The Pornography and erotica industries: A lack of research and need for a research agenda

Despite their increasing size and ease of access, the pornography and erotica industries have received scant attention from academics in the business disciplines. This paper examines what little research has been conducted and offers background material drawn from other disciplines on historical social approaches to pornography. These areas include sumptuary law and approaches to moral issues generally. The paper concludes with a suggested approach to determining a research agenda for this much neglected area.

Ecological approaches to cognition and action in sport and exercise : ask not only what you do, but where you do it

In recent decades, concepts and ideas from James J. Gibson’s theory of direct perception in ecological psychology have been applied to the study of how perception and action regulate sport performance. This article examines the influence of different streams of thought in ecological psychology for studying cognition and action in the diverse behavioural contexts of sport and exercise. In discussing the origins of ecological psychology it can be concluded that psychologists such as Lewin, and to some extent Heider, provided the initial impetus for the development of key ideas. We argue that the papers in this special issue clarify that the different schools of thinking in ecological psychology have much to contribute to theoretical and practical developments in sport and exercise psychology. For example, Gibson emphasized and formalized how the individual is coupled with the environment; Brunswik raised the issue of the ontology of probability in human behaviour and the problem of representative design for experimental task constraints; Barker looked carefully into extra-individual behavioural contexts and Bronfenbrenner presented insights pertinent to the relations between behaviour contexts, and macro influences on behaviour. In this overview, we highlight essential issues from the main schools of thought of relevance to the contexts of sport and exercise, and we consider some potential theoretical linkages with dynamical systems theory.

Factors influencing oncology nurses' approaches to accommodating cultural needs in palliative care

Aims and objectives: The purpose of this study is to explore the social construction of cultural issues in palliative care amongst oncology nurses. ---------- Background: Australia is a nation composed of people from different cultural origins with diverse linguistic, spiritual, religious and social backgrounds. The challenge of working with an increasingly culturally diverse population is a common theme expressed by many healthcare professionals from a variety of countries. ---------- Design: Grounded theory was used to investigate the processes by which nurses provide nursing care to cancer patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. ---------- Methods: Semi-structured interviews with seven Australian oncology nurses provided the data for the study; the data was analysed using grounded theory data analysis techniques. ---------- Results: The core category emerging from the study was that of accommodating cultural needs. This paper focuses on describing the series of subcategories that were identified as factors which could influence the process by which nurses would accommodate cultural needs. These factors included nurses' views and understandings of culture and cultural mores, their philosophy of cultural care, nurses' previous experiences with people from other cultures and organisational approaches to culture and cultural care. ---------- Conclusions: This study demonstrated that previous experiences with people from other cultures and organisational approaches to culture and cultural care often influenced nurses' views and understandings of culture and cultural mores and their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in providing cultural care. ---------- Relevance to clinical practice: It is imperative to appreciate how nurses' experiences with people from other cultures can be recognised and built upon or, if necessary, challenged. Furthermore, nurses' cultural competence and experiences with people from other cultures need to be further investigated in clinical practice.

Performance tests for visual servo control systems, with application to partitioned approaches to visual servo control

Visual servoing has been a viable method of robot manipulator control for more than a decade. Initial developments involved positionbased visual servoing (PBVS), in which the control signal exists in Cartesian space. The younger method, image-based visual servoing (IBVS), has seen considerable development in recent years. PBVS and IBVS offer tradeoffs in performance, and neither can solve all tasks that may confront a robot. In response to these issues, several methods have been devised that partition the control scheme, allowing some motions to be performed in the manner of a PBVS system, while the remaining motions are performed using an IBVS approach. To date, there has been little research that explores the relative strengths and weaknesses of these methods. In this paper we present such an evaluation. We have chosen three recent visual servo approaches for evaluation in addition to the traditional PBVS and IBVS approaches. We posit a set of performance metrics that measure quantitatively the performance of a visual servo controller for a specific task. We then evaluate each of the candidate visual servo methods for four canonical tasks with simulations and with experiments in a robotic work cell.

High fidelity simulation; challenges encountered in developing and implementing student learning experiences, staff education and researching approaches to learning

High fidelity simulation as a teaching and learning approach is being embraced by many schools of nursing. Our school embarked on integrating high fidelity (HF) simulation into the undergraduate clinical education program in 2011. Low and medium fidelity simulation has been used for many years, but this did not simplify the integration of HF simulation. Alongside considerations of how and where HF simulation would be integrated, issues arose with: student consent and participation for observed activities; data management of video files; staff development, and conceptualising how methods for student learning could be researched. Simulation for undergraduate student nurses commenced as a formative learning activity, undertaken in groups of eight, where four students undertake the ‘doing’ role and four are structured observers, who then take a formal role in the simulation debrief. Challenges for integrating simulation into student learning included conceptualising and developing scenarios to trigger students’ decision making and application of skills, knowledge and attitudes explicit to solving clinical ‘problems’. Developing and planning scenarios for students to ‘try out’ skills and make decisions for problem solving lay beyond choosing pre-existing scenarios inbuilt with the software. The supplied scenarios were not concept based but rather knowledge, skills and technology (of the manikin) focussed. Challenges lay in using the technology for the purpose of building conceptual mastery rather than using technology simply because it was available. As we integrated use of HF simulation into the final year of the program, focus was on building skills, knowledge and attitudes that went beyond technical skill, and provided an opportunity to bridge the gap with theory-based knowledge that students often found difficult to link to clinical reality. We wished to provide opportunities to develop experiential knowledge based on application and clinical reasoning processes in team environments where problems are encountered, and to solve them, the nurse must show leadership and direction. Other challenges included students consenting for simulations to be videotaped and ethical considerations of this. For example if one student in a group of eight did not consent, did this mean they missed the opportunity to undertake simulation, or that others in the group may be disadvantaged by being unable to review their performance. This has implications for freely given consent but also for equity of access to learning opportunities for students who wished to be taped and those who did not. Alongside this issue were the details behind data management, storage and access. Developing staff with varying levels of computer skills to use software and undertake a different approach to being the ‘teacher’ required innovation where we took an experiential approach. Considering explicit learning approaches to be trialled for learning was not a difficult proposition, but considering how to enact this as research with issues of blinding, timetabling of blinded groups, and reducing bias for testing results of different learning approaches along with gaining ethical approval was problematic. This presentation presents examples of these challenges and how we overcame them.

Approaches to access control under uncertainty

The ultimate goal of an access control system is to allocate each user the precise level of access they need to complete their job - no more and no less. This proves to be challenging in an organisational setting. On one hand employees need enough access to the organisation’s resources in order to perform their jobs and on the other hand more access will bring about an increasing risk of misuse - either intentionally, where an employee uses the access for personal benefit, or unintentionally, through carelessness or being socially engineered to give access to an adversary. This thesis investigates issues of existing approaches to access control in allocating optimal level of access to users and proposes solutions in the form of new access control models. These issues are most evident when uncertainty surrounding users’ access needs, incentive to misuse and accountability are considered, hence the title of the thesis. We first analyse access control in environments where the administrator is unable to identify the users who may need access to resources. To resolve this uncertainty an administrative model with delegation support is proposed. Further, a detailed technical enforcement mechanism is introduced to ensure delegated resources cannot be misused. Then we explicitly consider that users are self-interested and capable of misusing resources if they choose to. We propose a novel game theoretic access control model to reason about and influence the factors that may affect users’ incentive to misuse. Next we study access control in environments where neither users’ access needs can be predicted nor they can be held accountable for misuse. It is shown that by allocating budget to users, a virtual currency through which they can pay for the resources they deem necessary, the need for a precise pre-allocation of permissions can be relaxed. The budget also imposes an upper-bound on users’ ability to misuse. A generalised budget allocation function is proposed and it is shown that given the context information the optimal level of budget for users can always be numerically determined. Finally, Role Based Access Control (RBAC) model is analysed under the explicit assumption of administrators’ uncertainty about self-interested users’ access needs and their incentives to misuse. A novel Budget-oriented Role Based Access Control (B-RBAC) model is proposed. The new model introduces the notion of users’ behaviour into RBAC and provides means to influence users’ incentives. It is shown how RBAC policy can be used to individualise the cost of access to resources and also to determine users’ budget. The implementation overheads of B-RBAC is examined and several low-cost sub-models are proposed.

Molecular approaches to diagnosis and management of ovarian cancer

The recent advances in the understanding of the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer have been helpful in addressing issues in diagnosis, prognosis and management. The study of ovarian tumours by novel techniques such as immunohistochemistry, fluorescent in situ hybridisation, comparative genomic hybridisation, polymerase chain reaction and new tumour markers have aided the evaluation and application of new concepts into clinical practice. The correlation of novel surrogate tumour specific features with response to treatment and outcome in patients has defined prognostic factors which may allow the future design of tailored therapy based on a molecular profile of the tumour. These have also been used to design new approaches to therapy such as antibody targeting and gene therapy. The delineation of roles of c-erbB2, c-fms and other novel receptor kinases in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer has led initially to the development of anti-c-erbB2 monoclonal antibody therapy. The discovery of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes will have an impact in the diagnosis and the prevention of familial ovarian cancer. The important role played by recessive genes such as p53 in cancer has raised the possibility of restoration of gene function by gene therapy. Although the pathological diagnosis of ovarian cancer is still confirmed principally on morphological features, addition of newer investigations will increasingly be useful in addressing difficult diagnostic problems. The increasingly rapid pace of discovery of genes important in disease, makes it imperative that the evaluation of their contribution in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer is undertaken swiftly, thus improving the overall management of patients and their outcome.

Translational approaches to medication development

Alcohol accounts for major disability worldwide and available treatments are insufficient. A massive growth in the area of addiction neuroscience over the last several decades has not resulted in a corresponding expansion of treatment options available to patients. In this chapter, we describe our experience with building translational research programs aimed at developing novel pharmacotherapies for alcoholism. The narrative is based on experience and considerations made in the course of building these programs, and work on four mechanisms targeted by our libraries: cholinergic nicotine receptors, receptors for corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), neurokinin 1 (NK1) receptors for substance P (SP) and hypocretin/orexin receptors. Around this experience, we discuss issues we believe to be critical for successful translation of basic addiction neuroscience into treatments, and complementarities between academic and other actors that in our assessment need to be harnessed in order to bring treatments to the clinic.

Creating a global law graduate: The need, benefits and practical approaches to internationalise the curriculum

The increasingly integrated world has facilitated important international and trans-border trends, such as a progressively connected global economy, a significant growth in transnational business transactions and an increase in global regulation of global issues. Such globalisation has had a transformational impact on the legal profession in a number of ways. These include the need to provide advice on issues or transactions that have a transnational or international element; the increasing globalisation of large law firms; and the delivery of offshore services by legal service providers. This means that not only do law graduates need to be prepared to practice in an increasingly globalised economy and legal profession, there will also be new career opportunities available to them which require understanding of international law, for example in emerging international institutions and non-government organisations. Accordingly there is a need to ensure that law students develop the knowledge and skills they will require to succeed in a globalised legal profession. That is, there is a need to internationalise the law curriculum. This paper provides an insight into the recent progression of law schools in internationalising the law curriculum and provides practical avenues and strategies for the increased integration of international law, foreign law and a comparative perspective into core subjects which will develop the graduates’ knowledge and skills in international and foreign law, in order to enhance their ability to succeed as legal professionals in a globalised world.

Economic theory informing approaches to phoenix activity in small business: A neo-Schumpeterian analysis

The adequacy and efficiency of existing legal and regulatory frameworks dealing with corporate phoenix activity have been repeatedly called into question over the past two decades through various reviews, inquiries, targeted regulatory operations and the implementation of piecemeal legislative reform. Despite these efforts, phoenix activity does not appear to have abated. While there is no law in Australia that declares ‘phoenix activity’ to be illegal, the behaviour that tends to manifest in phoenix activity can be capable of transgressing a vast array of law, including for example, corporate law, tax law, and employment law. This paper explores the notion that the persistence of phoenix activity despite the sheer extent of this law suggests that the law is not acting as powerfully as it might as a deterrent. Economic theories of entrepreneurship and innovation can to some extent explain why this is the case and also offer a sound basis for the evaluation and reconsideration of the existing law. The challenges facing key regulators are significant. Phoenix activity is not limited to particular corporate demographic: it occurs in SMEs, large companies and in corporate groups. The range of behaviour that can amount to phoenix activity is so broad, that not all phoenix activity is illegal. This paper will consider regulatory approaches to these challenges via analysis of approaches to detection and enforcement of the underlying law capturing illegal phoenix activity. Remedying the mischief of phoenix activity is of practical importance. The benefits include continued confidence in our economy, law that inspires best practice among directors, and law that is articulated in a manner such that penalties act as a sufficient deterrent and the regulatory system is able to detect offenders and bring them to account. Any further reforms must accommodate and tolerate legal phoenix activity, at least to some extent. Even then, phoenix activity pushes tolerance of repeated entrepreneurial failure to its absolute limit. The more limited liability is misused and abused, the stronger the argument to place some restrictions on access to limited liability. This paper proposes that such an approach is a legitimate next step for a robust and mature capitalist economy.

The influences of conceptions of learning and learner self-concept on high school students' approaches to learning

This study investigated the mediating effect of learner selfconcept between conceptions of learning and students' approaches to learning using structural equation modelling. Data were collected using a modified version of Biggs' Learning Process Questionnaire, together with the recently developed 'What is Learning Survey' and 'Learner Self-Concept Scale'. A sample of 355 high school students participated in the study. Results indicate that learner self-concept does mediate between conceptions of meaning and approaches to learning. Students who adopted a deep approach liked learning new things and indirectly viewed learning as experiential, involving social interaction and directly viewed learning as personal development. Implications for teachers are discussed, with consideration given to appropriate classroom practice.