Commentary : Fatty acids, breastfeeding and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Fatty acid deficiencies are linked to Autism Spectrum Disorder. This commentary discusses the protective role of breastfeeding and the urgency of research into the human infant's intake of colostrum to prevent fatty acid deficiency.

The sky from earth : landscape as awareness

For thousands of years mankind has looked at the sky above to engage with the surrounding environment. The observation of solar, lunar and other celestial events guided settlements as well as human movements and activities, just as the cycle of the seasons influenced agricultural crops or dwelling. Archaeoastronomy includes many examples of fabrications in the landscape, constructed solely to observe the sky. The awareness of the sky can be particularly important in the contemporary landscape where the design of a sustainable environment has taken on a sense of urgency. This paper features a survey of several international and Australian archaeoastronomical examples and presents a vocabulary of contemporary interventions in the landscape designed to bring awareness of the sky from observation of celestial events. Some of the contemporary interventions are realized while others are deign proposals, in all examples the viewer is engaged in time-based perceptions of different landscapes aided by minimal constructions, which facilitate the observation of the daily sun path, lunar phases and star trails. A symbiosis between the land, the sky and the observer is established, bringing awareness of how the sky above engages the life on earth. This paper offers a fresh insight, drawing upon Indigenous wisdom as well as contemporary debates and literature, to appreciate the social and cultural significance of these places. By reading and appreciating these examples, and the cultures they are party to, new insights and avenues can be offered as to better design and manage our human environments.

Academic mobility and intercultural encounters

This paper examines the EU-Australia academic mobility as an important contributing aspect of building the Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive European Union.  It focuses on contemporary international encounters and intercultural interactions in academia in the context of an ever growing academic mobility between the EU countries and Australia. The EU–Australia academic mobility is the most visible manifestation of internationalization of education today. Academic mobility is a part of the continuing changes in the teaching and learning processes that academic institutions are undergoing globally. International flows of highly skilled migrants including international students between the EU countries and Australia have been steadily high in the last decades, and research on academic mobility is gaining importance and urgency worldwide. Putting a spotlight on the EU-Australia academic mobility, this paper is interested in identifying optimal conditions and favourable environments for enabling successful intercultural knowledge flows and promoting creative cultures and intercultural connections.

We ‘are’ rhetoric. Get over it!

This paper argues that a better understanding of public relations would help us to get an urgently needed better understanding of people. It explains why public relations should be considered the contemporary manifestation of the millennia-old art of rhetoric which in turn should be considered the basis of, at least western culture. This article introduces a thesis that understanding rhetoric properly will lead to the best way of understanding public relations properly. It will critique existing writers about the rhetoric to public relations nexus to suggest that there is a crucial need to more carefully consider the true relevance
of massively organised deliberate persuasive discourse. The urgency is because few of these commentators quite capture the extent to which public relations and related  activities are creating us. It will explain why we are almost unconscious of this process and it will point out that by contrast ancient sophists and the more accomplished pre-modern rhetoricians have always been aware of this ‘construction of people process’. The approach of this paper is premised on the observation of classicist Werner Jaeger who explains that rhetoric is at the centre of being human. When explaining the use of  grammar, rhetoric and dialectic by Greek Enlightenment sophists he writes that: “This educational technique is one of the greatest discoveries which the mind of man has ever made: it was not until it explored these three of its activities that the mind apprehended the hidden law of its own structure.” (Jaeger, 1947:314)

Embracing off-site innovation in construction in China to enhance a sustainable built environment in urban housing

With the rapid rate of urbanization and pressing need for higher levels of sustainable development within the built environment in China, the housing construction industry presently is facing urgency of shaping a sustainable construction process. This paper examines several sustainability challenges from the large-scale urban housing construction, and explores the connection between off-site innovation and sustainability within a context of China's housing construction industry. The study also identifies four pillars of strategy agendas that could enhance an enabling innovation environment for the ultimate goal of sustainability: (1) institutional environment, (2) public housing market, (3) organisational actions and (4) technological capacity. The knowledge and research findings presented in this paper would provide a ground framework that helps evaluate and assess the significances of off-site innovation to assist with a sustainable built environment.

Activism, reflection and Paulo Freire – an embodied pedagogy

This paper explores the critical pedagogy of activists as they participate in activism on some of the most important human rights issues of our time. I argue the pedagogy of activism is critically cognitive and embodied in a practice that is inherently social. The paper commences with some writing on what I claim is Freire’s own activism, always working towards a struggle for social justice and social change. His educational practices were never removed from sites and movements of struggle and resistance and he encouraged teachers to be political, that their teaching should never be disassociated from a critique of the political and social realities that impact on and create impediments to a democratic education.The paper then outlines empirical research on the learning dimensions of activists conducted in Australia and draws on some of the personal narratives of activists. I explore the reflexivity of activists as they work within and against the state, on issues of indigenous self-determination, racism, religion, homophobia, urban development, climate change, civil liberties, economic inequality and others. I argue for a critically reflexive pedagogy, as Paulo Freire reminds us, activism without purposeful reflection has the potential to become what he termed “naïve activism’’. That is, a focus on the theory and philosophical underpinnings of activism, and the tactics and strategies necessary to instigate social change, can create a pedagogy that is wanting in praxis. Yet the urgency of activism and the desire for significant social change often prevents a critical space for reflection to occur.The paper concludes with some suggestions for how Freire’s writing on praxis, can improve activists important practice.

The Popular Education Network of Australia (PENA) and Twenty-First-Century critical education

Drawing on the philosophies and writings of Paulo Freire regarding education as activism, this paper will explore the history and activities of the Popular Education Network of Australia (PENA). The network, founded in 2009, involves educators, academics and community workers, working together on issues relating to critical pedagogy and social change in schools, communities and adult education contexts. Two symposia have been organised on critical education in Australia. In 2010, ‘Teaching and Learning for Social Justice and Action’ was the inaugural gathering. In 2012, ‘Freire Reloaded: Learning and Teaching to Change the World’ featured a diverse range of workshops and Professor Antonia Darder as keynote speaker and observer. Through the perspectives and experiences of five academics involved in PENA, this paper will explore the group’s activities and reflect on the inspiration drawn from the work of Freire, Darder and others. Creating spaces for discussion of critical pedagogy affords opportunities for academics, educators, teachers and activists to reflect on their practice and also leads to further spontaneous networking and planning of action. In this paper we argue that there is continuing importance, in fact urgency, in producing places and spaces for conscientisation to occur, and for examples of critical education to be shared amongst 21st century educators.

Street art : Mirror reflections on and meshing with urban agriculture

Street Art: Mirror Reflections on urban AgricultureThis chapter will look at the way socio-political commentary exists in street art and how it has tended in recent times to be displayed overlooking community urban gardens. The urgency with which inner suburban councils in Melbourne Australia have dedicated themselves to carving out recreational spaces is a reflection on the expectations of multi-cultural groups whose culture incorporates the growth of vegetable and fruits close to their place of residence. Street art, famous for its commentary on urban ugliness, has integrated its philosophy and aesthetics, along side notable community gardens in Melbourne. The images incorporate the aims of urban agriculture whilst often simultaneously critiquing the alienation of the urban dweller cut so relentlessly from the means of growing food and from accessing land that might produce it. Community gardens in the twenty-first century go some way to reversing a state of being in which ‘workers’ were alienated from the source of their labor and their survival. This chapter will also probe the extent to which street art in the inner laneways of Melbourne incorporate in to their designs fauna and flora. This reference to all that is organic in environments devoid of vegetation draws attention not only to that absence but also for the need to address it. This work will therefore deal with two interrelating themes: 1. Street art that complements community gardens; 2. Street art that engages with agricultural imagery and images of fauna and flora with the aim of subverting the continual growth of unregulated concrete jungles. The chapter will be informed by interviews with well known Australian street artists and will also explore the work they have done in Paris, Jamaica, London and Miami on both themes stipulated above.

Medication errors in ED: do patient characteristics and the environment influence the nature and frequency of medication errors?

Background: Medication safety is of increasing importance and understanding the nature and frequency of medication errors in the Emergency Department (ED) will assist in tailoring interventions which will make patient care safer. The challenge with the literature to date is the wide variability in the frequency of errors reported and the reliance on incident reporting practices of busy ED staff. Methods: A prospective, exploratory descriptive design using point prevalence surveys was used to establish the frequency of observed medication errors in the ED. In addition, data related to contextual factors such as ED patients, staffing and workload were also collected during the point prevalence surveys to enable the analysis of relationships between the frequency and nature of specific error types and patient and ED characteristics at the time of data collection. Results: A total of 172 patients were included in the study: 125 of whom patients had a medication chart. The prevalence of medication errors in the ED studied was 41.2% for failure to apply patient ID bands, 12.2% for failure to document allergy status and 38.4% for errors of omission. The proportion of older patients in the ED did not affect the frequency of medication errors. There was a relationship between high numbers of ATS 1, 2 and 3 patients (indicating high levels of clinical urgency) and increased rates of failure to document allergy status. Medication errors were affected by ED occupancy, when cubicles in the ED were over 50% occupied, medication errors occurred more frequently. ED staffing affects the frequency of medication errors, there was an increase in failure to apply ID bands and errors of omission when there were unfilled nursing deficits and lower levels of senior medical staff were associated with increased errors of omission. Conclusions: Medication errors related to patient identification, allergy status and medication omissions occur more frequently in the ED when the ED is busy, has sicker patients and when the staffing is not at the minimum required staffing levels.

A cross-sectional examination of non-suicidal self-injury, disordered eating, impulsivity, and compulsivity in a sample of adult women

Non-suicidal self-injury has been classed as having both impulsive and compulsive characteristics (Simeon & Favazza, 2001). These constructs have been related to disordered eating behaviors such as vomiting (Favaro & Santonastaso, 1998). Utilizing an international sample of adult females, this paper further explored this model, aiming to identify whether all types of disordered eating could be classified as impulsive or compulsive, and whether the impulsive and compulsive groupings reflect underlying trait impulsivity and compulsivity. The hypothesized impulsive and compulsive dimensions did not emerge from the data. Notably however, all self-injurious and disordered eating behaviors were linked to Urgency (an impulsivity facet) to varying degrees; no relationship with trait compulsivity was found. These findings are discussed, study limitations are noted, and relevance for clinical practice is outlined.

Family violence happens to everybody: gender, mental health and violence in Australian media representations of filicide 2010–2014

This discussion of three cases of filicide reported and reviewed extensively by the Australian news media between 2010 and 2014 is concerned with the politics of representation and its links to material violence. Moving through the architecture of the coverage rather than focusing on it this article observes popular, if mostly tacit, assumptions about masculinity and femininity in representing ‘family violence’. It locates coverage patterns to illustrate perceptions of violence against women and children and inaccurate stereotyping of such family violence as the extraordinary consequences of mental illness, which are mostly reproduced by the Australian media. It is suggested that such media representations are part of a downplaying of family violence as a public issue of urgency.

A Jamesonian theory of theological practice: a critical response to the work of Roland Boer

In a conjuncture marked by the “resurgence of religion,” the problem of historical materialism’s relation to religious ideologies has acquired a new urgency. The work of Roland Boer, recently awarded the Deutscher Prize for his magnum opus on Marxism and Theology poses this question from a surprising perspective. While his main claim is that religious influences in Marxist theory represent a sort of theological unconscious in historical materialism, at the same time Boer also advances an original Marxist interpretation of the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity. This line of research, which extends from his dissertation on Jameson and Jeroboam through to his most recent work on The Sacred Economy, proposes that theology is a reflective representation of the social totality. In this article, I criticise Boer’s valorisation of theology as a practical discourse that is post-ideological but non-theoretical, and conclude by indicating an alternative.

Emotional regulation, attachment to possessions and hoarding symptoms

This study aimed to test which particular facets of emotion regulation (ER) are most linked to symptoms of hoarding disorder, and whether beliefs about emotional attachment to possessions (EA) mediate this relationship. A non-clinical sample of 150 participants (108 females) completed questionnaires of emotional tolerance (distress tolerance, anxiety sensitivity, negative urgency - impulsivity when experiencing negative emotions), depressed mood, hoarding, and beliefs about emotional attachment to possessions. While all emotional tolerance measures related to hoarding, when considered together and controlling for depression and age, anxiety sensitivity and urgency were the significant predictors. Anxiety sensitivity was fully mediated, and urgency partially mediated, via beliefs regarding emotional attachment to possessions. These findings provide further support for (1) the importance of anxiety sensitivity and negative urgency for hoarding symptoms, and (2) the view that individuals with HD symptoms may rely on items for emotion regulation, leading to stronger beliefs that items are integral to emotional wellbeing.