Retracing the Roots and Ideals of Confucian Principles of Governance: the Art of Regulating Governance without Legal Rules in Chinese Societies

Confucius was and still is one of the most eminent Chinese philosophers. Such is the importance of Confucius’s teachings; it had influenced all aspects of social life in Chinese societies. In the post-Enron, post-Worldcom, and post-Global Financial Crisis era there are raising doubts in the mantra of the so-called conventional wisdom about law and economic order. Whilst many recent publications offered solutions to those problems like advocating for more laws, rules or reforms in regulatory institutions to enhance the regulation of corporate governance. What Confucius advocated was a non-legal, social mode of regulation based on moral ideals that should be embedded into the minds of every person. Whilst this is an ancient concept from primitive societies, its relevance and merits could be seen in modern Chinese societies like Hong Kong. In essence, Confucian principles of governance build on relational and paternalistic order based on moral ideals.

The art of careful listening : children as co-artists in the making of live performance

Since 2007 Kite Arts Education Program (KITE), based at Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), has been engaged in delivering a series of theatre-based experiences for children in low socio-economic primary schools in Queensland. The twelve-week workshop experience culminates in a performance developed by the children with the assistance of the teacher artists from KITE for their community and parents/carers in a peak community cultural institution. Using Wartella’s notion of the socially competent child this analysis interrogates the performance product Precious, child participation modes, the intersection between the professional artists, teacher artists and child artists and outcomes in terms of building capacities for the development of social competencies in children.

Transgression and the everyday : art and fashion in the 1970s

Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren has said that punk fashion truly began in New York. In the 1970s, New York was home to the burgeoning punk scene, Fluxus artists and Andy Warhol’s ‘Factory’. Trace the connections between designers, artists and the musicians who became fashion icons such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, Malcolm McLaren, Richard Hell, Lou Reed, and Andy Warhol with Alice Payne (PhD candidate).

Why a child needs a critical eye, and why the art classroom is central in developing it

It is a common acceptance that contemporary schoolchildren live in a world that is intensely visual and commercially motivated, where what is imagined and what is experienced intermingle. Because of this, contemporary education should encourage a child to make reference to, and connection with their ‘out-of-school’ life. The core critical underpinnings of curriculum based arts appreciation and theory hinge on educators and students taking a historical look at the ways artists have engaged with, and made comment upon, their contemporary societies. My article uses this premise to argue for the need to persist with pushing for critique of/through the visual, that it be delivered as an active process via the arts classroom rather than as visual literacy, here regarded as a more passive process for interpreting and understanding visual material. The article asserts that visual arts lessons are best placed to provide fully students with such critique because they help students to develop a ’critical eye’, an interpretive lens often used by artists to view, analyse and independently navigate and respond to contemporary society.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in the north of Vietnam : a multi-method approach

The antiretroviral therapy (ART) program for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in Vietnam has been scaled up rapidly in recent years (from 50 clients in 2003 to almost 38,000 in 2009). ART success is highly dependent on the ability of the patients to fully adhere to the prescribed treatment regimen. Despite the remarkable extension of ART programs in Vietnam, HIV/AIDS program managers still have little reliable data on levels of ART adherence and factors that might promote or reduce adherence. Several previous studies in Vietnam estimated extremely high levels of ART adherence among their samples, although there are reasons to question the veracity of the conclusion that adherence is nearly perfect. Further, no study has quantitatively assessed the factors influencing ART adherence. In order to reduce these gaps, this study was designed to include several phases and used a multi-method approach to examine levels of ART non-adherence and its relationship to a range of demographic, clinical, social and psychological factors. The study began with an exploratory qualitative phase employing four focus group discussions and 30 in-depth interviews with PLHIV, peer educators, carers and health care providers (HCPs). Survey interviews were completed with 615 PLHIV in five rural and urban out-patient clinics in northern Vietnam using an Audio Computer Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI) and clinical records extraction. The survey instrument was carefully developed through a systematic procedure to ensure its reliability and validity. Cultural appropriateness was considered in the design and implementation of both the qualitative study and the cross sectional survey. The qualitative study uncovered several contrary perceptions between health care providers and HIV/AIDS patients regarding the true levels of ART adherence. Health care providers often stated that most of their patients closely adhered to their regimens, while PLHIV and their peers reported that “it is not easy” to do so. The quantitative survey findings supported the PLHIV and their peers’ point of view in the qualitative study, because non-adherence to ART was relatively common among the study sample. Using the ACASI technique, the estimated prevalence of onemonth non-adherence measured by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) was 24.9% and the prevalence of four-day not-on-time-adherence using the modified Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group (AACTG) instrument was 29%. Observed agreement between the two measures was 84% and kappa coefficient was 0.60 (SE=0.04 and p<0.0001). The good agreement between the two measures in the current study is consistent with those found in previous research and provides evidence of cross-validation of the estimated adherence levels. The qualitative study was also valuable in suggesting important variables for the survey conceptual framework and instrument development. The survey confirmed significant correlations between two measures of ART adherence (i.e. dose adherence and time adherence) and many factors identified in the qualitative study, but failed to find evidence of significant correlations of some other factors and ART adherence. Non-adherence to ART was significantly associated with untreated depression, heavy alcohol use, illicit drug use, experiences with medication side-effects, chance health locus of control, low quality of information from HCPs, low satisfaction with received support and poor social connectedness. No multivariate association was observed between ART adherence and age, gender, education, duration of ART, the use of adherence aids, disclosure of ART, patients’ ability to initiate communication with HCPs or distance between clinic and patients’ residence. This is the largest study yet reported in Asia to examine non-adherence to ART and its possible determinants. The evidence strongly supports recent calls from other developing nations for HIV/AIDS services to provide screening, counseling and treatment for patients with depressive symptoms, heavy use of alcohol and substance use. Counseling should also address fatalistic beliefs about chance or luck determining health outcomes. The data suggest that adherence could be enhanced by regularly providing information on ART and assisting patients to maintain social connectedness with their family and the community. This study highlights the benefits of using a multi-method approach in examining complex barriers and facilitators of medication adherence. It also demonstrated the utility of the ACASI interview method to enhance open disclosure by people living with HIV/AIDS and thus, increase the veracity of self-reported data.

Social outcomes in the construction industry : the case of the Western Australia ‘Percent for Art’ policy

Social outcomes, in particular intangible social outcomes, are generally difficult to achieve in the construction industry due to the predominantly episodic, fragmented and heavily regulated nature of construction that presupposes a tendency towards mainstream construction processes and design. The Western Australian ‘Percent for Art’ policy is recognized for stimulating social outcomes, by creating richer and more aesthetically pleasing social environments through the incorporation of artwork into public buildings. A case study of four Percent for Art projects highlights the role of the Artwork Selection Committee in incorporating artwork into construction. A total of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with committee members and policy officers. Data analysis involved a combination of pattern coding and matrix categorization, and resulted in the identification of the committee’s three key elements of collaborative communication, democratic decision-making and project champions. The findings suggest these key elements foster the interaction, communication and relationships needed to facilitate feedback, enhance relationships, create cross-functional teams and lower project resistance, which are all necessary to overcome constraints to social outcomes in construction. The findings provide greater insight into the mechanisms for achieving social outcomes and a basis for future discussion about the processes for achieving social outcomes in the construction industry.

From the margin to the centre : towards an art strategy for the ethnic enclaves in the city

Sunnybank represents a distinctly Australian take on the classic ‘Chinatown’ – or indeed other ethic community enclaves such as ‘little Italy’, ‘little Bombay’, ‘little Athens’ and so on. In the Northern Hemisphere these tended to grow up in the dense working class neighbourhoods of industrial cities, especially in port cities like Liverpool, London, New York and San Francisco. The existing Chinatowns of Sydney and Melbourne, and to some extent Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, are of this variety. In the late 1970s, with the growth of suburbanisation and the de-industrialisation and consequent dereliction of the ‘inner city’, these ethnic communities were one of the few signs of life in the city. Apart from the daily commute into the CBD, business with the city council or a trip to the big shopping streets these areas were one of the few reasons for visiting city centres stigmatised by urban decay and petty crime.

The art of re-industrialisation in Shanghai

This paper deals with the development of ‘art clusters’ and their relocation in the city of Shanghai. It first looks at the revival of the city’s old inner city industrial area (along banks of Suzhou River) through ‘organic’ or ‘alternative’ artist-led cultural production; second, it describes the impact on these activities of the industrial restructuring of the wider city, reliant on large-scale real estate development, business services and global finance; and finally, outlines the relocation of these arts (and related) cultural industries to dispersed CBD locations as a result of those spatial, industrial and policy changes.

Service delivery framework : an architectural strategy for next-generation service delivery in business network

The next-generation of service-oriented architecture (SOA) needs to scale for flexible service consumption, beyond organizational and application boundaries, into communities, ecosystems and business networks. In wider and, ultimately, global settings, new capabilities are needed so that business partners can efficiently and reliably enable, adapt and expose services. Those services can then be discovered, ordered, consumed, metered and paid for, through new applications and opportunities, driven by third-parties in the global “village”. This trend is already underway, in different ways, through different early adopter market segments. This paper proposes an architectural strategy for the provisioning and delivery of services in communities, ecosystems and business networks – a Service Delivery Framework (SDF). The SDF is intended to support multiple industries and deployments where a SOA platform is needed for collaborating partners and diverse consumers. Specifically, it is envisaged that the SDF allows providers to publish their services into network directories so that they can be repurposed, traded and consumed, and leveraging network utilities like B2B gateways and cloud hosting. To support these different facets of service delivery, the SDF extends the conventional service provider, service broker and service consumer of the Web Services Architecture to include service gateway, service hoster, service aggregator and service channel maker.

Tax expenditures in Australia : the elevation from ‘disguised’ expenditures to architectural pillars of the 21st century

The current Australian Treasury approach to tax expenditures management and reporting is a culmination of 36 years of Government and Parliamentary reviews and reports. The most notable outcome of these reviews and reports is the publication of the annual tax expenditures statement, which commenced in 1986. Since its inception, the Australian annual tax expenditures statements have themselves been the subject of review. Most recently, the Australian National Audit Office has undertaken a performance audit in the Department of the Treasury and released its report entitled Preparation of the Tax Expenditures Statement. In addition to this 2008 report, a second recent opportunity to consider tax expenditures within the Australian tax regime has arisen. The Australian tax system is currently undergoing a comprehensive and broad review with the terms of reference requiring a consideration of all relevant tax expenditures. While the recommendations of the Australian National Audit Office are not novel, and it is not unusual for a broader review to consider the role of tax expenditures within the Australian tax system, both the recommendations of the Australian National Audit Office and the views of the current Review Panel take on a renewed sense of importance given the proliferation of tax expenditures in Australia. Tax expenditures, in terms of number and pecuniary value, have increased significantly in Australia in recent years. The latest Tax Expenditures Statement lists around 320 tax expenditures with the pecuniary value of those expenditures estimated at $73.69 billion or 7.1% of GDP. The largest category of tax expenditures listed in the 2008 Tax Expenditures Statement, totalling $29.23 billion, relate to concessions aimed at retirement savings.

“That you would post such a thing implies that you are a despicable human being”: spectatorship, social media, & the struggle for meaning in disability performance

Artists with disabilities working in Live Art paradigms often present performances which replay the social attitudes they are subject to in daily life as guerilla theatre in public spaces – including online spaces. In doing so, these artists draw spectators’ attention to the way their responses to disabled people contribute to the social construction of disability. They provide different theatrical, architectural or technological devices to encourage spectators to articulate their response to themselves and others. But – the use of exaggeration, comedy and confrontation in these practices notwithstanding – their blurry boundaries mean some spectators experience confusion as to whether they are responding to real life or a representation of it. This results in conflicted responses which reveal as much about the politics of disability as the performances themselves. In this paper, I examine how these conflicted responses play out in online forums. I discuss diverse examples, from blog comments on Liz Crow’s Resistance on the Plinth on YouTube, to Aaron Williamson and Katherine Araneillo’s Disabled Avant-Garde clips on YouTube, to Ju Gosling’s Letter Writing Project on her website, to segments of UK Channel 4’s mock reality show Cast Offs on YouTube. I demonstrate how online forums become a place not just for recording memories of an original performance (which posters may not have seen), but for a new performance, which goes well beyond re-membering/remediating the original. I identify trends in the way experience, memory and meaningmaking play out in these performative forums – moving from clarification of the original act’s parameters, to claims of disgust, insult or offense, to counter-claims confirming the comic or political efficacy of the act, often linked disclosure of personal memory or experience of disability. I examine the way these encounters at the interstices of live and/or online performance, memory, technology and public/private history negotiate ideas about disability, and what they tell us about the ethics and efficacy of the specific modes of performance and spectatorship these artists with disabilities are invoking.

Entrepreneurship : from denial to discovery in nonprofit art museums?

This research explores the function of entrepreneurship in nonprofit art museums. Traditionally, entrepreneurship literature features debates on customer orientation and innovation. This paper reviews a tension in entrepreneurship: the relationship between limited funding and the need to innovate in nonprofit art museums. The paper develops a construct by which to explain the structure of entrepreneurship in nonprofit art museums in Australia and New Zealand since 1975. From this discussion, different strategies and tensions are highlighted that nonprofit art museum directors have used. The dynamics are explored in ten large art museums and the managerial implications are developed.

New evaluation methodologies for public art programs in cultural instiutions

I put my abstract in for this conference back in March, based on some evaluation work I had been doing in 2010 with my colleague Professor Greg Hearn for the 3C Regional Writing NeoGreography Project. I had been swapping notes with a colleague from the Smithsonian’s Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage about their evaluation work, and stuck inside during the rains of January, I decided to apply for a Qld Smithsonian fellowship based on the quandary of evaluation-particular in public histories (oral histories) and digital storytelling. In July I was awarded the fellowship, so I have tweaked my presentation to talk about what we hope to do with this collaboration, to propel the importance placed on evaluation in public arts programs in Qld and beyond.

Chaos and creativity of play : designing emotional engagement in public spaces

How do we create strong urban narratives? How do we create affection for our cities? Play, an essential part of any species' biological existence and development, can often be perceived as chaotic and derogatory to social and spatial order. Play is also often perceived as a creative force which generates social and spatial value. This paper looks at the design approaches to both chaotic and creative perceptions of publics at play in urban space. Commonly, Urban and Architectural Design constitutes reactive management of perceived chaos, which derogatorily effects our sensory and emotional engagement with space. Alternatively, Urban and Architectural Design can appeal to the creativity of play, by encouraging unsolicited novelty that is vital to strong experiential narratives in the city and iterating environments that encourage the emergence of physical, emotional and cultural invention. These perceptions of chaos and creativity affect the design methodology of professional practice. Tested through the exciting vehicle of Parkour as urban narrative, the constraints and opportunities of both approaches are presented.

Art unions legislation in Queensland

In Queensland, the legislation governing the conduct of art unions such as bingo, raffles and lucky envelopes is the Art Unions Act 1992 (ΑAct≅). The Act is administered by the Queensland Office of Gaming Regulation (ΑQOGR≅) which is part of the Queensland Treasury portfolio. The Act and other legislation such as the Criminal Code, Vagrants Gaming and Other Offences Act, generally makes it unlawful for a person to conduct art unions unless they are authorised to do so. The Art Unions Act allows Αeligible≅ nonprofit associations such as charities, schools, sporting and community groups to raise funds for their stated objects. Art unions were legalised in the early part of this century primarily to assist charities and other approved associations to raise funds for worthwhile causes. This principle is continued in the 1992 Act. The Queensland art union industry had a turnover of over$190M in 1996/97 and our Queensland art unions continue to attract not just sales from Queensland residents but also interstate and overseas buyers. Art unions continue to be an attractive form of fundraising for many nonprofit associations.