A model for the integration of legal research into Australian undergraduate law curricula

The marginalisation of the teaching and learning of legal research in the Australian law school curriculum is, in the author's experience, a condition common to many law schools. This is reflected in the reluctance of some law teachers to include legal research skills in the substantive law teaching schedule — often the result of unwillingness on the part of law school administrators to provide the resources necessary to ensure that such integration does not place a disproportionately heavy burden of assessment on those who are tempted. However, this may only be one of many reasons for the marginalisation of legal research in the law school experience. Rather than analyse the reasons for this marginalisation, this article deals with what needs to be done to rectify the situation, and to ensure that the teaching of legal research can be integrated into the law school curriculum in a meaningful way. This requires the use of teaching and learning theory which focuses on student-centred learning. This article outlines a model of legal research. It incorporates five transparent stages which are: analysis, contextualisation, bibliographic skills, interpretation and assessment and application.

An Economic Analysis of the Legal Concept of Trustees' Power of Investment

Authorised trustee status is a legal concept which has economic implications; one of the major implications is that it assists in the direction of investment funds into particular securities and areas of the economy. The concept of authorised trustee status, while attempting to achieve specific outcomes for the beneficiaries of trusts cannot be relied upon to secure these results. Economic analysis of the role of the trustee maintains that this role is one of portfolio manager; a role which is complex but which is explicable in terms of definable procedures and practices. The role of trustee as portfolio manager is one which requires greater financial knowledge than can be assumed is possessed by all trustees. The trustee as portfolio manager is required to maintain a review of decisions make under powers to invest trust assets. A solution to the problem of authorised trustee status is proposed. The solution takes two parts: the first is the adoption of the prudent person approach but with the codification of duties of the trustee and the explicit listing of the factors that a trustee should consider in using the investment powers. The second part of the proposed solution is to link the investment powers of trustees to the best practice features of securities advisers who are now licensed by a regulatory body, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.

Reflecting on ethical and legal issues in wildlife disease

Disease in wildlife raises a number of issues that have not been widely considered in the bioethical literature. However, wildlife disease has major implications for human welfare. The majority of emerging human infectious diseases are zoonotic: that is, they occur in humans by cross-species transmission from animal hosts. Managing these diseases often involves balancing concerns with human health against animal welfare and conservation concerns. Many infectious diseases of domestic animals are shared with wild animals, although it is often unclear whether the infection spills over from wild animals to domestic animals or vice versa. Culling is the standard means of managing such diseases, bringing economic considerations, animal welfare and conservation into conflict. Infectious diseases are also major threatening processes in conservation biology and their appropriate management by culling, vaccination or treatment raises substantial animal ethics issues. One particular issue of great significance in Australia is an ongoing research program to develop genetically modified pathogens to control vertebrate pests including rabbits, foxes and house mice. Release of any self-replicating GMO vertebrate pathogen gives rise to a whole series of ethical questions. We briefly review current Australian legal responses to these problems. Finally, we present two unresolved problems of general importance that are exemplified by wildlife disease. First, to what extent can or should 'bioethics' be broadened beyond direct concerns with human welfare to animal welfare and environmental welfare? Second, how should the irreducible uncertainty of ecological systems be accounted for in ethical decision making?

Quality of Reporting of Observational Longitudinal Research

Observational longitudinal research is particularly useful for assessing etiology and prognosis and for providing evidence for clinical decision making. However, there are no structured reporting requirements for studies of this design to assist authors, editors, and readers. The authors developed and tested a checklist of criteria related to threats to the internal and external validity of observational longitudinal studies. The checklist criteria concerned recruitment, data collection, biases, and data analysis and descriptive issues relevant to study rationale, study population, and generalizability. Two raters independently assessed 49 randomly selected articles describing stroke research published from 1999 to 2003 in six journals: American Journal of Epidemiology, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Stroke, Annals of Neurology, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. On average, 17 of the 33 checklist criteria were reported. Criteria describing the study design were better reported than those related to internal validity. No relation was found between study type (etiologic or prognostic) or word count and quality of reporting. A flow diagram for summarizing participant flow through a study was developed. Editors and authors should consider using a checklist and flow diagram when reporting on observational longitudinal research.

Research Quality, Publications and Impact in Hydraulic Engineering into the 21st Century. Publish or Perish, Commercial versus Open Access, Internet versus Libraries

One of the main objectives of the first International Junior Researcher and Engineer Workshop on Hydraulic Structures is to provide an opportunity for young researchers and engineers to present their research. But a research project is only completed when it has been published and shared with the community. Referees and peer experts play an important role to control the research quality. While some new electronic tools provide further means to disseminate some research information, the quality and impact of the works remain linked with some thorough expert-review process and the publications in international scientific journals and books. Importantly unethical publishing standards are not acceptable and cheating is despicable.

A Research Agenda for Assessing the Potential Contribution of Genomic Medicine to Tobacco Control

This paper identifies research priorities in evaluating the ways in which "genomic medicine"-the use of genetic information to prevent and treat disease-may reduce tobacco-related harm by: (1) assisting more smokers to quit; (2) preventing non-smokers from beginning to smoke tobacco; and (3) reducing the harm caused by tobacco smoking. The method proposed to achieve the first aim is pharmacogenetics", the use of genetic information to optimise the selection of smoking-cessation programmes by screening smokers for polymorphisms that predict responses to different methods of smoking cessation. This method competes with the development of more effective forms of smoking cessation that involve vaccinating smokers against the effects of nicotine and using new pharmaceuticals (such as cannabinoid antagonists and nicotine agonists). The second and third aims are more speculative. They include: screening the population for genetic susceptibility to nicotine dependence and intervening (eg, by vaccinating children and adolescents against the effects of nicotine) to prevent smoking uptake, and screening the population for genetic susceptibility to tobacco-related diseases. A framework is described for future research on these policy options. This includes: epidemiological modelling and economic evaluation to specify the conditions under which these strategies are cost-effective; and social psychological research into the effect of providing genetic information on smokers' preparedness to quit, and the general views of the public on tobacco smoking.

One size doesn't fit all: Research methodologies in a language variation study of Sudanese teens

The research reported here draws on a study of five teenagers from a Dinka-speaking community of Sudanese settling in Australia. A range of factors including language proficiency, social network structure and language attitudes are examined as possible causes for the variability of language use. The results and discussion illustrate how the use of a triangular research approach captured the complexity of the participants' language situation and was critical to developing a full understanding of the interplay of factors influencing the teens' language maintenance and shift in a way that no single method could. Further, it shows that employment of different methodologies allowed for flexibility in data collection to ensure the fullest response from participants. Overall, this research suggests that for studies of non-standard communities, variability in research methods may prove more of a strength that the use of standardised instruments and approaches.

It's all very well, in theory: Theoretical perspectives and their applications in contemporary pedagogical research

Current debates about educational theory are concerned with the relationship between knowledge and power and thereby issues such as who possesses a truth and how have they arrived at it, what questions are important to ask, and how should they best be answered. As such, these debates revolve around questions of preferred, appropriate, and useful theoretical perspectives. This paper overviews the key theoretical perspectives that are currently used in physical education pedagogy research and considers how these inform the questions we ask and shapes the conduct of research. It also addresses what is contested with respect to these perspectives. The paper concludes with some cautions about allegiances to and use of theories in line with concerns for the applicability of educational research to pressing social issues.

Wolbachia: why these bacteria are important to genome research

Intracellular bacteria of the genus Wolbachia were first discovered in mosquitoes in the 1920s. Their superficial similarity to pathogenic rickettsia initially raised interest in them as potential human pathogens. However, injection experiments with mice showed that they were non-pathogenic, and they were subsequently classified as symbionts of insects. Until the 1970s, Wolbachia was considered to infect a limited number of species of mosquitoes. It is now clear that Wolbachia is an extremely common intracellular agent of invertebrates, infecting nearly all the major groups of arthropods and other terrestrial invertebrates. Its wide host range and abundance can be attributed partly to the unusual phenotypes it exerts on the host it infects. These include the induction of parthenogenesis (the production of female offspring from unmated mothers) in certain insects, the feminization of genetic male crustaceans to functional phenotypic females, and the failure of fertilization in hosts when males and females have a different infection status (cytoplasmic incompatibility). All of these phenotypes favor maternal transmission of the intracellular Wolbachia. In the last year, Wolbachia has also been shown to be a widespread symbiont of filarial nematodes. It appears that Wolbachia is needed by the adult worm for normal fertility, indicating that Wolbachia is behaving like a classic mutualist in this case. This discovery exemplifies that the extent of the host range of Wolbachia and its associated phenotypes is still far from fully understood.

Control of vector-borne disease by genetic manipulation of insect populations: technological requirements and research priorities

The possibility of controlling vector-borne disease through the development and release of transgenic insect vectors has recently gained popular support and is being actively pursued by a number of research laboratories around the world. Several technical problems must be solved before such a strategy could be implemented: genes encoding refractory traits (traits that render the insect unable to transmit the pathogen) must be identified, a transformation system for important vector species has to be developed, and a strategy to spread the refractory trait into natural vector populations must be designed. Recent advances in this field of research make it seem likely that this technology will be available in the near future. In this paper we review recent progress in this area as well as argue that care should be taken in selecting the most appropriate disease system with which to first attempt this form of intervention. Much attention is currently being given to the application of this technology to the control of malaria, transmitted by Anopheles gambiae in Africa. While malaria is undoubtedly the most important vector-borne disease in the world and its control should remain an important goal, we maintain that the complex epidemiology of malaria together with the intense transmission rates in Africa may make it unsuitable for the first application of this technology. Diseases such as African trypanosomiasis, transmitted by the tsetse fly, or unstable malaria in India may provide more appropriate initial targets to evaluate the potential of this form of intervention.

Diversity and Emotion: The New Frontiers in Organizational Behavior Research

This article provides a review of recent developments in two topical areas of research in contemporary organizational behavior: diversity and emotions. In the section called “Diversity,”we trace the history of diversity research, explore the definitions and paradigms used in treatments of diversity, and signal new areas of interest. We conclude that organizational behavior in the 21st century is evolving to embrace a more eclectic and holistic view of humans at work. In the section called “Emotions,” we turn our attention to recent developments in the study of emotions in organizations. We identify four major topics: mood theory, emotional labor, affective events theory (AET), and emotional intelligence, and argue that developments in the four domains have significant implications for organizational research, and the progression of the study of organizational behavior. As with the study of diversity, the topic of emotions in the workplace is shaping up as one of the principal areas of development in management thought and practice for the next decade. Finally, we discuss in our conclusion how these two areas are being conceptually integrated, and the implications for management scholarship and research in the contemporary world.