Advertising & Promotion : An Integrated Marketing Communications Approach, 2nd Edition [Book Review]

Advertising & Promotion’s second edition maintains a sharp and updated focus on the advertising industry, providing interesting ideas for both students and advertising professionals. Not only does the author demonstrate how agencies, businesses and organisations research, create and monitor particular campaigns, but also the extent to which advertising texts are themselves embedded in everyday contemporary culture. For me one of the strengths of the book is how the research brings together the managerial side of the industry, its sociology and political dynamics, with the cultural and ethical implications of advertising consumption.

When He is a She is a He : the pregnant man and the transgendered mother

The recent successful pregnancy of Thomas Beatie, a transgender FTM, billed by the various media as ‘the pregnant man’, has stirred up considerably diverse public opinion and debate, some supportive and indicative of changing and progressive ideas around sex, gender and sexuality; others condemnatory in their claims that Beatie’s pregnancy is an affront to the laws of Nature and/or God. Desired or derided, the pregnant male body contests the terrain of reproductive embodiment and the orthodoxy of Western systems of gender categorization. This chapter analyses a selection of media and internet responses to the case of the pregnant man, arguing that most disturbing of all it seems, is the body in-between (Kristeva 1982, p.4), the one that visibly defies socially obdurate gender oppositions of male and female, feminine and masculine in its insistence on being, to borrow from Homi Bhabha, a ‘third space of enunciation.’ Banana Yoshimoto’s novella Kitchen, also contests gender boundaries in its characterisation of Eriko, a transgendered male to female, a father, then a mother. In this narrative the in-between, the ambiguous, is not reviled but rather celebrated as a ‘horizon of possibility’ (Halperin, qtd in Jagose 1996 http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-Dec- 1996/jagose.html).

Independent Brisbane: Four Plays [BOOK REVIEW]

Independent Brisbane: Four Plays is, as the title suggests, a collection of plays by independent theatre-makers and theatre-making collectives in Brisbane in the 2002– 07 period, including Marcel Dorney’s Harriers (6–51), the nest’s The Knowing of Mary Poppins (52–102), Linda Hassall’s Post Office Rose (103–71) and Maxine Mellor’s Magda’s Fascination with Wax Cats (172–216). According to the contextualising information on the book’s back cover, these plays are ‘distinctive’ in content, story and style, ‘[y]et carry with them what is characteristic of the city they come from – a preoccupation with landscape, creation in tightly knit collaborative teams and brave, often unexpected, theatrical choices’.

Model-order selection in Zernike polynomial expansion of corneal surfaces using the efficient detection criterion

Corneal-height data are typically measured with videokeratoscopes and modeled using a set of orthogonal Zernike polynomials. We address the estimation of the number of Zernike polynomials, which is formalized as a model-order selection problem in linear regression. Classical information-theoretic criteria tend to overestimate the corneal surface due to the weakness of their penalty functions, while bootstrap-based techniques tend to underestimate the surface or require extensive processing. In this paper, we propose to use the efficient detection criterion (EDC), which has the same general form of information-theoretic-based criteria, as an alternative to estimating the optimal number of Zernike polynomials. We first show, via simulations, that the EDC outperforms a large number of information-theoretic criteria and resampling-based techniques. We then illustrate that using the EDC for real corneas results in models that are in closer agreement with clinical expectations and provides means for distinguishing normal corneal surfaces from astigmatic and keratoconic surfaces.

Book review : Kellett, M (2010) Rethinking children and research : attitudes in contemporary society

Rethinking Children and Research characterizes Mary Kellett’s vision as campaigner and sociologist actively working for and with children for many years. The book itself is not only visionary; it is informative, thought provoking and pragmatic. From a contemporary standpoint, the manuscript presents a detailed synopsis of the shifts in thinking about research with children and provides an appraisal of the theoretical movements that have driven a participatory research agenda. A strong theoretical approach of the combined lenses of sociologies of childhood and rights discourse is introduced early in the book. From the outset, the reader receives loud and clear, the key message of the book: that children in research should and can be included as competent members who lead research in the study of their everyday lives. The argument for a more mutual research approach is shaped throughout the book using research examples and practical suggestions on how this might be achieved. Overall, the reader is left feeling compelled to adopt such an approach.

A site selection process for environmental offsetting purposes in Queensland

A method of selecting land in any region of Queensland for offsetting purposes is devised, employing uniform standards. The procedure first requires that any core natural asset lands, Crown environmental lands, prime urban and agricultural lands, and highly contentious sites in the region be eliminated from consideration. Other land is then sought that is located between existing large reservations and the centre of greatest potential regional development/disturbance. Using the criteria of rehabilitation (rather than preservation) plus proximity to those officially defined Regional Ecosystems that are most threatened, adjacent sites that are described as ‘Cleared’ are identified in terms of agricultural land capability. Class IV lands – defined as those ‘which may be safely used for occasional cultivation with careful management’,2 ‘where it is favourably located for special usage’,3 and where it is ‘helpful to those who are interested in industry or regional planning or in reconstruction’4 – are examined for their appropriate area, for current tenure and for any conditions such as Mining Leases that may exist. The positive impacts from offsets on adjoining lands can then be designed to be significant; examples are also offered in respect of riparian areas and of Marine Parks. Criteria against which to measure performance for trading purposes include functional lift, with other case studies about this matter reported separately in this issue. The procedure takes no account of demand side economics (financial additionality), which requires commercial rather than environmental analysis.

Procurement strategies : a relationship-based approach

Construction has been an industry characterised by disputes, fierce competitiveness and fragmentation - all major obstacles to development. Now, however, a relationship-based approach to project procurement, through partnering and alliancing, aims to bring about a fundamental change. ----- ----- ----- This book addresses the critical relationship issues for a more collaborative and sustainable construction industry. It looks at how project procurement and project alliancing partner selection works, and how risk and crisis resolution are managed. It provides readers with guidance and models on how to put a relationship-based approach to procurement into practice, drawing on specific prototypes from an actual, successful project that can be adapted.

Road safety issues for older road users : CARRS-Q Monograph 1

[Selection of papers from the Older Road User Safety Symposium, 26 November 2000, Brisbane, Australia.]----- This publication is a selection of papers on older road user safety which were presented at the Older Road User Safety Symposium on Sunday 26 November 2000 at the Sheraton Brisbane Hotel, Queensland, Australia. The Symposium was held on the day before Australia’s annual Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference, which provided an opportunity to garner both presenters and participants from the wider road safety community in Australia. Road safety is a large and diverse area of scholarship and practice, and many disciplines are drawn on in the processes of understanding and addressing road safety problems. The safety of older road users is no different. As this selection shows, work on older road user safety can be informed by demography, research on the mental and physical effects of ageing, social research on older people as road users, evaluation of educational and behavioural interventions, road crash analysis, engineering research and practice, and reviews of policy approaches within Australia and elsewhere. It is possible to summarise these into four constellations, which are reflected in the papers selected for this publication: social impacts and responses; physical and cognitive capability; specific road use performance; and environment/ecology. Though three years have passed since the Symposium, the issues raised in these papers remain current.

Colin Marsh (2010) Becoming a Teacher : Knowledge, Skills and Issues. 5th edition, Frenchs Forrest : Pearson Education Australia, 459 pages. [Book Review]

In the preface to the fifth edition of Becoming a Teacher, Colin Marsh reminds us that teachers need to have passion, energy and a commitment to enhance students’ learning. This most recent edition certainly provides examples of the author’s wide ranging knowledge and depth of insights that reflect his own commitment to inspirational and dedicated teaching practice. The fifth edition shares those characteristics which made previous editions so worthwhile. Most notable is the subtle but significant dual theme of Marsh’s narrative. That is, first, teaching is a vehicle for increasing the life opportunities of students, and second, teaching is profession that requires continual commitment and critical reflection. These are very important messages for any course that develops teaching methodology. Becoming a Teacher continues to be structured in five readable sections, however the 2010 edition has some exciting new features that warrant the attention of teacher educators and their pre-service students.

Forced landing technologies for unmanned aerial vehicles : towards safer operations

While using unmanned systems in combat is not new, what will be new in the foreseeable future is how such systems are used and integrated in the civilian space. The potential use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in civil and commercial applications is becoming a fact, and is receiving considerable attention by industry and the research community. The majority of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles performing civilian tasks are restricted to flying only in segregated space, and not within the National Airspace. The areas that UAVs are restricted to flying in are typically not above populated areas, which in turn are the areas most useful for civilian applications. The reasoning behind the current restrictions is mainly due to the fact that current UAV technologies are not able to demonstrate an Equivalent Level of Safety to manned aircraft, particularly in the case of an engine failure which would require an emergency or forced landing. This chapter will preset and guide the reader through a number of developments that would facilitate the integration of UAVs into the National Airspace. Algorithms for UAV Sense-and-Avoid and Force Landings are recognized as two major enabling technologies that will allow the integration of UAVs in the civilian airspace. The following sections will describe some of the techniques that are currently being tested at the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA), which places emphasis on the detection of candidate landing sites using computer vision, the planning of the descent path trajectory for the UAV, and the decision making process behind the selection of the final landing site.

"I’m making it different to the book” : transmediation in young children’s print and digital texts

Young children shift meanings across multiple modes long before they have mastered formal writing skills. In a digital age, children are socialised into a wide range of new digital media conventions in the home, at school, and in community-based settings. This article draws on longitudinal classroom research with a culturally diverse cohort of eight-year old children, to advance new understandings about children’s engagement in transmediation in the context of digital media creation. The author illuminates three key principles of transmediation using multimodal snapshots of storyboard images, digital movie frames, and online comics. Insights about transmediation are developed through dialogue with the children about their thought processes and intentions for their multimedia creations.