Effect of gender on thermal comfort in multicultural public places

The city and the urban environment became extremely important in the daily lives of the increasing number of urban populations across the world. Urban research acknowledges that planning urban places should be responsive to the diversity of population. The aim of this paper is to analyse the results of thermal comfort study in the outdoor urban places. The location has been monitored regarding standard comfort variables: air temperature, humidity, wind speed, and globe temperature. The quantitative assessment of comfort conditions was combined with a questionnaire of pedestrians’ thermal comfort perception. In this paper, the analysis of observed thermal sensation with regard to gender and cultural background concerning the sensitivity of different groups to heat and cold is presented.

Twitter free Iran: an evaluation of Twitter's role in public diplomacy and information operations in Iran's 2009 election crisis

Social media platforms such as Twitter pose new challenges for decision-makers in an international crisis. We examine Twitter’s role during Iran’s 2009 election crisis using a comparative analysis of Twitter investors, US State Department diplomats, citizen activists and Iranian protestors and paramilitary forces. We code for key events during the election’s aftermath from 12 June to 5 August 2009, and evaluate Twitter. Foreign policy, international political economy and historical sociology frameworks provide a deeper context of how Twitter was used by different users for defensive information operations and public diplomacy. Those who believe Twitter and other social network technologies will enable ordinary people to seize power from repressive regimes should consider the fate of Iran’s protestors, some of whom paid for their enthusiastic adoption of Twitter with their lives.

A journey through places: politics of spatial location in the stories of South Asian diaspora in Australia

In this paper, I analyse the post-colonial and post-modern experiences in the light of questions and issues concerning the spatial identities or locations that the diasporans carry. By politics of spatial location, I mean a migrant's positions within power hierarchies created through geographic, historical, political, economic and other socially stratifying factors in the new homeland. This paper is mainly concerned with the theoretical ways in which a shift is accelerated in Australia's literary landscape by the South Asian diasporic writers who produce and cover the dynamics of politics of location in different contexts. It also focuses on South Asian diaspora's widely agreed ‘ability to recreate their cultures in diverse locations’. I conclude that these stories are not just of spaces but also of a promising future for the South Asian diaspora in Australia.

Zeros of Dirichlet L-functions on the critical line with the accuracy of 40000 decimal places

The zeros of Dirichlet L-functions for various moduli and characters are being computed with very high accuracy on a cluster of workstations at Deakin University. This collection is growing to include more zeros (other moduli and characters).

Virtual worlds as pedagogical places: experiences of higher education academics

This thesis explores how academics in higher education experience virtual worlds as pedagogical places. Using the virtual world Second Life™ as a lens, I examine the changing nature of embodiment, pedagogy and place for academics and the significance these changes have for academic identity and practices.