic tank-subsurface dispersal systems. A recent study evaluating the performance of these systems within the Gold Coast area showed approximately 90% were not meeting the specified guidelines for effluent treatment and dispersal. The main focus of this research was to incorporate strong scientific knowledge into an integrated risk assessment process to allow suitable management practices to be set in place to mitigate the inherent risks. To achieve this, research was undertaken focusing on three main aspects involved with the performance and management of OWTS. Firstly, an investigation into the suitability of soil for providing appropriate effluent renovation was conducted. This involved detailed soil investigations, laboratory analysis and the use of multivariate statistical methods for analysing soil information. The outcomes of these investigations were developed into a framework for assessing soil suitability for effluent renovation. This formed the basis for the assessment of OWTS siting and design risks employed in the developed risk framework. Secondly, an assessment of the environmental and public health risks was performed specifically related the release of contaminants from OWTS. This involved detailed groundwater and surface water sampling and analysis to assess the current and potential risks of contamination throughout the Gold Coast region. Additionally, the assessment of public health risk incorporated the use of bacterial source tracking methods to identify the different sources of fecal contamination within monitored regions. Antibiotic resistance pattern analysis was utilised to determine the extent of human faecal contamination, with the outcomes utilised for providing a more indicative public health assessment. Finally, the outcomes of both the soil suitability assessment and ground and surface water monitoring was utilised for the development of the integrated risk framework. The research outcomes achieved through this project enabled the primary research aims and objects to be accomplished. This in turn would enable Gold Coast City Council to provide more appropriate assessment and management guidelines based on robust scientific knowledge which will ultimately ensure that the potential environmental and public health impacts resulting from on-site wastewater treatment is minimised. As part of the implementation of suitable management strategies, a critical point monitoring program (CPM) was formulated. This entailed the identification of the key critical parameters that contribute to the characterised risks at monitored locations within the study area. The CPM will allow more direct procedures to be implemented, targeting the specific hazards at sensitive areas throughout Gold Coast region.

Detection of right-to-left Atrial communication using agitated saline contrast imaging : experience with 1162 patients and recommendations for echocardiography

Background: Right-to-left shunting via a patent foramen ovale (PFO) has a recognized association with embolic events in younger patients. The use of agitated saline contrast imaging (ASCi) for detecting atrial shunting is well documented, however optimal technique is not well described. The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy and safety of ASCi via TTE for assessment of right-to-left atrial communication in a large cohort of patients. Method: A retrospective review was undertaken of 1162 consecutive transthoracic (TTE) ASCi studies, of which 195 had also undergone clinically indicated transesophageal (TEE) echo. ASCi shunt results were compared with color flow imaging (CFI) and the role of provocative maneuvers (PM) assessed. Results: 403 TTE studies (35%) had paradoxical shunting seen during ASCi. Of these, 48% were positive with PM only. There was strong agreement between TTE ASCi and reported TEE findings (99% sensitivity, 85% specificity), with six false positive and two false negative results. In hindsight, the latter were likely due to suboptimal right atrial opacification, and the former due to transpulmonary shunting. TTE CFI was found to be insensitive (22%) for the detection of a PFO compared with TTE ASCi. Conclusions: TTE ASCi is minimally invasive and highly accurate for the detection of right-to-left atrial communication when PM are used. TTE CFI was found to be insensitive for PFO screening. It is recommended that TTE ASCi should be considered the initial diagnostic tool for the detection of PFO in clinical practice. A dedicated protocol should be followed to ensure adequate agitated saline contrast delivery and performance of provocative maneuvers.

An extension to the rank constraint for improving the reliability of stereo matching algorithms using the rank transform

The rank transform is one non-parametric transform which has been applied to the stereo matching problem The advantages of this transform include its invariance to radio metric distortion and its amenability to hardware implementation. This paper describes the derivation of the rank constraint for matching using the rank transform Previous work has shown that this constraint was capable of resolving ambiguous matches thereby improving match reliability A new matching algorithm incorporating this constraint was also proposed. This paper extends on this previous work by proposing a matching algorithm which uses a dimensional match surface in which the match score is computed for every possible template and match window combination. The principal advantage of this algorithm is that the use of the match surface enforces the left�right consistency and uniqueness constraints thus improving the algorithms ability to remove invalid matches Experimental results for a number of test stereo pairs show that the new algorithm is capable of identifying and removing a large number of in incorrect matches particularly in the case of occlusions

Collective equipments of power: The road and the city

A year ago, I became aware of the historical existence of the group CERFI— Le centre d’etudes, de recherches, et de formation institutionelles, or The Study Center for Institutional Research and Formation. CERFI emerged in 1967 under the hand of Lacanian psychiatrist and Trotskyite activist Félix Guattari, whose antonymous journal Recherches chronicled the group’s subversive experiences, experiments, and government-sponsored urban projects. It was a singularly bizarre meeting of the French bureaucracy with militant activist groups, the French intelligentsia, and architectural and planning practitioners at the close of the ‘60s. Nevertheless, CERFI’s analysis of the problems of society was undertaken precisely from the perspective of the state, and the Institute acknowledged a “deep complicity between the intellectual and statesman ... because the first critics of the State, are officials themselves!”1 CERFI developed out of FGERI (The Federation of Groups for Institutional Study and Research), started by Guattari two years earlier. While FGERI was created for the analysis of mental institutions stemming from Guattari’s work at La Borde, an experimental psychiatric clinic, CERFI marks the group’s shift toward urbanism—to the interrogation of the city itself. Not only a platform for radical debate on architecture and the city, CERFI was a direct agent in the development of urban planning schemata for new towns in France. 2 CERFI’s founding members were Guattari, the economist and urban theorist François Fourquet, feminist philosopher Liane Mozère, and urban planner and editor of Multitides Anne Querrien—Guattari’s close friend and collaborator. The architects Antoine Grumback, Alain Fabre, Macary, and Janine Joutel were also members, as well as urbanists Bruno Fortier, Rainier Hoddé, and Christian de Portzamparc. 3 CERFI was the quintessential social project of post-‘68 French urbanism. Located on the Far Left and openly opposed to the Communist Party, this Trotskyist cooperative was able to achieve what other institutions, according to Fourquet, with their “customary devices—the politburo, central committee, and the basic cells—had failed to do.”4 The decentralized institute recognized that any formal integration of the group was to “sign its own death warrant; so it embraced a skein of directors, entangled, forming knots, liquidating all at once, and spinning in an unknown direction, stopping short and returning back to another node.” Allergic to the very idea of “party,” CERFI was a creative project of free, hybrid-aesthetic blocs talking and acting together, whose goal was none other than the “transformation of the libidinal economy of the militant revolutionary.” The group believed that by recognizing and affirming a “group unconscious,” as well as their individual unconscious desires, they would be able to avoid the political stalemates and splinter groups of the traditional Left. CERFI thus situated itself “on the side of psychosis”—its confessed goal was to serve rather than repress the utter madness of the urban malaise, because it was only from this mad perspective on the ground that a properly social discourse on the city could be forged.

Statutory right to rescind contract remained available to buyer subject to specific performance decree

The aftermath of the Queensland floods of January 2011 continues to be played out in the courts. The effect of the floods on such a large scale has awakened the use of some statutory provisions that have not previously been litigated .Section 64 of the Property Law Act 1974 (Qld) is such a section. A version of this provision appears as s 34 of the Sale of Land Act 1982 (Vic). Broadly speaking, these sections permit a buyer of a dwelling house which has been damaged or destroyed between contract and completion to rescind the contract and recover their deposit provided that the rescission notice is given prior to "the date of completion or possession". The Court of Appeal decision of Dunworth v Mirvac Queensland Pty Ltd [2011] QCA 200 appears to be the first litigation upon the application of the section since it came into force in 1975.

Submission to the ALRC copyright exceptions review issues paper

Australia should introduce a transformative use exception. Transformative use is an important part of the copyright balance: it provides a mechanism through which to balance the rights of past authors against the interests of future authors. In the interests of promoting creativity and innovation, the impact of copyright law on the ability of Australians to create new works should be minimised. The scope of a transformative use exception should be based primarily on demonstrable harm to the direct licensing interests of copyright owners – the core of copyright. Importantly, however, there are unresolved questions about fairness that need to be more clearly addressed before the appropriate scope of a transformative use exception can be determined. This submission does not directly address the desirability of introducing a broader fair use right. It is likely that an open ended fair use exception is required to provide a more adequate balance between copyright owners and non-transformative users of copyright. If a broad fair use style exception is introduced, it would likely be desirable to include transformative uses within that exception. This submission, however, takes the more limited position that regardless of whether a fair use exception is introduced, an exception that permits unlicensed transformative uses is required in Australian copyright law.