Examining the effects of an eco-driving system on driver distraction

Driver distraction has recently been defined by Regan as "the diversion of attention away from activities critical for safe driving toward a competing activity, which may result in insufficient or no attention to activities critical for safe driving (Regan, Hallett & Gordon, 2011, p.1780)". One source of distraction is in-vehicle devices, even though they might provide other benefits, e.g. navigation systems. Currently, eco-driving systems have been growing rapidly in popularity. These systems send messages to drivers so that driving performance can be improved in terms of fuel efficiency. However, there remain unanswered questions about whether eco-driving systems endanger drivers by distracting them. In this research, the CARRS-Q advanced driving simulator was used in order to provide safety for participants and meanwhile simulate real world driving. The distraction effects of tasks involving three different in-vehicle systems were investigated: changing a CD, entering a five digit number as a part of navigation task and responding to an eco-driving task. Driving in these scenarios was compared with driving in the absence of these distractions, and while drivers engaged in critical manoeuvres. In order to account for practice effects, the same scenarios were duplicated on a second day. The three in-vehicle systems were not the exact facsimiles of any particular existing system, but were designed to have similar characteristics to those of system available. In general, the results show that drivers’ mental workloads are significantly higher in navigation and CD changing scenarios in comparison to the two other scenarios, which implies that these two tasks impose more visual/manual and cognitive demands. However, eco-driving mental workload is still high enough to be called marginally significant (p ~ .05) across manoeuvres. Similarly, event detection tasks show that drivers miss significantly more events in the navigation and CD changing scenarios in comparison to both the baseline and eco-driving scenario across manoeuvres. Analysis of the practice effect shows that drivers’ baseline scenario and navigation scenario exhibit significantly less demand on the second day. However, the number of missed events across manoeuvres confirmed that drivers can detect significantly more events on the second day for all scenarios. Distraction was also examined separately for five groups of manoeuvres (straight, lane changing, overtaking, braking for intersections and braking for roundabouts), in two locations for each condition. Repeated measures mixed ANOVA results show that reading an eco-driving message can potentially impair driving performance. When comparing the three in–vehicle distractions tested, attending to an eco-driving message is similar in effect to the CD changing task. The navigation task degraded driver performance much more than these other sources of distraction. In lane changing manoeuvres, drivers’ missed response counts degraded when they engaged in reading eco-driving messages at the first location. However, drivers’ event detection abilities deteriorated less at the second lane changing location. In baseline manoeuvres (driving straight), participants’ mean minimum speed degraded more in the CD changing scenario. Drivers’ lateral position shifted more in both CD changing and navigation tasks in comparison with both eco-driving and baseline scenarios, so they were more visually distracting. Participants were better at event detection in baseline manoeuvres in comparison with other manoeuvres. When approaching an intersection, the navigation task caused more events to be missed by participants, whereas eco-driving messages seemed to make drivers less distracted. The eco-driving message scenario was significantly less distracting than the navigation system scenario (fewer missed responses) when participants commenced braking for roundabouts. To sum up, in spite of the finding that two other in-vehicle tasks are more distracting than the eco-driving task, the results indicate that even reading a simple message while driving could potentially lead to missing an important event, especially when executing critical manoeuvres. This suggests that in-vehicle eco-driving systems have the potential to contribute to increased crash risk through distraction. However, there is some evidence of a practice effect which suggests that future research should focus on performance with habitual rather than novel tasks. It is recommended that eco-driving messages be delivered to drivers off-line when possible.

Communicating personal amnesty : a dismodernist approach to arts intersections between disability, personal stories and well-being

This thesis investigates the role of narrative devices in the process of improving an individual’s psychological and physiological experience of health and well-being using two methods of inquiry: a theoretical research project and a comparative analysis of two case studies. Through these two approaches the research examines how the health status of people experiencing disability can be re-positioned and re-designed to develop creative, narrative-based approaches to strengthen communication between the mainstream community and those marginalised by pathological, social and biological illness-centric policy. The theoretical section of the thesis examines two different, but complementary bodies of research: health and well-being, and narrative reconstruction. By invoking Antonovksy’s (1985a) theory of salutogenesis and Davis’s (2002) theory of dismodernism, the study examines the role of language and narrative in the defining of health in social, pathological and ableist spheres. The research positions health and well-being as disparate from historical and contemporary readings of illness and disability and presents literature to support the potential to improve health well-being through a creative re-narration of the experience of disability. The research examines the theoretical concepts of resilience, autonomy and social inclusion through a detailed examination of narratology and the amnesty narrative. The study links these theoretical approaches to a practical Arts-Health intersection program developed for the research project called Communicating Personal Amnesty. Through a comparative analysis of a Pilot Study and Major Case study, the research presents findings derived from theory-building participatory action research showing the efficacy of the program. The research provides a detailed analysis of key narrative structures through a variety of experimental methodological approaches to encourage an important dialogue between the creative components of the thesis and the more traditional health-based academic critique. The research is an example of emergent translational health methodologies, in disability studies.

How similar are two-unit bicycle and motorcycle crashes?

This paper explores the similarities and differences between bicycle and motorcycle crashes with other motor vehicles. If similar treatments can be effective for both bicycle and motorcycle crashes, then greater benefits in terms crash costs saved may be possible for the same investment in treatments. To reduce the biases associated with under-reporting of these crashes to police, property damage and minor injury crashes were excluded. The most common crash type for both bicycles (31.1%) and motorcycles (24.5%) was intersection from adjacent approaches. Drivers of other vehicles were coded most at fault in the majority of two-unit bicycle (57.0%) and motorcycle crashes (62.7%). The crash types, patterns of fault and factors affecting fault were generally similar for bicycle and motorcycle crashes. This confirms the need to combat the factors contributing to failure of other drivers to yield right of way to two-wheelers, and suggest that some of these actions should prove beneficial to the safety of both motorized and non-motorized two-wheelers. In contrast, child bicyclists were more often at fault, particularly in crashes involving a vehicle leaving the driveway or footpath. The greater reporting of violations by riders and drivers in motorcycle crashes also deserves further investigation.

Health informatics domain knowledge analysis : an information technology perspective

Health Informatics is an intersection of information technology, several disciplines of medicine and health care. It sits at the common frontiers of health care services including patient centric, processes driven and procedural centric care. From the information technology perspective it can be viewed as computer application in medical and/or health processes for delivering better health care solutions. In spite of the exaggerated hype, this field is having a major impact in health care solutions, in particular health care deliveries, decision making, medical devices and allied health care industries. It also affords enormous research opportunities for new methodological development. Despite the obvious connections between Medical Informatics, Nursing Informatics and Health Informatics, most of the methodologies and approaches used in Health Informatics have so far originated from health system management, care aspects and medical diagnostic. This paper explores reasoning for domain knowledge analysis that would establish Health Informatics as a domain and recognised as an intellectual discipline in its own right.

The Stitchery collective : fashion in an expanded field

This practice-based presentation explores the role of fashion as an agent for social inclusion and ethical design practice in communities. The Stitchery Collective is an artist-run initiative based in Brisbane, Australia. Operating at the intersection of craft and design, the fashion-based initiative challenges the assumption that fashion is designed, produced and consumed exclusively in the commercial sector. As a not-for-profit cooperative, the stitchery collective is the first and only fashion organisation in Australia to attract funding under the national and state artist-run-initiative scheme. The collective approach extends to the stitchery design practice, facilitated by individual practitioners working within the organisation who devise programs in the context of collaborative and socially engaged design. Working under the banner of a question, Can fashion be more than pretty clothes for pretty people? the stitchery works to extend the cultural field of fashion practice in the 21st century. The premise of dress as a ‘significant creative or cultural expression’ has informed the expanded definition of fashion practice, as adopted by the stitchery. This alternative classification has fostered partnerships with numerous community groups, including those marginalised in the contemporary fashion context such as recent migrants and refugees. Community engagement programs span design, sewing and up-cycling workshops, sustainability lectures, clothing swaps and public education seminars, supported by partnerships with various cultural, government and educational institutions. In 2011, the stitchery travelled to the Venice Biennale’s 3rd International Children’s Carnival, hosting a workshop series and installation to promote design for sustainability. The proven potential for design to connect community members has motivated the stitchery to question the opportunity for fashion practice to, perhaps uncharacteristically, operate under the banner of ‘design for social good’. Acknowledging craft and design as relational fields, this presentation expands fashion as a tool for social innovation and sustainable practice. The stitchery dislocates the consumer status of fashion with small-scale, localised projects; moving beyond fashion as a dictum of social class to an alternative model that is accessible, conscious, flexible, connected and sustainable. As an undefined post-industrial future approaches, the non-commercial status of the stitchery practice might work to present an image of the active post-consumer. How can the stitchery propose a resilient model of design for the future?

Enlarged stopping distance to improve vehicle discharge at urban signalised intersections

Normally, vehicles queued at an intersection reach maximum flow rate after the fourth vehicle and results in a start-up lost time. This research demonstrated that the Enlarged Stopping Distance (ESD) concept could assist in reducing the start-up time and therefore increase traffic flow capacity at signalised intersections. In essence ESD gives sufficient space for a queuing vehicle to accelerate simultaneously without having to wait for the front vehicle to depart, hence reducing start-up lost time. In practice, the ESD concept would be most effective when enlarged stopping distance between the first and second vehicle allowing faster clearance of the intersection.

Monte Carlo-based diode design for correction-less small field dosimetry

Due to their small collecting volume diodes are commonly used in small field dosimetry. However the relative sensitivity of a diode increases with decreasing small field size. Conversely, small air gaps have been shown to cause a significant decrease in the sensitivity of a detector as the field size is decreased. Therefore this study uses Monte Carlo simulations to look at introducing air upstream to diodes such that they measure with a constant sensitivity across all field sizes in small field dosimetry. Varying thicknesses of air were introduced onto the upstream end of two commercial diodes (PTW 60016 photon diode and PTW 60017 electron diode), as well as a theoretical unenclosed silicon chip using field sizes as small as 5 mm × 5 mm . The metric D_(w,Q)/D_(Det,Q) used in this study represents the ratio of the dose to a point of water to the dose to the diode active volume, for a particular field size and location. The optimal thickness of air required to provide a constant sensitivity across all small field sizes was found by plotting D_(w,Q)/D_(Det,Q) as a function of introduced air gap size for various field sizes, and finding the intersection point of these plots. That is, the point at which D_(w,Q)/D_(Det,Q) was constant for all field sizes was found. The optimal thickness of air was calculated to be 3.3 mm, 1.15 mm and 0.10 mm for the photon diode, electron diode and unenclosed silicon chip respectively. The variation in these results was due to the different design of each detector. When calculated with the new diode design incorporating the upstream air gap, k_(Q_clin 〖,Q〗_msr)^(f_clin 〖,f〗_msr ) was equal to unity to within statistical uncertainty (0.5 %) for all three diodes. Cross-axis profile measurements were also improved with the new detector design. The upstream air gap could be implanted on the commercial diodes via a cap consisting of the air cavity surrounded by water equivalent material. The results for the unclosed silicon chip show that an ideal small field dosimetry diode could be created by using a silicon chip with a small amount of air above it.

An analysis of the KEEP CLEAR pavement markings effects on queuing vehicles dynamic performance at urban signalised intersections

KEEP CLEAR pavement markings are widely used at urban signalised intersections to indicate to drivers to avoid entering blocked intersections. For example, ‘Box junctions’ are most widely used in the United Kingdom and other European countries. However, in Australia, KEEP CLEAR markings are mostly used to improve access from side roads onto a main road, especially when the side road is very close to a signalised intersection. This paper aims to reveal how the KEEP CLEAR markings affect the dynamic performance of the queuing vehicles on the main road, where the side road access is near a signalised intersection. Raw traffic field data was collected from an intersection at the Gold Coast, Australia, and the Kanade–Lucas–Tomasi (KLT) feature tracker approach was used to extract dynamic vehicle data from the raw video footage. The data analysis reveals that the KEEP CLEAR markings generate positive effects on the queuing vehicles in discharge on the main road. This finding refutes the traditional viewpoint that the KEEP CLEAR pavement markings will cause delay for the queuing vehicles’ departure due to the enlarged queue spacing. Further studies are suggested in this paper as well.

BWW ontology as a lens on IS design theory: Extending the design science research roadmap

The Design Science Research Roadmap (DSR-Roadmap) [1] aims to give detailed methodological guidance to novice researchers in Information Systems (IS) DSR. Focus group evaluation, one phase of the overall study, of the evolving DSR-Roadmap revealed that a key difficulty faced by both novice and expert researchers in DSR, is abstracting design theory from design. This paper explores the extension of the DSR-Roadmap by employing IS deep structure ontology (BWW [2-4]) as a lens on IS design to firstly yield generalisable design theory, specifically 'IS Design Theory' (ISDT) elements [5]. Consideration is next given to the value of BWW in the application of the design theory by practitioners. Results of mapping BWW constructs to ISDT elements suggest that the BWW is promising as a common language between design researchers and practitioners, facilitating both design theory and design implementation

Institutional perspectives on operationalising climate adaptation through planning

Adaptation to climate change is an imperative and an institutional challenge. This paper argues that the operationalisation of climate adaptation is a crucial element of a comprehensive response to the impacts of climate change on human settlements, including major cities and metropolitan areas. In this instance, the operationalisation of climate adaptation refers to climate adaptation becoming institutionally codified and implemented through planning policies and objectives, making it a central tenet of planning governance. This paper has three key purposes. First, it develops conceptual understandings of climate adaptation as an institutional challenge. Second, it identifies the intersection of this problem with planning and examines how planning regimes, as institutions, can better manage stress created by climate change impacts in human settlements. Third, it reports empirical findings focused on how the metro-regional planning regime in Southeast Queensland (SEQ), Australia, has institutionally responded to the challenge of operationalising climate adaptation. Drawing on key social scientific theories of institutionalism, it is argued that the success or failure of the SEQ planning regime's response to the imperative of climate adaptation is contingent on its ability to undergo institutional change. It is further argued that a capacity for institutional change is heavily conditioned by the influence of internal and external pathways and barriers to change, which facilitate or hinder change processes. The paper concludes that the SEQ metro-regional planning regime has undergone some institutional change but has not yet undergone change sufficient to fully operationalise climate adaptation as a central tenet of planning governance in the region.

Operationalising climate adaptation through institutional change : conceptual and empirical insights

Adaptation is increasingly understood as a necessary response in respect of climate change impacts on urban settlements. Australia is heavily urbanised and climate change is likely to impact severely on its urban environments. Accordingly, climate adaptation must become a key component of urban management. This paper is part of a wider project and reports early insights into the problem of how adaptation may be institutionally operationalised within a planning regime. In this instance, the operationalisation of adaptation refers to adaptation becoming incorporated, codified and implemented as a central principle of planning governance. This paper has three key purposes: first, to set out a conceptual approach to climate adaptation as an institutional challenge; second, to identify the intersection of this problem with planning; third, to report on an on-going empirical investigation in Southeast Queensland (SEQ). Informed by key social scientific theories of institutionalism, this paper develops a conceptual framework that understands the metro-regional planning system of SEQ as an institutional regime capable of undergoing a process of change to respond to the adaptation imperative. It is posited that the success or failure of the SEQ regime’s response to the adaptation imperative is contingent on its ability to undergo institutional change. A capacity for change in this regard is understood to be subject to the influence of various internal and external barriers and pathways that promote or hinder processes of institutional change. Specific attention is paid to the role of ‘storylines’ in facilitating or blocking institutional change.

Producing and maintaining professional identities in early childhood

This study is an inquiry into early childhood teacher professional identities. In Australia, workforce reforms in early childhood include major shifts in qualification requirements that call for a university four-year degree-qualified teacher to be employed in child care. This marks a shift in the early years workforce, where previously there was no such requirement. At the same time as these reforms to quality measures are being implemented, and requiring a substantive up skilling of the workforce, there is a growing body of evidence through recent studies that suggests these same four-year degree-qualified early childhood teachers have an aversion to working in child care. Their preferred employment option is to work in the early years of more formal schooling, not in before-school contexts. This collision of agendas warrants investigation. This inquiry is designed to investigate the site at which advocacy for higher qualification requirements meets early childhood teachers who are reluctant to choose child care as a possible career pathway. The key research question for this study is: How are early childhood teachers’ professional identities currently produced? The work of this thesis is to problematise the early childhood teacher in child care through a particular method of discourse analysis. There are two sets of data. The first was a key early childhood political document that read as a "moment of arising" (Foucault, 1984a, p. 83). It is a political document which was selected for its current influence on the early childhood field, and in particular, workforce reforms that call for four-year degree-qualified teachers to work in before-school contexts, including child care. The second data set was generated through four focus group discussions conducted with preservice early childhood teachers. The document and transcripts of the focus groups were both analysed as text, as conceptualised by Foucault (1981). Foucault’s work spans a number of years and a range of philosophical matters. This thesis draws particularly on Foucault’s writings on discourse, power/knowledge, regimes of truth and resistance. In order to consider the production of early childhood teachers’ professional identities, the study is also informed by identity theorists, who have worked on gender, performativity and investment (Davies, 2004/2006; McNay, 1992; Osgood, 2012; Walkerdine, 1990; Weedon, 1997). The ways in which discourses intersect, compete and collide produce the subject (Foucault, 1981) and, in the case of this inquiry, there are a number of competing discourses at play, which produce the early childhood teacher. These particular theories turn particular lenses on the question of professional identities in early childhood, and such a study calls for the application of particular methodologies. Discourse analysis was used as the methodological framework, and the analysis was informed by Foucauldian concepts of discourse. While Foucault did not prescribe a form of discourse analysis as a method, his writings nonetheless provide a valuable framework for illuminating discursive practices and, in turn, how people are affected, through the shifts and distribution of power (Foucault, 1980a). The treatment used with both data sets involved redescription. For the policy document, a technique for reading document-as-text applied a genealogical approach (Foucault, 1984a). For the focus groups, the process of redescription (Rorty, 1989) involved reading talk-as-text. As a method, redescription involves describing "lots and lots of things in new ways until you have created a pattern of linguistic behaviour which will tempt the new generation to adopt it" (Rorty, 1989, p. 9). The development and application of categories (Davies, 2004/2006) built on a poststructuralist theoretical framework and the literature review informed the data analysis method of discourse analysis. Irony provided a rhetorical and playful tool (Haraway, 1991; Rorty, 1989), to look to how seemingly opposing discourses are held together. This opens a space to collapse binary thinking and consider seemingly contradictory terms in a way in which both terms are possible and both are true. Irony resists the choice of one or the other being right, and holds the opposites together in tension. The thesis concludes with proposals for new, ironic categories, which work to bring together seemingly opposing terms, located at sites in the field of early childhood where discourses compete, collide and intersect to produce and maintain early childhood teacher professional identities. The process of mapping these discourses goes some way to investigating the complexities about identities and career choices of early childhood teachers. The category of "the cost of loving" captures the collision between care/love, inherent in child care, and new discourses of investment/economics. Investment/economics has not completely replaced care/love, and these apparent opposites were not read as a binary because both are necessary and both are true (Haraway, 1991). They are held together in tension to produce early childhood teacher professional identities. The policy document under scrutiny was New Directions, released in 2007 by the then opposition ALP leader, Kevin Rudd. The claim was made strongly that the "economic prosperity" of Australia relies on investment in early childhood. The arguments to invest are compelling and the neuroscience/brain research/child development together with economic/investment discourses demand that early childhood is funding is increased. The intersection of these discourses produces professional identities of early childhood teachers as a necessary part of the country’s economy, and thus, worthy of high status. The child care sector and work in child care settings are necessary, with children and the early childhood teacher playing key roles in the economy of the nation. Through New Directions it becomes sayable (Foucault, 1972/1989) that the work the early childhood teacher performs is legitimated and valued. The children are produced as "economic units". A focus on what children are able to contribute to the future economy of the nation re-positions children and produces these "smart productive citizens", making future economic contribution. The early childhood teacher is produced through this image of a child and "the cost of loving" is emphasised. A number of these categories were produced through the readings of the document-as text and the talk-as-text. Two ironic categories were read in the analysis of the transcripts of the focus group discussions, when treated as talk-as-text data: the early childhood teacher as a "heroic victim"; and the early childhood teacher as a "glorified babysitter". This thesis raises new questions about professional identities in early childhood. These new questions might go some way to prompt re-thinking of some government policy, as well as some aspects of early childhood teacher education course design. The images of children and images of child care provide provocations to consider preservice teacher education course design. In particular, how child care, as one of the early childhood contexts, is located, conceptualised and spoken throughout the course. Consideration by course designers and teacher educators of what discourses are privileged in course content —what discourses are diminished or silenced—would go some way to reconceptualising child care within preservice teacher education and challenging dominant ways of speaking child care, and work in child care. This inquiry into early childhood teachers’ professional identities has gone some way to exploring the complexities around the early childhood teacher in child care. It is anticipated that the significance of this study will thus have immediate applicably and relevance for the Australian early childhood policy landscape. The early childhood field is in a state of rapid change, and this inquiry has examined some of the disconnects between policy and practice. Awareness of the discourses that are in play in the field will continue to allow space for conversations that challenge dominant assumptions about child care, work in child care and ways of being an early childhood teacher in child care.

Residential dissonance and mode choice

Residential dissonance refers to the mismatch in land-use patterns between individuals’ preferred residential neighbourhood type and the type of neighbourhood in which they currently reside. Current knowledge regarding the impact of residential dissonance is limited to short-term travel behaviours in urban vs. suburban, and rural vs. urban areas. Although the prevailing view is that dissonants adjust their orientation and lifestyle around their surrounding land use over time, empirical evidence is lacking to support this proposition. This research identifies both short-term mode choice behaviour and medium-term mode shift behaviour of dissonants in transit oriented development (TODs) vs. non-TOD areas in Brisbane, Australia. Natural groupings of neighbourhood profiles (e.g. residential density, land use diversity, intersection density, cul-de-sac density, and public transport accessibility levels) of 3957 individuals were identified as living either in a TOD (510 individuals) or non-TOD (3447 individuals) areas in Brisbane using the TwoStep cluster analysis technique. Levels of dissonance were measured based on a factor analysis of 16 items representing the travel attitudes/preferences of individuals. Two multinomial logistic (MNL) regression models were estimated to understand mode choice behaviour of (1) TOD dissonants, and (2) non-TOD dissonants in 2009, controlling for socio-demographics and environmental characteristics. Two additional MNL regression models were estimated to investigate mode shift behaviour of (3) TOD dissonants, and (4) non-TOD dissonants between 2009 and 2011, also controlling for socio-demographic, changes in socio-demographic, and built environmental factors. The findings suggest that travel preference is relatively more influential in transport mode choice decisions compared with built environment features. Little behavioural evidence was found to support the adjustment of a dissonant orientation toward a particular land use feature and mode accessibility they represent (e.g. a modal shift to greater use of the car for non-TOD dissonants). TOD policies should focus on reducing the level of dissonance in TODs in order to enhance transit ridership.

International acclaim : the role(s) of the international film festival in supporting emerging women’s cinema

International Film Festivals act as important sites for the exhibition of contemporary world cinema. Film festivals represent an increasingly transnational film culture, where audiences, filmmakers, distributors, press, critics and academics come together from all over the world to discover new films, network with one another and debate about the past, present and future of cinema. This research project investigates the role that international film festivals play within the wider international film industry, with a specific focus on emerging women filmmakers. It therefore explores the arena of contemporary women.s cinema at its intersection with the international film festival industry. The significance and original contribution of the research is its intervention in the growing field of film festival studies through a specific investigation of how international film festivals support emerging women filmmakers. The positioning of the research at the intersection of feminist film theory and festival research within the broader context of transnational cinema allows the examination of each festival, the attending filmmakers and their films to be addressed within a more refined and nuanced lens. A core method for the thesis is the close textual analysis of particular emerging women filmmakers. films which are screened at the respective festivals. The research also utilises the qualitative research strategies of the case study and the interview to ¡°seek to understand the context or setting of the participants through visiting this context and gathering information personally¡± (Creswell 2003, 9). The textual analysis is used in dialogue with the interviews and the participant observational data gathering to provide a related context for understanding these films and their cultural meanings, both personally for the filmmaker and transnationally across the festival circuit. The focus of the case studies is the Brisbane International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Toronto International Film Festival. These three festivals were chosen for their distinct geographical locations in the Asia Pacific, Europe and North America, as well as for their varying size and influence on the international film festival circuit. Specifically, I investigate the reasons behind why the organisers of a particular festival have chosen a certain woman.s film, how it is then packaged or displayed within the programme, and how all of this impacts on the filmmaker herself. The focus of my research is to investigate film festivals and their .real-life. applications and benefits for the filmmakers being supported, both through the exhibition of their films and through their attendance as festival guests. The research finds that the current generation of emerging women filmmakers has varying levels of experience and success at negotiating the international film festival circuit. Each of the three festivals examined include and promote the films of emerging women filmmakers through a range of strategies, such as specific programming strands dedicated to showcasing emerging talent, financial support through festival funds, providing visibility within the programme, exposure to international audiences and networking opportunities with industry professionals and other filmmakers. Furthermore, the films produced by the emerging women filmmakers revealed a strong focus on women.s perspectives and experiences, which were explored through the interweaving of particular aesthetic and cinematographic conventions.

Lane filtering and situation awareness in motorcyclists : an on-road proof of concept study

In Victoria, as in other jurisdictions, there is very little research on the potential risks and benefits of lane filtering by motorcyclists, particularly from a road safety perspective. This on-road proof of concept study aimed to investigate whether and how lane filtering influences motorcycle rider situation awareness at intersections and to address factors that need to be considered for the design of a larger study in this area. Situation awareness refers to road users’ understanding of ‘what is going on’ around them and is a critical commodity for safe performance. Twenty-five experienced motorcyclists rode their own instrumented motorcycle around an urban test route in Melbourne whilst providing verbal protocols. Lane filtering occurred in 27% of 43 possible instances in which there were one or more vehicles in the traffic queue and the traffic lights were red on approach to the intersection. A network analysis procedure, based on the verbal protocols provided by motorcyclists, was used to identify differences in motorcyclist situation awareness between filtering and non-filtering events. Although similarities in situation awareness across filtering and nonfiltering motorcyclists were found, the analysis revealed some differences. For example, filtering motorcyclists placed more emphasis on the timing of the traffic light sequence and on their own actions when moving to the front of the traffic queue, whilst non-filtering motorcyclists paid greater attention to traffic moving through the intersection and approaching from behind. Based on the results of this study, the paper discusses some methodological and theoretical issues to be addressed in a larger study comparing situation awareness between filtering and non-filtering motorcyclists.