Traversing the international rainbow of academia and architectural practice

In the context of contemporary tertiary education immersed as such in internationalisation strategies and internationalised curricula, the cultivation and promotion of international awareness in Australian graduates can be expected to lead to desirable lifelong attributes. Consideration of the need to be prepared for a globalised professional and cultural climate is integral to sustaining and growing the future and the fortunes of many. For the architectural community, the combined phenomena of globalisation and internationalisation strategies herald implications for the education and professional preparation of architects which traverse academia and architectural practice. This paper presents the case for exploring potential benefits of establishing closer links between academia and architecture practice, discusses the relevance of international student practice experience for the twenty first century and looks at its role within an intemationalised curriculum in preparing graduates for the future. Analysis of a survey of work experience as a component of Australian architecture courses is used to gauge the extent of current programs that seek to integrate the academic curriculum with practice experience, and the Deakin study (a work in progress) of architecture students in international practice contexts is presented as a vehicle for exploring the degree to which the combination of professional practice education and cultural experience may be beneficial to architecture students, academia and the profession more generally.

International encyclopedia of men and masculinities

Offers a comprehensive guide to the current state of scholarship about men, masculinities and gender around the world. Michael Flood from La Trobe University, and Bob Pease from Deakin University.

Demystifying the supply of capital and labour in a nation’s economic chain

Public capital has been considered to be the wheels of economic activity in a nation or region. The reverse effect, the contribution of economic growth to public capital, is also worth analysis. The non-structural vector auto-regression (VAR) approach is performed for the Australian economy using yearly data for the 1960-2008 period. The optimal lag is investigated to build the VAR model that is then tested for stability. The impulse response function is further employed to examine the response of one economic variable to the innovation of others and to determine the lagged terms for the maximum absolute value of the other variables’ responses. The results will provide historical evidence for the federal and regional governments of Australia to estimate the effects of these production variables, in particular, the effect of infrastructure spending on the gross domestic product.

Industry and university perspectives of work integrated learning Programs in ICT Degrees

The ICT disciplines in Australian universities have a strong tradition of industry engagement in curriculum design and implementation particularly through work integrated learning programs. Work integrated learning (WIL) includes industry placements, internships, industry projects and other methods and approaches that aim to enhance the professional practice capabilities of students. There are various stakeholders involved in WIL programs including universities, students, government and industry, each with their own motivations and expectations. Whilst all stakeholders agree on the benefits to students, there are conflicting interests that jeopardise further development and innovation in WIL. This paper reports on surveys of industry and university stakeholders in order to understand representative views and current practices. The findings confirm a lack of a shared understanding between stakeholders regarding roles, responsibilities, models and benefits. The paper concludes with several recommendations regarding the adoption of an outcomes-based approach to the design and implementation of work integrated learning programs that will encourage innovation and quality in WIL.

The First International Conference of the Nobel Women's Initiative : women redefining peace in the Middle East and beyond

The Nobel Women’s Initiative (NWI) was formed in August 2006. It was a response to a suggestion by Iranian laureate Shirin Ebadi that women recipients of the Peace Prize should collectively endeavor to use the power and influence concomitant with being Nobel laureates to advance the cause of women internationally, by bringing their voices and experiences to the direct attention of the international community and media sources. NWI represents an attempt to help fill a gap that mars the present system of international relations. Over the past half-century, global standards have developed in earnest. One of these standards is women’s equality with men. Despite the codification of this precept in international law, gender discrimination against women remains a globally unresolved problem. Women are seriously underrepresented at local, national, regional, and international levels of governance, and their voices and experiences remain marginalized from negotiations toward conflict resolution and the formation of viable democratic institutions.

The effect of exercise and nutrition on the mechanostat

In this review, we discuss the effect of increased and decreased loading and nutrition deficiency on muscle and bone mass and strength (and bone length and architecture) independently and combined. Both exercise and nutrition are integral components of the mechanostat model but both have distinctly different roles. Mechanical strain imparted by muscle action is responsible for the development of the external size and shape of the bone and subsequently the bone strength. In contrast, immobilization during growth results in reduced growth in bone length and a loss of bone strength due to large losses in bone mass (a result of endosteal resorption in cortical bone and trabecular thinning) and changes in geometry (bone shafts do not develop their characteristic shape but rather develop a rounded default shape). The use of surrogate measures for peak muscle forces acting on bone (muscle strength, size, or mass) limits our ability to confirm a cause-and-effect relationship between peak muscle force acting on bone and changes in bone strength. However, the examples presented in this review support the notion that under adequate nutrition, exercise has the potential to increase peak muscle forces acting on bone and thus can lead to a proportional increase in bone strength. In contrast, nutrition alone does not influence muscle or bone in a dose-dependent manner. Muscle and bone are only influenced when there is nutritional deficiency – and in this case the effect is profound. Similar to immobilization, the immediate effect of malnutrition is a reduction in longitudinal growth. More specifically, protein and energy malnutrition results in massive bone loss due to endosteal resorption in cortical bone and trabecular thinning. Unlike loading however, there is indirect evidence that severe malnutrition when associated with menstrual dysfunction can shift the mechanostat set point upward, thus leading to less bone accrual for a given amount of bone strain.

Effect of composition and austenite deformation on the transformation characteristics of low-carbon and ultralow-carbon microalloyed steels

Deformation dilatometry has been used to simulate controlled hot rolling followed by controlled cooling of a group of low- and ultralow-carbon microalloyed steels containing additions of boron and/or molybdenum to enhance hardenability. Each alloy was subjected to simulated recrystallization and nonrecrystallization rolling schedules, followed by controlled cooling at rates from 0.1 °C/s to about 100 °C/s, and the corresponding continuous-cooling-transformation (CCT) diagrams were constructed. The resultant microstructures ranged from polygonal ferrite (PF) for combinations of slow cooling rates and low alloying element contents, through to bainitic ferrite accompanied by martensite for fast cooling rates and high concentrations of alloying elements. Combined additions of boron and molybdenum were found to be most effective in increasing steel hardenability, while boron was significantly more effective than molybdenum as a single addition, especially at the ultralow carbon content. Severe plastic deformation of the parent austenite (>0.45) markedly enhanced PF formation in those steels in which this microstructural constituent was formed, indicating a significant effective decrease in their hardenability. In contrast, in those steels in which only nonequilibrium ferrite microstructures were formed, the decreases in hardenability were relatively small, reflecting the lack of sensitivity to strain in the austenite of those microstructural constituents forming in the absence of PF.

The association between major depressive disorder, use of antidepressants and bone mineral density (BMD) in men.

OBJECTIVE: Both depression and use of antidepressants have been negatively associated with bone mineral density (BMD) but mainly in studies among postmenopausal women. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate these relationships in men. METHODS: Between 2006 and 2011, 928 men (aged 24-98 years) from the Geelong Osteoporosis Study completed a comprehensive questionnaire, clinical measurements and had BMD assessments at the forearm, spine, total hip and total body. Major depressive disorder (MDD) was identified using a structured clinical interview (SCID-I/NP). The cross-sectional associations between BMD and both MDD and antidepressant use were analyzed using multivariable linear regression. RESULTS: Of the study population, 84 (9.1%) men had a single MDD episode, 50 (5.4%) had recurrent episodes and 65 (7.0%) were using antidepressants at the time of assessment. Following adjustments, recurrent MDD was associated with lower BMD at the forearm and total body (-6.5%, P=0.033 and -2.5%, P=0.033, respectively compared to men with no history of MDD), while single MDD episodes were associated with higher BMD at the total hip (+3.4%, P=0.030). Antidepressant use was associated with lower BMD only in lower-weight men (<75-110 kg depending on bone site). CONCLUSIONS: Both depression and use of antidepressants should be taken into account as possible risk factors for osteoporosis in men.

International education, the formation of capital and graduate employment : Chinese accounting graduates’ experiences of the Australian labour market

Since the late 1970s, international education has steadily gained in popularity in China.An emerging middle class seeks to strengthen its position in China’s rapidly stratifyingsociety under its socialist market economy with the shift from wealth creation for all towealth concentration for a few. Previously, a foreign qualification was considered apassport to success in either the host or home country’s labour market. But the growingpopularity of overseas study, coupled with the massification of the Chinese highereducation, means Chinese international students are seeking to distinguish themselvesin an increasingly competitive global labour market. This longitudinal study of internationalgraduates, backgrounded by Australian employer perceptions, examines thejourneys of 13 Chinese accounting graduates as they attempt to transition from anAustralian university into the Australian labour market. Bourdieu’s thinking tools offield, capital, disposition and habitus are utilised to consider how different cultural,social and linguistic capitals inform employer understandings of ‘employability’ meantChinese accounting graduates significantly adjusted their life goals.

A comparative study of construction industry size and structure between the UK and Australia and the significance of industry fragmentation

While comparing both the size and structure between the UK and Australian construction industries, this study reveals that the UK construction industry is about two and a half times larger than the Australian construction industry, and both industries are dominated by the proportion of small firms. The issue of fragmentation is characteristic of the construction industries in these two countries, and beyond. This study then develops a self recruiting-subletting cost indifference point model to explain why fragmentation occurs. Although the high proportion of small firms in the construction industry has been criticised as it prevents the exploitation of economies of scale, the self recruiting-subletting cost indifference point model theoretically proposes that subletting is usually profitable for construction firms. Thus the size distribution of the construction industry has a propensity to skew towards small firms.