Wrapped fragments : Drapery, the eighteenth century portrait bust and the male subject

The depiction of drapery (generalised cloth as opposed to clothing) is a well-established convention of Neo-Classical sculpture and is often downplayed by art historians as of purely rhetorical value. It can be argued however that sculpted drapery has served a spectrum of expressive ends, the variety and complexity of which are well illustrated by a study of its use in portrait sculpture. For the Neo-Classical portrait bust, drapery had substantial iconographic and political meaning, signifying the new Enlightenment notions of masculine authority. Within the portrait bust, drapery also served highly strategic aesthetic purposes, alleviating the abruptness of the truncated format and the compromising visual consequences of the “cropped” body. With reference to Joseph Nollekens’ portraits of English statesman Charles James Fox and the author’s own sculptural practice, this paper analyses the Neo-Classical use of drapery to propose that rendered fabric, far from mere stylistic flourish, is a highly charged visual signifier with much scope for exploration in contemporary sculptural practice.

21st Century politics : new faces/new spaces

Politics has been described as a man’s game and a man’s place. Further, the design of houses of politics also embeds this dominant masculine ethos. Traditional Chambers have been large with only limited seating arrangements ensuring that only privileged elite can participate and both officials and the public are located at some distance and separate from the elected officials. Such a Chamber ensures that Members need to face each other and the dominant interaction is adversarial. Within this system however, women have been able to carve out new spaces, or use existing ones in different ways, to become more involved with the mechanisms of parliament and provide alternative routes to leadership. In doing so, they have introduced elements of the private domain (nurturing, dialogue and inclusion) to the public domain. The way in which space is used is fundamental and its treatment has consequences for individuals, organizations and societies (Clegg and Kornberger 2006). Dale’s (2005) work emphasises the social character of architecture which recognises the impact which it has on the behaviours of individuals and nowhere is this more pertinent than the way the Australian Parliament House operates. This paper draws on the experiences of Australian parliamentarians to examine the way in which the new Australian Parliament House shapes the way in which the Australian political cultural norms and practices are shaped and maintained. It also seeks to explore the way the Members of Parliament (MPs) experience these spaces and how some MPs have been able to bring new ways of utilising the space to ensure it is more accommodating to the men and women who inhabit this building at the apex of Australia’s political life. In doing so, such MPs are seeking to ensure that the practices and processes of Australia’s political system are reflective of the men and women who inhabit this national institution in the beginning of the 21st century.

Rethinking Prostitution : feminism, sex and the self

Prostitution is a difficult issue, particularly for feminists. Are prostitutes victims of exploitation or the most honest of women? Are clients perverts or just acting instinctively? Should prostitution be eliminated or supported? This book examines these contemporary questions and offers a way of thinking about the issues, which does not rely on these inappropriate and often ineffectual options. Repositioning the institution and its main players outside the confines of the prostitution debate offers new and exciting ways of thinking and acting for all those interested in moving this discussion into the twenty-first century.

When 'listeners can't talk' : comparing active listening in opening sequences of telephone and online counselling

While there is growing use of online counselling, little is known about its interactional organisation and how it compares to telephone counselling. This is despite past research suggesting that both counsellors and clients report the impact of the different modalities on the presentation and management of the counselling interaction. This paper compares the interactional affordances of telephone and online web counselling in opening sequences on Kids Help Line, a 24-hour Australian counselling service for children and young people up to the age of 25. We examine two ways that counsellors show active listening through response tokens and formulations. The analysis describes how counsellors’ use of minimal response tokens facilitate the clients’ problem presentation and are used in the management of turn taking and sequence organisation. For example, counsellors use the response token Mm hm to show that they understand that the client’s unit of talk to is not yet complete, and to affirm or invite the client to continue speaking. Formulations in phone and web counselling are another way that counsellors display active listening to re-present stretches of the clients’ preceding talk. In phone and web counselling, however, the respective modalities can complicate matters of turn transition and sequence organisation. By examining actual phone and online counselling sessions, this paper offers empirical demonstrations of the interactional affordances of phone and online counselling, and shows how the institutional practice of active listening is accomplished across different counselling modalities

Exercise and lymphoedema : Is it good or bad?

Being physically active during and following treatment for breast cancer has been associated with a range of benefits including improved fitness and function, body composition and immune function and reductions in stress, depression and anxiety, as well as the number and severity of treatment-related side-effects such as nausea, fatigue and pain, all of which contribute to improvements in quality of life. There is also emerging evidence linking active lifestyles with improved survival. Therefore, there is little doubt that participating in regular exercise following breast cancer is ‘good’. Unfortunately, research investigating the role of exercise for women considered at high-risk of lymphoedema or who have developed lymphedema following breast cancer is lacking. For fear of initiating or exacerbating lymphoedema, these women have traditionally been cautioned rather than encouraged to be regularly active. However, recent preliminary findings suggest that being inactive may increase risk of developing lymphedema, and that for those with lymphoedema, participation in an exercise program does not exacerbate the condition. This presentation will address what we know about the role of exercise following a breast cancer diagnosis and will provide some practical recommendations about becoming and staying regularly active following breast cancer, for those with and without lymphoedema.

Relationship over time between psychological distress and physical activity in colorectal cancer survivors

Purpose Increased physical activity in colorectal cancer patients is related to improved recurrence free and overall survival. Psychological distress after cancer may place patients at risk of reduced physical activity; but paradoxically also act as a motivator for positive lifestyle change. The relationship between psychological distress and physical activity after cancer over time has not been described. Methods A prospective survey of 1966 (57% response) colorectal cancer survivors assessed the psychological distress variables of anxiety, depression, somatisation, cancer threat appraisal as predictors of physical activity five, 12, 24 and 36 months post-diagnosis 978 respondents had valid data for all time points. Results Higher somatisation was associated with greater physical inactivity (Relative risk ratio (RRR) =1.12; 95% CI=[1.1, 1.2]) and insufficient physical activity (RRR=1.05; [0.90, 1.0]). Respondents with a more positive appraisal of their cancer were significantly (p=0.031) less likely to be inactive (RRR=0.95; [0.90, 1.0]) or insufficiently active (RRR=0.96). Fatigued and obese respondents and current smokers were more inactive. Respondents whose somatisation increased between two time periods were less likely to increase their physical activity over the same period (p<0.001). Respondents with higher anxiety at one time period were less likely to have increased their activity at the next assessment (p=0.004). There was no association between depression and physical activity. Conclusions Cancer survivors who experience somatisation and anxiety are at greater risk of physical inactivity. The lack of a clear relationship between higher psychological distress and increasing physical activity argues against distress as a motivator to exercise in these patients.

Socio-cultural dimensions of Active Futures : Importance of studying migrants’ perspectives of wellness

In this paper we provide a migrant perspective on how women and men from a different culture perceive wellness while settling down in a new country. We are discussing the texts of research interviews with Indian migrant women and men that illuminate their perception of lifestyle enhancement in their adopted country Australia. Our purpose is to show how socio-cultural factors influence the migrants‟ perspective of lifestyle enhancement, and to what extent they direct their wellness. Personal development, both in theory and practice, is a huge concept in Australia. Concerted efforts are made towards increasing public awareness about health literacy leading to a better understanding and practice of wellness. However, as research studies have pointed out, lifestyle enhancement leading to holistic wellness is not void of socio-cultural factors. The number of women and men migrating to Australia from India has increased greatly in the present decade. As migrants their participation in developing Australian society is significant. So what is their socio-cultural perception of wellness including nutrition and physical exercises as active citizens? How do young Indian migrants participate in lifestyle enhancement programmes? As parents what are their socio-cultural beliefs, attitudes, practices and values, and how do they influence their children‟s participation in personal development and PE progammes? To what extent gender differences exist in such participation levels? What is the space available in State school curriculum to learn from the migrants‟ cultures towards enhancing lifestyles including nutrition and personal development?The findings may sensitise Australian researchers, academics, school teachers and practitioners of wellness therapies. Long term research studies may inform the governments and HPE practitioners of the changes occurring in such values, beliefs and practices as they incorporate nutrition and lifestyles of Australian society.

Problem solving for the 21st century

Mathematical problem solving has been the subject of substantial and often controversial research for several decades. We use the term, problem solving, here in a broad sense to cover a range of activities that challenge and extend one’s thinking. In this chapter, we initially present a sketch of past decades of research on mathematical problem solving and its impact on the mathematics curriculum. We then consider some of the factors that have limited previous research on problem solving. In the remainder of the chapter we address some ways in which we might advance the fields of problem-solving research and curriculum development.

Fusing shrinking and expanding active contour models for robust IRIS segmentation

The performance of iris recognition systems is significantly affected by the segmentation accuracy, especially in non- ideal iris images. This paper proposes an improved method to localise non-circular iris images quickly and accurately. Shrinking and expanding active contour methods are consolidated when localising inner and outer iris boundaries. First, the pupil region is roughly estimated based on histogram thresholding and morphological operations. There- after, a shrinking active contour model is used to precisely locate the inner iris boundary. Finally, the estimated inner iris boundary is used as an initial contour for an expanding active contour scheme to find the outer iris boundary. The proposed scheme is robust in finding exact the iris boundaries of non-circular and off-angle irises. In addition, occlusions of the iris images from eyelids and eyelashes are automatically excluded from the detected iris region. Experimental results on CASIA v3.0 iris databases indicate the accuracy of proposed technique.

Poverty in perception : a study of the twentieth-century prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand, as English-speaking nations with dominant white populations, present an ethnic anomaly not only in South East Asia, but also in the Southern Hemisphere. Colonised by predominantly workingclass British immigrants from the late eighteenth century, an ethnic and cultural connection grew between these two countries even though their indigenous populations and ecological environments were otherwise very different. Building a new life in Australia and New Zealand, the colonists shared similar historic perceptions of poverty – perceptions from their homelands that they did not want to see replicated in their new adopted countries. Dreams of a better life shaped their aspirations, self-identity and nationalistic outlook. By the twentieth century, national independence and self-government had replaced British colonial rule. The inveterate occurrence of poverty in Australia and New Zealand had created new local perspectives and different perceptions of, and about, poverty. This study analyses what relationship existed between the political directions adopted by the twentieth-century prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand and their perceptions of poverty. Using the existential phenomenological theory and methodology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the study adds to the body of knowledge about poverty in Australia and New Zealand by revealing the structure and origin of the poverty perceptions of the twentieth-century prime ministers.

The return of a forgotten polymer : Polycaprolactone in the 21st century

During the resorbable-polymer-boom of the 1970s and 1980s, polycaprolactone (PCL) was used in the biomaterials field and a number of drug-delivery devices. Its popularity was soon superseded by faster resorbable polymers which had fewer perceived disadvantages associated with long term degradation (up to 3-4 years) and intracellular resorption pathways; consequently, PCL was almost forgotten for most of two decades. Recently, a resurgence of interest has propelled PCL back into the biomaterials-arena. The superior rheological and viscoelastic properties over many of its aliphatic polyester counterparts renders PCL easy to manufacture and manipulate into a large range of implants and devices. Coupled with relatively inexpensive production routes and FDA approval, this provides a promising platform for the production of longer-term degradable implants which may be manipulated physically, chemically and biologically to possess tailorable degradation kinetics to suit a specific anatomical site. This review will discuss the application of PCL as a biomaterial over the last two decades focusing on the advantages which have propagated its return into the spotlight with a particular focus on medical devices, drug delivery and tissue engineering.