Profile of a business discipline

A brief review of the history of the School of Business at the Phillip Institute of Technology shows that the School has undergone considerable and positive change over its relatively short life, largely in response to professional, academic, socio-economic and political pressures. One such pressure emanates from the current educational rationale of the State Government which includes the rationalisation through amalgamation of higher educational institutions. As a result of this rationale, in late 1991 the Phillip Institute of Technology and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology announced that they would amalgamate in July 1992.

The Phillip Institute of Technology is no stranger to amalgamation. In fact it originated by way of amalgamation when the Preston Institute of Technology amalgamated in 1982 with the State College of Victoria at Coburg. Throughout the period 1988-1991 Phillip Institute of Technology was involved in protracted amalgamation discussions with La Trobe University. These discussions failed, but were followed very quickly by the amalgamation proposal with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

This paper provides a review of the development of the School of Business at the Phillip Institute of Technology prior to the proposed amalgamation with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Last supper

A creative reimagining of the life of Alexander Pearce (1790?-1824), the 'cannibal convict' of Van Diemen's Land, seeking a more historically accurate portrayal than the narrow stereotypes seen in literature, such as the brutish character Gabbett in Marcus Clarke's 1874 novel "For the term of his natural life." The critical exegesis surveys the literary tradition of the convict novel in Australia.

Reinstating indigenous landscape planning curatorship : the Lake Condah restoration project

While contemporary Western planning traditions in Australia talk of the last 200 years of innovation and transposition of European and North American planning traditions upon the Australian landscape, they neglect to mention some 40-50,000 years of Indigenous landscape planning initiatives and practice. The ancestral country of the Gunditjmara people is in the Western District of Victoria focused upon the Lake Condah and Mount Eccles localities. The Gunditjmara had, and continue to have a strong social, cultural and land management and planning presence in the region, in particular linked to environmental engineering initiatives and aquaculture curatorship of eel and fish resources. Archaeological evidence confirms that some 10,000 years of pre-European contact landscape planning practice has been applied by the Gunditjmara to construct resources management infrastructure to service a regional food need as well as a community need. Within contemporary reconciliation discourses, the Gunditjmara have activity sought over the last 25 years the rehabilitation of Lake Condah, which is now coming into fruition, and the restoration of their traditional landscape planning and management responsibilities. This paper reviews the restoration of Indigenous landscape planning and management theory and practice by the Gunditjmara, pointing to significant policy and practice success as well as the need to better appreciate this culturally-attuned and ecologically-responsive approach to landscape planning borne out of generations of knowledge.

Practising research, researching practice : thinking through contemporary dance

Practice as research is now an accepted mode whereby artists can obtain a higher degree in our universities. But what conditions pertain for them there? Daily experiences of the misfit between the university, particularly in its current corporate guise, and the embodied practices upon which I draw have helped me, paradoxically, to clarify certain dance values which can perhaps have wider resonance. These values relate to concepts and ideas that can be found articulated by many practising artists and a number of other thinkers and practitioners including Winnicott, Alexander and Arendt. Focusing on here and now practicalities and issues, such as the nature of the studio floor, this article explores and argues for the importance of aesthetic experience and attention to life as we are living it: to experience, paradox, action, and sensation.

Physical activity in three regional communities in Queensland

Objective
To describe physical activity participation in three Queensland regional communities.

Design
Cross-sectional mail survey of randomly selected residents, stratified by age and sex.

Setting
Esk, Mareeba and Mount Isa.

Participants
1219 (58% women) adults, with a mean age 46.7 (standard deviation 14.7) years.

Main outcome measures
Proportion of people inactive, meeting Australian activity guidelines (a minimum of 150 min week−1 and five sessions week−1) and walking a dog daily; time spent walking and cycling for transport; location and type of recreational physical activities.

Results
Overall, 18% of respondents were inactive, with the highest proportions among women (22.3%) and older adults in Mount Isa (24.3%). The proportion meeting activity guidelines was 47%, with the lowest proportion among women in Mount Isa (40.4%). Although 63% reported owning a dog, only 22% reported walking a dog daily. Few people reported walking or cycling for transport. The most common types of activities were walking, home-based exercise, running/jogging and swimming, and the most common location was at or near home.

Conclusions
Physical activity levels were lower in these regional communities than the state average. The findings indicate a need for physical activity policy and intervention strategies targeting regional and rural areas. This could focus on women and older adults, dog walking and physical activity opportunities in or near the home.

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.

The influence of weather and solar elevation on perceived colour of Blue Lake, Mount Gambier, South Australia

Previous studies of the remarkable seasonal colour changes of Blue Lake, Mount Gambier, South Australia have speculated on the roles of weather and solar elevation in this phenomenon. In this study the influence of weather and solar elevation on apparent colour is examined. Solar elevation and some weather variables were found to have a statistically significant influence, particularly when Blue Lake is undergoing transition from its blue to grey stage. However, the proportion of the overall variation in colour explained by solar elevation and weather was only 16%, so it is concluded that in-lake properties are probably the main determinants of colour.