Thermal studies of D.C. traction motors

This paper describes a thorough thermal study on a fleet of DC traction motors which were found to suffer from overheating after 3 years of full operation. Overheating of these traction motors is attributed partly because of the higher than expected number of starts and stops between train terminals. Another probable cause of overheating is the design of the traction motor and/or its control strategy. According to the motor manufacturer, a current shunt is permanently connected across the motor field winding. Hence, some of the armature current is bypassed into the current shunt. The motor then runs above its rated speed in the field weakening mode. In this study, a finite difference model has been developed to simulate the temperature profile at different parts inside the traction motor. In order to validate the simulation result, an empty vehicle loaded with drums of water was also used to simulate the full pay-load of a light rail vehicle experimentally. The authors report that the simulation results agree reasonably well with experimental data, and it is likely that the armature of the traction motor will run cooler if its field shunt is disconnected at low speeds

Creating Active Futures : Edited Proceedings of the 26th ACHPER International Conference

Physical inactivity has become a major cause of the global increase in non-communicable disease (World Health Organisation, 2009}. In 2008, the World Economic Forum called for employers to be proactive in the prevention of non-communicable diseases in the workforce. A significant contributor to the development of a healthy workforce is a reliable pool of employees who are receptive to and aware of healthy lifestyle practices even before becoming employed. Health and Physical Education (HPE) is often stereotyped as 'doing sport'. However, if HPE is to play a part in the development of a healthy workforce, then the HPE learning environment must be about creating meaningful learning for all, which is clearly more than the creation of elite athletes. The ultimate aim of health and physical educators must be about 1) developing lifelong and habitual physical activity; 2) developing generic physical skills; 3) inspiring holistic and positive emotional attitudes and 4) instilling a focus on evidence based knowledge as a framework for inspiring active citizenship. As a response to the worldwide move to the development of healthier people, Australia currently has a strong momentum for an expanded and more unified role for HPE within a potential National curriculum. Other countries have engaged in such a process and much can be learned from their experiences of the process. The 2009 Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER) conference was a landmark conference that included an International group of experts from all continents and twenty three countries. Creating Active Futures: Edited Proceedings of the 26th ACHPER International Conference is an amalgamation of research and professional perspectives presented at the conference. The papers in this volume emerged from those presented for peer review, rather than through seeking specific articles. This volume is divided into sections based on the five conference themes: 1) Issues in Health and Physical Education (HPE) Pedagogy; 2) Practical Application of Science in HPE; 3) Lifestyle Enhancement; 4) Developing Sporting Excellence; 5) Contemporary Games Teaching. The 'Issues in HPE Pedagogy' section provides a diverse set of perspectives on teaching HPE with papers from a range of topics that include first aid, philosophy, access, cultural characteristics, methods and teaching styles, curriculum, qualifications and emotional development. The second section links science to teaching HPE and provides a range of valuable information on injury prevention, information technology, personality and skill development. Section 3 is a collection of writings and research about Lifestyle Enhancement. Topics include the important role of adventure, the natural world, curriculum, migrant viewpoints, beliefs and globally focused programs in the development of active citizens. The section on sporting excellence contains papers that undertake to explain an aspect of excellence in sport. The last section of this volume highlights some contemporary views on teaching games.

Cultural economic geography and global media studies : the rise of asian media capitals?

This paper considers the scope to develop an approach to the spatial dimensions of media and culture that is informed by cultural-economic geography. I refer to cultural-economic geography as that strand of research in the field of geography that has been informed on the one hand by the ‘cultural turn’ in both geographical and economic thought, and which focuses on the relationship between, space, knowledge and identity in the spheres of production and consumption, and on the other to work by geographers that has sought to map the scale and significance of the cultural or creative industries as new drivers of the global economy. The paper considers the extent to which this work enables those engaged with urban cultural policy to get beyond some of the impasses that have arisen with the development of “creative cities” policies derived from the work of authors such as Richard Florida as well as the business management literature on clusters. It will frame these debates in the context of recent work by Michael Curtin on media capitals, and the question of whether cities in East Asia can emerge as media capitals from outside of the US-Europe-dominated transnational cultural axis.

Comparative communication research : Australian and New Zealand communication research in an international context

This paper raises the question of whether comparative national models of communications research can be developed, along the lines of Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) analysis of comparative media policy, or the work of Perraton and Clift (2004) on comparative national capitalisms. Taking consideration of communications research in Australia and New Zealand as its starting point, the paper will consider what are relevant variables in shaping an “intellectual milieu” for communications research in these countries, as compared to those of Europe, North America and Asia. Some possibly relevant variables include: • Type of media system (e.g. how significant is public service media?); • Political culture (e.g. are there significant left-of-centre political parties?); • Dominant intellectual traditions; • Level and types of research funding; • Overall structure of higher education system, and where communications sits within it. In considering whether such an exercise can or should be undertaken, we can also evaluate, as Hallin and Mancini do, the significance of potentially homogenizing forces. These would include globalization, new media technologies, and the rise of a global “audit culture”. The paper will raise these issues as questions that emerge as we consider, as Curran and Park (2000) and Thussu (2009) have proposed, what a “de-Westernized” media and communications research paradigm may look like.

Aligning communication, cultural and media studies research and scholarship with industry and policy : Australian instances

This article reflects on aspects of what is claimed to be the distinctiveness of Australian communication, cultural and media studies, focusing on two cases – the cultural policy debate in the 1990s, and the concept of creative industries in the 2000s – and the relations between them, which highlight the alignment of research and scholarship with industry and policy and with which the author has been directly involved. Both ‘moments’ have been controversial; the three main lines of critique of such alignment of research and scholarship with industry and policy (its untoward proximity to tenets of the dominant neo-liberal ideology; the evacuation of cultural value by the economic; and the possible loss of critical vocation of the humanities scholar) are debated.

International journalism and democracy : civic engagement models from around the world

"International Journalism and Democracy" explores a new form of journalism that has been dubbed ‘deliberative journalism’. As the name suggests, these forms of journalism support deliberation — the processes in which citizens recognize and discuss the issues that affect their communities, appraise the potential responses to those issues, and make decisions about whether and how to take action. Authors from across the globe identify the types of journalism that assist deliberative politics in different cultural and political contexts. Case studies from 15 nations spotlight different approaches to deliberative journalism, including strategies that have been sometimes been labeled as public or civic journalism, peace journalism, development journalism, citizen journalism, the street press, community journalism, social entrepreneurism, or other names. Countries that are studied in-depth include the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, Colombia and Puerto Rico. Each of the approaches that are described offers a distinctive potential to support deliberative democracy. However, the book does not present any of these models or case studies as examples of categorical success. Instead, it explores different elements of the nature, strengths, limitations and challenges of each approach, as well as issues affecting their longer-term sustainability and effectiveness. The book also describes the underlying principles of deliberation, the media’s potential role in deliberation from a theoretical and practical perspective, and ongoing issues for deliberative media practitioners.

Building bridges to participation : sociocultural case studies of AfL

Assessment for Learning(AfL) case studies in a North Queensland school highlight the significance of the teacher-student relationship in creating a supportive culture within which students can negotiate new learner identities. AfL practices are school based evaluative practices that occur within the regular flow of teaching and learning with the purpose of informing and improving student learning to enhance learner autonomy. The identity of an autonomous learner is socially negotiated through participation in the community of practice of the class. Underpinned by a sociocultural perspective this research shows how AfL is manifested in action in its complexity and how positive teacher-student interactions can build bridges for students to move towards full participation.

Academic practice as explanatory framework : reconceptualising international student academic engagement and university teaching

This paper joins growing interest in the concept of practice, and uses it to reconceptualise international student engagement with the demands of study at an Australian university. Practice foregrounds institutional structures and student agency and brings together psychologically- and socially-oriented perspectives on international student learning approaches. Utilising discourse theory, practice is defined as habitual and individual instances of socially-contextualised configurations of elements such as actions and interactions, roles and relations, identities, objects, values, and language. In the university context, academic practice highlights the institutionally-sanctioned ways of knowing, doing and being that constitute academic tasks. The concept is applied here to six international students’ ‘readings’ of and strategic responses to academic work in a Master of Education course. It is argued that academic practice provides a comprehensive framework for explaining the interface between university academic requirements and international student learning, and the crucial role that teaching has in facilitating the experience.

International students' experiences of university libraries and librarians

ABSTRACT International students constitute a significant proportion of the Australian university population, and thus of the university library-using population. Drawing on qualitative research findings, this paper discusses the library-related experiences and perceptions of international students at two Australian universities. While the students’ previous library use was limited, at their host university they experienced library using challenges, often associated with unfamiliarity. However, they generally viewed their Australian university library and library staff in a positive light. The findings support recommendations for developing library professionals’ awareness of, and enhancing international students’ library use.

Implementing the international : challenges and approaches

This paper documents some preliminary findings arising from our Creative Industries Faculty’s invitation to academics to submit suitable proposals for Internationalising the Curriculum, an initiative that aligns with the University’s recognition of the importance of “building international components into their teaching programs” Our research project involves revisiting the literature on internationalising the curriculum with a view to implementing pedagogic and assessment strategies that respect and encourage intercultural and international understandings and competencies. The paper addresses the problems in designing such a unit; in this case an American Literature unit which will be taught and studied in Australia at QUT in 2011. The challenges inherent in the task of internationalising the curriculum stem from the ‘traditional’ and accepted ways of structuring and delivering such units. While the content may be international, the problem remains as to how to go about teaching and assessing the unit to achieve a global approach. How can it be taught in a way that steps outside the borders of our national teaching practices and understanding of western epistemology and becomes far more inclusive of other modes of knowledge?

The critical meets the cultural : International students’ responses to critical, dialogic postgraduate education in a Western university

What happens when international students encounter critical, dialogic approaches to postgraduate education in a Western university? This chapter works with the narrative accounts of two students from Asian countries about their varied experiences of and responses to critically-oriented, interactive, English-medium study in a Master of Education course in Australia. Beginning from researcher standpoint, it tables the students’ stories of cultural, academic, linguistic and personal border crossings, and their ‘readings’ of course demands prioritising critical analysis, dialogic exchange and problem-solving. Their responses raise ongoing, unresolved epistemological and experiential issues about the cross-cultural and transnational relevance and value of Western/Eurocentric ‘critical’ education.

Constitutional legitimacy : an international ill and gap in the literature?

The central argument of this work is that “democratic constitutional legitimacy”[2] probably does not currently exist in the politics of any country internationally. This inherent problem in constitutionalism is an endemic governance problem most citizenries should be dealing with, only that we are not in a large extent doing so and haven’t been historically. This position was ascertained using a form of Beck and Grande’s (2010) cosmopolitan methodology in my doctoral thesis (which we shall return to). It is argued that every constitution is in need of considerable rethinking so as to bring its statutes in line with the interests of the plurality of individuals it oversees. Finally, this work attempts to show that research in this area of democratic constitutional legitimacy is lacking in the literature as only a few scholars presently engage the issue (namely Simone Chambers).

International review of computer usage and applications by construction project managers

As computer applications become more available—both technically and economically—construction project managers are increasingly able to access advanced computer tools capable of transforming the role that project managers have typically performed. Competence at using these tools requires a dual commitment in training—from the individual and the firm. Improving the computer skills of project managers can provide construction firms with a competitive advantage to differentiate from others in an increasingly competitive international market. Yet, few published studies have quantified what existing level of competence construction project managers have. Identification of project managers’ existing computer application skills is a necessary first step to developing more directed training to better capture the benefits of computer applications. This paper discusses the yet to be released results of a series of surveys undertaken in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and the United States through QUT’s School of Construction Management and Property and the M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Building Construction at the University of Florida. This international survey reviews the use and reported competence in using a series of commercially-available computer applications by construction project managers. The five different country locations of the survey allow cross-national comparisons to be made between project managers undertaking continuing professional development programs. The results highlight a shortfall in the ability of construction project managers to capture potential benefits provided by advanced computer applications and provide directions for targeted industry training programs. This international survey also provides a unique insight to the cross-national usage of advanced computer applications and forms an important step in this ongoing joint review of technology and the construction project manager.

Revitalizing health for all : international Indigenous representative group. Learning from the experience of comprehensive primary health care in Aboriginal Australia — A commentary on three projects

This paper presents a regional commentary (hereafter ‘the commentary’) on the three Australian projects of the Teasdale-Corti Global Health Research Partnership Program. The three Australian projects are: Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Ltd (VAHS), Melbourne, Victoria—Forty Years of Comprehensive Primary Health Care; Central Australian Aboriginal Congress Inc. (Congress), Alice Springs, Northern Territory—Ingkintja, Male Health Program; and Urapuntja Health Service (UHS), Utopia, Northern Territory—Outstation Health Care. It highlights common themes and lessons in respect to the Revitalising Health for All project in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in Australia.