Representation and authenticity of historic landscapes in Australia and China

Histories of past communities are embedded in landscapes around the world but many are suffering from material change or neglect of their fabric. This study was aimed at discovering and representing the authentic intangible experience of two historic landscapes for conservation purposes. A 2500 year old site in Yangzhou, China and a 2000 year old site on St Helena Island in Moreton Bay were found to be managed under two culturally different regimes of authenticity. This research has contributed to challenging the notion that there is only one way to conserve authenticity in historic landscapes of the Asia Pacific.

Size-resolved particle distribution and gaseous concentrations by real-world road tunnel measurement

Measurements of aerosol particle number size distributions (15-700 nm), CO and NOx were performed in a bus tunnel, Australia. Daily mean particle size distributions of mixed diesel/CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) buses traffic flow were determined in 4 consecutive measurement days. EFs (Emission Factors) of Particle size distribution of diesel buses and CNG buses were obtained by MLR (Multiple Linear Regression) methods, particle distributions of diesel buses and CNG buses were observed as single accumulation mode and nuclei-mode separately. Particle size distributions of mixed traffic flow were decomposed by two log-normal fitting curves for each 30 minutes interval mean scans, all the mix fleet PSD emission can be well fitted by the summation of two log-normal distribution curves, and these were composed of nuclei mode curve and accumulation curve, which were affirmed as the CNG buses and diesel buses PN emission curves respectively. Finally, particle size distributions of diesel buses and CNG buses were quantified by statistical whisker-box charts. For log-normal particle size distribution of diesel buses, accumulation mode diameters were 74.5～87.5nm, geometric standard deviations were 1.89～1.98. As to log-normal particle size distribution of CNG buses, nuclei-mode diameters were 21～24 nm, geometric standard deviations were 1.27～1.31.

Striving for a better world: Lessons from Freire in Grenada, Jamaica and Australia

The author of this paper considers the influence of Paulo Freire’s pedagogical philosophy on educational practice in three different geographical/political settings. She begins with reflections on her experience as a facilitator at Freire’s seminar, held in Grenada in 1980 for teachers and community educators, on the integration of work and study. This case demonstrates how Freire’s method of dialogic education achieved outcomes for the group of thoughtful collaboration leading to conscientisation in terms of deep reflection on their lives as teachers in Grenada and strategies for decolonising education and society. The second case under consideration is the arts-based pedagogy shaping the work of the Area Youth Foundation (AYF) in Kingston, Jamaica. Young participants, many of them from tough socio-economic backgrounds, are empowered by learning how to articulate their own experiences and relate these to social change. They express this conscientisation by creating stage performances, murals, photo-novella booklets and other artistic products. The third case study describes and evaluates the Honey Ant Reader project in Alice Springs, Australia. Aboriginal children, as well as the adults in their community, learn to read in their local language as well as Australian Standard English, using booklets created from indigenous stories told by community Elders, featuring local customs and traditions. The author analyses how the “Freirean” pedagogy in all three cases exemplifies the process of encouraging the creation of knowledge for progressive social change, rather than teaching preconceived knowledge. This supports her discussion of the extent to which this is authentic to the spirit of the scholar/teacher Paulo Freire, who maintained that in our search for a better society, the world has to be made and remade. Her second, related aim is to raise questions about how education aligned with Freirean pedagogy can contribute to moving social change from the culture circle to the public sphere.

Projecting the new world city: The city as spectacle in an urban light festival

As a precursor to the 2014 G20 Leaders’ Summit held in Brisbane, Australia, the Queensland Government sponsored a program of G20 Cultural Celebrations, designed to showcase the Summit’s host city. The cultural program’s signature event was the Colour Me Brisbane festival, a two-week ‘citywide interactive light and projection installations’ festival that was originally slated to run from 24 October to 9 November, but which was extended due to popular demand to conclude with the G20 Summit itself on 16 November. The Colour Me Brisbane festival comprised a series projection displays that promoted visions of the city’s past, present, and future at landmark sites and iconic buildings throughout the city’s central business district and thus transformed key buildings into forms of media architecture. In some instances the media architecture installations were interactive, allowing the public to control aspects of the projections through a computer interface situated in front of the building; however, the majority of the installations were not interactive in this sense. The festival was supported by a website that included information regarding the different visual and interactive displays and links to social media to support public discussion regarding the festival (Queensland Government 2014). Festival-goers were also encouraged to follow a walking-tour map of the projection sites that would take them on a 2.5 kilometre walk from Brisbane’s cultural precinct, through the city centre, concluding at parliament house. In this paper, we investigate the Colour Me Brisbane festival and the broader G20 Cultural Celebrations as a form of strategic placemaking—designed, on the one hand, to promote Brisbane as a safe, open, and accessible city in line with the City Council’s plan to position Brisbane as a ‘New World City’ (Brisbane City Council 2014). On the other hand, it was deployed to counteract growing local concerns and tensions over the disruptive and politicised nature of the G20 Summit by engaging the public with the city prior to the heightened security and mobility restrictions of the Summit weekend. Harnessing perspectives from media architecture (Brynskov et al. 2013), urban imaginaries (Cinar & Bender 2007), and social media analysis, we take a critical approach to analysing the government-sponsored projections, which literally projected the city onto itself, and public responses to them via the official, and heavily promoted, social media hashtags (#colourmebrisbane and #g20cultural). Our critical framework extends the concepts of urban phantasmagoria and urban imaginaries into the emerging field of media architecture to scrutinise its potential for increased political and civic engagement. Walter Benjamin’s concept of phantasmagoria (Cohen 1989; Duarte, Firmino, & Crestani 2014) provides an understanding of urban space as spectacular projection, implicated in commodity and techno-culture. The concept of urban imaginaries (Cinar & Bender 2007; Kelley 2013)—that is, the ways in which citizens’ experiences of urban environments are transformed into symbolic representations through the use of imagination—similarly provides a useful framing device in thinking about the Colour Me Brisbane projections and their relation to the construction of place. Employing these critical frames enables us to examine the ways in which the installations open up the potential for multiple urban imaginaries—in the sense that they encourage civic engagement via a tangible and imaginative experience of urban space—while, at the same time, supporting a particular vision and way of experiencing the city, promoting a commodified, sanctioned form of urban imaginary. This paper aims to dissect the urban imaginaries intrinsic to the Colour Me Brisbane projections and to examine how those imaginaries were strategically deployed as place-making schemes that choreograph reflections about and engagement with the city.

Economic inequality of the badli workers of Bangladesh: Contested entitlements and a 'perpetually temporary' life-world

This article discusses the experience of economic inequality of badli workers in the state-owned jute mills of the postcolonial state of Bangladesh, and how this inequality is constituted and perpetuated. Nominally appointed to fill posts during the temporary absence of permanent workers, the reality of badli workers’ employment is very different. They define themselves as ‘a different category of workers’, with limited economic entitlements. We undertake content analysis of the badli workers’ narratives to identify elements that they themselves consider constitute these economic entitlements. We consider their perceptions of discrimination and exclusion and explain how, in response to these feelings, they construct their survival strategy. From this, through the writings of Armatya Sen, we discuss the badli workers’ contextual experience and understanding of economic inequality in relation to extant theoretical understandings, seeking to contribute to the field and to empirical studies in the subaltern context.

Building a better world: Can architecture shape behaviour?

In 1966, a British planner called Maurice Broady came up with a new term for the architectural lexicon: architectural determinism. This was to describe the practice of groundlessly asserting that design solutions would change behaviour in a predictable and positive way. It was a new phrase but the belief system behind it – that buildings shape behaviour – had allowed the heroes of architecture to make all kinds of outlandish claims.

Where is spatial information and science in your world?

Skills in spatial sciences are fundamental to understanding our world in context. Increasing digital presence and the availability of data with accurate spatial components has allowed almost everything researchers and students do to be represented in a spatial context. Representing outcomes and disseminating information has moved from 2D to 4D with time series animation. In the next 5 years industry will not only demand QUT graduates have spatial skills along with analytical skills, graduates will be required to present their findings in spatial visualizations that show spatial, spectral and temporal contexts. Domains such as engineering and science will no longer be the leaders in spatial skills as social sciences, health, arts and the business community gain momentum from place-based research including human interactions. A university that can offer students a pathway to advanced spatial investigation will be ahead of the game.

The World Stroke Organization and nursing [Guest Editorial]

The field of neuroscience nursing and, in particular, nursing people with stroke has evolved significantly over the past two decades. Nurses working with people who have had a stroke and their families are called upon to use advanced assessment skills, apply nursing diagnoses across the whole continuum of care, and identify and implement a wide range of interventions. Indeed, in a recent Canadian study on the implementation of stroke best practices, nurses were identified as playing a leading role in many aspects of stroke care and recovery. As the volume of research evidence across disciplines mounts, nurses are challenged to “keep up on the latest”...

Global business services: Increasing specialization and integration of the world economy as drivers of economic growth

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of global business services to improved productivity and economic growth of the world economy, which has gone largely unnoticed in service research. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on macroeconomic data and industry reports, and link them to the non-ownership-concept in service research and theories of the firm. Findings Business services explain a large share of the growth of the global service economy. The fast growth of business services coincides with shifts from domestic production towards global outsourcing of services. A new wave of global business services are traded across borders and have emerged as important drivers of growth in the world’s service sector. Research limitations/implications This paper advances the understanding of non-ownership services in an increasingly global and specialized post-industrial economy. The paper makes a conceptual contribution supported by descriptive data, but without empirical testing. Originality/value The authors integrate the non-ownership concept and three related economic theories of the firm to explain the role of global business services in driving business performance and the international transformation of service economies.

Intuitive use of tangible toys

Interfaces for children have continued to evolve in terms of complexity, with toys ranging from traditional tangible interfaces to apps with digital interfaces and hybrid toys with mixed physical and digital interfaces. However, there is limited research done to investigate their potential for intuitive use. This research study compares a tangible toy and an equivalent toy in the digital world (app) for intuitive use. Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test results showed that the tangible toy was more intuitive than the intangible counter part. Tangible systems are less complex to use and they require less time to encode and retrieve associated knowledge to use them intuitively. They are associated with low domain transfer distance and easily discoverable features. Intangible interfaces, on the other ha nd, require greater complexity and time to encode and retrieve associated experiential knowledge. Intangibles are associated with larger domain transfer distance and undiscoverable features which affects their intuitive use. Design implications and future work are discussed, emphasising the need for investigating aspects that make tangible systems intuitive to use.

Price and trade: World no tobacco day 2015

This special issue of Tobacco Control for World No Tobacco Day is focused on the theme of Price and Trade.

Mauve: How one man invented the colour that changed the world

In an essay, "The Books of Last Things", Delia Falconer discusses the emergence of a new genre in publishing - microhistories. She cites a number of recent titles in non-fiction and fiction - Longitude, Cod, Tulips, Pushkin's Button, Nathaniel's Nutmeg, Zarafa, The Surgeon of Crowthorne, The Potato, The Perfect Storm. Delia Falconer observes of this tradition: "One has the sense, reading these books, of a surprising weight, of pleasant shock. In part, it is because we are looking at things which are generally present around us, but modestly out of sight and mind - historical nitty gritty like cod, potatoes, longitudinal clocks - which the authors have thrust suddenly, like a Biblical visitation of frogs or locusts, in our face. Things like spice and buttons and clocks are generally seen to enable history on the large scale, but are not often viewed as its worthy subjects. And by the same grand logic of history, more unusual phenomena like cabinets of curiosities or glass-making or farm lore or sailors' knots are simply odd blips on its radar screen, interesting footnotes. These new books, microhistories, reverse the usual order of history, which argues from the general to the particular, in order to prove its inevitable progress. They start from the footnotes. But by reversing the process, and walking through the back door of history, you don't necessarily end up at the front of the same house." Delia Falconer speculates about the reasons for the popularity of microhistories. She concludes: "I would like to think that reading them is not simply an exercise in nostalgia, but a challenge to the present". In Mauve, Simon Garfield provides a new way of thinking and writing about the history of intellectual property. Instead of providing a grand historical narrative of intellectual property, he tells the story of a particular invention, and its exploitation. Simon Garfield relates how English chemist William Perkin accidentally discovered a way to mass-produce colour mauve in a factory. Working on a treatment for malaria in his London home laboratory, Perkin failed to produce artificial quinine. Instead he created a dark oily sludge that turned silk a beautiful light purple. The colour was unique and became the most desirable shade in the fashion houses of Paris and London. ... The book Mauve will have a number of contemporary resonances for intellectual property lawyers and academics. Simon Garfield emphasizes the difficulties inherent in commercialising an invention and managing intellectual property. He investigates the uneasy collaboration between industry and science. Simon Garfield suggests that complaints about the efficacy of patent offices are perennial. He also highlights the problems faced by courts and law-makers in accommodating new technologies within the logic of patent law. In his elegant microhistory of the colour mauve, Simon Garfield confirms the conclusion of Brad Sherman and Lionel Bently that many aspects of modern intellectual property law can only be understood through an understanding of the past: "The image of intellectual property law that developed during the 19th century and the narrative of identity which this engendered played and continue to play an important role in the way we think about and understand intellectual property law".