World's smallest business community : the parsis of India

The Parsis of India are perhaps the world’s smallest ethnic community whose entrepreneurial contribution to India has far exceeded their size in numbers. This paper traces the rise of the Parsis as entrepreneurs in Indian society from the 16th century in Surat and later Mumbai to their significant presence today amongst India’s major business houses with household names such as the Tatas, Wadias and Godrej.

An energy-autonomous home in Melbourne - myth or reality?

Energy-autonomous buildings are possible. Completely energy self-sufficient houses can be found, for example, in Europe. If it is possible to cover the entire energy demand of a household from only renewable energy generated on site in a central European climate, what is required in a temperate climate, typical of southern Australia? This paper describes an investigation to broadly assess the technical, practical and financial feasibility of energy-autonomy for a hypothetical suburban house in Melbourne, Victoria. The findings firstly demonstrate the importance of reducing energy demand by using passive solar building strategies and energy efficient appliances to reduce demand to a reasonable level. The paper then discusses four scenarios and combinations of technologies to meet this reduced demand. The three scenarios which give energy autonomy increase the capital cost of a typical house by between 15% and 3%, and there would be insufficient roof area to accommodate the solar technologies required in two of the scenarios investigated. It is therefore concluded that while the goal of energy autonomy is technically feasible, it is not likely to be financially or practically acceptable. A fourth scenario of an energy-exporting house was also investigated and is shown to be a much more attractive option.

Migrancy, modernity and cultural sustainability

Australian Home Beautiful’s October 1960 Edition was devoted to the modernisation of the Victorian and Edwardian-era houses of Australian cities’ inner suburbs. One of the articles inside was entitled ‘Terrace Houses are Common Problem’, in which the magazine’s architectural consultant Leonard A. Bullen suggested; “With houses of this type, the multiplicity of embellishments that appear in almost every possible place is irritating to eyes that have become accustomed to the cleaner and less ornamented lines of modern houses” and “The first necessity is to get rid of the superfluous decoration and emphasise horizontal features.” (Bullen 1960, 31). The post-World War Two period was a time when Australia’s traditional imagining of itself was confronted by both popular modernity and a diversity of new migrant cultures and ways of thinking. In a contemporary environment that theoretically celebrates diversity and creates audiences for increasingly multiplying expressions of culture and history, perhaps it is time that 1950s and ‘60s alterations to old houses were re-imagined as intrinsic elements in Australia’s cultural landscape. This supposition will be discussed in relation to the United Nations’ 2002 Kanazawa Resolutions’ definition of the relationship between culture and sustainability as ‘dialogical coexistence’ (Nadarajah and Yamamoto 2007).

A panel regression method for quantifying the convergence of house prices

The convergence among house prices has attracted much attention from researchers. Previous research mainly utilised a time-series regression method to investigate convergences of house prices, which may ignore the heterogeneity of houses across cities. This research developed a panel regression method, by which the heterogeneity of house prices can be captured. Seemingly unrelated regression estimators were also adapted to deal with the contemporary correlations across cities. Investigation of the convergence among house prices in the Australian capital cities was carried out by using the developed panel regression method. Results suggested that house prices converge in Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart but diverge in Darwin.

Dynamic privacy assessment in a smart house environment using multimodal sensing

Surveillance applications in private environments such as smart houses require a privacy management policy if such systems are to be accepted by the occupants of the environment. This is due to the invasive nature of surveillance, and the private nature of the home. In this article, we propose a framework for dynamically altering the privacy policy applied to the monitoring of a smart house based on the situation within the environment. Initially the situation, or context, within the environment is determined; we identify several factors for determining environmental context, and propose methods to quantify the context using audio and binary sensor data. The context is then mapped to an appropriate privacy policy, which is implemented by applying data hiding techniques to control access to data gathered from various information sources. The significance of this work lies in the examination of privacy issues related to assisted-living smart house environments. A single privacy policy in such applications would be either too restrictive for an observer, for example, a carer, or too invasive for the occupants. We address this by proposing a dynamic method, with the aim of decreasing the invasiveness of the technology, while retaining the purpose of the system.

Creative suburbs? How women, design and technology renew Australian suburbs

Australian suburbs have long been subjected to negative stereotyping – as aesthetic wastelands, politically conservative, socially isolated and environmentally rapacious – as the last places you would expect creativity. A critical engagement with this discourse and an examination of older as well as some newer suburbs unsettles these characterizations. A broad definition of ‘creativity’ directs attention to what was occurring in 20th century Australian suburbs – with a creative domestic economy and modernist architecture providing strong counters to their negative portrayal. Further, as a sample of Melbourne’s contemporary master-planned estates will illustrate, at least some of this city’s houses and neighbourhoods are at the leading edge of architectural innovation, community building and environmental sustainability – creatively developing alternatives to the stereotypical suburb.

Mobile technology platforms for flexible access to information resources : considerations in the use of ebook readers, smart phones, netbooks and iPads

Smart phones are everywhere, people are taking eBook readers on holiday, the iPad has queues of people wanting to buy one, and some netbooks can fit in a pocket. The technology is attractive and increasingly affordable – how can it help an individual in their access to and use of texts, journals, databases, clinical sources, the web and day-to-day information? The Library has been investigating and trialling mobile devices during 2010, and has received interesting feedback from staff and students on the effectiveness of the technology in the University and personal environments. Each device has its strengths and weaknesses depending on the needs of the individual or activity it is supporting – productivity, research, study, clinical or recreational. The presentation will explore these issues along with some of the practical implications at Deakin, and international experiences in academic environments.

Price dynamics, foreign exchange and anticipated shocks in a tourism economy

Using a dynamic model of an open monetary economy, this paper examines the effects of tourism-related anticipated shocks on goods prices and foreign exchange reserves. Foreign tourists consume mainly non-traded goods in holiday destinations, converting them into exportable goods. This gives rise to a tourism terms-of-trade effect that affects the accumulation of foreign exchange. Announcements of anticipated events bring tourist visits forward, resulting in an initial under-adjustment or an over-adjustment in the prices of the non-traded goods when the tourism terms-of-trade effect is positive or negative. This leads to an increase or a decrease in foreign reserves in the long run.

Tax policy when countries compete for third market exports

We examine the welfare and other consequences of tax policy in a third market export model where duopolists located in two countries compete in prices. With tax competition between governments, we allow for welfare-maximizing governments in the two countries to delegate tax setting responsibility to policy-makers who have different objectives than the governments. The unique equilibrium in the tax competition environment involves both governments delegating tax setting responsibility to tax revenue-maximizing policy-makers. This equilibrium yields higher welfare for both countries than the outcome when the governments delegate to welfare-maximizing policy-makers. The paper also compares tax competition with tax harmonization and shows that when the entire export market is served, tax harmonization improves the welfare of the country that houses the low cost firm, while the other country may be immiserized.