Understanding sustainable policy paths and their influence on the built environment

Sustainable development is an international problem as it affects everyone everywhere.Up until recently, it has been pursued on a national scale leading from a confused understanding of sustainability from the international community. The various international summits and meetings on the topic have allowed establishment of general guidelines and attitudes that need to be taken by national policy writers. Because of the lack of understanding on the topic, as it encompasses many aspects of social, economic and environmental behaviours, there has been a general individual interpretation of these ideas that has then shaped national policies. These policies differ in nature and therefore must be analysed to identify these differences and their implications on the built environment. The Melbourne 2030 plan and the London plan are two of the leading and highly mentioned policies stemming from the advanced nature of the respective economies. These nations’ polices have implications that trickle down to the very core of building design and lead stakeholders in certain directions as opposed to others. The research attempts to highlight the paths taken by these different nations and what influence this has had on the overall state of sustainable development in the localised communities respectively. Analysing the state of sustainable development ideas from the international, to the national and down to the local policy strategies will give a clear picture of the state of policy direction in the localised context. Looking then at two buildings in these contexts identifies how policy can play a major role in shaping sustainable design related outcomes. The research finds that the UK and London plan is well-structured and pays close attention to the built environment while there is much less evidence of this in the Australia and Melbourne policy plans. This can be seen in the overall outcome of the chosen building case studies where the chosen London building shows more promise in its sophisticated use of technologies to achieve a highly sustainable building as compared to the chosen Melbourne building. It has been suggested that because of the differences in rating tools and their applications, there may be problems in successfully comparing two buildings in different contexts. This gives rise to the question of global sustainability where it is understood that sustainability is a global problem and cannot be tackled on a fragmented basis. This then may suggest that the international stage of sustainable understanding should be holistic in that it should be tackled at a global stage instead of the current fragmented national stage.

The demise of Bicycle George : a life of crime

This short piece looks at the life of a murderer, George Blunderfield (alias Arthur Oldring), who was hanged in Melbourne in 1918. Melburnians, or visitors to the city, may have seen his image on the wall at the Old Melbourne Gaol. Blunderfield's life started out normally
enough, and then descended into horrific crime. His story includes bicycle racing, escape from an island prison, and then recruitment for service with the Australian Imperial Forces in wartime Victoria. In the last years of his life, Blunderfield wreaked havoc from the western to the eastern coasts of Australia. This in turn had a dramatic effect on his immediate family, which is also detailed here. This story draws on the archives at PROV as well as on State Records Office of Western Australia material, with help from Ms Jean
Bellamy, a distant relative of George Blunderfield.

An assessment of existing bicycle advisory pavement marking on urban roads

Bicycle advisory treatments are used to advise road users of the potential presence of cyclists and of the location where cyclists may be expected to ride on a road. They include pavement markings, warning signs, guide signs, and as such have no regulatory function. The most common type of bicycle advisory pavement markings is the shared lane marking. Other forms of bicycle advisory pavement marking have also been trialled and used in several local jurisdictions. The bicycle awareness zone is an example of such facility which has been trialled and used in southeast Queensland, Australia since the late 1990s. A bicycle awareness zone is similar to shared lane marking in principle but differs in the type of logo and, in some cases, location of its placement on the road. This study assesses the operational and safety issues at three bicycle awareness zone sites by analysing video-assisted observation data collected in 2011 by Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, Australia. Of the several applications of bicycle awareness zones, this study only covers a particular application where the centre of the bicycle symbol is placed exactly over the parking edge line. Unlike previous studies, which mostly covered before-and-after evaluations of bicycle advisory pavement markings, the focus of this study is to assess whether the placement of bicycle awareness zone symbols has been successful. The aggregated results from video-assisted observational data show that the cyclists did not always track themselves over the centre of the symbols. Rather, both the cyclists' lateral tracking positions and road user interactions varied with the widths of kerbside parallel parking space. Since the bicycle awareness zone symbols are not positioned on the cyclists' desired line of ride on some roads, their operational effectiveness and safety value are questioned.

Paths of professional development in music therapy: training, professional identity and practice

Music therapy is listed as a profession in the EU Regulated Professions Database. This has assisted the next steps towards recognition in relevant countries and regions. The author’s experience as an academic leader in music therapy training over more than two decades is used to reflect on the profession of music therapy within Europe through interrogation of concepts underpinning professional identity, training, and professional practice. Potential tensions between recognition and regulation of healthcare professions are presented and discussed. As all practice takes place in context, balancing training needs between techniques and skills, systemic national and regional policy, and institutional knowledge is crucial. Achieving this balance is not easy but is key to successful growth of practitioner knowledge, seeding student’s curiosity about context and systems from the dawn of training.

Does gender moderate the subjective measurement and structural paths in behavioural and cognitive aspects of gambling disorder in treatment-seeking adults?

Introduction
Gender differences have been observed in the pathogenesis of gambling disorder and gambling related urge and cognitions are predictive of relapse to problem gambling. A better understanding of these mechanisms concurrently may help in the development of more directed therapies.
Methods
We evaluated gender effects on behavioural and cognitive paths to gambling disorder from self-report data. Participants (N = 454) were treatment-seeking problem gamblers on first presentation to a gambling therapy service between January 2012 and December 2014. We firstly investigated if aspects of gambling related urge, cognitions (interpretive bias and gambling expectancies) and gambling severity were more central to men than women. Subsequently, a full structural equation model tested if gender moderated behavioural and cognitive paths to gambling severity.
Results
Men (n = 280, mean age = 37.4 years, SD = 11.4) were significantly younger than women (n = 174, mean age = 48.7 years, SD = 12.9) (p < 0.001). There was no gender difference in conceptualising latent constructs of problem gambling severity, gambling related urge, interpretive bias and gambling expectancies. The paths for urge to gambling severity and interpretive bias to gambling severity were stronger for men than women and statistically significant (p < 0.001 and p = 0.004, respectively) whilst insignificant for women (p = 0.164 and p = 0.149, respectively). Structural paths for gambling expectancies to gambling severity were insignificant for both men and women.
Conclusion
This study detected an important signal in terms of theoretical mechanisms to explaining gambling disorder and gender differences. It has implications for treatment development including relapse prevention.

A damage accumulation model for complex strain paths: prediction of ductile failure in metals

The characterisation of strain path with respect to the directionality of defect formation is discussed. The criterion of non-monotonic strain path is used in the scalar and tensor models for damage accumulation and recovery. Comparable analysis of models and their verification has been obtained by simulation of crack initiation in a two-stage metal forming operation consisting of wire drawing followed by constrained upsetting.