Alcohol-related violence presenting to the emergency department : is ‘glassing’ the big issue?

Objective Describe the characteristics of patients presenting to Emergency Departments (EDs) within Queensland, Australia with injuries due to assault with a glass implement (‘glassing’) and to set this within the broader context of presentations due to alcohol-related violence. Methods Analysis of prospectively collected ED injury surveillance data collated by the Queensland Injury Surveillance Unit (QISU) between 1999 and 2011. Cases of injury due to alcohol-related violence were identified and analysed using coded fields supplemented with qualitative data contained within the injury description text. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the characteristics of injury presentations due to alcohol-related violence. Violence included interpersonal violence and aggression (verbal aggression and object violence). Results A total of 4629 cases were studied. The study population was predominantly male (72%) and aged 18 to 24 (36%), with males in this age group comprising more than a quarter of the study population (28%). Nine percent of alcohol-related assault injuries were a consequence of ‘glassing’. The home was the most common location for alcohol-related violence (31%) and alcohol-related ‘glassings’ (33%). Overall, the most common glass object involved was a bottle (75%), however, within licensed venues an even mix of a drinking glass (44%) and glass bottle (45%) were identified. Conclusions Contrary to public perception generated by media, ‘glassing’ incidents, particularly at licensed venues, constitute a relatively small proportion of all alcohol-related violence. The current study highlights the predominance of young men injured following alcohol-related violence, demonstrating a key focus area within the population for aiming prevention strategies.

Design Minds The Big Picture Toolkit

The Design Minds The Big Picture Toolkit was one of six K7-12 secondary school design toolkits commissioned by the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) Asia Pacific Design Library (APDL), to facilitate the delivery of the Stage 1 launch of its Design Minds online platform (www.designminds.org.au) partnership initiative with Queensland Government Arts Queensland and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, on June 29, 2012. Design Minds toolkits are practical guides, underpinned by a combination of one to three of the Design Minds model phases of ‘Inquire’, ‘Ideate’ and ‘Implement’ (supported by at each stage with structured reflection), to enhance existing school curriculum and empower students with real life design exercises, within the classroom environment. Toolkits directly identify links to Naplan, National Curriculum, C2C and Professional Standards benchmarks, as well as the student capabilities of successful and creative 21st century citizens they seek to engender through design thinking. Inspired by the Unlimited: Designing for the Asia Pacific Generation Workshop 2010 (http://eprints.qut.edu.au/47762/), this toolkit explores, through three distinct exercises, ‘design for the other 90%’, addressing tools and approaches to diverse and changing social, cultural, technological and environmental challenges. The Design Minds The Big Picture Toolkit challenges students to be active agents for change and to think creatively and optimistically about solutions to future global issues that deliver social, economic and environmental benefits. More generally, it aims to facilitate awareness in young people, of the role of design in society and the value of design thinking skills in generating strategies to solve basic to complex systemic challenges, as well as to inspire post-secondary pathways and idea generation for education. The toolkit encourages students and teachers to develop sketching, making, communication, presentation and collaboration skills to improve their design process, as well as explore further inquiry (background research) to enhance the ideation exercises. Exercise 1 focuses on the ‘Inquire’ phase, Exercise 2 the ‘Inquire’ and ‘Ideate’ phases, and Exercise 3 concentrates on the ‘Implement’ phase. Depending on the intensity of the focus, the unit of work could be developed over a 4-5 week program (approximately 4-6 x 60 minute lessons/workshops) or as smaller workshops treated as discrete learning experiences. The toolkit is available for public download from http://designminds.org.au/the-big-picture/ on the Design Minds website.

The big data lottery

Big data is certainly the buzz term in executive networking circles at the moment. Heralded by management consultancies and research organisations alike as the next big thing in business efficiency, it is shooting up the Gartner hype cycle to the giddy heights of the peak of inflated expectations before it tumbles down in to the trough of disillusionment

Basic finance made accessible in Excel 2007 : "the big 5, plus 2"

The basic principles and equations are developed for elementary finance, based on the concept of compound interest. The five quantities of interest in such problems are present value, future value, amount of periodic payment, number of periods and the rate of interest per period. We consider three distinct means of computing each of these five quantities in Excel 2007: (i) use of algebraic equations, (ii) by recursive schedule and the Goal Seek facility, and (iii) use of Excel's intrinsic financial functions. The paper is intended to be used as the basis for a lesson plan and contains many examples and solved problems. Comment is made regarding the relative difficulty of each approach, and a prominent theme is the systematic use of more than one method to increase student understanding and build confidence in the answer obtained. Full instructions to build each type of model are given and a complete set of examples and solutions may be downloaded (Examples.xlsx and Solutions.xlsx).

Think of the children! The decline of the big day out and mega-festivals

What does the future look like for music festivals in Australia? This article examines the decline of the large festivals that have grown to dominate the scene in Australia in the last twenty years, and the rise of small, specialized festivals that offer a boutique experience.

Online fine line : using social media to predict the Big Brother eviction

Reality television, alongside shows such as Q&A – which may be Reality TV in all but name – frequently drives social media conversations about the Australian television industry. Big Brother, currently screening on Channel 9, is consistently among the shows with the highest levels of chatter in that regard. The precise Facebook data is hard to quantify but the Official Big Brother page boasts 805,400 likes and more than 59,000 comments since the start of the series, suggesting it has established a firm presence on that platform too...

Engaging communities to make the big switch

Stepping out on the streets of Townsville, where the sun shines for 300 days a year, you can feel a buzz in the air. But it’s not just the sunshine, booming development or new esplanade that has this North Queensland city excited. There’s a groundswell of green activity as residents embrace ‘Townsville Solar City’ – the only Queensland city participating in the Federal Government’s Solar Cities program. Keen to create a more sustainable future, this community is participating in a range of initiatives led by Ergon Energy and Townsville City Council. These activities aim to reduce energy use, increase solar energy capacity and cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50 000 tonnes.

The case for “n«all”: Why the Big Data revolution will probably happen differently in the mining sector

Big Data and predictive analytics have received significant attention from the media and academic literature throughout the past few years, and it is likely that these emerging technologies will materially impact the mining sector. This short communication argues, however, that these technological forces will probably unfold differently in the mining industry than they have in many other sectors because of significant differences in the marginal cost of data capture and storage. To this end, we offer a brief overview of what Big Data and predictive analytics are, and explain how they are bringing about changes in a broad range of sectors. We discuss the “N=all” approach to data collection being promoted by many consultants and technology vendors in the marketplace but, by considering the economic and technical realities of data acquisition and storage, we then explain why a “n « all” data collection strategy probably makes more sense for the mining sector. Finally, towards shaping the industry’s policies with regards to technology-related investments in this area, we conclude by putting forward a conceptual model for leveraging Big Data tools and analytical techniques that is a more appropriate fit for the mining sector.

The big pond debate.

Over recent decades, Australian piggeries have commonly employed anaerobic ponds to treat effluent to a standard suitable for recycling for shed flushing purposes and for irrigation onto nearby agricultural land. Anaerobic ponds are generally sized according to the Rational Design Standard (RDS) developed by Barth (1985), resulting in large ponds, which can be expensive to construct, occupy large land areas, and are difficult and expensive to desludge, potentially disrupting the whole piggery operation. Limited anecdotal and scientific evidence suggests that anaerobic ponds that are undersized according to the RDS, operate satisfactorily, without excessive odour emission, impaired biological function or high rates of solids accumulation. Based on these observations, this paper questions the validity of rigidly applying the principles of the RDS and presents a number of alternate design approaches resulting in smaller, more highly loaded ponds that are easier and cheaper to construct and manage. Based on limited data of pond odour emission, it is suggested that higher pond loading rates may reduce overall odour emission by decreasing the pond volume and surface area. Other management options that could be implemented to reduce pond volumes include permeable pond covers, various solids separation methods, and bio-digesters with impermeable covers, used in conjunction with biofilters and/or systems designed for biogas recovery. To ensure that new effluent management options are accepted by regulatory authorities, it is important for researchers to address both industry and regulator concerns and uncertainties regarding new technology, and to demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, that new technologies do not increase the risk of adverse impacts on the environment or community amenity. Further development of raw research outcomes to produce relatively simple, practical guidelines and implementation tools also increases the potential for acceptance and implementation of new technology by regulators and industry.

Basic Income Grant in Namibia, a Viewpoint on the Proposal and on the Work of the BIG Coalition

This thesis studies the basic income grant proposal in Namibia. The proposal suggests a monthly grant of N$100 (approximately 10€) to all those Namibian citizens who do not receive the state pension. This thesis concentrates on the Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition and on its work. The formation and transformation of the coalition during the time period between 2003 and 2009 is analyzed with the help of data collected during two field work periods in 2008 and 2009. The data includes interviews, newspaper articles, observations and other background material. The analysis of this material is mainly conducted from organizational viewpoint. The final part of the thesis applies the results to the theory of Mosse, whose propositions about policy and practice will be discussed in relation to the basic income grant pilot project. The thesis argues that social legitimacy has been a vital resource for the work of the BIG Coalition and it has sought for it in various ways. The concept of social legitimacy originates from the resource dependence perspective of Pfeffer and Salancik, who propose that organizations are dependent on their environments, and on the resources provided by the surrounding environment. This thesis studies the concept of social legitimacy in the context of resource dependence theory. Social legitimacy is analyzed in the relations between the coalition and its environment, in the formation of the coalition, in the responses towards criticism, and finally in relation to the propositions concerning policy and practice. The work of the coalition in the pilot project will be analyzed through the propositions of Mosse concerning policy and practice. The results will describe and analyze key events in the formation of the BIG Coalition from the South African proposal until the end of the basic income pilot project. This BIG pilot project conducted in 2008-2009 is one of the most well-known activities of the coalition. The clashes between the coalition and its environment will be analyzed through four case studies. It will be shown that the project has been conducted in order to gain more legitimacy to the basic income grant proposal. The conclusion questions the legitimacy of the BIG Coalition as a research and development organization, and requests for more transparent research on the basic income proposal in Namibia.

The Corogal: one of the big dredges in Culebra Cut, Panama Canal (ca. 1914)

Leonard Carpenter Panama Canal Collection. Photographs: Dredging, Soldiers, and Ships. [Box 1] from the Special Collections & Area Studies Department, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida.

Proposal to permit experimental artificial reefs inside and outside the Big Sycamore Canyon Ecological Reserve

(Document pdf contains 19 pages)

Keys to success in an example of inter-competitor cooperation: The case of the "Big Seven" basque chefs

The case of the top chefs relates the two areas that are apparently most distant, nutrition and health technology. It is the element that binds[3] the four, making them into a single whole. The results achieved by our chefs, in terms of their individual and collective success and their international projection of the image of the Basque Country comprise a goal to which other industries in the region should aspire. It is therefore our plan to apply the keys to this successful inter-competitor cooperation to development of the health technology industry. At the same time, we want to fulfil one of the aims that have been established for the food area: to make use of the country’s gastronomy-related assets.

Irony in Popular Fiction: Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep in film and in translation

Eterio Pajares, Raquel Merino y José Miguel Santamaría (eds.)