Ten reasons why rigid contact lenses are obsolete

There have only been minor improvements in rigid lens material developments since silicone acrylates and fluoro-silicone acrylates were introduced over a quarter of a century ago. Although there have been enhancements in mechanical lathing technology in the rigid lens field - primarily as a result of developments in computer-controlled systems - rigid lenses are still manufactured using labour-intensive lathing processes, which is why the lens unit cost remains much higher than for disposable soft lenses.

Lament for a lost running order? obsolescence and academic journals

This is the lead article for an issue of M/C Journal on the theme ‘obsolete.’ It uses the history of the International Journal of Cultural Studies (of which the author has been editor since 1997) to investigate technological innovations and their scholarly implications in academic journal publishing; in particular the obsolescence of the print form. Print-based elements like cover-design, the running order of articles, special issues, refereeing and the reading experience are all rendered obsolete with the growth of online access to individual articles. The paper argues that individuation of reading choices may be accompanied by less welcome tendencies, such as a decline in collegiality, disciplinary innovation, and trust.

Early land grants and reservations : Any lessons from the Queensland experience for the sustainability challenge to land ownership

Environmentalists have called for a new property paradigm premised on the idea of land ownership as a delegated responsibility to manage land and resources for the public benefit. An examination of Crown freehold grants from the beginnings of settlement until the 1890s in Queensland shows that fee simple titles were granted subject to express conditions and reservations designed to reserve useful natural resources to the Crown, and to promote public purposes. Over time, legislative regulation of landowner’s rights rendered obsolete the use of express conditions and reservations in grants. One result of this change was that the inherently limited nature of fee simple ownership, and the communal obligations to which it is subject, are less transparent than in colonial times.

Validating denial of service vulnerabilities in web services

The loosely-coupled and dynamic nature of web services architectures has many benefits, but also leads to an increased vulnerability to denial of service attacks. While many papers have surveyed and described these vulnerabilities, they are often theoretical and lack experimental data to validate them, and assume an obsolete state of web services technologies. This paper describes experiments involving several denial of service vulnerabilities in well-known web services platforms, including Java Metro, Apache Axis, and Microsoft .NET. The results both confirm and deny the presence of some of the most well-known vulnerabilities in web services technologies. Specifically, major web services platforms appear to cope well with attacks that target memory exhaustion. However, attacks targeting CPU-time exhaustion are still effective, regardless of the victim’s platform.

Obituary - Rigid contact lenses

Scleral and corneal rigid lenses represented 100 per cent of the contact lens market immediately prior to the invention of soft lenses in the mid-1960s. In the United Kingdom today, rigid lenses comprise 2 per cent of all new lens fits. Low rates of rigid lens fitting are also apparent in 27 other countries which have recently been surveyed. Thus, the 1998 prediction of the author that rigid lenses – also referred to as ‘rigid gas permeable’ (RGP) lenses or ‘gas permeable’ (GP) lenses – would be obsolete by the year 2010 has essentially turned out to be correct. In this obituary, the author offers 10 reasons for the demise of rigid lens fitting: initial rigid lens discomfort; intractable rigid lens-induced corneal and lid pathology; extensive soft lens advertising; superior soft lens fitting logistics; lack of rigid lens training opportunities; redundancy of the rigid lens ‘problem solver’ function; improved soft toric and bifocal/varifocal lenses; limited uptake of orthokeratology; lack of investment in rigid lenses; and the emergence of aberration control soft lenses. Rigid lenses are now being fitted by a minority of practitioners with specialist skills/training. Certainly, rigid lenses can no longer be considered as a mainstream form of contact lens correction. May their dear souls (bulk properties) rest in peace.

Sustainable fashion textiles research : engaging with new technologies

This article provides a discussion about how new technologies will enable Fashion Textiles Research to be disseminated amongst a new generation of producers and consumers via interactive and web technologies. How appropriate are these methods for Fashion Textiles Research? What are the advantages of these mediums and what will this mean for researchers, producers and consumers now and in the future, as the traditional platforms such as Journal Papers and Conferences, become obsolete? Can we predict the future of communicating textile research by assessing the way in which research is being conducted with the use of electronic databases, the Internet and with the emergence of electronic journals?

Controlling chaos? The value and the challenges of applying complexity theory to project management

The literature abounds with descriptions of failures in high-profile projects and a range of initiatives has been generated to enhance project management practice (e.g., Morris, 2006). Estimating from our own research, there are scores of other project failures that are unrecorded. Many of these failures can be explained using existing project management theory; poor risk management, inaccurate estimating, cultures of optimism dominating decision making, stakeholder mismanagement, inadequate timeframes, and so on. Nevertheless, in spite of extensive discussion and analysis of failures and attention to the presumed causes of failure, projects continue to fail in unexpected ways. In the 1990s, three U.S. state departments of motor vehicles (DMV) cancelled major projects due to time and cost overruns and inability to meet project goals (IT-Cortex, 2010). The California DMV failed to revitalize their drivers’ license and registration application process after spending $45 million. The Oregon DMV cancelled their five year, $50 million project to automate their manual, paper-based operation after three years when the estimates grew to $123 million; its duration stretched to eight years or more and the prototype was a complete failure. In 1997, the Washington state DMV cancelled their license application mitigation project because it would have been too big and obsolete by the time it was estimated to be finished. There are countless similar examples of projects that have been abandoned or that have not delivered the requirements.

Work integrated learning for life : encouraging agentic engagement

In a rapidly changing world where new work patterns impact on our health, relationships and social fabric, it is critical that we reconsider the role universities could or should play in helping students prepare for the complexities of the 21st century. Efforts to respond to economic imperatives such as the skills shortage have seen a rush to embed work integrated and career development learning in the curriculum as well as a strengthening of the discourse that the university’s role is primarily to produce industry ready or ‘oven ready and self basting’ graduates (Atkins, 1999). This narrow focus on ‘giving industry what industry wants’ (Patrick, Peach & Pocknee, 2009) ignores the importance of helping students develop the types of skills and dispositions they will need. To enable students to thrive not just survive socially and economically in a radically unknowable world, where knowledge becomes obsolete, we need to be ready to develop new futures (Barnett, 2004). This paper considers the concept of ‘work’, the role it plays in our lives, and our aspirations to build sustainable, socially connected communities. We revisit the assumptions underlying the employability argument (Atkins, 1999) in the light of changing notions of work (Hagel, Seely Brown & Davison, 2010), and the need for higher education to contribute to a better and more sustainable society (Pocock, 2003). Specifically we present initiatives developed from work integrated learning (WIL) programs in the United Kingdom and Australia, where WIL programs are framed within the broader context of real world and life-wide curriculum (Jackson, 2010), and where transferable skills and elements of work-related learning programs prepare students for less certain job futures. Such approaches encourage students to take an agentic role (Billett & Pavlova, 2005) in selecting their work possibilities to develop resilience and capabilities to deal with new and challenging situations, assisting students to become who they want to be not just what they want to be. The theoretical and operational implications and challenges of shaping real world and life-wide curriculum will be investigated in more depth in the next phase of this research.

Knowledge-Intensive Business Processes: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Knowledge-intensive Business Processes [CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Volume 861]

Nowadays, Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) and, more generally, Process Management Systems (PMPs) are process-aware Information Systems (PAISs), are widely used to support many human organizational activities, ranging from well-understood, relatively stable and structures processes (supply chain management, postal delivery tracking, etc.) to processes that are more complicated, less structured and may exhibit a high degree of variation (health-care, emergency management, etc.). Every aspect of a business process involves a certain amount of knowledge which may be complex depending on the domain of interest. The adequate representation of this knowledge is determined by the modeling language used. Some processes behave in a way that is well understood, predictable and repeatable: the tasks are clearly delineated and the control flow is straightforward. Recent discussions, however, illustrate the increasing demand for solutions for knowledge-intensive processes, where these characteristics are less applicable. The actors involved in the conduct of a knowledge-intensive process have to deal with a high degree of uncertainty. Tasks may be hard to perform and the order in which they need to be performed may be highly variable. Modeling knowledge-intensive processes can be complex as it may be hard to capture at design-time what knowledge is available at run-time. In realistic environments, for example, actors lack important knowledge at execution time or this knowledge can become obsolete as the process progresses. Even if each actor (at some point) has perfect knowledge of the world, it may not be certain of its beliefs at later points in time, since tasks by other actors may change the world without those changes being perceived. Typically, a knowledge-intensive process cannot be adequately modeled by classical, state of the art process/workflow modeling approaches. In some respect there is a lack of maturity when it comes to capturing the semantic aspects involved, both in terms of reasoning about them. The main focus of the 1st International Workshop on Knowledge-intensive Business processes (KiBP 2012) was investigating how techniques from different fields, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Knowledge Representation (KR), Business Process Management (BPM), Service Oriented Computing (SOC), etc., can be combined with the aim of improving the modeling and the enactment phases of a knowledge-intensive process. The 1st International Workshop on Knowledge-intensive Business process (KiBP 2012) was held as part of the program of the 2012 Knowledge Representation & Reasoning International Conference (KR 2012) in Rome, Italy, in June 2012. The workshop was hosted by the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica, Automatica e Gestionale Antonio Ruberti of Sapienza Universita di Roma, with financial support of the University, through grant 2010-C26A107CN9 TESTMED, and the EU Commission through the projects FP7-25888 Greener Buildings and FP7-257899 Smart Vortex. This volume contains the 5 papers accepted and presented at the workshop. Each paper was reviewed by three members of the internationally renowned Program Committee. In addition, a further paper was invted for inclusion in the workshop proceedings and for presentation at the workshop. There were two keynote talks, one by Marlon Dumas (Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu, Estonia) on "Integrated Data and Process Management: Finally?" and the other by Yves Lesperance (Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Canada) on "A Logic-Based Approach to Business Processes Customization" completed the scientific program. We would like to thank all the Program Committee members for the valuable work in selecting the papers, Andrea Marrella for his valuable work as publication and publicity chair of the workshop, and Carola Aiello and the consulting agency Consulta Umbria for the organization of this successful event.

Waving or drowning? Managing resource constraints in entrepreneurial firm with bricolage as a response to the global financial crisis

These are challenging times for new entrepreneurial firms. The development of the Global Financial Crisis shook the very foundations of global markets and institutions that most firms relied on to do business (Claessens, et al., forthcoming). In the midst of institutional flux and resource constraints, entrepreneurial firms, which have been shown to make a range of contributions to the economy (van Praag & Versloot 2007) faced increasing constraints. The Australian Federal Government quickly implemented the Green Loan program in response to the financial crisis. Unfortunately, the green loans program was flawed with obsolete processes and information (Faulkner, 2011), further constraining new firms. Prior research provides few clues regarding how resource-constrained entrepreneurial firms deal with these institutional flaws within institutional change and how they might overcome these challenges and prosper. One promising theory that evaluates behavioural responses to constraints and institutional flaws is bricolage (Levi Strauss, 1967). Bricolage aligns with notions of resourcefulness: defined here as “making do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities” (Baker and Nelson 2005: 333). Using three case studies, we consider how institutional flaws impact firm behaviours and illustrate the use of bricolage in attempts to reinforce, shape and change the GL program further extending bricolage domains of Baker and Nelson (2005).

Environmental pollution from shipbreaking industry : international law and national legal response

The international legal regime on shipbreaking is in its formative years. At the international level, the shipbreaking industry is partially governed by the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. However, how far this convention will be applicable for all aspects of transboundary movement of end-of-life ships is still, at least in the view of some scholars, a debatable issue. Against this backdrop, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has adopted a new, legally binding convention for shipbreaking. There is a rising voice from the developing countries that the convention is likely to impose more obligations on recycling facilities in the developing countries than on shipowners from rich nations. This may be identified as a clear derogation from the globally recognized international environmental law principle of common but differentiated treatment. This article will examine in detail major international conventions regulating transboundary movement and environmentally sound disposal of obsolete ships, as well as the corresponding laws of Bangladesh for implementing these conventions in the domestic arena. Moreover this article will examine in detail the recently adopted IMO Ship Recycling Convention.

Reluctantly virtual : modelling copyright industry dynamics

During the evolution of the music industry, developments in the media environment have required music firms to adapt in order to survive. Changes in broadcast radio programming during the 1950s; the Compact Cassette during the 1970s; and the deregulation of media ownership during the 1990s are all examples of changes which have heavily affected the music industry. This study explores similar contemporary dynamics, examines how decision makers in the music industry perceive and make sense of the developments, and reveals how they revise their business strategies, based on their mental models of the media environment. A qualitative system dynamics model is developed in order to support the reasoning brought forward by the study. The model is empirically grounded, but is also based on previous music industry research and a theoretical platform constituted by concepts from evolutionary economics and sociology of culture. The empirical data primarily consist of 36 personal interviews with decision makers in the American, British and Swedish music industrial ecosystems. The study argues that the model which is proposed, more effectively explains contemporary music industry dynamics than music industry models presented by previous research initiatives. Supported by the model, the study is able to show how “new” media outlets make old music business models obsolete and challenge the industry’s traditional power structures. It is no longer possible to expose music at one outlet (usually broadcast radio) in the hope that it will lead to sales of the same music at another (e.g. a compact disc). The study shows that many music industry decision makers still have not embraced the new logic, and have not yet challenged their traditional mental models of the media environment. Rather, they remain focused on preserving the pivotal role held by the CD and other physical distribution technologies. Further, the study shows that while many music firms remain attached to the old models, other firms, primarily music publishers, have accepted the transformation, and have reluctantly recognised the realities of a virtualised environment.

The role of RGPs in modern practice

Has the 1998 prediction of a well-known contact lens researcher – that rigid contact lenses will be obsolete by the year 2010 – come to fruition? This Eulogy to RGPs will demonstrate why it has. A recent survey of international contact lens prescribing trends shows that rigid lenses constituted less than 5% of all contact lenses prescribed in 16 out of 27 nations surveyed. This compares with rigid lenses representing 100% of all lenses prescribed 1965 and about 40% in 1990). With the wide range of sophisticated soft lens materials available today, including super-permeable silicone hydrogels, and designs capable of correcting astigmatism and presbyopia, there is now no need to fit cosmetic patients with rigid lenses, with the associated intractable problems of rigid lens-induced ptosis, 3 and 9 o’clock, staining, lens binding, corneal warpage and adaptation discomfort. Orthokeratology is largely a fringe application of marginal efficacy, and the notion that rigid lenses arrest myopia progression is flawed. That last bastion of rigid lens practice – fitting patients with severely distorted corneas as in keratoconus – is about to crumble in view of a number of demonstrations by independent research groups of the efficacy of custom-designed wavefront-corrected soft contact lenses for the correction of keratoconus. It is concluded that rigid contact lenses now have no place in modern contact lens practice.

Academics and the new public intellectual

In this essay, we outline an emerging form of public intellectualism in the humanities sector of Australian higher education. We argue that debates over public intellectualism and its relation to the academy in Australia have largely been focused on the tension between polemics and politics. These debates have also tended to ignore or overlook policy drivers within the sector and alternative or new media sites of public intellectualism. Shifting the focus towards policy drivers in the knowledge economy—such as knowledge transfer and third-stream funding—and understanding the nature of the university as a public sphere in itself reveals a new economy of the public intellectual as a professional knowledge worker. This new economy, we argue, may well render obsolete many of the previous debates over public intellectualism in the humanities. However, we anticipate that it will generate new debates over the relationship between the individual and the institutional, and between the concepts of public profile and public role—debates that will affect, in particular, early career academics who are the inheritors of this new economy of the public intellectual.