One step multifunctional micropatterning of surfaces using asymmetric glow discharge plasma polymerization

Micropatterning of surfaces with varying chemical, physical and topographical properties usually requires a number of fabrication steps. Herein, we describe a micropatterning technique based on plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) that deposits both protein resistant and protein repellent surface chemistries in a single step. The resulting multifunctional, selective surface chemistries are capable of spatially controlled protein adhesion, geometric confinement of cells and the site specific confinement of enzyme mediated peptide self-assembly.

Australia and appeasement : imperial foreign policy and the origins of World War II

This book examines Australia's role in the British Empire's policy of Appeasment in the years from the time Hitler came to power 1933 to the outbreak of the European War in September 1939. Focusing on the five leading figures in the Australian governments of the 1930s - Joe Lyons, Stanley, Bruce, Robert Menzies, Billy Hughes and Ricahrd Casey - this book examines their responses to the rise of Hitler and the gowing threat of fascism. It provide new insights into the history of Australian foreign policy, British imperial history and the history of the Origins of the Second World War. 

Mark Oliphant’s adventures in atomic wonderland

Australian physicist Mark Oliphant came to hold two oppositional views, both pro and anti nuclear weapons research. This, together with the dimensions of his ‘larger than life’ personality, impacted on his scientific reputation in the fall-out of Australia’s ‘McCarthyism’. Despite his bullying the Americans into funding the A-Bomb project, the atomic juggernaut unleashed on the world caused Oliphant to rethink his role as a scientist. Oliphant clashed with American hegemony and the Menzies Government’s duplication of the ‘Reds under the Bed’ paranoia in Australia in the 1950s. His outspokenness on the danger of nuclear proliferation found him out of step with the changed political climate of the Cold War. Drawing on neglected archival material and using a Brechtian theatrical mode, my play Ion Man’s Adventures in Atomic Wonderland investigates the tragic dimensions of a man who never fully understood, as Thomas Kuhn explained (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), that scientific research is determined as much by politics and ideology as by the desire to understand the world.

An exploration of the motivation to attend for spectators of the Lexmark Indy 300 champ car event, Gold Coast

The perceptions of spectators (N = 36) at the Lexmark Indy 300 Champ Car event were assessed via qualitative methods to evaluate their internal and external motivations to attend. The characteristics of the majority of attendees who were interviewed for this study were predominantly male, 26–35 years old, from Queensland, and who earned around AUD$50,000–75,000 per annum. The most common reason to attend was the atmosphere that the event created, in particular, the entertainment options. Other reasons included watching the race, the location, living nearby, attending with friends or family and interacting and socializing with other people who also attend. The findings revealed that participants attended to escape every day life, or that they were a ‘true fan’ of the motorsport. The findings of the study have implications for sport marketers who wish to communicate to those individuals in more targeted approaches for a more efficient and effective impact.

Doing business in China : getting ready for the Asian century

Although this book has a specific focus on Australian firms doing business in China, the important and unique contribution this book makes will help you and anyone in an organization that is considering doing business in China. China maintains a high growth economy and is currently the second largest in the world. This book, which includes results from research interviews conducted with business executives from 40 organizations, will assist in preparing to do business in China. This book takes you through the various elements associated with doing business in China, including the opportunities that are available and the obstacles that organizations can face, supported by data from real businesses internationalizing to China. It examines key areas including the foreign direct investment and trade framework, Chinese culture, political and legal frameworks, intellectual property regulations, motivations for internationalization, market entry strategy, and human resource management issues.

West meets East : examining the use of reflective journals in international study programs

This paper documents the learning of a sample of 15 MBA students who have participated in an experiential international study program to China, and have used a reflective journal as a learning activity. Kolb and Kolb’s (2005) experiential model is used to analyse the learning experiences of the MBA students. Students encountered a number of learning benefits from reflective journal writing, and this included deep reflection, enjoyment, and being able to link theory with reality. The study found that students were able to develop knowledge from their experiences in China by crystallising those experiences when writing a reflective journal. The students developed knowledge about China’s economic growth, reasons for why it is growing, and students were able to critically analyse the challenges China faces from a moral, fairness, and environmental perspective.

Trust in strategic alliances: what does it mean and how is it built?

Informed by social exchange theory (SET) this study examines the role of trust in strategic alliances. Interviews were conducted with 17 participants who were strategic alliance managers in their organization. The study finds that trust is important to strategic alliance managers, and without it alliance managers would find it difficult to keep their alliance going. Trust is built over time, and based on the past experiences that the alliance manager has with their partner. The study found that prior networks, timely and appropriate communication and information exchange, fairness preservation and inter-firm adaptation were important in developing trust in the strategic alliance.

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.

Ecological determinism in Australia : tracing the legacy of McHarg downunder and its key precedents

Ecological planning, as advocated by Ian McHarg, filtered extensively through North America following the publication of Design with Nature (1965). The integrated design and planning approach was also advanced by numerous graduates of McHarg's studios at the University of Pennsylvania where this approach was extensively trialled and proven. While a clear synthesis and theoretical framework was articulated and reinforced through a plethora of projects, monographs, and articles, the majority of these perspectives were North American, lacked clarity about the translation of the approach into legal strategic and statutory planning instruments, nor shed light upon what transpired in Australia. This paper reviews the development of the Conservation Plan created for the southern Mornington peninsula in Victoria, Australia, as well as its intent, structure and internal workings as a successful model of ecological statutory planning, in the context of the wider WPRPA activities that draws directly from the McHarg theory. Known as the Conservation Plan for the southern Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, a revolutionary planning structure devised in the early 1970s by several Australian proponents. The Conservation Plan continues in operation today curating a high scenic valued landscape protecting it from intrusion from the growing metropolitan city of Melbourne thus fulfilling its objectives of landscape quality conservation whilst still permitting sympathetic building and land use growth. Contextually, the Conservation Plan appears to be only statutory equivalent translation of the approach internationally other than the Pinelands Commission planning processes in New Jersey.

Words, oral libraries and environmental responses : an Australian indigenous perspective to climate change adaptation

Climate change adaptation and mitigation continues to be a prevalent discourse in this country and internationally in both the sciences and the arts. While various types and degrees of change are evident, the quantification of these changes including their scope and diversity have challenged conventional sciences. This is demonstrated in their inability to succinctly answer key questions about change including the degree of change and associated patterns and consequences. Most of this discourse is nested in a temporal band comprising the last 100-200 years of data and evidence, and very much informed by Western science perspectives and protocols. Little attempt has been made to engage with Australian Indigenous communities whom possess environmental knowledge of some 10,000-100,000 years albeit embedded in their artistic and oral narrative 'histories'. This paper explores the role and values that Australian Aboriginals, the Indigenous peoples of the Australian content, can offer in shedding new light on this discourse While focusing upon a cross-peri-urban Indigenous investigation, it examines this discourse though the lens of their words, terms, sentences as a vehicle to better understand a longitudinal perspective about climate change adaptation pertinent to Australia.

Indigenous knowledge and climate change : the Wathaurong and Gadubanud narrative for the Great Ocean Road region

For more than forty thousand years Aboriginal people of Australia have been confronted with major climate, ecological and geological changes as well as annual seasonal variations. Many of these changes have been captured in the cultural traditions of Maar (the people) of the south-west Victorian coast and the knowledge has been transferred from generation to generation through Dreaming stories. Many Dreaming stories recount the forming of the coastal landscape and Sea Country. Weather patterns and climate change were gauged by the occurrence of natural events such as the tidal changes, sea level rise, landscape changes, behaviour of animals, and the availability of food sources. Can this ancient knowledge provide answers for adaptation and resilience to a rapid changing climate? Drawing upon recent literature on coastal climate change in the Great Ocean Road Region (GORCC, 2012), literature review of indigenous environmental planning (Kooyang Sea Country Plan, 2004), and investigation of settlement patterns of the Wathaurong and Gadubanud people, this paper reviews the changes in the landscape due to climate change and explores traditional knowledge as input to a potential design based adaptation model for coastal settlements of the Great Ocean Road Region.