When does Google hand over your data to governments?

Governments around the world want to know a lot about who we are and what we’re doing online and they want communications companies to help them find it. We don’t know a lot about when companies hand over this data, but we do know that it’s becoming increasingly common.

Effective communication in innovation processes

Innovation processes are rarely smooth and disruptions often occur at transition points were one knowledge domain passes the technology on to another domain. At these transition points communication is a key component in assisting the smooth hand over of technologies. However for smooth transitions to occur we argue that appropriate structures have to be in place and boundary spanning activities need to be facilitated. This paper presents three case studies of innovation processes and the findings support the view that structures and boundary spanning are essential for smooth transitions.

Communications and learning structures that facilitate transfer of knowledge at innovation transition points

Innovation processes are rarely smooth and disruptions often occur at transition points were one knowledge domain passes the technology on to another domain. At these transition points communication is a key component in assisting the smooth hand over of technologies. However for smooth transitions to occur we argue that appropriate structures have to be in place and boundary spanning activities need to be facilitated. This paper presents three case studies of innovation processes and the findings support the view that structures and boundary spanning are essential for smooth transitions. We have explained the need to pass primary responsibility between agents to successfully bring an innovation to market. We have also shown the need to combine knowledge through effective communication so that absorptive capacity is built in process throughout the organisation rather than in one or two key individuals.

Loving Europe : Charmian Clift, Peel Me a Lotus, and Australian women writing travel

“There it went!—Our last little bit of capital, our going back to civilization money . . .” So Charmian Clift fretted when she watched her husband George Johnson hand over a large number of drachma notes to buy a house on the Greek Island of Hydra in 1956. Whereas today’s expatriates fly back and forth between home and away with ease, Clift’s commitment to Hydra meant that a return to Australia, “to civilization”, would always be difficult and perhaps impossible...

What now after the Dallas Buyers Club pirate claim is rejected as ‘surreal’?

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have been dealt a blow in their attempt to extract payment from people alleged to have downloaded illegal copies of the movie. Voltage Pictures, which owns Dallas Buyers Club, has been trying to identify over 4,700 iiNet subscribers who it alleges downloaded illicit copies of the movie. Earlier this year, the Federal Court agreed that iiNet should hand over subscriber details, but warned that any letter sent to account holders must first be approved by the court to protect consumers from abuse of the legal system. In a win for consumer protection, the Federal Court has now rejected Voltage’s draft letters, criticising Voltage’s attempts to avoid explaining what fee it would demand.

Moments of flux in intermediary liability for copyright infringement

This chapter provides an overview of a recent shift in regulatory strategies to address copyright infringement toward enlisting the assistance of general purpose Internet Service Providers. In Australia, the High Court held in 2012 that iiNet, a general purpose ISP, had no legal duty to police what its subscribers did with their internet connections. We provide an overview of three recent developments in Australian copyright law since that decision that demonstrate an emerging shift in the way that obligations are imposed on ISPs to govern the actions of their users without relying on secondary liability. The first is a new privately negotiated industry code that introduces a 'graduated response' system that requires ISPs to pass on warnings to subscribers who receive allegations of infringement. The second involves a recent series of Federal Court cases where rightsholders made a partially successful application to require ISPs to hand over the identifying details of subscribers whose households are alleged to have infringed copyright. The third is a new legislative scheme that will require ISPs to block access to foreign websites that 'facilitate' infringement. We argue that these shifts represent a greater sophistication in approaches to enrolling general purpose intermediaries in the regulatory project. We also suggest that these shifts represent a potentially disturbing trend towards enforcement of copyright law in a way that does not provide strong safeguards for the legitimate constitutional due process interests of users. We conclude with a call for greater attention and research to better understand how intermediaries make decisions when governing the conduct of users, how those decisions may be influenced by both state and non-state actors, and how the rights of individuals to due process can be adequately protected.

Changes in healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections after the introduction of a national hand hygiene initiative

Background. Interventions that prevent healthcare-associated infection should lead to fewer deaths and shorter hospital stays. Cleaning hands (with soap or alcohol) is an effective way to prevent the transmission of organisms, but rates of compliance with hand hygiene are sometimes disappointingly low. The National Hand Hygiene Initiative in Australia aimed to improve hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers, with the goal of reducing rates of healthcare-associated infection. Methods. We examined whether the introduction of the National Hand Hygiene Initiative was associated with a change in infection rates. Monthly infection rates for healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections were examined in 38 Australian hospitals across 6 states. We used Poisson regression and examined 12 possible patterns of change, with the best fitting pattern chosen using the Akaike information criterion. Monthly bed-days were included to control for increased hospital use over time. Results. The National Hand Hygiene Initiative was associated with a reduction in infection rates in 4 of the 6 states studied. Two states showed an immediate reduction in rates of 17% and 28%, 2 states showed a linear decrease in rates of 8% and 11% per year, and 2 showed no change in infection rates. Conclusions. The intervention was associated with reduced infection rates in most states. The failure in 2 states may have been because those states already had effective initiatives before the national initiative’s introduction or because infection rates were already low and could not be further reduced.

Systematic literature review of incidence rates of low-speed vehicle run-over incidents in children

Aim: To systematically review the literature investigating the incidence of fatal and or nonfatal low-speed vehicle run-over (LSVRO) incidents in children aged 0–15 years. Methods: The following databases were searched using specific search terms, from their date of conception up to June 2011: Cochrane Library, Medline, CINAHL, Embase, AMI, Sociological Abstracts, ERIC, PsycArticles, PsycInfo, Urban Studies and Planning; Australian Criminology Database; Dissertations and Thesis; Academic Research Library; Social Services Abstracts; Family and Society; Scopus; and Web of Science. A total of 128 articles were identified in the databases (33 found by hand searching). The title and abstract of these were read, and 102 were removed because they were not primary research articles relating to LSVRO-type injuries. Twenty-six articles were assessed against the inclusion (reporting population level incidence rates) and exclusion criteria, 19 of which were excluded, leaving a total of five articles for inclusion in the review. Findings: Five studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria. The incidence rate in nonfatal LSVRO events varied in the range of 7.09 to 14.79 per 100,000 and from 0.63 to 3.2 per 100,000 in fatal events. Discussion: Using International Classification of Diseases codes for classifying fatal or nonfatal LSVRO incidents is problematic as there is no specific code for LSVRO. The current body of research is void of a comprehensive secular population data analysis. Only with an improved spectrum of incidence rates will appropriate evaluation of this problem be possible, and this will inform nursing prevention interventions. The effect of LSVRO incidents is clearly understudied. More research is required to address incidence rates in relation to culture, environment, risk factors, car design, and injury characteristics. Conclusions: Thevlack of nursing research or policy around this area of injury, most often to children, indicates a field of inquiry and policy development that needs attention.