The Botanist at his Mother's Grave

In this poem about processing human grief, I consciously drew on eco-critical theory – (Wilson 1992, Bate 2000) – and Darwinian literary theory (Carroll 2004) to explore the tension between ideas of the ‘natural’ apprehended through the senses, and poststructuralist ideas of the construction of reality through language.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Poses a Grave Threat to Sustainable Development

This month’s long-awaited release of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) text was the result of years of negotiations on trade ties between nations around the Pacific Rim. Some six weeks earlier, another set of deliberations came to an end as the United Nations unveiled its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality by addressing critical issues such as food security, health care, access to education, clean and affordable water, clean energy, and climate action. Unfortunately, the two documents are incompatible. Several chapters of the TPP impinge upon the SDGs, potentially undermining the UN’s efforts to promote sustainable development and equality throughout the Pacific region. Moreover, many developing countries, least-developed countries, and small island states in the Pacific region are excluded from the preferential trade deal.

Identification of key environmental issues for building materials

Manufacture, construction and use of buildings and building materials make a significant environmental impact internally (inside the building), locally (neighbourhood) and globally. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is being applied for evaluating the environmental impact of building/or building materials. One of the major applications of LCA is to identify key issues of a product system from cradle to grave. Key issues identified in an LCA lead one to the right direction in assessing the environmental aspects of a product system and help to identify the areas for improvement of the environmental performance of a product as well. The purpose of this paper is to suggest two methods for identifying key issues using an integrated tool (LCADesign), which has been developed to provide a method of determining the best alternative for reducing environmental impacts from a building or building materials, and compare both methods in the case study. This paper assists the designers or marketers related to building or building materials in their decision making by giving information on activities or alternatives which are identified as key issues for environmental impacts.

The relationship between Australians and the overseas graves of the First World War

The purpose of this thesis is to outline the relationship that existed in the past and exists in the present, between Australians and the War Graves and Memorials to the Missing. commemorations of Australians who died during the First World War. Their final resting places are scattered all over the world and provide a tangible record of the sacrifice of men and women in the war, and represent the final result by Official Agencies such as the Imperial, and later, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and its agency representative, the Office of Australian War Graves, of an attempt to appropriately commemorate them. The study follows the path of history from the event of death of an individual in the First World War, through their burial; temporary grave or memorial commemoration; the permanent commemoration; the family and public reaction to the deaths; how the Official Agencies of related Commonwealth Governments dealt with the dead; and finally, how the Australian dead are represented on the battlefields of the world in the 21st century. Australia.s war dead of the First World War are scattered around the globe in more than 40 countries and are represented in war cemeteries and civil cemeteries; and listed on large „Memorials to the Missing., which commemorate the individuals devoid of a known graves or final resting place.

Flower animals

The coral reefs around the world may be likened to canaries down the mineshaft of global warming. These sensitive plant-like animals have evolved for life in tropical seas. Their needs are quite specific – not too cold, not too hot. A rise of as little as one degree Celsius is enough to cause some bleaching of these colourful jewels of the sea. Many climate models indicate we can expect sea temperature increases of between two and six degrees Celsius. Research - such as that detailed in a 2004 report by the University of Queensland’s Centre for Marine Studies – indicates that by the year 2050 most of the worlds major reef systems will be dead. Many of us have heard this kind of information, but it remains difficult to comprehend. It’s almost impossible to imagine the death of the Great Barrier Reef. Some six to nine thousand years old and visible from space, it is the world’s largest structure created by living organisms. Yet whilst it is hard to believe, this gentle, sensitive giant is at grave risk because it cannot adapt quickly enough to the changes in the environment. This cluster of fluffy felt brain coral sculptures are connected in real time to temperature data collected by monitoring stations within the Great Barrier Reef, that form part of the Australian Institute of Marine Science’s Great Barrier Reed Ocean Observing System. These corals display illumination patterns showing changes in sea temperature at Heron Reef, one of the 2,900 reefs that comprise the Great Barrier Reef. Their spectrum of colour ranges from cool hues, through warm tones to bright white when temperatures exceed those that tropical corals are able to tolerate over sustained periods. The Flower Animals also blush in colour and make sound when people come within close proximity. In a reef, fishes and other creatures generate significant amounts of sound. These cacophonies are considered an indicator of reef health, and are used by reef fish to determine where they can best live and forage.

Legislative change will impact on conveyancing

One of the more significant conveyancing decisions of 2005 was MNM Developments Pty Ltd v Gerrard [2005] QCA 230 (‘Gerrard’). Real estate agents, in particular, became concerned when the Court of Appeal raised grave doubts concerning the validity of a contract for the sale of residential property formed by the use of fax. As a result, the government acted quickly to introduce amendments to the Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act 2000 (Qld) (‘PAMDA’) and the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld) (‘BCCMA’). The relevant Act is the Liquor and Other Acts Amendment Act 2005 (Qld). These amendments commenced on 1 December 2005. In the second reading speech, the Minister stated that these amendments would provide certainty for sellers of residential properties or their agents when transmitting pre-contractual documents by facsimile and other electronic means. The accuracy of this prediction must be assessed in light of the errors that may occur.

The desire for the construction industry to move towards lifecycle carbon emissions analysis

A significant reduction in carbon emissions is a global mission and the construction industry has an indispensable role to play as a major carbon dioxide (CO2) generator. Over the years, various building environmental assessment (BEA) models and concepts have been developed to promote environmentally responsible design and construction. However, limited attention has been placed on assessing and benchmarking the carbon emitted throughout the lifecycle of building facilities. This situation could undermine the construction industry’s potential to reduce its dependence on raw materials, recognise the negative impacts of producing new materials, and intensify the recycle and reuse process. In this paper, current BEA approaches adopted by the construction industry are first introduced. The focus of these models and concepts is then examined. Following a brief review of lifecycle analysis, the boundary in which a lifecycle carbon emission analysis should be set for a construction project is identified. The paper concludes by highlighting the potential barriers of applying lifecycle carbon emissions analysis in the construction industry. It is proposed that lifecycle carbon emission analysis can be integrated with existing BEA models to provide a more comprehensive and accurate evaluation on the cradle-to-grave environmental performance of a construction facility. In doing so, this can assist owners and clients to identify the optimum solution to maximise emissions reduction opportunities.

Contesting lost ground for the middle years in Australia : using the case study of Queensland

Over the past twenty years Australia has witnessed an extraordinary rise of the middle year’s movement. In more recent years, however, there is concern that middle years has fallen from the mainstream education agenda (Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, 2011). At a national level, evidence of this fall can be seen in the new national curriculum frameworks where reference to middle years is significantly absent, such as The Shape of the Australian Curriculum Version 2.0, (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2010). Evidence of the fall at a state level can be seen in Queensland Government’s 2015 commencement of junior secondary, rather than middle years, as outlined in A Flying Start for Queensland children: Why year 7 will be part of high school from 2015 (Queensland Government, 2011a). This announcement came after the Queensland government had undertaken an extensive consultation period exploring the possible uptake of middle years at a systemic level. While some may argue that middle years practices can be seen to be embedded in both the national curriculum and the junior secondary reform – it is the fact that middle years practices and philosophies are implicitly embedded (hidden) rather than being made explicitly and systematically mainstreamed (broadly accepted), that causes us grave concern. As such, we argue that this is clear indication that the middle years are being marginalized from the overarching educational agendas in Australia.

Modeling collision avoidance decisions in navigation

Due to grave potential human, environmental and economical consequences of collisions at sea, collision avoidance has become an important safety concern in navigation. To reduce the risk of collisions at sea, appropriate collision avoidance actions need to be taken in accordance with the regulations, i.e., International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea. However, the regulations only provide qualitative rules and guidelines, and therefore it requires navigators to decide on collision avoidance actions quantitatively by using their judgments which often leads to making errors in navigation. To better help navigators in collision avoidance, this paper develops a comprehensive collision avoidance decision making model for providing whether a collision avoidance action is required, when to take action and what action to be taken. The model is developed based on three types of collision avoidance actions, such as course change only, speed change only, and a combination of both. The model has potential to reduce the chance of making human error in navigation by assisting navigators in decision making on collision avoidance actions.

Nourishing or polluting : redefining the role of waste in the fashion system

Waste is intrinsic to the fashion system. Fashion is predicated on built-in obsolescence, and as such outmoded garments are rapidly discarded to charity shops or landfill. However, the story of fashion is also one of abundance and extravagance in design ideas. Every season there are new design details – prints, embroidery, embellishments, shapes and textures. This excess of ideas is in itself another form of waste, albeit one that is culturally nourishing. The grave of a fashion garment may also be the grave of a season’s research and creativity. This paper compares the tangible waste of the industry with its intangible waste, namely fashion’s creativity and cultural excess. Fashion’s excess and abundance of trends and ideas makes any move to curb the environmental impact difficult. For all practitioners of fashion – whether designers or consumers – the waste and excess inherent in the fashion system is a difficult ethical terrain to negotiate. However, inverting the wasteful phases of the production cycle can help reframe waste from pollution to a source of nourishment for future practice. While creative excesses of designers may be ‘wasted’ after a season, fashion styles and tropes are recycled and reinvented, with the once passé styles and design ideas from previous years revalorized and returned into the fashion system. Similarly, material garments acquire new value through entering or re-entering the second hand or vintage markets. Design processes can utilise pre or post-consumer textile waste, or eliminate waste through design. In these processes, waste becomes the primary source of nourishment for future fashion cycles.

Every One, Every Day

Creative Statement: “There are those who see Planet Earth as a gigantic living being, one that feeds and nurtures humanity and myriad other species – an entity that must be cared for. Then there are those who see it as a rock full of riches to be pilfered heedlessly in a short-term quest for over-abundance. This ‘cradle to grave’ mentality, it would seem, is taking its toll (unless you’re a virulent disbeliever in climate change). Why not, ask artists Priscilla Bracks and Gavin Sade, take a different approach? To this end they have set out on a near impossible task; to visualise the staggering quantity of carbon produced by Australia every year. Their eerie, glowing plastic cube resembles something straight out of Dr Who or The X Files. And, like the best science fiction, it has technical realities at its heart. Every One, Every Day tangibly illustrates our greenhouse gas output – its 27m3 volume is approximately the amount of green-house gas emitted per capita, daily. Every One, Every Dayis lit by an array of LED’s displaying light patterns representing energy use generated by data from the Australian Energy Market. Every One, Every Day was formed from recycled, polyethylene – used milk bottles – ‘lent’ to the artists by a Visy recycling facility. At the end of the Vivid Festival this plastic will be returned to Visy, where it will re-enter the stream of ‘technical nutrients.’ Could we make another world? One that emulates the continuing cycles of nature? One that uses our ‘technical nutrients’ such as plastic and steel in continual cycles, just like a deciduous tree dropping leaves to compost itself and keep it’s roots warm and moist?” (Ashleigh Crawford. Melbourne – April, 2013) Artistic Research Statement: The research focus of this work is on exploring how to represent complex statistics and data at a human scale, and how produce a work where a large percentage of the materials could be recycled. The surface of Every One, Every Day is clad in tiles made from polyethylene, from primarily recycled milk bottles, ‘lent’ to the artists by the Visy recycling facility in Sydney. The tiles will be returned to Visy for recycling. As such the work can be viewed as an intervention in the industrial ecology of polyethylene, and in the process demonstrates how to sustain cycles of technical materials – by taking the output of a recycling facility back to a manufacturer to produce usable materials. In terms of data visualisation, Every One, Every Day takes the form of a cube with a volume of 27 cubic meters. The annual per capita emissions figures for Australia are cited as ranging between 18 to 25 tons. Assuming the lower figure, 18tons per capital annually, the 27 cubic meters represents approximately one day per capita of CO2 emissions – where CO2 is a gas at 15C and 1 atmosphere of pressure. The work also explores real time data visualisation by using an array of 600 controllable LEDs inside the cube. Illumination patterns are derived from a real time data from the Australian Energy Market, using the dispatch interval price and demand graph for New South Wales. The two variables of demand and price are mapped to properties of the illumination - hue, brightness, movement, frequency etc. The research underpinning the project spanned industrial ecology to data visualization and public art practices. The result is that Every One, Every Day is one of the first public artworks that successfully bring together materials, physical form, and real time data representation in a unified whole.

Is sedation by non-anaesthetists really safe?

I read with great interest the editorial recently published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia that questioned whether sedation by non-anaesthetists is really safe. The authors noted their ‘grave concerns’ about the emerging practice of non-anaesthetist administered propofol (NAAP) during electrophysiology procedures. I offer the following insights into this issue.

Understanding the abnormal brain activity in epilepsy as a potential predictor of the onset of an epileptic seizure

The Brain Research Institute (BRI) uses various types of indirect measurements, including EEG and fMRI, to understand and assess brain activity and function. As well as the recovery of generic information about brain function, research also focuses on the utilisation of such data and understanding to study the initiation, dynamics, spread and suppression of epileptic seizures. To assist with the future focussing of this aspect of their research, the BRI asked the MISG 2010 participants to examine how the available EEG and fMRI data and current knowledge about epilepsy should be analysed and interpreted to yield an enhanced understanding about brain activity occurring before, at commencement of, during, and after a seizure. Though the deliberations of the study group were wide ranging in terms of the related matters considered and discussed, considerable progress was made with the following three aspects. (1) The science behind brain activity investigations depends crucially on the quality of the analysis and interpretation of, as well as the recovery of information from, EEG and fMRI measurements. A number of specific methodologies were discussed and formalised, including independent component analysis, principal component analysis, profile monitoring and change point analysis (hidden Markov modelling, time series analysis, discontinuity identification). (2) Even though EEG measurements accurately and very sensitively record the onset of an epileptic event or seizure, they are, from the perspective of understanding the internal initiation and localisation, of limited utility. They only record neuronal activity in the cortical (surface layer) neurons of the brain, which is a direct reflection of the type of electrical activity they have been designed to record. 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The importance of use and end-of-life phases to the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of concrete : a review

Global climate change is one of the most significant environmental impacts at the moment. One central issue for the building and construction industry to address global climate change is the development of credible carbon labelling schemes for building materials. Various carbon labelling schemes have been developed for concrete due to its high contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, as most carbon labelling schemes adopt cradle-to-gate as system boundary, the credibility of the eco-label information may not be satisfactory because recent studies show that the use and end-of-life phases can have a significant impact on the life cycle GHG emissions of concrete in terms of carbonation, maintenance and rehabilitation, other indirect emissions, and recycling activities. A comprehensive review on the life cycle assessment of concrete is presented to holistically examine the importance of use and end-of-life phases to the life cycle GHG quantification of concrete. The recent published ISO 14067: Carbon footprint of products – requirements and guidelines for quantification and communication also mandates the use of cradle-to-grave to provide publicly available eco-label information when the use and end-of-life phases of concrete can be appropriately simulated. With the support of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and other simulation technologies, the contribution of use and end-of-life phases to the life cycle GHG emissions of concrete should not be overlooked in future studies.

Eight dead, 70 missing as flash floods strike Queensland

"Eight people are dead and there are grave fears the toll may rise with at least 70 missing after flash floods swept through southeastern Queensland."