Flood fatalities in contemporary Australia (1997-2008) : disaster medicine

Objective: Flood is the most common natural disaster in Australia and causes more loss of life than any other disaster. This article describes the incidence and causes of deaths directly associated with floods in contemporary Australia. ---------- Methods: The present study compiled a database of flood fatalities in Australia in the period of 1997–2008 inclusive. The data were derived from newspapers and historic accounts, as well as government and scientific reports. Assembled data include the date and location of fatalities, age and gender of victims and the circumstances of the death. ---------- Results: At least 73 persons died as a direct result of floods in Australia in the period of 1997–2008. The largest number of fatalities occurred in New South Wales and Queensland. Most fatalities occurred during February, and among men (71.2%). People between the ages of 10 and 29 and those over 70 years are overrepresented among those drowned. There is no evident decline in the number of deaths over time. 48.5% fatalities related to motor vehicle use. 26.5% fatalities occurred as a result of inappropriate or high-risk behaviour during floods. ---------- Conclusion: In modern developed countries with adequate emergency response systems and extensive resources, deaths that occur in floods are almost all eminently preventable. Over 90% of the deaths are caused by attempts to ford flooded waterways or inappropriate situational conduct. Knowledge of the leading causes of flood fatalities should inform public awareness programmes and public safety police enforcement activities.

The contemporary librarian : skills, knowledge and attributes required in a world of emerging technologies

Seventy-six librarians participated in a series of focus groups in support of research exploring the skills, knowledge and attributes required by the contemporary library and information professional in a world of every changing technology. The project was funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. Text data mining analysis revealed three main thematic clusters (libraries, people, jobs) and one minor thematic cluster (community). Library 2.0 was broadly viewed by participants as being about change whilst librarian 2.0 was perceived by participants as not a new creation but just about good librarian practices. Participants expressed the general belief that personality traits, not just qualifications, were critical to be a successful librarian or information worker in the future.

Children, childhood and the contemporary media

This chapter investigates and critiques the idea of the sexualization of children in the contemporary media with a focus on recent events in Australia. It begins by commenting about aspects of Corporate Paedophilia: Sexualisation of children in Australia (Rush & La Nauze, 2006a) and then investigates relevant literature about consuming bodies to provide a frame for discussing consumer culture, children and childhood. Following this, the sexualization of children in the contemporary media is explored from the perspective of moral panics and the discourses of neoliberal tolerance and intolerance. The chapter concludes that although the idea of children being sexualized in contemporary media is contested, there can be no simple explanations and that a multiplicity of factors need to be taken into account that exist outside of media discourses.

Sustainable infrastructure project planning : progress in contemporary decision support tools

Most infrastructure project developments are complex in nature, particularly in the planning phase. During this stage, many vague alternatives are tabled - from the strategic to operational level. Human judgement and decision making are characterised by biases, errors and the use of heuristics. These factors are intangible and hard to measure because they are subjective and qualitative in nature. The problem with human judgement becomes more complex when a group of people are involved. The variety of different stakeholders may cause conflict due to differences in personal judgements. Hence, the available alternatives increase the complexities of the decision making process. Therefore, it is desirable to find ways of enhancing the efficiency of decision making to avoid misunderstandings and conflict within organisations. As a result, numerous attempts have been made to solve problems in this area by leveraging technologies such as decision support systems. However, most construction project management decision support systems only concentrate on model development and neglect fundamentals of computing such as requirement engineering, data communication, data management and human centred computing. Thus, decision support systems are complicated and are less efficient in supporting the decision making of project team members. It is desirable for decision support systems to be simpler, to provide a better collaborative platform, to allow for efficient data manipulation, and to adequately reflect user needs. In this chapter, a framework for a more desirable decision support system environment is presented. Some key issues related to decision support system implementation are also described.

Letting go of Neo-Liberalism (with some help from Michel Foucault)

Neo-liberalism has become one of the boom concepts of our time. From its original reference point as a descriptor of the economics of the “Chicago School” such as Milton Friedman, or authors such as Friedrich von Hayek, neo-liberalism has become an all-purpose descriptor and explanatory device for phenomena as diverse as Bollywood weddings, standardized testing in schools, violence in Australian cinema, and the digitization of content in public libraries. Moreover, it has become an entirely pejorative term: no-one refers to their own views as “neo-liberal”, but it rather refers to the erroneous views held by others, whether they acknowledge this or not. Neo-liberalism as it has come to be used, then, bears many of the hallmarks of a dominant ideology theory in the classical Marxist sense, even if it is often not explored in these terms. This presentation will take the opportunity provided by the English language publication of Michel Foucault’s 1978-79 lectures, under the title of The Birth of Biopolitics, to consider how he used the term neo-liberalism, and how this equates with its current uses in critical social and cultural theory. It will be argued that Foucault did not understand neo-liberalism as a dominant ideology in these lectures, but rather as marking a point of inflection in the historical evolution of liberal political philosophies of government. It will also be argued that his interpretation of neo-liberalism was more nuanced and more comparative than the more recent uses of Foucault in the literature on neo-liberalism. It will also look at how Foucault develops comparative historical models of liberal capitalism in The Birth of Biopolitics, arguing that this dimension of his work has been lost in more recent interpretations, which tend to retro-fit Foucault to contemporary critiques of either U.S. neo-conservatism or the “Third Way” of Tony Blair’s New Labour in the UK.

Creative pedagogies and the contemporary school classroom

This chapter explores the ‘creative pedagogies’ of imaginative teaching and learning and the development of creative capacities in formal schooling. It considers how educational policies enable and constrain creative thinking as students learn through play and experimentation. The chapter outlines two classroom based case studies involving creative media technologies in Queensland, Australia. It argues that Queensland’s ‘open’ system of curriculum development enabled the two schools to implement transdisciplinary ‘rich tasks’ for the students. However, there are constraints related to the social mediation of creativity and the influence of high stakes testing in foregrounding ‘value’ and ‘purpose’ in learning.

"Re-imagining animation : the changing face of the moving image by Paul Wells and Johnny Hardstaff" (Book Review)

Advances in digital technology have caused a radical shift in moving image culture. This has occurred in both modes of production and sites of exhibition, resulting in a blurring of boundaries that previously defined a range of creative disciplines. Re-Imagining Animation: The Changing Face of the Moving Image, by Paul Wells and Johnny Hardstaff, argues that as a result of these blurred disciplinary boundaries, the term “animation” has become a “catch all” for describing any form of manipulated moving image practice. Understanding animation predicates the need to (re)define the medium within contemporary moving image culture. Via a series of case studies, the book engages with a range of moving image works, interrogating “how the many and varied approaches to making film, graphics, visual artefacts, multimedia and other intimations of motion pictures can now be delineated and understood” (p. 7). The structure and clarity of content make this book ideally suited to any serious study of contemporary animation which accepts animation as a truly interdisciplinary medium.

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.

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.