Regulating journalists? The Finkelstein Review, the Convergence Review, and News Media Regulation in Australia

This paper identifies two major forces driving change in media policy worldwide: media convergence, and renewed concerns about media ethics, with the latter seen in the U.K. Leveson Inquiry. It focuses on two major public inquiries in Australia during 2011-2012 – the Independent Media Inquiry (Finkelstein Review) and the Convergence Review – and the issues raised about future regulation of journalism and news standards. Drawing upon perspectives from media theory, it observes the strong influence of social responsibility theories of the media in the Finkelstein Review, and the adverse reaction these received from those arguing from Fourth Estate/free press perspectives, which were also consistent with the longstanding opposition of Australian newspaper proprietors to government regulation. It also discusses the approaches taken in the Convergence Review to regulating for news standards, in light of the complexities arising from media convergence. The paper concludes with consideration of the fast-changing environment in which such proposals to transform media regulation are being considered, including the crisis of news media organisation business models, as seen in Australia with major layoffs of journalists from the leading print media publications.

The validity and structure of culture-level personality scores: Data from ratings of young adolescents

We examined properties of culture-level personality traits in ratings of targets (N=5,109) ages 12 to 17 in 24 cultures. Aggregate scores were generalizable across gender, age, and relationship groups and showed convergence with culture-level scores from previous studies of self-reports and observer ratings of adults, but they were unrelated to national character stereotypes. Trait profiles also showed cross-study agreement within most cultures, 8 of which had not previously been studied. Multidimensional scaling showed that Western and non-Western cultures clustered along a dimension related to Extraversion. A culture-level factor analysis replicated earlier findings of a broad Extraversion factor but generally resembled the factor structure found in individuals. Continued analysis of aggregate personality scores is warranted.

Responsibilisation and Rights: Explorations in Comparative Youth Criminology

Studies of international youth justice, punishment and control are in their infancy but the issues of globalisation, transnationalisation, policy transfer and localisation are gradually being addressed. There also appears a growing demand in policy and pressure group circles in the UK to learn more about other jurisdictions in order to emulate ‘best practice’ and avoid the worst excesses of punitive populism. However, existing comparative work in this area rarely ventures much beyond country specific descriptions of historical development, powers and procedures. Statistical comparisons – predominantly of custody rates – are becoming more sophisticated but remain beset with problems of partial and inaccurate data collection. The extent to which different countries do things differently, and how and why such difference is maintained, remains a relatively unexcavated territory. This article suggests a conceptually comparative framework in which degrees of international, national and local convergence and divergence can begin to be revealed and assessed.

Digital futures for cultural and media studies

An ambitious rendering of the digital future from a pioneer of media and cultural studies, a wise and witty take on a changing field, and our orientation to it Investigates the uses of multimedia by creative and productive citizen-consumers to provide new theories of communication that accommodate social media, participatory action, and user-creativity Leads the way for new interdisciplinary engagement with systems thinking, complexity and evolutionary sciences, and the convergence of cultural and economic values Analyzes the historical uses of multimedia from print, through broadcasting to the internet Combines conceptual innovation with historical erudition to present a high-level synthesis of ideas and detailed analysis of emergent forms and practices Features an international focus and global reach to provide a basis for students and researchers seeking broader perspectives

Cryptography in the cloud : advances and challenges

Cloud computing is a currently developing revolution in information technology that is disturbing the way that individuals and corporate entities operate while enabling new distributed services that have not existed before. At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept of converged infrastructure and shared services. Security is often said to be a major concern of users considering migration to cloud computing. This article examines some of these security concerns and surveys recent research efforts in cryptography to provide new technical mechanisms suitable for the new scenarios of cloud computing. We consider techniques such as homomorphic encryption, searchable encryption, proofs of storage, and proofs of location. These techniques allow cloud computing users to benefit from cloud server processing capabilities while keeping their data encrypted; and to check independently the integrity and location of their data. Overall we are interested in how users may be able to maintain and verify their own security without having to rely on the trust of the cloud provider.

Old mastheads and new media : newspapers striving to adapt in Australia and South-east Asia

As a key element in their response to new media forcing transformations in mass media and media use, newspapers have deployed various strategies to not only establish online and mobile products, and develop healthy business plans, but to set out to be dominant portals. Their response to change was the subject of an early investigation by one of the present authors (Keshvani 2000). That was part of a set of short studies inquiring into what impact new software applications and digital convergence might have on journalism practice (Tickle and Keshvani 2000), and also looking for demonstrations of the way that innovations, technologies and protocols then under development might produce a “wireless, streamlined electronic news production process (Tickle and Keshvani 2001).” The newspaper study compared the online products of The Age in Melbourne and the Straits Times in Singapore. It provided an audit of the Singapore and Australia Information and Communications Technology (ICT) climate concentrating on the state of development of carrier networks, as a determining factor in the potential strength of the two services with their respective markets. In the outcome, contrary to initial expectations, the early cable roll-out and extensive ‘wiring’ of the city in Singapore had not produced a level of uptake of Internet services as strong as that achieved in Melbourne by more ad hoc and varied strategies. By interpretation, while news websites and online content were at an early stage of development everywhere, and much the same as one another, no determining structural imbalance existed to separate these leading media participants in Australia and South-east Asia. The present research revisits that situation, by again studying the online editions of the two large newspapers in the original study, and one other, The Courier Mail, (recognising the diversification of types of product in this field, by including it as a representative of Newscorp, now a major participant). The inquiry works through the principle of comparison. It is an exercise in qualitative, empirical research that establishes a comparison between the situation in 2000 as described in the earlier work, and the situation in 2014, after a decade of intense development in digital technology affecting the media industries. It is in that sense a follow-up study on the earlier work, although this time giving emphasis to content and style of the actual products as experienced by their users. It compares the online and print editions of each of these three newspapers; then the three mastheads as print and online entities, among themselves; and finally it compares one against the other two, as representing a South-east Asian model and Australian models. This exercise is accompanied by a review of literature on the developments in ICT affecting media production and media organisations, to establish the changed context. The new study of the online editions is conducted as a systematic appraisal of the first level, or principal screens, of the three publications, over the course of six days (10-15.2.14 inclusive). For this, categories for analysis were made, through conducting a preliminary examination of the products over three days in the week before. That process identified significant elements of media production, such as: variegated sourcing of materials; randomness in the presentation of items; differential production values among media platforms considered, whether text, video or stills images; the occasional repurposing and repackaging of top news stories of the day and the presence of standard news values – once again drawn out of the trial ‘bundle’ of journalistic items. Reduced in this way the online artefacts become comparable with the companion print editions from the same days. The categories devised and then used in the appraisal of the online products have been adapted to print, to give the closest match of sets of variables. This device, to study the two sets of publications on like standards -- essentially production values and news values—has enabled the comparisons to be made. This comparing of the online and print editions of each of the three publications was set up as up the first step in the investigation. In recognition of the nature of the artefacts, as ones that carry very diverse information by subject and level of depth, and involve heavy creative investment in the formulation and presentation of the information; the assessment also includes an open section for interpreting and commenting on main points of comparison. This takes the form of a field for text, for the insertion of notes, in the table employed for summarising the features of each product, for each day. When the sets of comparisons as outlined above are noted, the process then becomes interpretative, guided by the notion of change. In the context of changing media technology and publication processes, what substantive alterations have taken place, in the overall effort of news organisations in the print and online fields since 2001; and in their print and online products separately? Have they diverged or continued along similar lines? The remaining task is to begin to make inferences from that. Will the examination of findings enforce the proposition that a review of the earlier study, and a forensic review of new models, does provide evidence of the character and content of change --especially change in journalistic products and practice? Will it permit an authoritative description on of the essentials of such change in products and practice? Will it permit generalisation, and provide a reliable base for discussion of the implications of change, and future prospects? Preliminary observations suggest a more dynamic and diversified product has been developed in Singapore, well themed, obviously sustained by public commitment and habituation to diversified online and mobile media services. The Australian products suggest a concentrated corporate and journalistic effort and deployment of resources, with a strong market focus, but less settled and ordered, and showing signs of limitations imposed by the delay in establishing a uniform, large broadband network. The scope of the study is limited. It is intended to test, and take advantage of the original study as evidentiary material from the early days of newspaper companies’ experimentation with online formats. Both are small studies. The key opportunity for discovery lies in the ‘time capsule’ factor; the availability of well-gathered and processed information on major newspaper company production, at the threshold of a transformational decade of change in their industry. The comparison stands to identify key changes. It should also be useful as a reference for further inquiries of the same kind that might be made, and for monitoring of the situation in regard to newspaper portals on line, into the future.

Practical application of pseudospectral optimization to robot path planning

To obtain minimum time or minimum energy trajectories for robots it is necessary to employ planning methods which adequately consider the platform’s dynamic properties. A variety of sampling, graph-based or local receding-horizon optimisation methods have previously been proposed. These typically use simplified kino-dynamic models to avoid the significant computational burden of solving this problem in a high dimensional state-space. In this paper we investigate solutions from the class of pseudospectral optimisation methods which have grown in favour amongst the optimal control community in recent years. These methods have high computational efficiency and rapid convergence properties. We present a practical application of such an approach to the robot path planning problem to provide a trajectory considering the robot’s dynamic properties. We extend the existing literature by augmenting the path constraints with sensed obstacles rather than predefined analytical functions to enable real world application.

Hypercapitalism : a political economy of informational idealism

In this this paper I identify specific historical trajectories that are directly contingent upon the deployment and use of new media, but which are actually hidden by a focus on the purely technological. They are: the increasingly abstract and alienated nature of economic value; the subsumption of all labour - material and intellectual - under systemic capital; and the convergence of formerly distinct spheres of analysis –the spheres of production, circulation, and consumption. This paper examines the implications of the knowledge economy from an historical materialist perspective. I synthesise the systemic views of Marx (1846/1972, 1875/1972 1970 1973 1976 1978 1981), Adorno (1951/1974 1964/1973 1991; Horkheimer and Adorno 1944/1998; Jarvis 1998), and Bourdieu (1991 1998) to argue for a language-focused approach to new media research and suggest aspects of Marxist thought which might be useful in researching emergent socio-technical domains. I also identify specific categories in the Marxist tradition which may no longer be analytically useful for researching the effects of new media.

FPGA implementation of an evolutionary algorithm for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle on-board path planning

In this paper, a hardware-based path planning architecture for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) adaptation is proposed. The architecture aims to provide UAVs with higher autonomy using an application specific evolutionary algorithm (EA) implemented entirely on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip. The physical attributes of an FPGA chip, being compact in size and low in power consumption, compliments it to be an ideal platform for UAV applications. The design, which is implemented entirely in hardware, consists of EA modules, population storage resources, and three-dimensional terrain information necessary to the path planning process, subject to constraints accounted for separately via UAV, environment and mission profiles. The architecture has been successfully synthesised for a target Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA platform with 32% logic slices utilisation. Results obtained from case studies for a small UAV helicopter with environment derived from LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data verify the effectiveness of the proposed FPGA-based path planner, and demonstrate convergence at rates above the typical 10 Hz update frequency of an autopilot system.

A study on the encryption model for numerical data

The encryption method is a well established technology for protecting sensitive data. However, once encrypted, the data can no longer be easily queried. The performance of the database depends on how to encrypt the sensitive data. In this paper we review the conventional encryption method which can be partially queried and propose the encryption method for numerical data which can be effectively queried. The proposed system includes the design of the service scenario, and metadata.

Media classification : Content regulation in an age of convergent media

This article outlines the key recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of the National Classification Scheme, as outlined in its report Classification – Content Regulation and Convergent Media (ALRC, 2012). It identifies key contextual factors that underpin the need for reform of media classification laws and policies, including the fragmentation of regulatory responsibilities and the convergence of media platforms, content and services, as well as discussing the ALRC’s approach to law reform.

An efficient online secondary path estimation for feedback active noise control systems

In practical cases for active noise control (ANC), the secondary path has usually a time varying behavior. For these cases, an online secondary path modeling method that uses a white noise as a training signal is required to ensure convergence of the system. The modeling accuracy and the convergence rate are increased when a white noise with a larger variance is used. However, the larger variance increases the residual noise, which decreases performance of the system and additionally causes instability problem to feedback structures. A sudden change in the secondary path leads to divergence of the online secondary path modeling filter. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a new approach for online secondary path modeling in feedback ANC systems. The proposed algorithm uses the advantages of white noise with larger variance to model the secondary path, but the injection is stopped at the optimum point to increase performance of the algorithm and to prevent the instability effect of the white noise. In this approach, instead of continuous injection of the white noise, a sudden change in secondary path during the operation makes the algorithm to reactivate injection of the white noise to correct the secondary path estimation. In addition, the proposed method models the secondary path without the need of using off-line estimation of the secondary path. Considering the above features increases the convergence rate and modeling accuracy, which results in a high system performance. Computer simulation results shown in this paper indicate effectiveness of the proposed method.

A new online secondary path modelling method for feedforward active noise control systems

An online secondary path modelling method using a white noise as a training signal is required in many applications of active noise control (ANC) to ensure convergence of the system. Not continually injection of white noise during system operation makes the system more desirable. The purposes of the proposed method are two folds: controlling white noise by preventing continually injection, and benefiting white noise with a larger variance. The modelling accuracy and the convergence rate increase when a white noise with larger variance is used, however larger the variance increases the residual noise, which decreases performance of the system. This paper proposes a new approach for online secondary path modelling in feedfoward ANC systems. The proposed algorithm uses the advantages of the white noise with larger variance to model the secondary path, but the injection is stopped at the optimum point to increase performance of the system. Comparative simulation results shown in this paper indicate effectiveness of the proposed approach in controlling active noise.

Benefiting white noise in developing feedforward active noise control systems

In many applications of active noise control (ANC), an online secondary path modelling method using a white noise as a training signal is required to ensure convergence of the system. The modelling accuracy and the convergence rate increase when a white noise with larger variance is used, however larger the variance increases the residual noise, which decreases performance of the system. The proposed algorithm uses the advantages of the white noise with larger variance to model the secondary path, but the injection is stopped at the optimum point to increase performance of the system. In this approach, instead of continuous injection of the white noise, a sudden change in secondary path during the operation makes the algorithm to reactivate injection of the white noise to adjust the secondary path estimation. Comparative simulation results shown in this paper indicate effectiveness of the proposed method.

Damage diagnosis for complex steel truss bridges using multi-layer genetic algorithm

Considerate amount of research has proposed optimization-based approaches employing various vibration parameters for structural damage diagnosis. The damage detection by these methods is in fact a result of updating the analytical structural model in line with the current physical model. The feasibility of these approaches has been proven. But most of the verification has been done on simple structures, such as beams or plates. In the application on a complex structure, like steel truss bridges, a traditional optimization process will cost massive computational resources and lengthy convergence. This study presents a multi-layer genetic algorithm (ML-GA) to overcome the problem. Unlike the tedious convergence process in a conventional damage optimization process, in each layer, the proposed algorithm divides the GA’s population into groups with a less number of damage candidates; then, the converged population in each group evolves as an initial population of the next layer, where the groups merge to larger groups. In a damage detection process featuring ML-GA, as parallel computation can be implemented, the optimization performance and computational efficiency can be enhanced. In order to assess the proposed algorithm, the modal strain energy correlation (MSEC) has been considered as the objective function. Several damage scenarios of a complex steel truss bridge’s finite element model have been employed to evaluate the effectiveness and performance of ML-GA, against a conventional GA. In both single- and multiple damage scenarios, the analytical and experimental study shows that the MSEC index has achieved excellent damage indication and efficiency using the proposed ML-GA, whereas the conventional GA only converges at a local solution.