Funding and employment conditions : critical issues for Australian music therapy beyond 2009

As the Australian Journal of Music Therapy celebrates its 20th year of publication, it is evident that the profession of music therapy in Australia, has made substantial progress over these last 20 years. Jobs are regularly advertised on the website, there is a greater public awareness of what music therapy is, there are government recognised salary awards applicable in several states of the country, working conditions have generally improved, and many Australian music therapists are recognised on the international stage as leaders in their field of expertise. You can even go to a party and tell someone you are a music therapist and there is a good chance they will say 'oh yeah, I know someone who does that at the hospital / school / community centre / nursing home' instead of saying 'oh, so like, a what?'. Despite the impressive leaps and bounds that have been made, and the success of many programs in Australia to date, there is still a great deal of room for improvement. What are the critical issues ahead for the development of music therapy in Australia? In particular, how do music therapists develop going forward and secure funding for clinical initiatives? In reflecting on this question, this article identifies two key areas, amongst the many, that can be addressed by music therapists over the next 20 years: funding and employment conditions. Examples from the national early intervention music therapy program 'Sing and Grow' are used to illustrate the potential impact of addressing these two issues on the positive development of the profession into the future.

Library and information science education 2.0 : guiding principles and models of best practice : interview with Kate Davis.

In 2005, Stephen Abram, vice president of Innovation at SirsiDynix, challenged library and information science (LIS) professionals to start becoming “librarian 2.0.” In the last few years, discussion and debate about the “core competencies” needed by librarian 2.0 have appeared in the “biblioblogosphere” (blogs written by LIS professionals). However, beyond these informal blog discussions few systematic and empirically based studies have taken place. A project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council fills this gap. The project identifies the key skills, knowledge, and attributes required by “librarian 2.0.” Eighty-one members of the Australian LIS profession participated in a series of focus groups. Eight themes emerged as being critical to “librarian 2.0”: technology, communication, teamwork, user focus, business savvy, evidence based practice, learning and education, and personal traits. Guided by these findings interviews with 36 LIS educators explored the current approaches used within contemporary LIS education to prepare graduates to become “librarian 2.0”. This video presents an example of ‘great practice’ in current LIS education as it strives to foster web 2.0 professionals.

The nature and prevalence of inter-organizational project ventures : evidence from a large scale field study in the Netherlands 2006-2009

There has recently been noted a rapid increase in research attention to projects that involve outside partners. Our knowledge of such inter-organizational projects, however, is limited. This paper reports large scale data from a repeated trend survey amongst 2000 SMEs in 2006 and 2009 that focused on inter-organizational project ventures. Our major findings indicate that the overall prevalence of inter-organizational project ventures remained significant and stable over time, even despite the economic crisis. Moreover, we find that these ventures predominantly solve repetitive rather than unique tasks and are embedded in prior relations between the partnering organizations. These findings provide empirical support for the recent claims that project management should pay more attention to inter-organizational forms of project organization, and suggest that the archetypical view of projects as being unique in every respect should be reconsidered. Both have important implications for project management, especially in the area of project-based learning.

Ocular aberrations in the peripheral visual field

We modified a commercial Hartmann-Shack aberrometer and used it to measure ocular aberrations across the central 42º horizontal x 32º vertical visual fields of five young emmetropic subjects. Some Zernike aberration coefficients show coefficient field distributions that were similar to the field dependence predicted by Seidel theory (astigmatism, oblique astigmatism, horizontal coma, vertical coma), but defocus did not demonstrate such similarity.

Inferior field loss increases rate of falls in older adults with glaucoma

PURPOSE: To examine the visual predictors of falls and injurious falls among older adults with glaucoma. METHODS: Prospective falls data were collected for 71 community-dwelling adults with primary open-angle glaucoma, mean age 73.9 ± 5.7 years, for one year using monthly falls diaries. Baseline assessment of central visual function included high-contrast visual acuity and Pelli-Robson contrast sensitivity. Binocular integrated visual fields were derived from monocular Humphrey Field Analyser plots. Rate ratios (RR) for falls and injurious falls with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were based on negative binomial regression models. RESULTS: During the one year follow-up, 31 (44%) participants experienced at least one fall and 22 (31%) experienced falls that resulted in an injury. Greater visual impairment was associated with increased falls rate, independent of age and gender. In a multivariate model, more extensive field loss in the inferior region was associated with higher rate of falls (RR 1.57, 95%CI 1.06, 2.32) and falls with injury (RR 1.80, 95%CI 1.12, 2.98), adjusted for all other vision measures and potential confounding factors. Visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and superior field loss were not associated with the rate of falls; topical beta-blocker use was also not associated with increased falls risk. CONCLUSIONS: Falls are common among older adults with glaucoma and occur more frequently in those with greater visual impairment, particularly in the inferior field region. This finding highlights the importance of the inferior visual field region in falls risk and assists in identifying older adults with glaucoma at risk of future falls, for whom potential interventions should be targeted. KEY WORDS: glaucoma, visual field, visual impairment, falls, injury

Evaluating the learning outcomes of an international field trip in postgraduate lighting design courses

Lighting industry professionals work in an international marketplace and encounter a range of social, geographical and cultural challenges associated with this. Education in lighting should introduce students to aspects of these challenges. To achieve this, an international field trip was recently undertaken that sought to provide an authentic learning experience for students. Twelve Masters of Lighting students from two Australian universities took part in a field trip to Shanghai, China and surrounding areas. The goal was to offer students insight into practical issues in the lighting industry at an international level and to do so in a unique and authentic context. To evaluate the outcomes of the trip, each participant was surveyed afterwards. Benefits were identified in terms of: increased knowledge and insight into manufacturing issues in lighting, experiential learning in lighting design practice not available locally (e.g, master planning), increased understanding of cultural influences in design and enhancing professional contacts within the lighting industry. Field trips may also act as an inverted curriculum experience for new students to engage them and promote learning within a professional context.

Designing and evaluating mobile multimedia user experiences in public urban places : Making sense of the field

The majority of the world’s population now lives in cities (United Nations, 2008) resulting in an urban densification requiring people to live in closer proximity and share urban infrastructure such as streets, public transport, and parks within cities. However, “physical closeness does not mean social closeness” (Wellman, 2001, p. 234). Whereas it is a common practice to greet and chat with people you cross paths with in smaller villages, urban life is mainly anonymous and does not automatically come with a sense of community per se. Wellman (2001, p. 228) defines community “as networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging and social identity.” While on the move or during leisure time, urban dwellers use their interactive information communication technology (ICT) devices to connect to their spatially distributed community while in an anonymous space. Putnam (1995) argues that available technology privatises and individualises the leisure time of urban dwellers. Furthermore, ICT is sometimes used to build a “cocoon” while in public to avoid direct contact with collocated people (Mainwaring et al., 2005; Bassoli et al., 2007; Crawford, 2008). Instead of using ICT devices to seclude oneself from the surrounding urban environment and the collocated people within, such devices could also be utilised to engage urban dwellers more with the urban environment and the urban dwellers within. Urban sociologists found that “what attracts people most, it would appear, is other people” (Whyte, 1980, p. 19) and “people and human activity are the greatest object of attention and interest” (Gehl, 1987, p. 31). On the other hand, sociologist Erving Goffman describes the concept of civil inattention, acknowledging strangers’ presence while in public but not interacting with them (Goffman, 1966). With this in mind, it appears that there is a contradiction between how people are using ICT in urban public places and for what reasons and how people use public urban places and how they behave and react to other collocated people. On the other hand there is an opportunity to employ ICT to create and influence experiences of people collocated in public urban places. The widespread use of location aware mobile devices equipped with Internet access is creating networked localities, a digital layer of geo-coded information on top of the physical world (Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011). Foursquare.com is an example of a location based 118 Mobile Multimedia – User and Technology Perspectives social network (LBSN) that enables urban dwellers to virtually check-in into places at which they are physically present in an urban space. Users compete over ‘mayorships’ of places with Foursquare friends as well as strangers and can share recommendations about the space. The research field of Urban Informatics is interested in these kinds of digital urban multimedia augmentations and how such augmentations, mediated through technology, can create or influence the UX of public urban places. “Urban informatics is the study, design, and practice of urban experiences across different urban contexts that are created by new opportunities of real-time, ubiquitous technology and the augmentation that mediates the physical and digital layers of people networks and urban infrastructures” (Foth et al., 2011, p. 4). One possibility to augment the urban space is to enable citizens to digitally interact with spaces and urban dwellers collocated in the past, present, and future. “Adding digital layer to the existing physical and social layers could facilitate new forms of interaction that reshape urban life” (Kjeldskov & Paay, 2006, p. 60). This methodological chapter investigates how the design of UX through such digital placebased mobile multimedia augmentations can be guided and evaluated. First, we describe three different applications that aim to create and influence the urban UX through mobile mediated interactions. Based on a review of literature, we describe how our integrated framework for designing and evaluating urban informatics experiences has been constructed. We conclude the chapter with a reflective discussion on the proposed framework.

How quantum theory is developing the field of information retrieval

This position paper provides an overview of work conducted and an outlook of future directions within the field of Information Retrieval (IR) that aims to develop novel models, methods and frameworks inspired by Quantum Theory (QT).

Field study of air change and flow rate in six automobiles

For many people, a relatively large proportion of daily exposure to a multitude of pollutants may occur inside an automobile. A key determinant of exposure is the amount of outdoor air entering the cabin (i.e. air change or flow rate). We have quantified this parameter in six passenger vehicles ranging in age from 18 years to <1 year, at three vehicle speeds and under four different ventilation settings. Average infiltration into the cabin with all operable air entry pathways closed was between 1 and 33.1 air changes per hour (ACH) at a vehicle speed of 60 km/h, and between 2.6 and 47.3 ACH at 110 km/h, with these results representing the most (2005 Volkswagen Golf) and least air-tight (1989 Mazda 121) vehicles, respectively. Average infiltration into stationary vehicles parked outdoors varied between ~0 and 1.4 ACH and was moderately related to wind speed. Measurements were also performed under an air recirculation setting with low fan speed, while airflow rate measurements were conducted under two non-recirculate ventilation settings with low and high fan speeds. The windows were closed in all cases, and over 200 measurements were performed. The results can be applied to estimate pollutant exposure inside vehicles.