Music festivals are in trouble but the shows must go on

It’s no secret that the music festival scene in Australia has recently hit some troubled waters. Harvest festival has been cancelled this year, unpaid performers are still chasing the organisers of the failed Peats Ridge festival and Britpop superstars Blur recently pulled out of the Big Day Out, saying festival organisers “have let us down”. What factors are driving this upheaval, and why do some festivals survive where others fail?

A History of Popular Indigenous Music

SINCE THE INVENTION OF recording technologies like the phonograph in the late 1800s, Indigenous music has been performed and recorded across Australia for a wide range of audiences. In the early twentieth century, for instance, music was recorded by anthropologists keen to capture the sounds of a culture that was believed to be in rapid decline (Thomas). Individual performers were not considered important in these recordings; their music was produced for scientific posterity rather than popular pleasure. And even though Aboriginal participation in local music festivals, touring vaudeville shows, and community gatherings was well documented throughout the twentieth century, it was not until the 1950s that Indigenous “pop stars” began to sell records for mass consumption(Dunbar-Hall and Gibson). Yet, with the persistence of recording artists like Jimmy Little over the past sixty years, Indigenous musicians have steadily gained prominence in Australia’s mainstream. This has been particularly true of the past twenty years, especially since the Sydney Olympics, where promotional strategies have brought about a new popular pride in musical achievements, based upon a celebrated history of diverse sounds and voices.

Computer simulation of scaffold degradation

Scaffolds are porous biocompatible materials with suitable microarchitectures that are designed to allow for cell adhesion, growth and proliferation. They are used in combination with cells in regenerative medicine to promote tissue regeneration by means of a controlled deposition of natural extracellular matrix by the hosted cells therein. This healing process is in many cases accompanied by scaffold degradation up to its total disappearance when the scaffold is made of a biodegradable material. This work presents a computational model that simulates the degradation of scaffolds. The model works with three-dimensional microstructures, which have been previously discretised into small cubic homogeneous elements, called voxels. The model simulates the evolution of the degradation of the scaffold using a Monte Carlo algorithm, which takes into account the curvature of the surface of the fibres. The simulation results obtained in this study are in good agreement with empirical degradation measurements performed by mass loss on scaffolds after exposure to an etching alkaline solution.

'Look and feel' computer copyright in the United States and Australia (part 2)

Australian law similar to that of United States -- Australian law requires copyright must subsist in plaintiff's material and defendent's work must infringe plaintiff's copyright to find defendent liable for illegal copying -- subsistence -- infringement -- two cases that touch on 'look and feel' issue -- passing-off -- look and feel of computer program deserves protection

'Look and feel' computer copyright in the United States and Australia (part 1)

United States copyright law -- two streams of computer copyright cases form basis for 'look and feel' litigation, literary work stream and audiovisual work stream -- literary work stream focuses on structure -- audiovisual work steam addresses appearance -- case studies

Studio-quality digital music? It’s only as good as your set-up

There’s a diagram that does the rounds online that neatly sums up the difference between the quality of equipment used in the studio to produce music, and the quality of the listening equipment used by the consumer...

The design and development of music eScape: A new iPhone mood management music App

The physical, emotional, educational and social developmental challenges of adolescence can be associated with high levels of emotional vulnerability. Thus, the development of effective emotion-regulation strategies is crucial during this time period. Young people commonly use music to identify, express and regulate their emotions. Modern mobile technology provides an engaging, easily accessible means of assisting young people through music. A systematic contextual review identified 20 iPhone applications addressing emotions through music and two independent raters, using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS), evaluated the quality of the apps. Their characteristics, key features and overall quality will be presented. Three participatory design workshops (N=13, 6 males, 7 females; age 15-25) were conducted to explore young people’s use of music to enhance wellbeing. Young people were also asked to trial existing mood and music apps and to conceptualise their ultimate mood targeting music application. A thematic analysis of the participatory design workshops content identified the following music affect-regulation strategies: relationship building, modifying cognitions, modifying emotions, and immersing in emotions. The application of the key learnings from the mobile app review and participatory design workshops and the design and development of the music eScape app were presented and implications for future research was discussed.

'Music eScape': mHealth application

Research Background Young people’s avid use of mobile technologies in daily life has led to an increase in the design and research on mHealth (mobile health) interventions targeting young people. ‘Music eScape’ is a mobile based mood regulation app that uses an innovative approach to promoting young people’s wellbeing using music. Research Question The design, research, development and evaluation of ‘Music eScape’ addressed a number of research questions from across the fields of Psychology and Interactive and Visual Design. The specific design research question addressed was: How can interaction and visual design be utilized to promote and enable young people to effectively regulate their mood using music and how can the new design further promote their experience of empowerment, control and agency over actively directing their mood journey? Research Contribution Innovation and New Knowledge Through its unique visual interface design and interactivity, the application presents a novel approach to promoting young people’s wellbeing using music and a specific function that allows users to ‘draw’ their mood journey in order to generate a playlist. The mobile app is the first to contain a function that enables users to plan their mood journey and exercise a sense of agency, intentional choice and control over the mood shift and by extension, their wellbeing. The feature ‘drawing’ interface was designed by Oksana Zelenko using participatory design research and Russell’s circumplex model of affect (1980) to inform the key visual design concept and underpinning interaction design. Research Significance The significance of the design research component within the larger interdisciplinary practices that have informed ‘Music eScape’ (e.g. field of psychology, reported through journal articles and other related outcomes), is the unique visual and interactive presentation of participant data and music therapy research within the app interface and interaction design which improves and increases young people’s engagement with the health messages it contains. The industry quality standard is further demonstrated by the launch on Apple iTunes. This demonstrates the application meets the high professional requirements for national release and meets international standards. The app also creates a new benchmark for the quality of health apps on the market as it marks the industry release of a trialled evidence-based mHealth intervention co-designed with young people.

Validity of the computer science and applications (CSA) activity monitor in children

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of the CSA activity monitor as a measure of children's physical activity using energy expenditure (EE) as a criterion measure. Methods Thirty subjects aged 10 to 14 performed three 5-min treadmill bouts at 3, 4, and 6 mph, respectively. While on the treadmill, subjects wore CSA (WAM 7164) activity monitors on the right and left hips. (V) over dot O-2 was monitored continuously by an automated system. EE was determined by multiplying the average (V) over dot O-2 by the caloric equivalent of the mean respiratory exchange ratio. Results Repeated measures ANOVA indicated that both CSA monitors were sensitive to changes in treadmill speed. Mean activity counts from each CSA unit were not significantly different and the intraclass reliability coefficient for the two CSA units across all speeds was 0.87. Activity counts from both CSA units were strongly correlated with EE (r = 0.86 and 0.87, P < 0.001). An EE prediction equation was developed from 20 randomly selected subjects and cross-validated on the remaining 10. The equation predicted mean EE within 0.01 kcal.min(-1). The correlation between actual and predicted values was 0.93 (P < 0.01) and the SEE was 0.93 kcal.min(-1). Conclusion These data indicate that the CSA monitor is a valid and reliable tool for quantifying treadmill walking and running in children.