Believing is not enough: Predicting support for the NTEU on an Australian campus

Asurvey-based field study was conducted with 232 members and nonmembers of the National Tertiary Education Union to investigate the psychological processes underpinning union support. Drawing on value-expectancy models and social identity/self-categorisation theory, this study investigated the role that both individual and grouprelated factors play in predicting attitudinal and behavioural support for the union. Variables investigated included instrumental and ideological attitudes, perceptions of a normative climate of union-support, and perceptions of higher education being under threat. Further to support for previous findings for the role of instrumental and ideological attitudes it was found that the perceived workplace norm had the anticipated direct effect on behaviour and evaluation and also moderated the behavioural expression of ideological and instrumental attitudes. The perception of threat to employment and higher education also directly impacted on behaviour and moderated the behavioural expression of ideological beliefs. The implications of these findings for collective action research will he discussed.

Inhibitory effects of olive oil phenolics on invasion in human colon adenocarcinoma cells in vitro

Studies in human, animal and cellular systems suggest that phenols from virgin olive oil are capable of inhibiting several stages in carcinogenesis, including metastasis. The invasion cascade comprises cell attachment to extracellular matrix components or basement membrane, degradation of basement membrane by proteolytic enzymes and migration of cells through the modified matrix. In the present study, we investigated the effect of phenolics extracted from virgin olive oil (OVP) and its main constituents: hydroxytyrosol (3,4-dihydroxyphenylethanol), tyrosol (p-hydroxyphenylethanol), pinoresinol and caffeic acid. The effects of these phenolics were tested on the invasion of HT115 human colon carcinoma cells in a Matrigel invasion assay. OVP and its compounds showed different dose-related anti-invasive effects. At 25 mu g/ml OVP and equivalent doses of individual compounds, significant anti-invasive effects were seen in the range of 45-55% of control. Importantly, OVP, but not the isolated phenolics, significantly reduced total cell number in the Matrigel invasion assay. There were no significant effects shown on cell viability, indicating the reduction of cell number in the Matrigel invasion assay was not due to cytotoxicity. There were also no significant effects on cell attachment to plastic substrate, indicating the importance of extracellular matrix in modulating the anti-invasive effects of OVP. In conclusion, the results from this study indicate that phenols from virgin olive oil have the ability to inhibit invasion of colon cancer cells and the effects may be mediated at different levels of the invasion cascade. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Legal profession reform in Queensland

Legal reforms in Queensland: Queensland's Legal Profession Act came into force on 1 July 2004 and is a step in reorganising and modernising the regulation of the profession - development of an Australia-wide move towards improving conditions for national legal practice - central vehicle for national legal practice is a recommended bill of Model Laws - aspects of Model Laws have not been adopted in the Act and are expected to be adopted in a third stage of reforms.

The most influential books in Australian sociology (MIBAS), 1963-2003

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Australian Sociological Association (TASA), a survey on the Most Influential Books in Australian Sociology (MIBAS) was conducted. In this article we discuss the MIBAS process, its findings, and provide some reflections on the top 10 most influential books. We also situate the MIBAS survey among other attempts to compile lists of the most influential books in the discipline of sociology, and discuss the benefits and limits of such endeavours. We argue that the MIBAS exercise was useful not only as a commemorative device, but as an opportunity to reflect on the breadth and influence of Australian sociological scholarship.

History and habit in the mobilization of ICT resources

Evidence demonstrates that the digital divide is deepening despite strategies mobilized worldwide to reduce it. In disadvantaged communities, beyond training and infrastructural issues, there often lies a range of cultural and historically formed relationships that affect people's adoption of ICTs. This article presents an analysis of local resident's engagement with their council's pilot project to develop a computer facility in their community center. We ask, to what extent can people in poor urban communities, once trained, be expected to volunteer to work on furthering community education and development in ICTs in their local area? Findings indicate four patterns of individual engagement with the computer project: reflexive, utilitarian, distributive, and nonparticipatory. It is argued that local people engaged with the intervention in historically patterned and locally distinctive ways that served immediate personal and pragmatic ends. They did not adopt the long-term strategic goals of the council or university.

Judicial (in)activism in Australia's secular commonwealth

his article addresses two aspects of Australia's soft secular government. The first aspect explains how, and asks why, judges have been inactive in helping to draw the contours of secular government in Australia. The principal reason is that much of the social regulation that provokes the interest of faith-based groups is the constitutional concern of the States, and no State Constitution claims to coordinate relations between church and state. Moreover, the electorate has twice refused to pass referenda, in 1944 and 1988, for extending a constitutional demand of secular governance to the States. However, this is not so for the Commonwealth. It falls under the restrictions of section 116 of the federal Constitution, which states: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion ('the establishment clause') or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion ('the free exercise clause'), and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. As will be explained, while methods of legal interpretation suggest that section 116's establishment clause could place mild demands of non-discrimination on the federal Parliament, judicial inactivity in policing such demands on the Commonwealth, paradoxically, has arguably been secured by judicial activism in the High Court. A second aspect of secular government addressed is the High Court's disposal of 'the separation of church and state' as a constitutional principle in Australia. The contrast, of course, is to the United States, where for sixty years 'separation' has been given uneven recognition as a rule of constitutional law, and has undoubtedly driven the development of hard forms of secular governance in that country. The centrepiece of American secular government is the 1971 decision in Lemon v Kurtzman, where the US Supreme Court held that valid legislation had to pass three tests, ie: First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion .. . finally, the statute must not foster 'an excessive government entanglement with religion. The third 'entanglement' prong of Lemon is the modern, less ambitious, form of the 'wall of separation', prohibiting too close an engagement between church and state. As this paper will demonstrate, 'entanglement's' destiny shows how unlikely it is that 'separation' can survive as a meaningful constitutional principle in the USA. And, it will also be argued that 'separation' has even poorer prospects for import to Australia.

Arousal and re-feeding rapidly restores digestive tract morphology following aestivation in green-striped burrowing frogs

During aestivation, the gut of the green-striped burrowing frog, Cyclorana alboguttata undergoes significant morphological down-regulation. Despite the potential impact such changes might have on the re-feeding efficiency of these animals following aestivation, they appear to be as efficient at digesting their first meals as active, non-aestivating animals. Such efficiency might come about by the rapid restoration of intestinal morphology with both arousal from aestivation and the initial stages of re-feeding. Consequently, this study sought to determine what morphological changes to the intestine accompany arousal and re-feeding following 3 months of aestivation. Arousal from aestivation alone had a marked impact on many morphological parameters, including small and large intestine masses, small intestinal length, LF heights, enterocyte cross-sectional area and microvilli height and density. In addition, the onset of re-feeding was correlated with an immediate reversal of many morphological parameters affected by 3 months of aestivation. Those parameters that had not returned to control levels within 36 h of feeding generally had returned to control values by the completion of digestion (i.e. defecation of the meal). Re-feeding was also associated with several changes in enterocyte morphology including the incorporation in intracytoplasmic lipid droplets and the return of enterocyte nuclear material to the 'active' euchromatin state: In conclusion, morphological changes to the gut of aestivating frogs which occur during aestivation are transitory and rapidly reversible with both arousal from aestivation and re-feeding. The proximate causes behind these transitions and their functional significance are discussed. (C) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: Gaps in the research agenda

The direction, complexity and pace of rural change in affluent, western societies can be conceptualized as a multifunctional transition, in which a variable mix of consumption and protection values has emerged, contesting the former dominance of production values, and leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in rural occupance at all scales. This transition is propelled by three dominant driving forces, namely: agricultural overcapacity; the emergence of market-driven amenity values; and growing societal awareness of sustainability and preservation issues. Australia's generous supply of land and sparse investment in agriculture has facilitated local transitions towards enhanced consumption and protection values, enabling a clearer delineation of emerging differentiated modes of rural occupance than in more contested locales. In Australia seven distinctive modes of occupance can be identified, according to the relative precedence given to production, consumption or protection values. These modes are described as: productivist agricultural; rural amenity; small farm (or pluriactive); peri-metropolitan; marginalized agricultural; conservation; and indigenous. Within these seven modes, alternative trajectories are identified, indicating variability in the intensity and type of resource use. Articulation of the transition concept may provide synergy between discrete discourses in rural research. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.