Capela de nossa Senhora da Piedade de Campo Formoso: a invenção de uma cidade à margem da modernidade, 1889-1930

This research objective is to analyze the historical aspects of the city ―Capela de Nossa Senhora da Piedade de Campo Formoso‖, located in the micro region Pires do Rio, southeast of Goiás in the period of the First Republic, 1989-1930. To understand a city is to try to understand the individuals who inhabit it, as they are the ones who are responsible for the structures that forms that space. Therefore this thesis brings to the historiography a study of the city of Capela de Nossa Senhora da Piedade de Campo Formoso through various mechanisms as oral sources, official documents of the municipality collected in public bodies of the city made available in town halls, municipal public and archive file of the prefecture. These sources have helped us to make the knowledge of the place approached. The Republic has brought to different places of Brazil expectations and/or solutions, of innovations that modernized in order to erase the marks the old colonial system. The cities to be created would be part of the molds republicans and this way, should follow models ready coming, basically, from European countries. However, the city of the Capela de Nossa Senhora da Piedade de Campo Formoso is outside of this process moderniser, having been relegated by several years to difficulties of a distant region and without resources. The historiography of Goiás summarizes the period of the arrival of the railroad in the southern region of the State, such as a time of progress in all the sectors of the life of this society. Then, to understand the specificity of Campo Formoso, we approached from the documentary sources exist various elements constitutor city history: its political constitution formed by the most affluent of the city, the strength of the colonels, the role of the Church as a political power. These power relations in the region were decisive for the deviation of the railroad. In this way, also we sought to analyze how the process of urbanization has occurred and which represented for the history of the city Capela de Nossa Senhora da Piedade de Campo Formoso the passage of the Railroad Goiás not within its limits. In the meantime we situate the special policies of a city in the interior of Goiás, which is on the edge of a project set up as amodernizer moved by the First Republic.

Uncertainty avoidance: public sector clients and procurement selection

Purpose: Choosing the appropriate procurement system for construction projects is a complex and challenging task for clients particularly when professional advice has not been sought. To assist with the decision making process, a range of procurement selection tools and techniques have been developed by both academic and industry bodies. Public sector clients in Western Australia (WA) remain uncertain about the pairing of procurement method to bespoke construction project and how this decision will ultimately impact upon project success. This paper examines ‘how and why’ a public sector agency selected particular procurement methods. · Methodology/Approach: An analysis of two focus group workshops (with 18 senior project and policy managers involved with procurement selection) is reported upon · Findings: The traditional lump sum (TLS) method is still the preferred procurement path even though alternative forms such as design and construct, public-private-partnerships could optimize the project outcome. Paradoxically, workshop participants agreed that alternative procurement forms should be considered, but an embedded culture of uncertainty avoidance invariably meant that TLS methods were selected. Senior managers felt that only a limited number of contractors have the resources and experience to deliver projects using the nontraditional methods considered. · Research limitations/implications: The research identifies a need to develop a framework that public sector clients can use to select an appropriate procurement method. A procurement framework should be able to guide the decision-maker rather than provide a prescriptive solution. Learning from previous experiences with regard to procurement selection will further provide public sector clients with knowledge about how to best deliver their projects.

The application of the Park & Ride and TOD concepts to develop a new framework that can maximise public transport patronage

With growing concern over the use of the car in our urbanized society, there have emerged a number of lobby groups and professional bodies promoting a return to public transport, walking and cycling, with the urban village as the key driving land use, as a means of making our cities’ transportation systems more sustainable. This research has aimed at developing a framework applicable to the Australian setting that can facilitate increased passenger patronage of rail based urban transport systems from adjacent or associated land uses. The framework specifically tested the application of the Park & Ride and Transit Oriented Development (TOD) concepts and their applicability within the cultural, institutional, political and transit operational characteristics of Australian society. The researcher found that, although the application of the TOD concept had been limited to small pockets of town houses and mixed use developments around stations, the development industry and emerging groups within the community are posed to embrace the concept and bring with it increased rail patronage. The lack of a clear commitment to infrastructure and supporting land uses is a major barrier to the implementation of TODs. The research findings demonstrated significant scope for the size of a TOD to expand to a much greater radius of activity from the public transport interchange, than the commonly quoted 400 to 600 meters, thus incorporating many more residents and potential patrons. The provision of Park & Rides, and associated support facilities like Kiss & Rides, have followed worldwide trends of high patronage demands from the middle and outer car dependent suburbs of our cities. The data collection and analysis gathered by the researcher demonstrated that in many cases Park & Rides should form part of a TOD to ensure ease of access to rail stations by all modes and patron types. The question, however, remains how best to plan the incorporation of a Park & Ride within a TOD and still maintain those features that attract and promote TODs as a living entity.

Positioning public relations as an academic discipline in Australia

Academic public relations in Australia appears to be entering a new phase in its relatively short history. The early model, in which tertiary courses were confined to teaching – focused institutions and conducted largely by teacher-practitioners, is being supplanted by one in which the discipline is now offered in most Australian universities, is increasingly embracing research, and is being taught by staff following more traditional academic career paths. Despite the formal association with the communication discipline through Australian and New Zealand Communication Association, public relations academics have increasingly asserted the independence of their discipline and in reality have very little dialogue with the other strands of the communication discipline. These developments call into question the most appropriate knowledge base for public relations as an academic discipline in Australia and its proper relation to the profession (and the Public Relations Institute of Australia as the professional body). One danger associated with the assertion of disciplinary independence lies in the risk of excessive reliance on a relatively narrow body of work emanating from the more established United States public relations academy, in the process ignoring much richer work in surrounding disciplines such as social theory, rhetoric, organisation communication, and business and society. The emphasis on disciplinary demarcation also seems curious during a time of growing ‘interdisciplinarity’ in the humanities and the social sciences. This paper critically reviews the construction of public relations as an academic discipline in Australia, drawing on some of the literature on academic disciplinarity to propose a repositioning of the discipline, one that is less focused on asserting difference than on finding connections with other bodies of knowledge while maintaining close links with professional practice.

Re-thinking home economics : from modern to postmodern accounts of pedagogical bodies

Two perceptions of the marginality of home economics are widespread across educational and other contexts. One is that home economics and those who engage in its pedagogy are inevitably marginalised within patriarchal relations in education and culture. This is because home economics is characterised as women's knowledge, for the private domain of the home. The other perception is that only orthodox epistemological frameworks of inquiry should be used to interrogate this state of affairs. These perceptions have prompted leading theorists in the field to call for non-essentialist approaches to research in order to re-think the thinking that has produced this cul-de-sac positioning of home economics as a body of knowledge and a site of teacher practice. This thesis takes up the challenge of working to locate a space outside the frame of modernist research theory and methods, recognising that this shift in epistemology is necessary to unsettle the idea that home economics is inevitably marginalised. The purpose of the study is to reconfigure how we have come to think about home economics teachers and the profession of home economics as a site of cultural practice, in order to think it otherwise (Lather, 1991). This is done by exploring how the culture of home economics is being contested from within. To do so, the thesis uses a 'posthumanist' approach, which rejects the conception of the individual as a unitary and fixed entity, but instead as a subject in process, shaped by desires and language which are not necessarily consciously determined. This posthumanist project focuses attention on pedagogical body subjects as the 'unsaid' of home economics research. It works to transcend the modernist dualism of mind/body, and other binaries central to modernist work, including private/public, male/female,paid/unpaid, and valued/unvalued. In so doing, it refuses the simple margin/centre geometry so characteristic of current perceptions of home economics itself. Three studies make up this work. Studies one and two serve to document the disciplined body of home economics knowledge, the governance of which works towards normalisation of the 'proper' home economics teacher. The analysis of these accounts of home economics teachers by home economics teachers, reveals that home economics teachers are 'skilled' yet they 'suffer' for their profession. Further,home economics knowledge is seen to be complicit in reinforcing the traditional roles of masculinity and femininity, thereby reinforcing heterosexual normativity which is central to patriarchal society. The third study looks to four 'atypical'subjects who defy the category of 'proper' and 'normal' home economics teacher. These 'atypical' bodies are 'skilled' but fiercely reject the label of 'suffering'. The discussion of the studies is a feminist poststructural account, using Russo's (1994) notion of the grotesque body, which is emergent from Bakhtin's (1968) theory of the carnivalesque. It draws on the 'shreds' of home economics pedagogy,scrutinising them for their subversive, transformative potential. In this analysis, the giving and taking of pleasure and fun in the home economics classroom presents moments of surprise and of carnival. Foucault's notion of the construction of the ethical individual shows these 'atypical' bodies to be 'immoderate' yet striving hard to be 'continent' body subjects. This research captures moments of transgression which suggest that transformative moments are already embodied in the pedagogical practices of home economics teachers, and these can be 'seen' when re-looking through postmodemist lenses. Hence, the cultural practices ofhome economics as inevitably marginalised are being contested from within. Until now, home economics as a lived culture has failed to recognise possibilities for reconstructing its own field beyond the confines of modernity. This research is an example of how to think about home economics teachers and the profession as a reconfigured cultural practice. Future research about home economics as a body of knowledge and a site of teacher practice need not retell a simple story of oppression. Using postmodemist epistemologies is one way to provide opportunities for new ways of looking.

Aboriginal public health and education : has it made a difference in practice?

Over the years, public health in relation to Australian Aboriginal people has involved many individuals and groups including health professionals, governments, politicians, special interest groups and corporate organisations. Since colonisation commenced until the1980s, public health relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was not necessarily in the best interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but rather in the interests of the non-Aboriginal population. The attention that was paid focussed more generally around the subject of reproduction and issues of prostitution, exploitation, abuse and venereal diseases (Kidd, 1997). Since the late 1980s there has been a shift in the broader public health agenda (see Baum, 1998) along with public health in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (NHMRC, 2003). This has been coupled with increasing calls to develop appropriate tertiary curriculum and to educate, train, and employ more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal people in public health (Anderson et al., 2004; Genat, 2007; PHERP, 2008a, 2008b). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been engaged in public health in ways in which they are in a position to influence the public health agenda (Anderson 2004; 2008; Anderson et al., 2004; NATSIHC, 2003). There have been numerous projects, programs and strategies that have sought to develop the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Public Health workforce (AHMAC, 2002; Oldenburg et al., 2005; SCATSIH, 2002). In recent times the Aboriginal community controlled health sector has joined forces with other peak bodies and governments to find solutions and strategies to improve the health outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (NACCHO & Oxfam, 2007). This case study chapter will not address these broader activities. Instead it will explore the activities and roles of staff within the Public Health and Research Unit (PHRU) at the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO). It will focus on their experiences with education institutions, their work in public health and their thoughts on gaps and where improvements can be made in public health, research and education. What will be demonstrated is the diversity of education qualifications and experience. What will also be reflected is how people work within public health on a daily basis to enact change for equity in health and contribute to the improvement of future health outcomes of the Victorian Aboriginal community.

Molecular characterisation of environmental enterococci derived from water samples and assessment of associated public health hazards

Enterococci are versatile Gram-positive bacteria that can survive under extreme conditions. Most enterococci are non-virulent and found in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals. Other strains are opportunistic pathogens that contribute to a large number of nosocomial infections globally. Epidemiological studies demonstrated a direct relationship between the density of enterococci in surface waters and the risk of swimmer-associated gastroenteritis. The distribution of infectious enterococcal strains from the hospital environment or other sources to environmental water bodies through sewage discharge or other means, could increase the prevalence of these strains in the human population. Environmental water quality studies may benefit from focusing on a subset of Enterococcus spp. that are consistently associated with sources of faecal pollution such as domestic sewage, rather than testing for the entire genus. E. faecalis and E. faecium are potentially good focal species for such studies, as they have been consistently identified as the dominant Enterococcus spp. in human faeces and sewage. On the other hand enterococcal infections are predominantly caused by E. faecalis and E. faecium. The characterisation of E. faecalis and E. faecium is important in studying their population structures, particularly in environmental samples. In developing and implementing rapid, robust molecular genotyping techniques, it is possible to more accurately establish the relationship between human and environmental enterococci. Of particular importance, is to determine the distribution of high risk enterococcal clonal complexes, such as E. faecium clonal complex 17 and E. faecalis clonal complexes 2 and 9 in recreational waters. These clonal complexes are recognized as particularly pathogenic enterococcal genotypes that cause severe disease in humans globally. The Pimpama-Coomera watershed is located in South East Queensland, Australia and was investigated in this study mainly because it is used intensively for agriculture and recreational purposes and has a strong anthropogenic impact. The primary aim of this study was to develop novel, universally applicable, robust, rapid and cost effective genotyping methods which are likely to yield more definitive results for the routine monitoring of E. faecalis and E. faecium, particularly in environmental water sources. To fullfill this aim, new genotyping methods were developed based on the interrogation of highly informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in housekeeping genes of both E. faecalis and E. faecium. SNP genotyping was successfully applied in field investigations of the Coomera watershed, South-East Queensland, Australia. E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates were grouped into 29 and 23 SNP profiles respectively. This study showed the high longitudinal diversity of E. faecalis and E. faecium over a period of two years, and both human-related and human-specific SNP profiles were identified. Furthermore, 4.25% of E. faecium strains isolated from water was found to correspond to the important clonal complex-17 (CC17). Strains that belong to CC17 cause the majority of hospital outbreaks and clinical infections globally. Of the six sampling sites of the Coomera River, Paradise Point had the highest number of human-related and human-specific E. faecalis and E. faecium SNP profiles. The secondary aim of this study was to determine the antibiotic-resistance profiles and virulence traits associated with environmental E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates compared to human pathogenic E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates. This was performed to predict the potential health risks associated with coming into contact with these strains in the Coomera watershed. In general, clinical isolates were found to be more resistant to all the antibiotics tested compared to water isolates and they harbored more virulence traits. Multi-drug resistance was more prevalent in clinical isolates (71.18% of E. faecalis and 70.3 % of E. faecium) compared to water isolates (only 5.66 % E. faecium). However, tetracycline, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin and ampicillin resistance was observed in water isolates. The virulence gene esp was the most prevalent virulence determinant observed in clinical isolates (67.79% of E. faecalis and 70.37 % of E. faecium), and this gene has been described as a human-specific marker used for microbial source tracking (MST). The presence of esp in water isolates (16.36% of E. faecalis and 19.14% of E. faecium) could be indicative of human faecal contamination in these waterways. Finally, in order to compare overall gene expression between environmental and clinical strains of E. faecalis, a comparative gene hybridization study was performed. The results of this investigation clearly demonstrated the up-regulation of genes associated with pathogenicity in E. faecalis isolated from water. The expression study was performed at physiological temperatures relative to ambient temperatures. The up-regulation of virulence genes demonstrates that environmental strains of E. faecalis can pose an increased health risk which can lead to serious disease, particularly if these strains belong to the virulent CC17 group. The genotyping techniques developed in this study not only provide a rapid, robust and highly discriminatory tool to characterize E. faecalis and E. faecium, but also enables the efficient identification of virulent enterococci that are distributed in environmental water sources.

Book review: Leaky Bodies and Boundaries. Feminism, Post-modernism and (Bio)ethics. Shildrick, M. (1997)

This thoughtful book is a much needed contribution to feminist ethics that is brimming with detailed and insightful analyses of the positioning of women in contemporary health care and particularly in relation to new reproductive technologies (NRTs). The clearly written and structured chapters provide accessible points to modern ethics, post-modernism, and feminist ethics. Margrit Shildrick takes on these areas with authority and vigour, building an argument for women to enter the relations of reproduction on terms more expressive of feminine desire...

Social technologies in public libraries : exploring best practice

Purpose This article reports on a research project that explored social media best practice in the public library sector. Design/methodology/approach The primary research approach for the project was case study. Two organisations participated in case studies that involved interviews, document analysis, and social media observation. Findings The two case study organisations use social media effectively to facilitate participatory networks, however, there have been challenges surrounding its implementation in both organisations. Challenges include negotiating requirements of governing bodies and broader organisational environments, and managing staff reluctance around the implementations. As social media use continues to grow and libraries continue to take up new platforms, social media must be considered to be another service point of the virtual branch, and indeed, for the library service as a whole. This acceptance of social media as being core business is critical to the successful implementation of social media based activities. Practical implications The article provides an empirically grounded discussion of best practice and the conditions that support it. The findings are relevant for information organisations across all sectors and could inform the development of policy and practice in other organisations. This paper contributes to the broader dialogue around best practice in participatory service delivery and social media use in library and information organisations.

Enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data in Malaysian public universities : a legal and policy analysis

Numerous statements and declarations have been made over recent decades in support of open access to research data. The growing recognition of the importance of open access to research data has been accompanied by calls on public research funding agencies and universities to facilitate better access to publicly funded research data so that it can be re-used and redistributed as public goods. International and inter-governmental bodies such as the ICSU/CODATA, the OECD and the European Union are strong supporters of open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. This thesis focuses on the research data created by university researchers in Malaysian public universities whose research activities are funded by the Federal Government of Malaysia. Malaysia, like many countries, has not yet formulated a policy on open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to develop a policy to support the objective of enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data in Malaysian public universities. Policy development is very important if the objective of enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data is to be successfully achieved. In developing the policy, this thesis identifies a myriad of legal impediments arising from intellectual property rights, confidentiality, privacy and national security laws, novelty requirements in patent law and lack of a legal duty to ensure data quality. Legal impediments such as these have the effect of restricting, obstructing, hindering or slowing down the objective of enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. A key focus in the formulation of the policy was the need to resolve the various legal impediments that have been identified. This thesis analyses the existing policies and guidelines of Malaysian public universities to ascertain to what extent the legal impediments have been resolved. An international perspective is adopted by making a comparative analysis of the policies of public research funding agencies and universities in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia to understand how they have dealt with the identified legal impediments. These countries have led the way in introducing policies which support open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. As well as proposing a policy supporting open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data in Malaysian public universities, this thesis provides procedures for the implementation of the policy and guidelines for addressing the legal impediments to open access and re-use.

Reengaging, reenacting and reenvisaging discourses of disaster through public space performance: Austerity, art, and the art of protest

This paper offers a mediation on disaster, recovery, resilience, and restoration of balance, in both a material and a metaphorical sense, when ‘disaster’ befalls not the body politic of the nation but the body personal. In the past few decades, of course, artists, activists and scholars have deliberately tried to avoid describing personal, physical and phenomenological experiences of the disabled body in terms of difficulty and disaster. This has been part of a political move, from a medical model, in which disability, disease and illness are positioned as personal catastrophes, to a social model, in which disability is positioned as a social construct that comes from systems, institutions and infrastructure designed to exclude different bodies. It is a move that is responsible for a certain discomfort people with disabilities, and artists with disabilities, today feel towards performances that deploy disability as a metaphor for disaster, from Hijikata, to Theatre Hora. In the past five years, though, this particular discourse has begun rising again, particularly as people with disabilities fact their own anything but natural disasters as a result of the austerity measures now widespread across the US, UK, Europe and elsewhere. Measures that threaten people’s ability to live, and take part in social and institutional life, in any meaningful way. Measures that, as artist Katherine Araniello notes, also bring additional difficulty, danger, and potential for disaster as they ripple outwards across the tides of familial ties, threatening family, friends, and careers who become bound up in the struggle to do more with less. In this paper, I consider how people with disabilities use performance, particularly public space interventionalist performance, to reengage, renact and reenvisage the discourse of national, economic, environmental or other forms of disaster, the need for austerity, the need to avoid providing people with support for desires and interests as well as basic daily needs, particularly when fraud and corruption is so right, and other such ideas that have become an all too unpleasant reality for many people. Performances, for instance, like Liz Crow’s Bedding Out, where she invited people into her bed – for people with disabilities a symbolic space, which necessarily becomes more a public living room restaurant, office and so forth than a private space when poor mobility means they spend much time it in – to talk about their lives, their difficulties, and dealing with austerity. Or, for instance, like the Bolshy Divas, who mimic public and political policy, reports and advertising paranoia to undermine their discourses about austerity. I examine the effects, politics and ethics of such interventions, including examination of the comparative effect of highly bodied interventions (like Crow’s) and highly disembodied interventions (like the Bolshy Diva’s) in discourses of difficulty, disaster and austerity on a range of target spectator communities.

Performing immobility / protesting immobility: The risks & rewards of public space protest performances

Though there is much interest in mobilities and performing mobilities as a characteristic of modern, urban, social life today, this is not always matched by attention to immobilities, as the flipside of mobility in modern life. In this paper, I investigate public space performances designed to draw attention to precisely this counterpoint to current discourses of mobilities – performances about the socially produced immobilities many people with disabilities find a more fundamental feature of day-to-day life, the fight for mobility, and the freedom found when accommodations for alternative mobilities are made available. Although public policy is increasingly aligned with a social model of disability, which sees disability as socially constructed through systems, institutions and infrastructure deliberately designed to exclude specific bodies – stairs, curbs, queues and so forth – and although governments in the US, UK, and to a lesser degree Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth nations aim to address these inequalities, the experience of immobility is still every-present for many people. This often comes not just from pain, or from impairment, or event from lack of accommodations for alternative mobilities, but from fellow social performers’ antipathy to, appropriation of, or destruction of accommodations designed to facilitate access for a range of different bodies in public space, and thus the public sphere. The archetypal instance of this tension between the mobile, and those needing accommodations to allow mobility, is, of course, the antipathy many able bodied people feel towards the provision of disabled parking spaces. A cursory search online shows thousands of accounts of antagonism, vitriol, and even violence prompted by disputes which began when a disabled person asked an able person to exit a designated disabled parking space. For many, it seems, expecting them to pass by such parks so others can experience the mobility they take for granted is too much. In this paper, I examine a number of protest performances in public space in which activist present actions – for example, placing wheelchairs in every regular parking space in a precinct – to give bystanders, passersby and spectators, as well as antagonistic fellow social performers, a sense of what socially produced immobility feels like. I examine responses to such protest performances, and what they say about the potential social, political and ethical impacts of such protests, in terms of their potential to produce new attitudes to mobility, alternative mobility, and access to alternative modes of mobility.