Can social resilience inform SA/SIA for adaptive planning for climate change in vulnerable regions?

This book represents a landmark effort to probe and analyze the theory and empirics of designing water disaster management policies. It consists of seven chapters that examine, in-depth and comprehensively, issues that are central to crafting effective policies for water disaster management. The authors use historical surveys, institutional analysis, econometric investigations, empirical case studies, and conceptual-theoretical discussions to clarify and illuminate the complex policy process. The specific topics studied in this book include a review and analysis of key policy areas and research priority areas associated with water disaster management, community participation in disaster risk reduction, the economics and politics of ‘green’ flood control, probabilistic flood forecasting for flood risk management, polycentric governance and flood risk management, drought management with the aid of dynamic inter-generational preferences, and how social resilience can inform SA/SIA for adaptive planning for climate change in vulnerable areas. A unique feature of this book is its analysis of the causes and consequences of water disasters and efforts to address them successfully through policy-rich, cross-disciplinary and transnational papers. This book is designed to help enrich the sparse discourse on water disaster management policies and galvanize water professionals to craft creative solutions to tackle water disasters efficiently, equitably, and sustainably. This book should also be of considerable use to disaster management professionals, in general, and natural resource policy analysts.

Volatile organic compounds: Characteristics, distribution and sources in urban schools

Long term exposure to organic pollutants, both inside and outside school buildings may affect children’s health and influence their learning performance. Since children spend significant amount of time in school, air quality, especially in classrooms plays a key role in determining the health risks associated with exposure at schools. Within this context, the present study investigated the ambient concentrations of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in 25 primary schools in Brisbane with the aim to quantify the indoor and outdoor VOCs concentrations, identify VOCs sources and their contribution, and based on these; propose mitigation measures to reduce VOCs exposure in schools. One of the most important findings is the occurrence of indoor sources, indicated by the I/O ratio >1 in 19 schools. Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation was used to identify common sources of VOCs and source contribution was calculated using an Absolute Principal Component Scores technique. The result showed that outdoor 47% of VOCs were contributed by petrol vehicle exhaust but the overall cleaning products had the highest contribution of 41% indoors followed by air fresheners and art and craft activities. These findings point to the need for a range of basic precautions during the selection, use and storage of cleaning products and materials to reduce the risk from these sources.

Wikipedia, collective authorship, and the politics of knowledge

This chapter considers the legal ramifications of Wikipedia, and other online media, such as the Encyclopedia of Life. Nathaniel Tkacz (2007) has observed: 'Wikipedia is an ideal entry-point from which to approach the shifting character of knowledge in contemporary society.' He observes: 'Scholarship on Wikipedia from computer science, history, philosophy, pedagogy and media studies has moved beyond speculation regarding its considerable potential, to the task of interpreting - and potentially intervening in - the significance of Wikipedia's impact' (Tkacz 2007). After an introduction, Part II considers the evolution and development of Wikipedia, and the legal troubles that have attended it. It also considers the establishment of rival online encyclopedia - such as Citizendium set up by Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia; and Knol, the mysterious new project of Google. Part III explores the use of mass, collaborative authorship in the field of science. In particular, it looks at the development of the Encyclopedia of Life, which seeks to document the world's biodiversity. This chapter expresses concern that Wiki-based software had to develop in a largely hostile and inimical legal environment. It contends that copyright law and related fields of intellectual property need to be reformed in order better to accommodate users of copyright material (Rimmer 2007). This chapter makes a number of recommendations. First, there is a need to acknowledge and recognize forms of mass, collaborative production and consumption - not just individual authorship. Second, the view of a copyright 'work' and other subject matter as a complete and closed piece of cultural production also should be reconceptualised. Third, the defense of fair use should be expanded to accommodate a wide range of amateur, peer-to-peer production activities - not only in the United States, but in other jurisdictions as well. Fourth, the safe harbor protections accorded to Internet intermediaries, such as Wikipedia, should be strengthened. Fifth, there should be a defense in respect of the use of 'orphan works' - especially in cases of large-scale digitization. Sixth, the innovations of open source licensing should be expressly incorporated and entrenched within the formal framework of copyright laws. Finally, courts should craft judicial remedies to take into account concerns about political censorship and freedom of speech.

The reader-assembled narrative: Representing the random in print fiction

The growing interest in co-created reading experiences in both digital and print formats raises interesting questions for creative writers who work in the space of interactive fiction. This essay argues that writers have not abandoned experiments with co-creation in print narratives in favour of the attractions of the digital environment, as might be assumed by the discourse on digital development. Rather, interactive print narratives, in particular ‘reader-assembled narratives’ demonstrate a rich history of experimentation and continue to engage writers who wish to craft individual reading experiences for readers and to experiment with their own creative process as writers. The reader-assembled narrative has been used for many different reasons and for some writers, such as BS Johnson it is a method of problem solving, for others, like Robert Coover, it is a way to engage the reader in a more playful sense. Authors such as Marc Saporta, BS Johnson, and Robert Coover have engaged with this type of narrative play. This examination considers the narrative experimentation of these authors as a way of offering insights into creative practice for contemporary creative writers.

Pathophysiology team teaching: Bioscientist contribution to knowledge integration in a nursing subject

Bioscience content within undergraduate nursing degrees provides foundational knowledge of pathophysiology, anatomy, physiology, microbiology and pharmacology. However, nursing students often find studying the bioscience components of undergraduate nursing program daunting (Friedel & Treagust 2005, Craft et al. 2013). This is related to factors such as the volume of content, degree of difficulty and insufficient linkage between bioscience concepts and nurses' clinical practice. Students who are unable to conceptualise the relevance of bioscience with nursing subjects and subsequent nursing practice may not appreciate the broader importance of bioscience, and hence may adopt a surface approach to learning (Craft et al. 2013). The aim of this study was to develop a model within Nursing Practice in the Context theory subject, to include a bioscientist lecturing to complement the nursing lecturer, in order to explicitly demonstrate links between physiology, pathophysiology and nursing practice.

Ship Seakeeping Operability, Motion Control, and Autonomy - A Bayesian Perspective

Ship seakeeping operability refers to the quantification of motion performance in waves relative to mission requirements. This is used to make decisions about preferred vessel designs, but it can also be used as comprehensive assessment of the benefits of ship-motion-control systems. Traditionally, operability computation aggregates statistics of motion computed over over the envelope of likely environmental conditions in order to determine a coefficient in the range from 0 to 1 called operability. When used for assessment of motion-control systems, the increase of operability is taken as the key performance indicator. The operability coefficient is often given the interpretation of the percentage of time operable. This paper considers an alternative probabilistic approach to this traditional computation of operability. It characterises operability not as a number to which a frequency interpretation is attached, but as a hypothesis that a vessel will attain the desired performance in one mission considering the envelope of likely operational conditions. This enables the use of Bayesian theory to compute the probability of that this hypothesis is true conditional on data from simulations. Thus, the metric considered is the probability of operability. This formulation not only adheres to recent developments in reliability and risk analysis, but also allows incorporating into the analysis more accurate descriptions of ship-motion-control systems since the analysis is not limited to linear ship responses in the frequency domain. The paper also discusses an extension of the approach to the case of assessment of increased levels of autonomy for unmanned marine craft.

A comparison of final year undergraduate nursing students’ readiness for registration

The International Council of Nurses (2009) acknowledges that the perception : New Graduates are not prepared for the realities of practice nor do they have the competencies needed by current health care services...

Boarding Control System - for Improved Accessibility to Offshore Wind Turbines

This paper considers the dynamic modelling and motion control of a Surface Effect Ship (SES) for safer transfer of personnel and equipment from vessel to-and-from an offshore wind-turbine. Such a vessel is a key enabling factor for operation and maintenance (O&M) of offshore wind-energy infrastructure. The control system designed is referred to as Boarding Control System (BCS). We investigate the performance of this system for a specific wind-farm service vessel–The Wave Craft. A two-modality vessel model is presented to account for the vessel free motion and motion whilst in contact with a wind-turbine. On a SES, the pressurized air cushion carries the majority of the vessel mass. The control problem considered relates to the actuation of the pressure such that wave-induced vessel motions are minimized. This leads to a safer personnel transfer in developed sea-states than what is possible today. Results for the BCS is presented through simulation and model-scale craft testing.

Closed Systems

Closed Systems was an exhibition of sculptural works held at MetroArts, Brisbane in the group exhibition 'Platform 2012' curated by Jan Manton. My contribution to the group show was a series of 13 bronze sculptures, produced using a lost-wax casting process. Each form was derived from a sapling that had been manipulated so that branches and roots were interconnected. The resulting 'looped' forms evoked notions on narcissism, self-absorption and introversion. The works were subsequently exhibited at the National Arts School in Sydney as part of the Kodak Minolta Art Prize (2013).

Drying characteristics and quality of grape under physical pretreatment

Grape drying is a slow and energy intensive process because the waxy peel has low permeability to moisture. Therefore, peel chemical and physical pretreatments are considered before drying in order to facilitate water diffusion. However, they cause heterogeneity in the waxes removal and problems during shelf-life. In this paper an alternative abrasive pretreatment of grape peel, for enhancing the drying rate and preserving the samples, was applied to Red Globe grapes. Convective drying experiments were carried out at 40-70 Centigrade and at 2.3 m/s air velocity. The effect of wax abrasive pretreatment on the drying kinetics and quality parameters of raisins was investigated. The results were compared with those of samples pretreated by dipping in alkaline ethyl oleate solution and untreated grapes. All the dried samples are darker than fresh one and shrunked. The samples pretreated by peel abrasion and dried at 50 centigrade showed the lowest color changes, less shrinkage and the best rehydration capacity. The drying kinetics and shrinkage curves were also analyzed using some commonly available empirical models.

A process of engagement: Engaging with the process

Photography is now a highly automated activity where people enjoy phototaking by pointing and pressing a button. While this liberates people from having to interact with the processes of photography, e.g., controlling the parameters of the camera or printing images in the darkroom, we argue that an engagement with such processes can in fact enrich people's experience of phototaking. Drawing from fieldwork with members of a film-based photography club, we found that people who engage deeply with the various processes of phototaking experienced photography richly and meaningfully. Being able to participate fully in the entire process gave them a sense of achievement over the final result. Having the opportunity to engage with the process also allowed them to learn and hone their photographic skills. Through this understanding, we can imagine future technologies that enrich experiences of photography through providing the means to interact with photographic processes in new ways.

In pursuit of becoming a senior coach: The learning culture for Australian Football League coaches

- Background and Purpose Given the turbulent and highly contested environment in which professional coaches work, a prime concern to coach developers is how coaches learn their craft. Understanding the learning and development of senior coaches (SCs) and assistant coaches (ACs) in the Australian Football League (AFL – the peak organisation for Australian Rules Football) is important to better develop the next generation of performance coaches. Hence the focus of this research was to examine the learning of SC and AC in the AFL. Fundamental to this research was an understanding that the AFL and each club within the league be regarded as learning organisations and workplaces with their own learning cultures where learning takes place. The purpose of this paper was to examine the learning culture for AFL coaches. - Method Five SCs, 6 ACs, and 5 administrators (4 of whom were former coaches) at 11 of the 16 AFL clubs were recruited for the research project. First, demographic data were collected for each participant (e.g. age, playing and coaching experience, development and coach development activities). Second, all participants were involved in one semi-structured interview of between 45 and 90 minutes duration. An interpretative (hierarchical content) analysis of the interview data was conducted to identify key emergent themes. - Results Learning was central to AFL coaches becoming a SC. Nevertheless, coaches reported a sense of isolation and a lack of support in developing their craft within their particular learning culture. These coaches developed a unique dynamic social network (DSN) that involved episodic contact with a number of respected confidantes often from diverse fields (used here in the Bourdieuian sense) in developing their coaching craft. Although there were some opportunities in their workplace, much of their learning was unmediated by others, underscoring the importance of their agentic engagement in limited workplace affordances. - Conclusion The variety of people accessed for the purposes of learning (often beyond the immediate workplace) and the long time taken to establish networks of supporters meant that a new way of describing the social networks of AFL coaches was needed; DSN. However, despite the acknowledged utility of learning from others, all coaches reported some sense of isolation in their learning. The sense of isolation brought about by professional volatility in high-performance Australian Football offers an alternative view on Hodkinson, Biesta and James' attempt in overcoming dualisms in learning.

Coaching knowledge, learning and mentoring in the Australian Football League

Understanding the work of Senior and Assistant Coaches in the AFL is important to better develop the next generation of performance coaches. Hence the focus of this research was to examine the knowledge, competences and learning of senior and assistant coaches in the Australian Football League. Specifically, the research sought to understand the ways in which Senior and Assistant Coaches in the AFL have come to know their “craft��� with the particular aim of enhancing future coaching practice. Performance coaching is generally regarded as a cognitive activity and therefore “getting inside the heads” of AFL coaches will assist in our understanding of the complex coaching work in which they are engaged. In-depth interviews provided coaches an opportunity to reflect on their practices and how they learned their craft. Fundamental to this research was an understanding that the AFL and each club within the league be regarded as learning organizations and workplaces where learning takes place. Moreover the process of mentoring is regarded as a central learning process and a significant factor contributing to improved professional coaching practice. This applied research aims to inform coach development in Australian football, the annual review process (quality of performance) of employed coaches, and the recruitment of coaches in the AFL. Improving the quality of coaching in the AFL will, in turn, improve the performance of the players and teams, and subsequently enhance the continued development and sustainability of the game.