Caste, land and livestock holdings in India: an analysis

A ban on grazing, particularly by small ruminants, forms an important component of the Forest Policy and Joint Forest Management arrangements in India. Some caste groups keep larger number of small ruminants than the others. It is considered as a social trait that is sought to be corrected through extension efforts. This paper analyses the livestock structure of households by using a model of household behaviour based on profit maximisation. It shows that landholding plays a crucial role in livestock structure of households and because certain caste groups have smaller landholding they tend to keep small ruminants that can feed on the common lands and forest areas. The policy of a ban or restriction on grazing adversely affects such caste groups who therefore come to resent it.

Re-mapping class and caste consciousness: short narratives of South Asian diaspora in Australia

Thanks to Bollywood, a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) is predominantly imagined, back home in India, as super-rich, fully westernized in manners and doing India proud in foreign lands. One reason for this as explained by renowned Bollywood producer-director Late Yash Chopra, in his address at the first Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Expatriate Indians Day) in 2003, is that as a director he is also working as a ‘historian’ and carrying on his shoulders the ‘moral responsibility [ … ] to depict India [and the Indian Diaspora] at its best’. In this regard, Ghassan Hage also notes that the ‘last thing’ the migrants (particularly men) would like to share with their families back home is shocking stories about racism, discrimination or prejudices that they may have experienced in public or the workplace. Such a revelation would obviously be followed by ‘why did you make us suffer and move to the end of the world just to get demeaned and insulted?’ Hage further notes that therefore the migrants’ familial and class experiences, be it in films, literature or even some sociological studies, are often ‘portrayed as a positive experience’ and this is ‘how the whole migratory enterprise continues to legitimise itself’'. It could be argued that this is one of the reasons the alleged ‘racist’ attacks against Indian students received so much attention in the Indian media. It was not just discrimination but the notion of discrimination and second class treatment (based on skin colour and origin) against the revered and much envied diasporic Indian that created such a media furor in India.

Status, caste, and market in a changing Indian village

When social and economic conditions change dramatically, status hierarchies in place for hundreds of years can crumble as marketization destabilizes once rigid boundaries. This study examines such changes in symbolic power through an ethnographic study of a village in North India. Marketization and accompanying privatization do not create an independent sphere where only money matters, but due to a mix of new socioeconomic motives, they produce new social obligations, contests, and solidarities. These findings call into question the emphasis in consumer research on top-down class emulation as an essential characteristic of status hierarchies. This study offers insights into sharing as a means of enacting and reshaping symbolic power within a status hierarchy. A new order based on markets and consumption is disrupting the old order based on caste. As the old moral order dissolves, so do the old status hierarchies, obligations, dispositions, and norms of sharing that held the village together for centuries. In the microcosm of these gains and losses, we may see something of the broader social and economic changes taking place throughout India and other industrializing countries.

Waste production simulation for building deconstruction projects

The recently erected concept of building deconstruction has significantly promoted building components and materials reuse and recycling where building is carefully dismantled into reusable parts. Current research and practices of building deconstruction mainly focus on issues of process before and during the deconstruction such as hazardous material detection, deconstruction design and deconstruction technology. The issues after the deconstruction project are rarely considered. Waste reuse and recycling are enabled through deconstruction yet not practically achieved, and especially the demands of waste building components and materials are hard to appear and match the actual waste production in a building deconstruction project. To deal with this awkward situation, the waste production needs to be conducted in a demand-oriented way. It needs to be thoughtfully planned and scheduled prior to the physical deconstruction as an essential portion of deconstruction project planning and scheduling. Furthermore, the relationship between waste production and structural characteristics of the building creates a serious consideration affecting a deconstruction plan. As a result, a waste production simulation will facilitate waste reuse and recycling in a deconstruction project. It serves as a crucial section of deconstruction planning and design. This research aims to describe the concept of waste production simulation and investigate various management and technical aspects of waste production simulation for building deconstruction projects.

Financial, family, and social factors impacting on cardiac rehabilitation attendance

Background
Attendance in phase 2 cardiac rehabilitation program after acute myocardial infarction is poor.

Objective
To identify and explore the demographic factors that influence peoples’ decisions to attend cardiac rehabilitation programs.

Methods
A descriptive-interpretive design was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 people post infarction in Victoria, Australia after their first scheduled appointment to attend outpatient cardiac rehabilitation. The interview transcripts were thematically analysed.

Results
The perceived relevance of cardiac rehabilitation related to the context of people’s lives, namely their financial, family and social situation, and how important program outcomes were seen to be relevant to this context.

Conclusion
The findings of this study suggest that there are a proportion of people unlikely to attend outpatient cardiac rehabilitation programs following an AMI despite encouragement to attend. It may be unrealistic to aim for 100% referral and uptake into cardiac rehabilitation programs and therefore an inappropriate endpoint by which to evaluate such programs.

Letters to a young Catholic, by George Weigel

With the Twentieth World Youth Day in Cologne on 16-21 August, this year, scheduled to be the first overseas visit of Pope Benedict XVI, it is timely to consider the latest book from George Weigel, (perhaps best known for his Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II) in which he composes 14 letters specifically aimed at young Catholics, who, like many of their older counterparts, may well be wondering what it means to be a Catholic today.

Changing journalism for the likely present

Media convergence and newsroom integration have become industry buzzwords as the ideas spread through newsrooms around the world. In November 2007 Fairfax Media in Australia introduced the newsroom of the future model, as its flagship newspapers moved into a purpose-built newsroom in Sydney. News Ltd, the country’s next biggest media group, is also embracing multi-media forms of reporting. What are the implications of this development for journalism? This paper examines changes in the practice of journalism in Australia and around the world. It attempts to answer the question: How does the practice of journalism need to change to prepare not for the future, but for the likely present.

Early in November 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Sun-Herald moved into a new building dubbed the ‘newsroom of the future’ at One Darling Island Road in Sydney’s Darling Harbour precinct. Phil McLean, at the time Fairfax Media’s group executive editor and the man in charge of the move, said three quarters of the entire process involved getting people to ‘think differently’ – that is, to modify their mindset so they could work with multi-media.

The new newsroom symbolised the culmination of a series of major changes at Fairfax. In August 2006 the traditional newspaper company, John Fairfax Ltd, changed its name to Fairfax Media to reflect its multi-platform future. In March 2007 Fairfax launched Australia’s first online-only daily publication in Queensland, brisbanetimes.com.au. In May 2007 Fairfax completed its merger with Rural Press to become the biggest media company in Australasia, with annual revenues of about $2.5 billion and market capitalisation of about $7 billion. Two months later Fairfax got even bigger when it acquired at least one radio station in all Australian capital cities plus television studios when it bought Southern Cross Broadcasting. Fairfax is expected to bid for one of the two digital television licences made available by the changes to media ownership laws promulgated in May 2007.

The aim in moving Fairfax from a print to a multi-platform company was to reach as large an audience as possible. ‘We have a total readership in print of over 4 million per day and online of over 5 million per month’, CEO David Kirk said at the time of the Rural Press merger. ‘Our brand of quality, independent, balanced journalism will serve and support more communities than ever’ (Kirk 2007). A few months earlier chairman Ron Walker had written in the company’s annual report: ‘Fairfax is evolving into a truly digital media company’ (2006: 2). Within five years Fairfax would be a significantly bigger Internet company that distributed its content ‘over more media’, Kirk wrote in the same report (2006: 5).

Kirk developed a three-pronged strategy. The first part of the strategy involved the need to ‘defend and grow our newspaper publishing businesses’ – that is, to consolidate and develop the existing newspapers, whose circulations were holding steady during the week and improving on Saturdays. The second part involved plans to ‘accelerate the revenue and earnings of our digital business’. The third part was ‘to build a digital media company for the twenty-first century’ (Fairfax annual report 2006: 3). In June 2007 Kirk appointed Tim Mannes project leader for the Fairfax Media-Rural Press integration. ‘The purpose of the integration work is to bring the two companies together and build what is truly Australasia’s leading media company’, Mannes wrote in a memo to all staff on 7 June 2007. ‘It’s vital throughout this process that we maintain continuity and momentum and protect the interests and needs of our customers’ (2007: 1).

The business model appears attractive. Kirk said Fairfax’s increased scale and diversity would mean it relied less on classified lineage advertising in major metropolitan newspapers, so it could ‘rapidly develop the best online response to changing media advertising patterns’. In the two years to 2006, online’s contribution to Fairfax’s profits had grown from 1 per cent to 14 per cent with ‘much more to come’. Online’s share of the national advertising pie had grown from 2 per cent in 2002 to 10 per cent in 2006 (Beverley 2007: 6) and had jumped to 14 per cent in 2007. Analysts said they were happy with Fairfax’s move ‘from a newspaper company to a media company’ and banks such as Credit Suisse upgraded their profits forecast (AFR 19 September 2007: 37).

Planning for the move to One Darling Island Road in Sydney’s Darling Harbour started early in 2006. Fairfax CEO David Kirk took personal responsibility. He and chairman Ron Walker visited integrated sites around the world, along with a group of editorial bosses. The favoured site was The Daily Telegraph in London, which embraced convergence from June 2006. CEO Murdoch McLennan hired a consultant from Ifra, Dr Dietmar Schantin, director of the Newsplex, to facilitate the move from mono-media to multi-media at The Telegraph. Schantin said change was less about new technologies and more about altering the established mindset. The focus must be on the audience: ‘The whole idea of audience orientation seems to be quite new for some newspapers. In the past it was more “we know what is good for our readers and so we distribute the content”.’ Newspapers were a service industry whose service was information and news, he said. Newspapers had to learn to ‘serve’ its audience with the things the audience wanted to know, on any appropriate platform. ‘We start from the audience. What they want is a very important point. That does not mean that a newspaper should just do what the audience wants. The newspaper [also] needs to stick
to its core values’ (Luft 2006, Coleman 2007: 5).

Tom Curley, CEO of the world’s biggest newsgathering organisation, Associated Press, gave an important speech to the annual Knight-Bagehot dinner in New York in November 2007. The news industry had come to a fork in the road and needed to take bold steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role for both the economy and democracy, he said. Otherwise the media industry would find itself ‘on an ugly path to obscurity’. He similarly emphasised the need to serve the audience: ‘Our focus must be on becoming the very best at filling people’s 24-hour news needs. That’s a huge shift from the we-know-best, gatekeeper thinking. Sourcing, fact gathering, researching, storytelling, editing [and] packaging aren’t going away’
(Curley 2007).

Kirk appointed a ‘newsroom of the future’ committee from editorial (reporters and photographers), IT and HR. The committee initiated a study tour by editorial executives of leading integrated and converged newsrooms in the UK and the US in April 2007. This became known as the ‘Tier 1’ course and involved the editor and deputy editor of The Age, and the news editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. The Herald’s editor went to the annual conference of the World Association of Newspapers in Cape Town, South Africa in June 2007 because that event featured convergence as one of its main themes (PANPA Bulletin June 2007: 6). The committee designed a two-day awareness course for senior editorial managers, known as ‘Tier 2’, that was run in Sydney in July 2007. The ‘Tier 3’ program for all editorial staff started in August 2007 and this ‘multi-media awareness program’ continued until the end of the year. A ‘Tier 4’ course for about 10 per cent of editorial staff (about 40 journalists), where they learned a range of multi-media skills, was scheduled to start after the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The author facilitated most of the Tier 2 and 3 courses.

The Tier 3 and 4 courses have profound implications for journalism education in Australia because they represent the start of major changes to how journalists work in Australia. The process reflects evolution in newsroom practices around the world. In November 2006 Ifra, the international media research company, asked newspaper executives worldwide about their priorities for 2007. The survey attracted 240 responses from 43 countries and results appeared in January 2007. Integration, editorial convergence and cross-media strategies attracted the most attention. Four in five executives rated it one of their top priorities, and half made it their main priority in terms of allocating ‘significant’ funds (Ifra 2007: 34). Ifra repeated the survey in November 2007 and published the results in January 2008. Expanding web strategies was first on the list for 2008, just ahead of editorial convergence strategies, which topped the list in 2007. Improving video and audio content jumped 14 places, and mobile phone strategies leapt 9 places between 2007 and 2008 to be near the top of the list (Ifra 2008: 8).

Decentralized mobility models for data collection in wireless sensor networks

Controlled mobility in wireless sensor networks provides many benefits towards enhancing the network performance and prolonging its lifetime. Mobile elements, acting as mechanical data carriers, traverse the network collecting data using single-hop communication, instead of the more energy demanding multi-hop routing to the sink. Scaling up from single to multiple mobiles is based more on the mobility models and the coordination methodology rather than increasing the number of mobile elements in the network. This work addresses the problem of designing and coordinating decentralized mobile elements for scheduling data collection in wireless sensor networks, while preserving some performance measures, such as latency and amount of data collected. We propose two mobility models governing the behaviour of the mobile element, where the incoming data collection requests are scheduled to service according to bidding strategies to determine the winner element. Simulations are run to measure the performance of the proposed mobility models subject to the network size and the number of mobile elements.

Can a disease-specific education program augment self-management skills and improve Health-Related Quality of Life in people with hip or knee osteoarthritis?

Background: Patient education and self-management programs are offered in many countries to people with chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis (OA). The most well-known is the disease-specific Stanford Arthritis Self-Management Program (ASMP). While Australian and international clinical guidelines promote the concept of self-management for OA, there is currently little evidence to support the use of the ASMP. Several meta-analyses have reported that arthritis self-management programs had minimal or no effect on reducing pain and disability. However, previous studies have had methodological shortcomings including the use of outcome measures which do not accurately reflect program goals. Additionally, limited cost-effectiveness analyses have been undertaken and the cost-utility of the program has not been explored.

Methods/design: This study is a randomised controlled trial to determine the efficacy (in terms of Health-Related Quality of Life and self-management skills) and cost-utility of a 6-week group-based Stanford ASMP for people with hip or knee OA.

Six hundred participants referred to an orthopaedic surgeon or rheumatologist for hip or knee OA will be recruited from outpatient clinics at 2 public hospitals and community-based private practices within 2 private hospital settings in Victoria, Australia. Participants must be 18 years or over, fluent in English and able to attend ASMP sessions. Exclusion criteria include cognitive dysfunction, previous participation in self-management programs and placement on a waiting list for joint replacement surgery or scheduled joint replacement.

Eligible, consenting participants will be randomised to an intervention group (who receive the ASMP and an arthritis self-management book) or a control group (who receive the book only). Follow-up will be at 6 weeks, 3 months and 12 months using standardised self-report measures. The primary outcome is Health-Related Quality of Life at 12 months, measured using the Assessment of Quality of Life instrument. Secondary outcome measures include the Health Education Impact Questionnaire, Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (pain subscale and total scores), Kessler Psychological Distress Scale and the Hip and Knee Multi-Attribute Priority Tool. Cost-utility analyses will be undertaken using administrative records and self-report data. A subgroup of 100 participants will undergo qualitative interviews to explore the broader potential impacts of the ASMP.

Discussion: Using an innovative design combining both quantitative and qualitative components, this project will provide high quality data to facilitate evidence-based recommendations regarding the ASMP.

Supporting first year student supporters : an online mentoring model for supplemental instruction leaders

Supplemental Instruction (SI), or Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) as it is commonly known in Australia, involves experienced senior student Peer Leaders who provide regularly scheduled peer learning sessions with students enrolled in university courses. Commonly implemented on first year subjects, the sessions integrate “how to learn” with “what to learn”, helping students achieve better grades and helping raise student retention rates. This paper discusses the challenges of supporting SI Leaders who are geographically dispersed across multiple campuses and considers the theoretical and empirical literature that informs the development of an online mentoring model.

Modeling data processing activity to assess the internal control function

This thesis describes research that was conducted into the potential of modeling the activities of the Data Processing Department as an aid to the computer auditor. A methodology is composed to aid in the evaluation of the Internal Controls, particularly the General Controls relative to computer processing. Consisting of three major components, the methodology enables the auditor to model the presumed activities of the Data Processing Department against the actual activities, as recorded on the Operating System Log. The first component of the methodology is the construction and loading of a model of the presumed activities of the Data Processing Department from its verbal, scheduled, and reported activities. The second component is the generation of a description of the actual activities of the Data Processing Department from the information recorded on the Operating System Log. This is effected by reducing the Operating System Log to the format described by the Standard Audit File concept. Finally, the third component in the methodology is the modeling process itself. This is in fact a new analysis technique proposed for use by the EDP auditor. The modeling process is composed of software that compares the model developed and loaded in the first component, with the description of actual activity as collated by the second component. Results from this comparison are then reviewed by the auditor, who determines if they adequately depict the situation, or whether the models description as specified in the first component requires to be altered, and the modeling process re-initiated. In conducting the research, information and data from a production installation was used. Use of the ‘real-world’ input proved both the feasibility of developing a model of the reported activities of the Data Processing Department, and the adequacy of the operating system log as a source of information to report the departments actual activities. Additionally, it enabled the involvement and comment of practicing auditors. The research involved analysis of the effect of EDP on the audit process, structure of the EDP audit process, data reduction, data structures, model formalization, and model processing software. Additionally, the Standard Audit File concept was verified through its use by practising auditors, and expanded by the development of an indexed data structure, which enabled its analysis to be conducted interactively. Results from the trial implementation of the research software and methodology at a production installation confirmed the research hypothesis that the activities of the Data Processing Department could be modelled, and that there are substantial benefits from the EDP auditor in analysing this process. The research in fact provides a new source of information, and develops a new analysis technique for the EDP auditor. It demonstrates the utilization of computer technology to monitor itself for the audit function, and reasserts auditor independence by providing access to technical detail describing the processing activities of the computer.

Integrating data to facilitate clinical research : a case study

The integration of routine clinical administrative activities into ongoing rigorous clinical research poses challenges for both clinicians and researchers. This case study describes the development of a responsive database system used to facilitate comprehensive longitudinal research into the outcomes of patients waiting for hip and knee replacement surgery in a large public teaching hospital. The initial research procedure was paper-based, with manual patient matching and data entry. This process was time-consuming and associated with substantial risk of error and omissions, necessitating the design of a better system. An integrated database system was designed to receive daily electronic updates of the orthopaedic waiting-list and scheduled clinic and surgery dates. Using readily available software (Microsoft Access), new patients were identified through specifying inclusion and exclusion criteria which allowed rapid and complete recruitment at time of entry to the waiting-list. The integrated system specified the appropriate timing of multiple follow-up assessments, provided prompt information on recruitment for reporting purposes and integrated multiple linked research projects within one database. Seamless exporting of data to statistical programs for analysis was also enabled. This simple integrated approach facilitated efficient execution of a longitudinal study from recruitment to statistical analysis while maximising confidentiality and minimising resources required. This case study describes the development and design of a simple system which could be easily adapted for database management in hospital or clinic-based settings according to local requirements.

The impact of learning in the workplace policy on differing ICT degrees

At Victoria University, the release of a new Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) policy has been introduced to ensure that graduates are job and career ready. The policy underlines the importance of workplace contextual learning in all course deliveries and is scheduled for progressive implementation by 2010. For each degree, the policy mandates that a minimum of 25% of program content and assessment must be related to work integrated learning.

Compliance with the 25% shift poses significant challenges for its implementation upon all undergraduate programs since the policy is expected to impact upon program structures, unit deliveries, assessment practices, and course administrations. In particular, there has been an extensive review of existing approaches to learning and teaching in the programs that deliver information and communications technology (ICT) degrees across business and science faculties. This paper describes the current Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Business in Information Systems programs identifying similarities and differences between the two offerings with respect to their learning in workplace components. It explores possible synergies between the two programs that could be capitalized upon to implement the LiWC policy and details the challenges to both faculties in mounting a coordinated response.