Our place in the Asian century: Southeast Asia as ‘The Third Way’

The report, for Asialink at the University of Melbourne, reports the findings of the Asialink Commission, which examined Australia's relations with Southeast Asia. It argues that, at a time of shifting power relations in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia take a more multilateral approach by orienting its foreign and trade policies towards Southeast Asia. By committing more attention to the Southeast Asia region, Australia will enhance its relationships with the region's two principal powers, the United States and China.

The house of service: the Gulen movement and Islam's third way

David Tittensor offers a groundbreaking new perspective on the Gülen movement, a Turkish Muslim educational activist network that emerged in the 1960s and has grown into a global empire with an estimated worth of $25 billion. Named after its leader Fethullah Gülen, the movement has established more than 1,000 secular educational institutions in over 140 countries, aiming to provide holistic education that incorporates both spirituality and the secular sciences.

Despite the movement's success, little is known about how its schools are run, or how Islam is operationalized. Drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Tittensor explores the movement's ideo-theology and how it is practiced in the schools. His interviews with both teachers and graduates from Africa, Indonesia, Central Asia, and Turkey show that the movement is a missionary organization, but of a singular kind: its goal is not simply widespread religious conversion, but a quest to recoup those Muslims who have apparently lost their way and to show non-Muslims that Muslims can embrace modernity and integrate into the wider community. Tittensor also examines the movement's operational side and shows how the schools represent an example of Mohammad Yunus's social business model: a business with a social cause at its heart.

The House of Service is an insightful exploration of one of the world's largest transnational Muslim associations, and will be invaluable for those seeking to understand how Islam will be perceived and practiced in the future.

A way to communicate: A new signage system for the Mah Meri Indigenous community

Today, designers use a diverse range of alternative media to have a more efficient form of communication. This research is to investigate the potential of traditionally-inspired contemporary communication design to bridge cultural understandings between and among Malaysians of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Specifically, I propose to design a new signage system in the Mah Meri indigenous community in Malaysia. This is in view that despite the development of the latest media alternatives in use today, the Mah Meri community still lags behind in terms of utilization of these new communication facilities. This project aims to improve social interactions between this community and visitors. The signage system that I propose will help outsiders to navigate in and around the Mah Meri settlements easier and faster because the system provides relevant information in a simple and easy to understand method. Without this signage system visitors will have difficulty in finding the right directions. This work also endeavours, through the notion of creating a new signage system to enrich the cultural identity of the Mah Meri community based on their beliefs in the elements of nature. This, in turn, will create a niche for the community to promote the uniqueness of their culture and identity to outsiders.

On the throughput of two-way relay networks using network coding

 Network coding has shown the promise of significant throughput improvement. In this paper, we study the network throughput using network coding and explore how the maximum throughput can be achieved in a two-way relay wireless network. Unlike previous studies, we consider a more general network with arbitrary structure of overhearing status between receivers and transmitters. To efficiently utilize the coding opportunities, we invent the concept of network coding cliques (NCCs), upon which a formal analysis on the network throughput using network coding is elaborated. In particular, we derive the closed-form expression of the network throughput under certain traffic load in a slotted ALOHA network with basic medium access control. Furthermore, the maximum throughput as well as optimal medium access probability at each node is studied under various network settings. Our theoretical findings have been validated by simulation as well.

Channel estimation for frequency-selective two-way MIMO relay systems

In this paper, we investigate the channel estimation problem for two-way multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay communication systems in frequency-selective fading environments. We propose a superimposed channel training algorithm to estimate the individual channel state information (CSI) of the first-hop and second-hop links for two-way MIMO relay systems with frequency-selective fading channels. In this algorithm, a relay training sequence is superimposed on the received signals at the relay node to assist the estimation of the second-hop channel matrices. The optimal structure of the source and relay training sequences is derived to minimize the meansquared error (MSE) of channel estimation. We also derive the optimal power allocation between the source and relay training sequences. Numerical examples are shown to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Signposts that helped a white activist find her way as a critical ally

As a white researcher setting out on a research journeywith Indigenous people, how could I deal with theparadox of being part of the problem I was seeking toaddress? Awareness of, and desire to minimise, theimpact of my white privilege would not automaticallycancel it out. Activist researchers who have challengedpowerful systems have a history of being condemned andostracised by colonial centres of power. Would it be myfate to be condemned by the colonial centre of power inwhich I found myself; the academy? Would I also becondemned by those not in positions of power? Whatsignposts could show me how to act, what to do and howto undertake the research journey?This paper outlines the intersecting theories I meldedtogether to use as a map for a critical activist allystandpoint when conducting research in IndigenousPrisoner Education in Western Australia. Drawing ontheories of whiteness, power, critical pedagogy, activismand standpoint theory, I attempt to navigate a directionthat allows for the struggle, uncertainties and paradoxesthat are what it means to work critically as an alliedactivist. I explore some of the challenges I face as acritical, activist ally who is exploring Indigenouseducation in Western Australian prisons. I invite audiencediscussion, feedback and reflection on these challenges

On-line dating; is a digital kiss and virtual wink the new way of finding love?

In 2007, I asked for a show of hands of people who ‘might consider online dating as a way of finding a partner’. Not a single hand went up and the lecture theatre was stony silent. The same question, some five years later resulted in a significant show of hands and a buzz of chatter. Something had changed and perceptions around online dating had shifted. Nielsen Research last year found most Australians (51 per cent) had either tried online dating or would consider doing so. RSVP and eHarmony claim to have 2 million members and more than 4 million people have apparently joined RSVP since it was launched 17 years ago. Online dating is experiencing significant growth in Asia as well, with the number of new web services (some, like ‘Muslima’, are tightly focused) growing exponentially. Online dating is a global phenomenon. This paper will use current media studies research literature and data from conversations with university students in Australia and Indonesia to explore how the changing world of online dating is helping/hindering young people as they shape and develop identity, represent themselves in the virtual world and ultimately, how they find love on line.

What is the most effective way of increasing the bioavailability of dietary long chain omega-3 fatty acids-daily vs. weekly administration of fish oil?

The recommendations on the intake of long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC-PUFA) vary from eating oily fish ("once to twice per week") to consuming specified daily amounts of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) ("250-500 mg per day"). It is not known if there is a difference in the uptake/bioavailability between regular daily consumption of supplementsvs. consuming fish once or twice per week. In this study, the bioavailability of a daily dose of n-3 LC-PUFA (Constant treatment), representing supplements, vs. a large weekly dose of n-3 LC-PUFA (Spike treatment), representing consuming once or twice per week, was assessed. Six-week old healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a Constant treatment, a Spike treatment or Control treatment (no n-3 LC-PUFA), for six weeks. The whole body, tissues and faeces were analysed for fatty acid content. The results showed that the major metabolic fate of the n-3 LC-PUFA (EPA+docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) + DHA) was towards catabolism (β-oxidation) accounting for over 70% of total dietary intake, whereas deposition accounted less than 25% of total dietary intake. It was found that significantly more n-3 LC-PUFA were β-oxidised when originating from the Constant treatment (84% of dose), compared with the Spike treatment (75% of dose). Conversely, it was found that significantly more n-3 LC-PUFA were deposited when originating from the Spike treatment (23% of dose), than from the Constant treatment (15% of dose). These unexpected findings show that a large dose of n-3 LC-PUFA once per week is more effective in increasing whole body n-3 LC-PUFA content in rats compared with a smaller dose delivered daily.