Evaluation of the GHR car following model for traffic safety studies

Traffic safety studies mandate more than what existing micro-simulation models can offer as they postulate that every driver exhibits a safe behaviour. All the microscopic traffic simulation models are consisting of a car-following model and the Gazis–Herman–Rothery (GHR) car-following model is a widely used model. This paper highlights the limitations of the GHR car-following model capability to model longitudinal driving behaviour for safety study purposes. This study reviews and compares different version of the GHR model. To empower the GHR model on precise metrics reproduction a new set of car-following model parameters is offered to simulate unsafe vehicle conflicts. NGSIM vehicle trajectory data is used to evaluate the new model and short following headways and Time to Collision are employed to assess critical safety events within traffic flow. Risky events are extracted from available NGSIM data to evaluate the modified model against the generic versions of the GHR model. The results from simulation tests illustrate that the proposed model does predict the safety metrics better than the generic GHR model. Additionally it can potentially facilitate assessing and predicting traffic facilities’ safety using microscopic simulation. The new model can predict Near-miss rear-end crashes.

New discursive configurations of journalism : Narratives in Rio de Janeiro's favelas [Novas configurações discursivas no jornalismo: narrativas digitais nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro]

Oprincipal objetivo desse artigo é apresentar os resultados parciais de uma pesquisa em andamento sobre o processo de produção de conteúdo do portal Viva Favela, um dos projetos sociais realizados pela organização nãogovernamental Viva Rio. Partindo de uma abordagem conceitual que discute os modos pelos quais a mídia alternativa e o jornalismo público/jornalismo cívico criam as condições de possibilidade para que uma determinada prática jornalística dê ‘voz’ e ‘empodere’ (empower) moradores de periferias e favelas brasileiras, estamos realizando um estudo das rotinas produtivas do Viva Favela e seus ‘correspondentes comunitários’. O conceito sobre voice, de Jo Tacchi, oferece-nos um embasamento teórico adequado para refletirmos sobre o que vem sendo denominado, nos Estados Unidos, de digital storytelling – as narrativas digitais produzidas com as tecnologias de informação e comunicação para “contar estórias” 1, que são criativamente apropriadas, no Brasil, por moradores das favelas e periferias das regiões metropolitanas.

Participatory photography and self-empowerment in different nations

Volunteering Qld’s Project Creatives continues to explore the critical role creative disciplines and creative people play in providing new models of engagement and action in social change and community work. This article explores three different non-profit organisations that have used collaborative photography to enable locals to empower themselves. Written by Alice Baroni a volunteer with the Education, Research and Policy Unit of Volunteering Qld. Alice is undertaking a PhD at the Queensland University of Technology, exploring (photo) journalism, participatory content creation and community photography in Brazil’s low income suburbs. She is part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, and a Brazilian research group ‘Storytellers and Narratives: Contemporary Journalism’. Two of the initiatives explored in this publication are Viva Favela and Imagens do Povo that are ideologically and physically supported by, respectively, Viva Rio and Observatório de Favelas, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ‘Favela’ is often translated simply as ‘slum’ or ‘shantytown’, but these terms connote negative characteristics such as shortage, poverty, and deprivation, which end up stigmatising these low-income suburbs. Fotografi Senza Frontiere (FSF) (Photographers Without Borders) is an Italian non-governmental organisation that gathers together a group of photographers who aim to provide youth from extreme regions in Nicaragua, Algeria, Argentina, Panama, Uganda, and Palestine with skills to photograph and document their own reality by establishing permanent photo laboratories. This idea, which is similar to that of Viva Favela and Imagens do Povo, is to enable youth to become professional photographers as a means of self-representation and self-empowerment. Afterwards, students become educators in established photographic labs so as to pass on what they have learnt through FSF’s photographic courses.

Wicked futures : metadesign, resilience and transformative classrooms

This paper presents an Australian case study entitled “Designing Futures”. It examines a six month multidisciplinary design program offered by a large co-educational, inner-city state school in Queensland in 2011. The program extended an already successful and innovative school-based design curriculum and involved students in Philosophy, Science, Mathematics and English classes, as well those in Art and Design. Additionally, there were 5 full-day workshops where students combined a wide range of skills to brainstorm, design and create sustainable solutions. The design thinking used in this program was based on the concepts of metadesign, design activism and design futuring. “Designing Futures” linked over 700 middle and secondary school students and staff with nine designers-in-residence from diverse disciplines, including bio-ethics. The program aimed to empower students from highly diverse cultural and social backgrounds to engage in authentic, participatory design processes, prepare them for future social and environmental challenges, and increase personal and community resilience. The research results will inform ongoing program development and research in K-12 design education, both within the school and in conjunction with university and community partnerships in Queensland.

Design minds : an online design education platform for non-designers to enact cultural change

Education in the 21st century demands a model for understanding a new culture of learning in the face of rapid change, open access data and geographical diversity. Teachers no longer need to provide the latest information because students themselves are taking an active role in peer collectives to help create it. This paper examines, through an Australian case study entitled ‘Design Minds’, the development of an online design education platform as a key initiative to enact a government priority for state-wide cultural change through design-based curriculum. Utilising digital technology to create a supportive community, ‘Design Minds’ recognises that interdisciplinary learning fostered through engagement will empower future citizens to think, innovate, and discover. This paper details the participatory design process undertaken with multiple stakeholders to create the platform. It also outlines a proposed research agenda for future measurement of its value in creating a new learning culture, supporting regional and remote communities, and revitalising frontline services. It is anticipated this research will inform ongoing development of the online platform, and future design education and research programs in K-12 schools in Australia.

The moderating effect of knowledge sharing on the relationship between manufacturing activities and business performance

This paper investigates the critical role of knowledge sharing (KS) in leveraging manufacturing activities, namely integrated supplier management (ISM) and new product development (NPD) to improve business performance (BP) within the context of Taiwanese electronic manufacturing companies. The research adopted a sequential mixed method research design, which provided both quantitative empirical evidence as well as qualitative insights, into the moderating effect of KS on the relationships between these two core manufacturing activities and BP. First, a questionnaire survey was administered, which resulted in a sample of 170 managerial and technical professionals providing their opinions on KS, NPD and ISM activities and the BP level within their respective companies. On the basis of the collected data, factor analysis was used to verify the measurement model, followed by correlation analysis to explore factor interrelationships, and finally moderated regression analyses to extract the moderating effects of KS on the relationships of NPD and ISM with BP. Following the quantitative study, six semi-structured interviews were conducted to provide qualitative in-depth insights into the value added from KS practices to the targeted manufacturing activities and the extent of its leveraging power. Results from quantitative statistical analysis indicated that KS, NPD and ISM all have a significant positive impact on BP. Specifically, IT infrastructure and open communication were identified as the two types of KS practices that could facilitate enriched supplier evaluation and selection, empower active employee involvement in the design process, and provide support for product simplification and the modular design process, thereby improving manufacturing performance and strengthening company competitiveness. The interviews authenticated many of the empirical findings, suggesting that in the contemporary manufacturing context KS has become an integral part of many ISM and NPD activities and when embedded properly can lead to an improvement in BP. The paper also highlights a number of useful implications for manufacturing companies seeking to leverage their BP through innovative and sustained KS practices.

Disaster strikes, then what? Using evaluation in narrative driven (oral history & digital storytelling) community-based projects

In 2011 Queensland suffered both floods and cyclones, leaving residents without homes and their communities in ruins (2011). This paper presents how researchers from QUT, who are also members of the Oral History Association of Australia (OHAA) Queensland’s chapter, are using oral history, photographs, videography and digital storytelling to help heal and empower rural communities around the state and how evaluation has become a key element of our research. QUT researchers ran storytelling workshops in the capital city of Brisbane i early 2011, after the city suffered sever flooding. Cyclone Yasi then struck the town of Cardwell (in February 2011) destroying their historical museum and recording equipment. We delivered an 'emergency workshop', offering participants hands on use of the equipment, ethical and interviewing theory, so that the community could start to build a new collection. We included oral history workshops as well as sessions on how best to use a video camera, digital camera and creative writing sessions, so the community would also know how to make 'products' or exhibition pieces out of the interviews they were recording. We returned six months later to conduct follow-up workshops and the material produced by and with the community had been amazing. More funding has now been secured to replicate audio/visual/writing workshops in other remote rural Queensland communities including Townsville, Mackay and Cunnamulla and Toowoomba in 2012, highlighting the need for a multi media approach, to leverage the most out of OH interviews as a mechanism to restore and promote community resilience and pride.

Use of concept maps in reforming teaching Family and Consumer Sciences in Kuwait

This paper addresses the professional development of Kuwaiti teachers in the use of concept maps to teach Family and Consumer Science. A key aim of the study was to evaluate the degree to which the use of concept maps would influence the way Kuwaiti teachers approach and teach Family and Consumer Studies (FCS) subjects and the degree to which concept maps empower students to critically identify and express their knowledge of the subject being taught. A case study methodology was adopted to follow the implementation of lessons using concept maps by four teachers of middle years. An analysis of the data revealed the positive impact that student-centred teaching tools can have on the reformation of traditional teaching environments. For all teachers, the primary strengths of using concept maps were the ability to generate student interest, to motivate student participation and to enhance student understanding of content. Although a case study design may limit the generalisation and comparative value of the study, the findings of this study remain important to the planning of future professional development programs and the use of concept maps within Kuwait’s FCS curriculum area.

Teaching journalism students how to tell Indigenous stories in an informed way : a work integrated learning approach

Australian journalism schools are full of students who have never met an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island person and who do not know their history. Journalism educators are ill-equipped to redress this imbalance as a large majority are themselves non-Indigenous and many have had little or no experience with the coverage of Indigenous issues or knowledge of Indigenous affairs. Such a situation calls for educational approaches that can overcome these disadvantages and empower journalism graduates to move beyond the stereotypes that characterize the representation of Indigenous people in the mainstream media. This article will explore three different courses in three Australian tertiary journalism education institutions, which use Work-Integrated Learning Approaches to instil the cultural competencies necessary to encourage a more informed reporting of Indigenous issues. The findings from the three projects illustrate the importance of adopting a collaborative approach by industry, the Indigenous community and educators to encourage students’ commitment to quality journalism practices when covering Indigenous issues.

Effective community engagement for project success : building professionals as active participants during the construction phase of projects

Growing community concerns about the ecological, social, cultural and economic impact of housing and urban projects poses new challenges for those who have to deliver them. It is important that these concerns are addressed as part of the community engagement processes on projects. Community engagement is traditionally perceived as the purview of planners and disconnected from the building construction process. This is despite most project approval processes mandating on-going community engagement over the project’s entire lifetime. There is evidence that point to a culture of ambiguity and ambivalence among building professionals about their roles, responsibilities and expectations of community engagement during the construction phase of projects. This has contributed to a culture of distrust between communities and the construction industry. There is a clear need to build capacity among building professionals to empower them as active participants in community engagement processes which can promote better project outcomes and minimise delays and conflicts. This paper describes a process that utilises the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework to equip building professionals with the skills they need to engage effectively with local communities during the construction phase of projects.

Menopause as a long-term risk to health : implications of general practitioner accounts of prevention for women’s choice and decision-making

Over the past two decades medical researchers and modernist feminist researchers have contested the meaning of menopause. In this article we examine various meanings of menopause in major medical and feminist literature and the construction of menopause in a semi-structured interview study of general practitioners in rural South Australia. Three discursive themes are identified in these interviews; (i) the hormonal menopause – symptoms, risk, prevention; (ii) the informed menopausal woman; and (iii) decision-making and hormone replacement therapy. By using the discourse of prevention, general practitioners construct menopause in relation to women's health care choices, empowerment and autonomy. We argue that the ways in which these concepts are deployed by general practitioners in this study produces and constrains the options available to women. The implications of these general practitioner accounts are discussed in relation to the proposition that medical and feminist descriptions of menopause posit alternative but equally-fixed truths about menopause and their relationship with the range of responses available to women at menopause. Social and cultural explanations of disease causality (c.f.Germov 1998, Hardey 1998) are absent from the new menopause despite their being an integral part of the framework of the women's health movement and health promotion drawn on by these general practitioners. Further, the shift of responsibility for health to the individual woman reinforces practice claims to empower women, but oversimplifies power relations and constructs menopause as a site of self-surveillance. The use of concepts from the women's health movement and health promotion have nevertheless created change in both the positioning of women as having ‘choices’ and the positioning of some general practitioners in terms of greater information provision to women and an attention to the woman's autonomy. In conclusion, we propose that a new menopause has evolved from a discursive shift in medicine and that there exists within this new configuration, claiming the empowerment of women as an integral part of health care for menopause, the possibility for change in medical practice which will broaden, strengthen, and maintain this position.

The changing role of actors in the participatory project for rural craftspeople

This paper examines the role of actors in a participatory project, a case study of the glass-bead traditional craft industry in rural Indonesia. The project aimed to unite and empower rural craftspeople with regard to their unique potential. The problems of empowering rural craftspeople were complicated, due to the interrelated aspect of rural community life, cultural and educational backgrounds, as well as the local political situation. However, through a comprehensive understanding of the community prior to the project and by maintaining the communication, craftspeople were engaged actively in the project by promoting the craft industry to local buyers. The researcher, other facilitators and the community leader gave supportive roles at the middle and the end stage of the project.

(De)Constructing ADHD : Critical Guidance for Teachers and Teacher Educators

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has achieved celebrity status in many Western countries, yet despite considerable effort to prove its existence as a “real” disorder, ADHD still suffers from a crisis of legitimacy. Nonetheless, diagnosis and prescription of medication has grown at a phenomenal rate since the late 1980s, particularly in Western culture. Numerous accounts exist explaining how the ADHD diagnosis functions as a convenient administrative loophole, providing schools with a medical explanation for school failure, medication to sedate the “problem” into submission, or the means to eject children from mainstream classrooms. This book provides a more holistic interpretation of how to respond to children who might otherwise be diagnosed with and medicated for “ADHD”—a diagnosis which, whether scientifically valid or not, is unhelpful within the confine of the school. Training teachers to recognise and identify “ADHD symptoms” or to understand the functions of restricted pharmaceuticals will only serve to increase the number of children diagnosed and the sale of psychoactive medications. Research has shown that such activities will not help those children learn, nor will it empower their classroom teachers to take responsibility for teaching such children well. This book seeks to provide school practitioners with knowledge that is useful within the educational context to improve the educational experiences and outcomes for children who might otherwise receive a diagnosis of ADHD.

Beyond the accolades : a postcolonial critique of the foundations of the Ottawa Charter

Introduction: The Ottawa Charter is undeniably of pivotal importance in the history of ideas associated with the establishment of health promotion. There is much to applaud in a charter which responds to the need to take action on the social and economic determinants of health and which seeks to empower communities to be at the centre of this. Such accolades tend to position the Ottawa Charter as ‘beyond critique’; a taken-for-granted ‘given’ in the history of health promotion. In contrast, we argue it is imperative to critically reflect on its ‘manufacture’ and assess the possibility that certain voices have been privileged, and others marginalized. Methods: This paper re-examines the 1986 Ottawa Conference including its background papers from a postcolonial standpoint. We use critical discourse analysis as a tool to identify the enactment of power within the production of the Ottawa health promotion discourse. This exercise draws attention to both the power to ensure the dominant presence of privileged voices at the conference as well as the discursive strategies deployed to ‘naturalize’ the social order of inequality. Results: Our analysis shows that the discourse informing the development of the Ottawa Charter strongly reflected Western/colonizer centric worldviews, and actively silenced the possibility of countervailing Indigenous and developing country voices. Conclusion: The Ottawa Charter espouses principles of participation, empowerment and social justice. We question then whether the genesis of the Ottawa Charter lives up to its own principles of practice. We conclude that reflexive practice is crucial to health promotion, which ought to include a preparedness for health promotion to more critically acknowledge its own history.

Culture in and culture of health promotion: tensions at the interface of Australian Indigenous health promotion

With persisting health inequalities across and between diverse populations, health promotion must consider its engagement with the culture concept in achieving better health for all. By way of a conversation between an Indigenous and non-Indigenous health promotion practitioner, this unique presentation will critically examine the cultural practice of health promotion for Indigenous Australians. Culture becomes the central tenant of this conversation – but not culture in the sense of something to “fix” to improve Indigenous health, or import to make mainstream practices “culturally appropriate”. Rather, the somewhat invisible culture of Australian health promotion practice itself is highlighted. The enthusiasm of mainstream health promotion practice for risk and reductionism supplants biological determinism with a cultural determinism that constructs culture as illness-producing. This is in contrast to Indigenous perspectives of culture in which it is described as integral to individual and community health and well-being. Whilst empowerment features strongly within global health promotion discourses, the preoccupation of health promotion with the inherent deficit/behavioural change approach is an all too convenient distraction from the broader structural factors impacting on the health of Indigenous Australians. That Indigenous Australians have not benefitted from successful public health policy interventions in the same way as the general population is in itself revealing of the culture of health promotion practice in Australia and it is somewhat ironic that the health promotion fraternity seems not to have questioned its own practice. This conversation aims to encourage health promotion practitioners, researchers and policy makers to interrogate the cultural assumptions of their own practice and of the public health system they are part of and consider how to embed and empower the voices and experiences of those who are ‘culturally othered’ within health promotion practice.