Variability of soil chemistry following irrigation with recycled municipal effluent: a Great Western vineyard case study

In areas of Australia where viticultural operations have been limited by lack of an acceptable irrigation water source, considerable expansion has occurred through the use of recycled wastewater. Despite this rapid expansion, little is known of the potential impacts of the water’s chemical constituents on soil properties, or the long-term sustainability of the vineyards using the water. In order to establish the impacts of drip irrigated recycled wastewater on a vineyard in Great Western, Australia, a study comparing the soils from the vineyard inter-row and row area was undertaken. Chemical and physical properties of the soil with varying distances from the drip emitter were also investigated. During the irrigation season, significant differences between the inter-row and row area were found for several chemical parameters including pH(1:5soil/water) (P<0.001), electrical conductivity (EC1:5) (P<0.001), water-soluble sodium (WS Na+) (P<0.001), and water-soluble chloride (WS Cl-) (P<0.001). This paper will discuss differences observed between soil properties of the inter-row and vine row area, as well as the spatial distribution of solutes under the drip emitter.

`This was a great project!`: reflections on a `successful` mental health promotion project in a remote Indigenous school

Issue addressed: The complexities encountered in an Indigenous community when a white project support team assisted a school (Bwgcolman on Palm Island, Queensland) to implement MindMatters, a centralised, national project aiming to promote the psychosocial health of young Australians through the development of a comprehensive, school- based mental health promotion program. Approach: The MindMatters consortium offered pilot schools curriculum materials, professional development for staff, funding and ongoing support at a local level in return for their participation in the project. The support team flew to the island on two occasions to provide support. Conclusion: Whether or not MindMatters constituted a community project at Bwgcolman is debatable. Nevertheless, the project at Bwgcolman was considered a 'success' by key players since initial aims identified by the school were tangible (eg, professional development, curriculum development) and met in a way that the school could take ownership of. Additionally, behavioural management policy was implemented in a manner that was cognisant of a history of coercive relations with Indigenous communities. So what?: It is important in the telling of the success story at Bwgcolman that even though MindMatters endeavoured to be culturally sensitive, it was nevertheless a centralist mental health promotion program. Future mental health promotion initiatives need to be aware that the approach of the support team in attempting to hand back some community control at the local level may have played a role in the school succeeding.

Alexander the Great, the dahlia, and the tortoise

Some of the problems of establishing the cause of the death of Alexander the Great are like the attempts to find causes other than hysteria for Anna O.'s symptoms. The more general problem of using plausibility as a criterion of the truth of such reconstructions are illustrated by the arguments embedded in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.

Single transferable vote with Borda elimination: proportional representation, moderation, quasi-chaos and stability

Modifying single transferable vote (STV) by removing candidates according to their Borda scores creates a new vote counting system (STV-B) that is not quasi-chaotic, results in proportional representation, and promotes the election of moderate candidates. Dummett, M.A.E. [1997. Principles of Electoral Reform. Oxford University, New York] noted quasi-chaos in STV and proposed the “Quota/Borda system” (QBS) as a solution. STV-B and QBS retain proportional representation from STV, permit some influence on candidate selection to occur between voting blocks thereby promoting moderate results, and are much more stable than STV when subjected to small changes in voter preferences. Under STV-B, and not QBS, a minority that shares some preferences may elect a candidate even if the minority is not a solid coalition.

Neoconservatism, US-China conflict, and Australia's 'great and powerful friends' dilemma

Following its time-honoured 'great and powerful friends' foreign policy tradition, Australia has been cultivating close ties simultaneously with the United States and China. Yet, as a rivalry between the two powers apparently looms large, Australia faces an acute dilemma. While the rise of China and the question of Taiwan are often cited as main causes of US-China discord, this article argues that the American neoconservative policy on China, underpinned by a belief in both military strength and moral clarity, is integral to this growing competition and is, by extension, partly responsible for the emergence of Australia's predicament. To avoid such a difficult choice, the article suggests that Australia should strive to curb the policy influence of neoconservatism both in the United States and at home by pursuing a more independent foreign policy, making clear its strategic postures on US-China relations, and helping establish a trilateral strategic forum between Australia, the United States, and China.

Are employment effects of gender discrimination important? Some evidence from Great Britain

Interpreting the unexplained component of the gender wage gap as indicative of discrimination, the empirical literature to date has tended to ignore the potential impact wage discrimination may have on employment. Employment effects may arise if discrimination lowers the female offered wage and the labour supply curve is upward sloping. The empirical analysis employs the British Household Panel Study and finds evidence of both wage and associated employment effects.

Of great love and immense hate: the ambivalence of the other in a local/global school

In recent times, and in times of insurgent globalisation, modern notions of identity and with them, conceptions of essential and primordially defined difference seem to have fallen apart. Identity is understood as post-modern, a ‘moveable feast’ of ever-in-process, negotiated differences. The examination of the material and conceptual terms and conditions that position these logics otherwise suggests that these arguments remain tied within conceptions of ourselves made through the ambivalent conceptions of others. In this paper, I trace these paradoxical relations as they are represented in a particular local Melbourne school at each end of a decade and at a time of increasing demographic change and global transformation. Teachers and parents understood and defined their identities and the identities of others in ways that were increasingly fragmented, changing and complex. Beneath these changing patterns, they continued to define others as different and as not us in ways that were ambivalent and extreme. These negotiations took place differently in recent years as the definitions of essential notions of identity changed and became more complex to define. Nevertheless, they continued as ambivalent stories of otherness that transversed the tortuous spectrum between orientalism and nativism speculated upon in post-colonial writings.

Beyond the gap: great liberation through architectural design teaching in the bardo?

Tibetan Buddhists articulate the bardo as the gap that exists between one fundamental stage of existence and another. Its most common usage is to describe the interval between death and reincarnation, but more literally, bar means 'in-between' and do 'island' or 'mark'. The 'bardo experience' is thus any one in which the 'past situation has just occurred and the future situation has not yet manifested itself. Instruction in architectural design attempts to provide guidance in the process of guiding students across the bardo from intention, analysis, and theorisation, to the creation of architectural representations and products. As such the architectural academy operates within a history of methods and codifications which try to quantify and bring a level of certainty to this process.
Recently however, there has been a questioning of traditionally accepted ways of ‘knowing’ the world, which has manifested in challenges to received ‘truths’ and increasing interest in other, previously marginalised histories and knowledges. The critiques that flow from this questioning contend that objective cultural ‘truths’ are simply the discursive result of the dominance of particular ways of perceiving the world. The practice of architecture has not been immune from this. The field has become a subject, for instance, of sociological, feminist and postcolonial critiques. However, their bearing on the pedagogy of composing architecture remains fragmentary and contested. My interest in this subject is derived from a desire to use the opportunities presented by contemporary cultural shifts to develop design-based architectural research that will assist future architects to operate in the uncertainties of an irreducibly plural global community. This paper will explore some ways in which academic research might bear upon the design studio’s negotiation of architectural bardos.

The death and life of the great Australian suburb

Inspired by the approach to understanding, critiquing and rebuilding both planning and the urban environment that Jane Jacobs did so well in her Death and Life of Great American Cities, this paper begins with the personal experience of living in one suburban neighborhood in Melbourne, Victoria. Particular elements which make this both a positive and negative experience are then connected to the geographical, planning and urban studies literature to offer a broader context in which better suburbs can be planned, developed and activated.

Projections of the future path of the gender wage gap in Great Britain

Purpose – The paper attempts to project the future trend of the gender wage gap in Great Britain up to 2031.
Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analysis utilises the British Household Panel Study Wave F together with Office for National Statistics (ONS) demographic projections. The methodology combines the ONS projections with assumptions relating to the evolution of educational attainment in order to project the future distribution of human capital skills and consequently the future size of the gender wage gap.
Findings – The analysis suggests that gender wage convergence will be slow, with little female progress by 2031 unless there is a large rise in returns to female experience.
Originality/value – The paper has projected the pattern of male and female skill acquisition together with the associated trend in wages up to 2031.