Sound thinking : tips and tools for understanding popular music

Sound Thinking provides techniques and approaches to critically listen, think, talk and write about music you hear or make. It provides tips on making music and it encourages regular and deep thinking about music activities, which helps build a musical dialog that leads to deeper understanding.

Understanding innovation adoption : effects of orientation, pressure and control on adoption

We develop and test a theoretically-based integrative framework of key proximal factors (orientation, pressure, and control) that helps to explain the effects of more general factors (the organisation's strategy, structure, and environment) on intentions to adopt an innovation one year later. Senior managers from 134 organizations were surveyed and confirmatory factor analyses showed that these hypothesized core factors provided a good fit to the data, indicating that our framework can provide a theoretical base to the previous, largely a theoretical, literature. Moreover, in a subgroup of 63 organizations, control mediated the effects of organizational strategy and centralisation on organizational innovation adoption intentions one year later. We suggest this model of core factors enables researchers to understand why certain variables are important to organisational innovation adoption and promotes identification of fertile research areas around orientation, pressure and control, and it enables managers to focus on the most proximal triggers for increasing innovation adoption.

Towards a unified service description language for the internet of services : requirements and first developments

Service-oriented Architectures (SOA) and Web services leverage the technical value of solutions in the areas of distributed systems and cross-enterprise integration. The emergence of Internet marketplaces for business services is driving the need to describe services, not only from a technical level, but also from a business and operational perspective. While, SOA and Web services reside in an IT layer, organizations owing Internet marketplaces are requiring advertising and trading business services which reside in a business layer. As a result, the gap between business and IT needs to be closed. This paper presents USDL (Unified Service Description Language), a specification language to describe services from a business, operational and technical perspective. USDL plays a major role in the Internet of Services to describe tradable services which are advertised in electronic marketplaces. The language has been tested using two service marketplaces as use cases.

Cultural studies and the urgency of interdisciplinarity : sooner, not later, we're going to need a cultural science (Os Estudos Culturais e a urgência por interdisciplinaridade: cedo, e não tarde, vamos precisar de uma Ciência da Cultura)

Most of creativity in the digital world passes unnoticed by the industry practices and policies, and it isn't taken into account in the cultural and economic strategies of the creative industries. We should find ways to catalyze this creative production, showing how the user's contribution may contribute to social learning, cultural and economic advancement. To that effect, we must know what is an open creative system and how it works. Based on this diagnosis, the author that interdisciplinarity is urgent and there is also a need for a science of culture. What is at stake is a strategy of integrated development, as regards the upcoming innovation in its complex, productive and learning aspects.

Genesis and role of standards : theoretical foundations and socio-economical model for the construction and use of standards

A key issue in the economic development and performance of organizations is the existence of standards. Their definition and control are sources of power and it is important to understand their concept, as it gives standards their direction and their legitimacy, and to explore how they are represented and applied. The difficulties posed by classical micro-economics in establishing a theory of standardization that is compatible with its fundamental axiomatic are acknowledged. We propose to reconsider the problem by taking the opposite perspective in questioning its theoretical base and by reformulating assumptions about the independent and autonomous decisions taken by actors. The Theory of Conventions will offer us a theoretical framework and tools enabling us to understand the systemic dimension and dynamic structure of standards. These will be seen as a special case of conventions. This work aims to provide a sound basis and promote a better consciousness in the development of global project management standards. It aims also to emphasize that social construction is not a matter of copyright but a matter of open minds, collective cognitive process and freedom for the common wealth.

Limestone and speleothem trace element geochemistry as tools for palaeoclimatic reconstruction, Mount Etna region, central-coastal Queensland

This study investigated potential palaeoclimate proxies provided by rare earth element (REE) geochemistry in speleothems and in clay mineralogy of cave sediments. Speleothem and sediment samples were collected from a series of cave fill deposits that occurred with rich vertebrate fossil assemblages in and around Mount Etna National Park, Rockhampton (central coastal Queensland). The fossil deposits range from Plio- Pleistocene to Holocene in age (based on uranium/thorium dating) and appear to represent depositional environments ranging from enclosed rainforest to semi-arid grasslands. Therefore, the Mount Etna cave deposits offer the perfect opportunity to test new palaeoclimate tools as they include deposits that span a known significant climate shift on the basis of independent faunal data. The first section of this study investigates the REE distribution of the host limestone to provide baseline geochemistry for subsequent speleothem investigations. The Devonian Mount Etna Beds were found to be more complex than previous literature had documented. The studied limestone massif is overturned, highly recrystallised in parts and consists of numerous allochthonous blocks with different spatial orientations. Despite the complex geologic history of the Mount Etna Beds, Devonian seawater-like REE patterns were recovered in some parts of the limestone and baseline geochemistry was determined for the bulk limestone for comparison with speleothem REE patterns. The second part of the study focused on REE distribution in the karst system and the palaeoclimatic implications of such records. It was found that REEs have a high affinity for calcite surfaces and that REE distributions in speleothems vary between growth bands much more than along growth bands, thus providing a temporal record that may relate to environmental changes. The morphology of different speleothems (i.e., stalactites, stalagmites, and flowstones) has little bearing on REE distributions provided they are not contaminated with particulate fines. Thus, baseline knowledge developed in the study suggested that speleothems were basically comparable for assessing palaeoclimatically controlled variations in REE distributions. Speleothems from rainforest and semi-arid phases were compared and it was found that there are definable differences in REE distribution that can be attributed to climate. In particular during semiarid phases, total REE concentration decreased, LREE became more depleted, Y/Ho increased, La anomalies were more positive and Ce anomalies were more negative. This may reflect more soil development during rainforest phases and more organic particles and colloids, which are known to transport REEs, in karst waters. However, on a finer temporal scale (i.e. growth bands) within speleothems from the same climate regime, no difference was seen. It is suggested that this may be due to inadequate time for soil development changes on the time frames represented by differences in growth band density. The third part of the study was a reconnaissance investigation focused on mineralogy of clay cave sediments, illite/kaolinite ratios in particular, and the potential palaeoclimatic implications of such records. Although the sample distribution was not optimal, the preliminary results suggest that the illite/kaolinite ratio increased during cold and dry intervals, consistent with decreased chemical weathering during those times. The study provides a basic framework for future studies at differing latitudes to further constrain the parameters of the proxy. The identification of such a proxy recorded in cave sediment has broad implications as clay ratios could potentially provide a basic local climate proxy in the absence of fossil faunas and speleothem material. This study suggests that REEs distributed in speleothems may provide information about water throughput and soil formation, thus providing a potential palaeoclimate proxy. It highlights the importance of understanding the host limestone geochemistry and broadens the distribution and potential number of cave field sites as palaeoclimate information no longer relies solely on the presence of fossil faunas and or speleothems. However, additional research is required to better understand the temporal scales required for the proxies to be recognised.

Power in legal education : a (new) critical and analytical approach

This article explores power within legal education scholarship. It suggests that power relations are not effectively reflected on within this scholarship, and it provokes legal educators to consider power more explicitly and effectively. It then outlines in-depth a conceptual and methodological approach based on Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’ to assist in such an analysis. By detailing the conceptual moves required in order to research power in legal education more effectively, this article seeks to stimulate new reflection and thought about the practice and scholarship of legal education, and allow for political interventions to become more ethically sensitive and potentially more effective.

Integrating organisational design with IT design : the Queensland Health payroll case

Most existing requirements engineering approaches focus on the modelling and specification of the IT artefacts ignoring the environment where the application is deployed. Although some requirements engineering approaches consider the stakeholder’s goals, they still focus on the IT artefacts’ specification. However, IT artefacts are embedded in a dynamic organisational environment and their design and specification cannot be separated from the environment’s constant evolution. Therefore, during the initial stages of a requirements engineering process it is advantageous to consider the integration of IT design with organisational design. We proposed the ADMITO (Analysis, Design and Management of IT and Organisations) approach to represent the dynamic relations between social and material entities, where the latter are divided into technological and organisational entities. In this paper we show how by using ADMITO in a concrete case, the Queensland Health Payroll (QHP) case, it is possible to have an integrated representation of IT and organisational design supporting organisational change and IT requirements specification.

The scalability and the strategy for EMR database encryption techniques

EMR (Electronic Medical Record) is an emerging technology that is highly-blended between non-IT and IT area. One methodology is to link the non-IT and IT area is to construct databases. Nowadays, it supports before and after-treatment for patients and should satisfy all stakeholders such as practitioners, nurses, researchers, administrators and financial departments and so on. In accordance with the database maintenance, DAS (Data as Service) model is one solution for outsourcing. However, there are some scalability and strategy issues when we need to plan to use DAS model properly. We constructed three kinds of databases such as plan-text, MS built-in encryption which is in-house model and custom AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) - DAS model scaling from 5K to 2560K records. To perform custom AES-DAS better, we also devised Bucket Index using Bloom Filter. The simulation showed the response times arithmetically increased in the beginning but after a certain threshold, exponentially increased in the end. In conclusion, if the database model is close to in-house model, then vendor technology is a good way to perform and get query response times in a consistent manner. If the model is DAS model, it is easy to outsource the database, however, some techniques like Bucket Index enhances its utilization. To get faster query response times, designing database such as consideration of the field type is also important. This study suggests cloud computing would be a next DAS model to satisfy the scalability and the security issues.

Empirical analysis on relationship between traffic conditions and crash occurrences

This paper investigates relationship between traffic conditions and the crash occurrence likelihood (COL) using the I-880 data. To remedy the data limitations and the methodological shortcomings suffered by previous studies, a multiresolution data processing method is proposed and implemented, upon which binary logistic models were developed. The major findings of this paper are: 1) traffic conditions have significant impacts on COL at the study site; Specifically, COL in a congested (transitioning) traffic flow is about 6 (1.6) times of that in a free flow condition; 2)Speed variance alone is not sufficient to capture traffic dynamics’ impact on COL; a traffic chaos indicator that integrates speed, speed variance, and flow is proposed and shows a promising performance; 3) Models based on aggregated data shall be interpreted with caution. Generally, conclusions obtained from such models shall not be generalized to individual vehicles (drivers) without further evidences using high-resolution data and it is dubious to either claim or disclaim speed kills based on aggregated data.

More than a backchannel : Twitter and television

Twitter is a social media service that has managed very successfully to embed itself deeply in the everyday lives of its users. Its short message length (140 characters), and one-way connections (‘following’ rather than ‘friending’) lend themselves effectively to random and regular updates on almost any form of personal or professional activity – and it has found uses from the interpersonal (e.g. boyd et al., 2010) through crisis communication (e.g. Bruns et al., 2012) to political debate (e.g. Burgess & Bruns, 2012). In such uses, Twitter does not necessarily replace existing media channels, such as the broadcast or online offerings of the mainstream media, but often complements them, providing its users with alternative opportunities to contribute more actively to the wider mediasphere. This is true especially where Twitter is used alongside television, as a simple backchannel to live programming or for more sophisticated uses. In this article, we outline four aspects – dimensions – of the way that the ‘old’ medium of television intersects and, in some cases, interacts, with the ‘new’ medium of Twitter.

Association between prostinogen (KLK15) genetic variants and prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness in Australia and a meta-analysis of GWAS data

Background: Kallikrein 15 (KLK15)/Prostinogen is a plausible candidate for prostate cancer susceptibility. Elevated KLK15 expression has been reported in prostate cancer and it has been described as an unfavorable prognostic marker for the disease. Objectives: We performed a comprehensive analysis of association of variants in the KLK15 gene with prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness by genotyping tagSNPs, as well as putative functional SNPs identified by extensive bioinformatics analysis. Methods and Data Sources: Twelve out of 22 SNPs, selected on the basis of linkage disequilibrium pattern, were analyzed in an Australian sample of 1,011 histologically verified prostate cancer cases and 1,405 ethnically matched controls. Replication was sought from two existing genome wide association studies (GWAS): the Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) project and a UK GWAS study. Results: Two KLK15 SNPs, rs2659053 and rs3745522, showed evidence of association (p, 0.05) but were not present on the GWAS platforms. KLK15 SNP rs2659056 was found to be associated with prostate cancer aggressiveness and showed evidence of association in a replication cohort of 5,051 patients from the UK, Australia, and the CGEMS dataset of US samples. A highly significant association with Gleason score was observed when the data was combined from these three studies with an Odds Ratio (OR) of 0.85 (95% CI = 0.77-0.93; p = 2.7610 24). The rs2659056 SNP is predicted to alter binding of the RORalpha transcription factor, which has a role in the control of cell growth and differentiation and has been suggested to control the metastatic behavior of prostate cancer cells. Conclusions: Our findings suggest a role for KLK15 genetic variation in the etiology of prostate cancer among men of European ancestry, although further studies in very large sample sets are necessary to confirm effect sizes.

What health problems overcrowd hospital emergency departments in Queensland and has this changed over time? A case study of two hospitals in Queensland 2001 - 2009

Aim: to describe what health problems patients attending emergency department with and whether this changed over time. Methods: Electronic data was retrieved from EDIS (Emergency Department Information System) and HBCIS (Hospital Based Clinical Information System) in two hospitals in Queensland in the period 2001-2009. The ICD-10 code of patient's diagnosis was then extrapolated and then group into ICD-10 chapters, such that the health problem can be presented. Results: Among the specific health problems, Chapter XIX 'Injury and poisoning' ranked number one consistently (ranging from 22.1% to 31.2% of the total presentations) in both the urban and remote hospitals in Queensland. The top ten specific presenting health problems in both the urban and remote hospital include Chapter XI 'Digestive system', Chapter XIV 'Genitourinary system', Chapter IX 'Circulatory system', and Chapter XIII 'Musculoskeletal system and connective tissue'. Chapter X 'Respiratory system' made the top ten presenting Chapters in both hospitals, but ranked much higher (number four consistently for the eight years, ranging from 6.8% to 8.3%) in the remote hospital. Chapter XV 'Pregnancy childbirth and puerperium' made to the top ten in the urban hospital only while Chapter XII 'Skin and subcutaneous tissue', Chapter I 'Infectious and parasitic diseases' made the top ten in the remote hospital only. Conclusion: The number one health problem presenting to both the urban and remote hospitals in Queensland is Chapter XIX 'Injury and poisoning', and it did not change in the period 211 - 2009.

UK Design as a Global Industry : International Trade and Intellectual Property

The importance of design to the UK economy is widely recognised. It is one of the key pillars of the knowledge economy, it plays an important role in the innovation process, and it is one of a number of specialisms that help to set the UK apart from global competition. But despite this importance, the nature of design-intensive industries – the businesses that practice and sell design – is remarkably hard to pin down. This uncertainty renders it hard to analyse, and makes it difficult to develop clear, consistent policies to support the designers. The Hargreaves Review recommended that more research was needed to develop a clear evidence base for improving the intellectual property system for design. This report forms part of that evidence base. It examines how UK design figures in the global economy, and considers how the intellectual property system can best support its growth.

Archimedes, aid/watch, constitutional levers and where we now stand

Significant reform of the laws regulating charities is under way in Australia. The reforms cover almost every facet of the relationship between charities and government and the process has brought to the surface different assumptions about the role of charities in society, their entitlement to fiscal and other privileges and the scope and nature of regulation that can or should be imposed on the charities. This paper explores these broader issues in the context of the Aid/Watch case, involving an organisation used by citizens to challenge the State. Such organisations occupy contested space as to what does and does not constitute a charity. Accordingly the case provides a useful perspective from which to consider the broader issues in the relationship between government and charity. This paper seeks to build on the contribution made by other academics, by exploring the constitutional significance of political purposes and drawing from philosophy to provide context and meaning to potentially significant aspects of the judgment that might be missed when it is analysed only in terms of legal precedent through the narrow lens of the existing four heads of charity. Revenue implications for taxation of charities and political parties are also considered and it is suggested that in practice, if not in theory, the fence between them has come down.