12 fingers or one, it’s how you play? Genetic discrimination in the Australian workforce

For quite some time, debate has raged about what the human race can and should do with its knowledge of genetics. We are now nearly 60 years removed from the work of Watson and Crick who determined the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), yet our opinions as how best to employ scientific knowledge of the human genome, remain as diverse and polarised as ever. Human judgment is often shaped and coloured by popular media and culture, so it should come as no surprise that box office movies such as Gattaca (1997) continue to play a role in informing public opinion on genetics. In order to perform well at the box office, movies such as Gattaca take great liberty in sensationalising (and even distorting) the implications that may result from genetic screening and testing. If the public’s opinion on human genetics is strongly derived from the box office and popular media, then it is no wonder that the discourse on human genetics is couched in the polar parlances of future utopias or future dystopias. When legislating in an area like genetic discrimination in the workforce, we must be mindful of not overplaying the causal link between genetic predisposition towards a disability and an employee’s ability to perform the inherent requirements of their job. Genetic information is ultimately about people, it is not about genes. Genetic discrimination is ultimately about actions, it is not about the intrinsic value of genetic information.

Electronic games: A legitimate diversional therapy intervention for health care consumers?

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Adapting, renewing, subverting : what place the performing arts in the creative industries?

Creative Industries was adopted as a platform in the 90s by the Blair government in the UK to describe the convergence of the arts, media, communication and information technologies as a newly formed cluster, providing economic and cultural capital for the knowledge economy. The philosophy and rhetoric which has grown around this concept (Leadbeater 2000, Castells 2000, Florida 2000, Caves 2000, Hartley 2000) has been influential in re-contextualising culture and the arts in the 21st century. Where governments and educational institutions have embraced the context of the creative industries, it is having a profound effect on the way arts are being positioned, originally as ‘creative content’ for the new economy. Countries and regions which have actively targeted the Creative Industries as an important economic growth factor in a post-industrial environment are numerous, but it is interesting to note that North and South East Asia and Australia have been at the forefront of developing the Creative Industries in its various guises. It could be argued that the initial phase of Creative Industries concentrated on media and communication technologies to provide commercial outcomes in small incubator business models; developing, for example, products for the games industry. Creative Industries is now entering a second phase of development; one in which the broader palette of the arts, though still not at the forefront of debate, is being re-examined. Both phases of Creative Industries have emphasised creativity and innovation as key drivers in the success and effectiveness of this sector, and although the arts by no means has a monopoly on these drivers, it is where they have an important part to play in the creative industries context. Arguably, the second wave of the creative industries acknowledges to a greater extent that commercialisation works in tandem with government and other support in a complex mixed economic model. In relation to the performing arts, the global market has seen an increase in large-scale cultural events such as festivals which are providing employment for the arts industry and multiplier effects in other parts of the economy. Differentiated product is important in this competitive arena and the use of mediated and digitised environments has been able to increase the amount of arts product available to an international market. This changed environment requires the development of new skills for our artists and producers and has given rise to a reappraisal of approaches to arts training and research in the Higher Degree Education sector (Brown 2007, Cunningham 2006). This paper examines pedagogical changes which took place in the first Creative Industries Faculty in the world at Queensland University of Technology as well as the increased opportunities for leading research initiatives. It concludes with the example of an interdisciplinary artwork produced in a creative industries precinct, exemplifying the convergence of arts and communication technologies and that of artistic practice and research.

Working in Australia's digital games industry consolidation report

The Working in Australia’s Digital Games Industry: A Consolidation Report is the outcome of a comprehensive study on the games industry in Australia by Dr Sandra Haukka from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) based at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. The study responds to concerns that Australia’s games industry would not reach its full potential due to a lack of local, highly skilled staff, and a lack of appropriately trained graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills. This is the first of two reports produced with the support of the Games Developers’ Association of Australia. Over coming months researchers will develop a future skills strategy report for the industry.

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.

Seen but not heard? The significance of shareholders under Pt 5.3A of the Corporations Act

The article considers the interests of company members as stakeholders in the event of a company entering voluntary administration and suggests that while shareholders hold a residual interest, they nonetheless have an interest in ensuring that that the company is rescued and perhaps therefore have a role to play in the rescue of the company’s business. In doing so it argues that there is some inconsistency in recent changes in Ch 5 regarding the role of shareholders with some changes recognising their role while others have sought to downplay it.

The 'nurdle to leg' and other ways of winning cricket matches

The emergence of Twenty20 cricket at the elite level has been marketed on the excitement of the big hitter, where it seems that winning is a result of the muscular batter hitting boundaries at will. This version of the game has captured the imagination of many young players who all want to score runs with “big hits”. However, in junior cricket, boundary hitting is often more difficult due to size limitations of children and games played on outfields where the ball does not travel quickly. As a result, winning is often achieved via a less spectacular route – by scoring more singles than your opponents. However, most standard coaching texts only describe how to play boundary scoring shots (e.g. the drives, pulls, cuts and sweeps) and defensive shots to protect the wicket. Learning to bat appears to have been reduced to extremes of force production, i.e. maximal force production to hit boundaries or minimal force production to stop the ball from hitting the wicket. Initially, this is not a problem because the typical innings of a young player (<12 years) would be based on the concept of “block” or “bash” – they “block” the good balls and “bash” the short balls. This approach works because there are many opportunities to hit boundaries off the numerous inaccurate deliveries of novice bowlers. Most runs are scored behind the wicket by using the pace of the bowler’s delivery to re-direct the ball, because the intrinsic dynamics (i.e. lack of strength) of most children means that they can only create sufficient power by playing shots where the whole body can contribute to force production. This method works well until the novice player comes up against more accurate bowling when they find they have no way of scoring runs. Once batters begin to face “good” bowlers, batters have to learn to score runs via singles. In cricket coaching manuals (e.g. ECB, n.d), running between the wickets is treated as a separate task to batting, and the “basics” of running, such as how to “back- up”, carry the bat, calling and turning and sliding the bat into the crease are “drilled” into players. This task decomposition strategy focussing on techniques is a common approach to skill acquisition in many highly traditional sports, typified in cricket by activities where players hit balls off tees and receive “throw-downs” from coaches. However, the relative usefulness of these approaches in the acquisition of sporting skills is increasingly being questioned (Pinder, Renshaw & Davids, 2009). We will discuss why this is the case in the next section.

Stakes and motivation in tournaments : playing when there is nothing to play for but pride

Tournaments are an effective means of incentivising participants to ensure an optimal level of effort. However, situations can occur in tournaments where the final outcome of a given competitor does not depend on his/her future performance. Specifically, we study these specific situations in a data set of the group stages of European football club competitions from 1992 to 2009. We identify situations where teams are already sure to finish either first or last at the penultimate stage in the group. We show that such situations affect team performance in the last match, typically decreasing the performance of a team sure to finish first and increasing the performance of a team sure to finish last. The first finding is in line with the economic predictions yet provides interesting implications, namely that the schedule of the match order plays a significant role in the overall performance of the team. The second, counter-intuitive, finding is not well accommodated into the existing economics framework and thus we discuss two alternative explanations, one based on social pressure and the other on pride.

Optimal strategies and minimax lower bounds for online convex games

A number of learning problems can be cast as an Online Convex Game: on each round, a learner makes a prediction x from a convex set, the environment plays a loss function f, and the learner’s long-term goal is to minimize regret. Algorithms have been proposed by Zinkevich, when f is assumed to be convex, and Hazan et al., when f is assumed to be strongly convex, that have provably low regret. We consider these two settings and analyze such games from a minimax perspective, proving minimax strategies and lower bounds in each case. These results prove that the existing algorithms are essentially optimal.

From go to woe : how a not-for-profit managed the change to accrual accounting

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine the process of change in an Australian not-for-profit organization, from a cash-based to an accrual-based accounting system. Its particular focus is the relationship between the image portrayed by accrual accounting adoption and the technical realities of the new system. Design/methodology/approach – Data were gathered from interviews, documents and meetings, and were contextualized and interpreted using institutional theory. Findings – The decision to change to accrual accounting was made at the top of the organizational hierarchy in response to institutional pressure to present a corporate image. The implementation of the new system was poorly conceived, inadequately resourced, and hampered by an authoritarian structure that effectively ignored the technical incompetence and training needs of many accounting staff. This resulted in an accounting system half way between cash and accrual, and very different from the system as it had been promoted. The process caused conflict at all levels of the organizational hierarchy. Research limitations/implications – Accounting in not-for-profit organizations is an under-researched area offering potential for fruitful research in a changing institutional landscape. This institutional approach, while offering just one interpretation of the qualitative data gathered in this project, provides valuable insights about the process of change. Practical implications – Not-for-profit organizations play a vital economic and social role, and need carefully to assess their responses to ongoing institutional pressures. In implementing change, they face the challenge of balancing the promotion of an institutionally acceptable image and the need for technical efficiencies. Originality/value – The examination of change in an organization provides a rich context for the exploration of the dynamic, problematic process by which a new accounting practice is embedded and institutionalized. Keywords Institutional theory, Not-for-profit organizations, Accrual accounting, Change process, Qualitative research, Change management, Decision making, Training needs, Australia Paper type Research paper

Emergence in games

The future direction of game development is towards more flexible, realistic, and interactive game worlds. However, current methods of game design do not allow for anything other than pre-scripted player exchanges and static objects and environments. An emergent approach to game development involves the creation of a globally designed game system that provides rules and boundaries for player interactions, rather than prescribed paths. Emergence in Games provides a detailed foundation for applying the theory and practice of emergence in games to game design. Emergent narrative, characters and agents, and game worlds are covered and a hands-on tutorial and case study allow the reader to the put the skills and ideas presented into practice.

Bullying : the moral and social orders at play

This special issue came about following an international symposium on bullying held in December 2008 at the Department of Child Studies, Linko¨ping University, Sweden, led by Jakob Cromdal and Paul Horton. The articles represent a diverse body of theoretical and empirical work that emphasises children and young people’s views of and participation in everyday experiences. The articles, as a collection, aim to be provocative in terms of challenging some existing dominant understandings about bullying to propose alternate ways to understand this phenomenon.

Modeling player-like behaviour for game Al design

The design of artificial intelligence in computer games is an important component of a player's game play experience. As games are becoming more life-like and interactive, the need for more realistic game AI will increase. This is particularly the case with respect to AI that simulates how human players act, behave and make decisions. The purpose of this research is to establish a model of player-like behavior that may be effectively used to inform the design of artificial intelligence to more accurately mimic a player's decision making process. The research uses a qualitative analysis of player opinions and reactions while playing a first person shooter video game, with recordings of their in game actions, speech and facial characteristics. The initial studies provide player data that has been used to design a model of how a player behaves.

Proximity-to-goal as a constraint on patterns of behaviour in attacker–defender dyads in team games

The aim of this study was to determine whether spatiotemporal interactions between footballers and the ball in 1 vs. 1 sub-phases are influenced by their proximity to the goal area. Twelve participants (age 15.3 ± 0.5 years) performed as attackers and defenders in 1 vs. 1 dyads across three field positions: (a) attacking the goal, (b) in midfield, and (c) advancing away from the goal area. In each position, the dribbler was required to move beyond an immediate defender with the ball towards the opposition goal. Interactions of attacker-defender dyads were filmed with player and ball displacement trajectories digitized using manual tracking software. One-way repeated measures analysis of variance was used to examine differences in mean defender-to-ball distance after this value had stabilized. Maximum attacker-to-ball distance was also compared as a function of proximity-to-goal. Significant differences were observed for defender-to-ball distance between locations (a) and (c) at the moment when the defender-to-ball distance had stabilized (a: 1.69 ± 0.64 m; c: 1.15 ± 0.59 m; P < 0.05). Findings indicate that proximity-to-goal influenced the performance of players, particularly when attacking or advancing away from goal areas, providing implications for training design in football. In this study, the task constraints of football revealed subtly different player interactions than observed in previous studies of dyadic systems in basketball and rugby union.