Regional performance : mapping "The North"

Paul Makeham’s work in AusStage Phase 3 has centred on regional mapping of live performance activity. A pilot mapping project was developed to identify regional clusters of performance as well as key regional organisations. In designing this pilot project, reference was made to two other ARC-funded projects. The first of these was Talking Theatre, an audience development research initiative for Queensland and the Northern Territory supported by an ARC Projects-Linkage grant. Talking Theatre was funded between 2004 and 2006 as a Linkage between the ARC, NARPACA (the Northern Australian Regional Performing Arts Centres Association), Arts Queensland, Arts Northern Territory, and QUT. The second project was the Creative Digital Industries National Mapping Project, operating through QUT’s Centre for Excellence in the Creative Industries (CCi). The NMP is designed to develop and publish a range of accurate and timely measures of the Creative Digital Industries in Australia.

The Remnant

An Interactive Installation with holographic 3D projections, satellite imagery, surround sound and intuitive body driven interactivity. Remnant (v.1) was commissioned by the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event - an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council and presented at a remnant block of subtropical rainforest called ‘Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve’ - located 100kms north of Brisbane near the township of Maleny. V2 was later commissioned for KickArts Gallery, Cairns, re-presenting the work in a new open format which allowed audiences to both experience the original power of the work and to also understand the construction of the work's powerful illusory, visual spaces. This art-science project focused upon the idea of remnant landscapes - isolated blocks of forest (or other vegetation types) typically set within a patchwork quilt of surrounding farmed land. Participants peer into a mysterious, long tunnel of imagery whilst navigating entirely through gentle head movements - allowing them to both 'steer' in three dimensions and also 'alight', as a butterfly might, upon a sector of landscape - which in turn reveals an underlying 'landscape of mind'. The work challenges audiences to re-imagine our conceptions of country in ways that will lead us to better reconnect and sustain today’s heavily divided landscapes. The research field involved developing new digital image projection methods, alternate embodied interaction and engagement strategies for eco-political media arts practice. The context was the creation of improved embodied and improvisational experiences for participants, further informed by ‘eco-philosophical’ and sustainment theories. By engaging with deep conceptions of connectivity between apparently disparate elements, the work considered novel strategies for fostering new desires, for understanding and re-thinking the requisite physical and ecological links between ‘things’ that have been historically shattered. The methodology was primarily practice-led and in concert with underlying theories. The work’s knowledge contribution was to question how new media interactive experience and embodied interaction might prompt participants to reflect upon appropriate resources and knowledges required to generate this substantive desire for new approaches to sustainment. This accentuated through the power of learning implied by the works' strongly visual and kinaesthetic interface (i.e. the tunnel of imagery and the head and torso operated navigation). The work was commissioned by the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event - an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council and the second version was commissioned by Kickarts Gallery, Cairns, specifically funded by a national optometrist chain. It was also funded in development by Arts Queensland and reviewed in Realtime.

Assessment for learning as a participative pedagogy

AfL practices observed in case studies in a North Queensland school were analysed from a sociocultural theoretical perspective. AfL practices of feedback, dialogue and peer assessment were viewed as an opportunity for students to learn the social expectations about being an autonomous learner, or central participant within the classroom community of practice. This process of becoming more expert and belonging within the community of practice involved students negotiating identities of participation that included knowing both academic skills and social expectations within the classroom. This paper argues that when AfL practices are viewed as ways of enhancing participation, there is potential for learners to negotiate identities as autonomous learners. AfL practices within the daily classroom interactions and pedagogy that enabled students to develop a shared repertoire, joint enterprise and mutual engagement in the classroom communities of practice are described. The challenges for teachers in shifting their gaze to patterns of participation are also briefly discussed.

Culture-fair assessment : challenging Indigenous students through effortful mathematics teaching

This paper reports on a mathematics education research project centred on teachers’ pedagogical practices and capacity to assess Indigenous Australian students in a culture-fair manner. The project has been funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage program and is being conducted in seven Catholic and Independent primary schools in north Queensland. Our Industry Partners are Catholic Education and the Association of Independent Schools, Queensland. The study aims to provide greater understanding about how to build more equitable assessment practices to address the issue of underperforming Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) students in regional and remote Australia. The goal is to identify ways forward by attending to culture-fair assessment practice. The research is exploring the attitudes, beliefs and responses of Indigenous students to assessment in the context of mathematics learning with particular focus on teacher knowledge in these educational settings in relation to the design of assessment tasks that are authentic and engaging for these students in an accountability context. This approach highlights how teachers need to distinguish the ‘funds of knowledge’ (González, Moll, Floyd Tenery, Rivera, Rendón, Gonzales & Amanti, 2008) that Indigenous students draw on and how teachers need to be culturally responsive in their pedagogy to open up curriculum and assessment practice to allow for different ways of knowing and being

Broad Bean Stain Virus: Identification, Detectability with ELISA in Faba Bean Leaves and Seeds, Occurrence in West Asia and North Africa and Possible Wild Hosts

Abstract During a survey of faba bean viruses in West Asia and North Africa a virus was identified as broad bean stain virus (BBSV) based on host reactions, electron microscopy, physical properties and serology. An antiserum to a Syrian isolate was prepared. With this antiserum both the direct double antibody sandwich ELISA (DAS-ELISA) and dot-ELISA were very sensitive in detecting BBSV in leaf extracts, ground whole seeds and germi nated embryos. Sens it i vity was not reduced when the two-day procedure was replaced by a one-day procedure. us i ng ELISA the vi rus was detected in 73 out of 589 faba bean samples with virus-like symptoms collected from Egypt (4 out of 70 samples tested), Lebanon (6/44) , Morocco (017), Sudan (19/254), Syria (36/145) and Tunisia (8/69). This is the first report of BBSV infection of faba bean in Lebanon, Sudan, Syria and Tunisia. speci es i ndi genous to Syri a were Fourteen wild legume susceptible to BBSV infection, with only two producing obvious symptoms. The virus was found to be seed transmitted ~n Vicia palaestina.

Situation Review of Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus in West Asia and North Africa

Symptoms of barley yellow dwarf (BYD) have been observed on cereals in nearly all countries of West Asia and North Africa. Its incidence. however, has varied during the last 15 years. Observations from field surveys are summarized. Since symptoms of barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) are of low diagnostic value, especially in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), more precise qualitative and quantitative detection was derived by vector transmission and serology. In 1985 and 1986. preliminary surveys by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELlS A) indicated that BYDV incidence in the regions surveyed in Syria, Morocco, and Tunisia was around 7. 22. and 24%. respectively. By vector transmission PAV-, RPV-, and RMV-like isolates ofBYDV were identified in Morocco and the PAV-like isolate in Syria. By serology PAV-like isolates were identified in Ethiopia, Lebanon. Morocco. Syria. and Tunisia. and MA V-like isolates were identified from Morocco and Tunisia. The PAV-like type was the most common in all countries surveyed. Screening for BYDV resistance by natural infection has been carried out in a number of countries of the region during the last few years. Screening for resistance by aphid inoculation was initiated in Syria in 1986 at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). Such screening is expected to follow in other countries of the region soon.

Social control of the drinking driver

It is more that 20 years since the “Social Control of the Drink Driver” edited by Laurence, Snortum and Zimring (1988) were published. It was, and remains a major examination of the issue involving 17 scientists from all relevant disciplines and policy centres and represents the current practice and experience at the time. While much of, but by no means all, the content is centred on the North American experience the scholarship and range of research data explored through the investigative lens of lawyers, pharmacologists, psychologists, sociologists, criminologists and economists covers all the major issues being examined in Europe, and Australia at the time. More importantly, it presents the policy aspirations and goals of nine countries and includes a comparison of deterrence and the legal context in six countries; emerging technologies for control and the potential contributions of education and rehabilitation. The experience of promoting evidence based policies and practices are generally experienced in all countries as both laborious and painfully slow. However, this ICADTS meeting in Norway provides an opportunity to challenge these feelings by re-examining the current situation compared with that documented over 20yrs ago. This presentation will undertake a reality check on just what we have achieved within that time and try to attribute success and failure towards recommendations for our future endeavours.