Is there a difference between supervising international and domestic graduate students in Engineering and IT?

This paper explores a key issue identified in two studies of factors influencing the success of international and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) higher degree research graduate students. The studies include “A model for research supervision of international students in engineering and information technology disciplines” (MRS), which focused on identifying factors that influence successful supervision of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and international higher degree research (HDR or graduate) students in Engineering and IT disciplines in three Australian universities, and “Culture, language and the whole graduate experience: Exploring best practices in international graduate supervision” (BPS), which focussed on exploring perceptions regarding best practices in graduate supervision by diverse stakeholders across Australia. Findings suggest most supervisors do not differentiate between international (or CALD) graduate students and non-CALD(domestic) students in terms of factors influence success in graduate studies.

'There is nothing that identifies me to that place’: Indigenous Women’s Perceptions of Health Spaces and Places

This chapter provides an overview of the gendered realities of Indigenous men’s and Indigenous women’s lives and gendered Indigenous health perspectives. It offers the nurse some examples of the role of the nurse in working within gendered Indigenous health care.

Failure to launch: The self-regulating Md -MYB10R6 gene from apple is active in flowers but not leaves of Petunia

Coloured foliage due to anthocyanin pigments (bronze/red/black) is an attractive trait that is often lacking in many bedding, ornamental and horticultural plants. Apples (Malus × domestica) containing an allelic variant of the anthocyanin regulator, Md-MYB10R6, are highly pigmented throughout the plant, due to autoregulation by MYB10 upon its own promoter. We investigated whether Md-MYB10R6 from apple is capable of functioning within the heterologous host Petunia hybrida to generate plants with novel pigmentation patterns. The Md-MYB10R6 transgene (MYB10–R6pro:MYB10:MYB10term) activated anthocyanin synthesis when transiently expressed in Antirrhinumroseadorsea petals and petunia leaf discs. Stable transgenic petunias containing Md-MYB10R6 lacked foliar pigmentation but had coloured flowers, complementing the an2 phenotype of ‘Mitchell’ petunia. The absence of foliar pigmentation was due to the failure of the Md-MYB10R6 gene to self-activate in vegetative tissues, suggesting that additional protein partners are required for Md-MYB10 to activate target genes in this heterologous system. In petunia flowers, where endogenous components including MYB-bHLH-WDR (MBW) proteins were present, expression of the Md-MYB10R6 promoter was initiated, allowing auto-regulation to occur and activating anthocyanin production. Md-MYB10 is capable of operating within the petunia MBW gene regulation network that controls the expression of the anthocyanin biosynthesis genes, AN1 (bHLH) and MYBx (R3-MYB repressor) in petals.

Gene regulation by translational inhibition is determined by Dicer partnering proteins

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulatory RNAs produced by Dicer proteins that regulate gene expression in development and adaptive responses to the environment1,​2,​3,​4. In animals, the degree of base pairing between a miRNA and its target messenger RNA seems to determine whether the regulation occurs through cleavage or translation inhibition1. In contrast, the selection of regulatory mechanisms is independent of the degree of mismatch between a plant miRNA and its target transcript5. However, the components and mechanism(s) that determine whether a plant miRNA ultimately regulates its targets by guiding cleavage or translational inhibition are unknown6. Here we show that the form of regulatory action directed by a plant miRNA is determined by DRB2, a DICER-LIKE1 (DCL1) partnering protein. The dependence of DCL1 on DRB1 for miRNA biogenesis is well characterized7,​8,​9, but we show that it is only required for miRNA-guided transcript cleavage. We found that DRB2 determines miRNA-guided translational inhibition and represses DRB1 expression, thereby allowing the active selection of miRNA regulatory action. Furthermore, our results reveal that the core silencing proteins ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1) and SERRATE (SE) are highly regulated by miRNA-guided translational inhibition. DRB2 has been remarkably conserved throughout plant evolution, raising the possibility that translational repression is the ancient form of miRNA-directed gene regulation in plants, and that Dicer partnering proteins, such as human TRBP, might play a similar role in other eukaryotic systems.

Who is the good high school student?

Schooling is one of the core experiences of most young people in the Western world. This study examines the ways that students inhabit subjectivities defined in their relationship to some normalised good student. The idea that schools exist to produce students who become good citizens is one of the basic tenets of modernist educational philosophies that dominate the contemporary education world. The school has become a political site where policy, curriculum orientations, expectations and philosophies of education contest for the ‘right’ way to school and be schooled. For many people, schools and schooling only make sense if they resonate with past experiences. The good student is framed within these aspects of cultural understanding. However, this commonsense attitude is based on a hegemonic understanding of the good, rather than the good student as a contingent multiplicity that is produced by an infinite set of discourses and experiences. In this book, author Greg Thompson argues that this understanding of subjectivities and power is crucial if schools are to meet the needs of a rapidly changing and challenging world. As a high school teacher for many years, Thompson often wondered how students responded to complex articulations on how to be a good student. How a student can be considered good is itself an articulation of powerful discourses that compete within the school. Rather than assuming a moral or ethical citizen, this study turns that logic on it on its head to ask students in what ways they can be good within the school. Visions of the good student deployed in various ways in schools act to produce various ways of knowing the self as certain types of subjects. Developing the postmodern theories of Foucault and Deleuze, this study argues that schools act to teach students to know themselves in certain idealised ways through which they are located, and locate themselves, in hierarchical rationales of the good student. Problematising the good student in high schools engages those institutional discourses with the philosophy, history and sociology of education. Asking students how they negotiate or perform their selves within schools challenges the narrow and limiting ways that the good is often understood. By pushing the ontological understandings of the self beyond the modernist philosophies that currently dominate schools and schooling, this study problematises the tendency to see students as fixed, measurable identities (beings) rather than dynamic, evolving performances (becomings). Who is the Good High School Student? is an important book for scholars conducting research on high school education, as well as student-teachers, teacher educators and practicing teachers alike.

Is there a link between poverty and food security?

This paper addresses the gap in economic theory underlying the multidimensional concept of food security and observed data by deriving a composite food security index using the latent class model. The link between poverty and food security is then examined using the new food security index and the robustness of the link is compared with two unidimensional measures often used in the literature. Using Vietnam as a case study, it was found that a weak link exists for the rural but not for the urban composite food security index. The unidimensional measures on the other hand show a strong link in both the rural and urban regions. The results on the link are also different and mixed when two poverty types given by persistent and transient poverty are considered. These findings have important policy implications for a targeted approach to addressing food security.

Party On! A call for entrepreneurship research that is more interactive, activity based, cognitively hot, compassionate, and prosocial

It is the Journal of Business Venturing's (JBV) 30th birthday. Although the community of entrepreneurship scholars deserves to celebrate JBV's achievements over the last 30 years (and congratulate the journal's parents—Ian Macmillan and S. Venkataraman), my focus is more on the future of entrepreneurship (and by extension JBV). A focus on entrepreneurship is both timeless and timely. On the one hand, entrepreneurship is timeless given the long-recognized importance of entrepreneurs to economies and societies (e.g., Jean Baptiste who supposedly coined the term in about 1800). On the other hand, a discussion of entrepreneurship is timely because now that the field of entrepreneurship has achieved legitimacy, it faces both opportunities and threats. It is thus timely to acknowledge the threats and think about opportunities to advance the field. A discussion of entrepreneurship is also timely because society faces a number of grand challenges (including the durability of poverty, environmental degradation [ Dorado and Ventresca, 2013]), challenges well suited to entrepreneurial responses...

The artist is a thief: A book review

Stephen Gray is a writer and law lecturer who has been living in Darwin since 1989. He started out writing formal legal pieces about how copyright law had unsuccessfully sought to accommodate Aboriginal art. Such work led him to further investigate the philosophical questions underlying the legal issues affecting both traditional and urban Indigenous people. Gray has also explored matters of bioprospecting in relation to Indigenous biological resources. He has investigated the introduction of a label of authenticity into Australia. Gray has also published a number of articles about other legal issues affecting Indigenous people. He has explored such topics as native title, customary law, alternative dispute resolution, and criminal law. Gray has recently been awarded The Australian/ Vogel Literary Award for his novel The Artist is a Thief. He was inspired to write a book after being sent out to a community on a possible copyright claim as part of his job in the law faculty of Northern Territory University: "I wrote an academic article and then a more philosophical piece talking about the copyright act and the way it doesn't really protect traditional artists who have a very different view of the place of their art. The pieces were interesting, but I felt there was something more there that needed a fictional expression as well." It is ironic that such a self-conscious and sophisticated meditation upon appropriation and authenticity should win The Australian/ Vogel Literary Award. The inaugural award in 1980 was won by Paul Radley, who later revealed his books were mostly written by his uncle, and in 1993 it was won by Helen Demidenko, aka Darville, who had lied about her Ukrainian background and family history.

Don't feed the 'patent trolls': [An overhaul of the patent system is necessary to keep up with advances in technology.]

The government is sitting on its hands when an overhaul of the patent system is necessary to keep up with advances in technology in the 21st century.

When the price is not right: Technology price gouging in Australia

Apple Inc. has often portrayed itself as the champion of consumers, with its advertising campaigns on “1984”, “Think Different”, and “Rip, Mix, Burn”. However, this reputation has been called into question after Apple refused to appear before the Parliament’s inquiry into IT Pricing in Australia and explain its pricing policies in Australia.

What now after the Dallas Buyers Club pirate claim is rejected as ‘surreal’?

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have been dealt a blow in their attempt to extract payment from people alleged to have downloaded illegal copies of the movie. Voltage Pictures, which owns Dallas Buyers Club, has been trying to identify over 4,700 iiNet subscribers who it alleges downloaded illicit copies of the movie. Earlier this year, the Federal Court agreed that iiNet should hand over subscriber details, but warned that any letter sent to account holders must first be approved by the court to protect consumers from abuse of the legal system. In a win for consumer protection, the Federal Court has now rejected Voltage’s draft letters, criticising Voltage’s attempts to avoid explaining what fee it would demand.

ACE Research Vignette 047: What is the hard evidence on innovation and business productivity

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. This vignette, written by Professor Beth Webster at Swinburne University of Technology, examines how innovation in small and medium size businesses affect their productivity.

Can’t see the trees for the forest? Why IS-ServQual items matter

Despite longstanding concern with the dimensionality of the service quality construct as measured by ServQual and IS-ServQual instruments, variations on the IS-ServQual instrument have been enduringly prominent in both academic research and practice in the field of IS. We explain the continuing popularity of the instrument based on the salience of the item set for predicting overall customer satisfaction, suggesting that the preoccupation with the dimensions has been a distraction. The implicit mutual exclusivity of the items suggests a more appropriate conceptualization of IS-ServQual as a formative index. This conceptualization resolves the paradox in IS-ServQual research, that of how an instrument with such well-known and well-documented weaknesses continue to be very influential and widely used by academics and practitioners. A formative conceptualization acknowledges and addresses the criticisms of IS-ServQual, while simultaneously explaining its enduring salience by focusing on the items rather than the “dimensions.” By employing an opportunistic sample and adopting the most recent IS-ServQual instrument published in a leading IS journal (virtually, any valid IS- ServQual sample in combination with a previously tested instrument variant would suffice for study purposes), we demonstrate that when re-specified as both first-order and second-order formatives, IS-ServQual has good model quality metrics and high predictive power on customer satisfaction. We conclude that this formative specification has higher practical use and is more defensible theoretically.

Is the planet full? by Ian Goldin (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014), pp. 272.

The question ‘is the planet full?’ is not new but it needs a critical assessment to provide a good answer. Obviously, the capacity of the planet should be evaluated in relation to the size and distribution of its human population and how relevant resources of the planet are used and managed. When we are discussing human population and resource management, multidimensional issues such as welfare, technologies and social changes are essential...