Building resilient communities : creating effective multi-channel communication during disaster response and recovery

Aim: To examine evidence-based strategies that motivate appropriate action and increase informed decision-making during the response and recovery phases of disasters.

Reflexivity and aesthetic inquiry : building dialogues between the arts and literacy

Reflection can form the basis for powerful dialogue between the arts and literacy as we seek interpretive and expressive fluency across modes. Through deep, cumulative reflection we make aspects of our world and experiences more perceivable, and open them up for artistic expression and aesthetic inquiry. Such reflections are also the catalysts for self-awareness and identity building. Theories of reflexivity offer a useful lens with which to understand our relationship with the world and the people, texts and things within it. The reflexive process can prompt us to challenge our understandings and change our representations of self and others through text. This paper offers a discussion of reflexivity and the ways in which it can be expressed and performed in discursive and non-discursive ways to develop literacies through and in the arts.

The building blocks of digital media literacy: Socio-material participation and the production of media knowledge

This article outlines the knowledge and skills students develop when they engage in digital media production and analysis in school settings. The metaphor of ‘digital building blocks’ is used to describe the material practices, conceptual understandings and production of knowledge that lead to the development of digital media literacy. The article argues that the two established approaches to media literacy education, critical reading and media production, do not adequately explain how students develop media knowledge. It suggests there has been too little focus on material practices and how these relate to the development of conceptual understanding in media learning. The article explores empirical evidence from a four-year investigation in a primary school in Queensland, Australia using actor–network theory to explore ‘moments of translation’ as students deploy technologies and concepts to materially participate in digital culture. A generative model of media learning is presented with four categories of building blocks that isolate the specific skills and knowledge that can be taught and learnt to promote participation in digital media contexts: digital materials, conceptual understandings, media production and media analysis. The final section of the article makes initial comments on how the model might become the basis for curriculum development in schools and argues that further empirical research needs to occur to confirm the model’s utility.

Developing affordable and sustainable housing through energy, transport, and building utility integration

Housing affordability and sustainable development are not polarised ideologies as both are necessary with increasing urbanisation. We must bridge the gap between current median house pricing and target affordable house pricing whilst pursuing sustainability. This paper examines the potential of initial construction cost and ongoing utilities and transport cost reduction through the integration of sustainable housing design and transit oriented development principles in a Commuter Energy and Building Utilities System (CEBUS). It also introduces current research on the development of a Dynamic Simulation Model for CEBUS applications in the Australian property development and construction industry.

The impact of transformative learning in a critical service-learning program on teacher development: Building a foundation for inclusive teaching

With international and national policies requiring teachers to adopt inclusive practices worldwide, this paper examines the impact of transformational learning in a critical service-learning program on final-year pre-service teachers’ approaches to inclusive teaching. Data from emailed questionnaires and focus group interviews are analysed through a social, critical framework. The results indicate that the critical service-learning program provided the students with an opportunity to consider diversity and inclusion in selecting teaching strategies, and to enact values suitable to inclusive practices and appreciation of diversity in schools. In this paper we argue that transformative learning experiences about inclusivity and diversity are needed if pre-service teachers are to be challenged to adopt inclusive values and practice in schools. A critical service-learning program for pre-service teachers provides a solid foundation on which to develop or build on the ability to think and teach inclusively.

Building community capacity for end of life : an investigation of community capacity and its implications for health-promoting palliative care in the Australian Capital Territory

This study identified and examined community-based activities around death, dying and end-of-life care which might reflect a health-promoting palliative care (HPPC) philosophy. This approach is argued to restore community ownership of, and agency in, dying and death through the building of community capacity. However, the enactment of the HPPC approach has not been extensively examined in Australia. Current understandings of community capacity-building relating to end of life are orientated toward service provision. A qualitative interpretive approach was used to engage with local community groups in the Australian Capital Territory with an interest in death, dying and end-of-life care. Data were collected from ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews and thematically analysed. The themes of Practical Support, Respect and Responsiveness and Connection and Empowerment were identified, reflecting community activities initiated in response to the experience of life-limiting illness. Building community capacity offers to restore community agency in end-of-life concerns, while potentially enhancing health service provision through collaborative partnerships. This study indicates an existing community capacity, demonstrated by activities that promote socialisation, peer support and normalisation of death and dying. However, as these activities occur primarily in response to illness, proactive and preparatory interventions in HPPC are a priority.

Informal caring networks for people at end of life: Building social capital in Australian communities

The care of a person living at home near the end of their life is predominantly provided by family carers with the support of health services such as palliative care. In addition, informal caring networks also contribute at times to the support to the dying person and their carer. In this way, these networks can promote social capital in the communities from which they are drawn. This social approach to end of life care enhances community capacity to provide support to those dying at home and their carers. This article examines relevant published literature to explore the conceptual foundations of informal caring networks, examining the place of social capital and community development in the provision of end of life care at home, particularly in the Australian context.

Building the safety case for UAS operations in support of natural disaster response

A framework supporting the systematic development of safety cases for Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operations in a broad range of civil and commercial applications is presented. The case study application is the use of UAS for disaster response. In those States where regulations do not preclude UAS operations altogether, approvals for UAS operations can be granted on a case-by-case basis contingent on the provision of a safety case acceptable to the relevant National Airworthiness Authority (NAA). A safety case for UAS operations must show how the risks associated with the hazards have been managed to an acceptable level. The foundational components necessary for structuring and assessing these safety cases have not yet been proposed. Barrier-bow-tie models are used in this paper to structure the safety case for the two primary hazards of 1) a ground impact, and 2) a Mid-Air Collision (MAC). The models establish the set of Risk Control Variables (RCVs) available to reduce the risk. For the ground-impact risk model, seven RCVs are identified which in combination govern the probability of an accident. Similarly, ten RCVs are identified within the MAC model. The effectiveness of the RCVs and how they can implemented in terms of processes, policies, devices, practices, or other actions for each of the case-study applications are discussed. The framework presented can provide for the more systematic and consistent regulation of UAS through a "safety target" approach.

Profiling : an application assignment approach for green data centers

In the past few years, there has been a steady increase in the attention, importance and focus of green initiatives related to data centers. While various energy aware measures have been developed for data centers, the requirement of improving the performance efficiency of application assignment at the same time has yet to be fulfilled. For instance, many energy aware measures applied to data centers maintain a trade-off between energy consumption and Quality of Service (QoS). To address this problem, this paper presents a novel concept of profiling to facilitate offline optimization for a deterministic application assignment to virtual machines. Then, a profile-based model is established for obtaining near-optimal allocations of applications to virtual machines with consideration of three major objectives: energy cost, CPU utilization efficiency and application completion time. From this model, a profile-based and scalable matching algorithm is developed to solve the profile-based model. The assignment efficiency of our algorithm is then compared with that of the Hungarian algorithm, which does not scale well though giving the optimal solution.

Practices and effectiveness of building information modelling in construction projects in China

Based on an investigation of 106 projects involving the use of building information modelling (BIM), this paper examines current BIM practices in China, and assesses how various practices alter their effectiveness. The results reveal that in current practice BIM is principally employed as a visualization tool, and how it is implemented is significantly associated with project characteristics. BIM use in the majority of the surveyed projects is seen to have positive outcomes, with the benefits of improved task effectiveness being more substantial than those related to efficiency improvement. The results also provide evidence that project characteristics significantly influence the success of BIM use; however, more substantial contributing factors to BIM effectiveness are the extent of integrated use and client/owner support. While indicating that current BIM practices involve both technological and organizational problems, the findings also provide insights into how the potential for BIM could be better exploited within the industry.

A collaborative rapid persona-building workshop : creating design personas with health researchers

In the HealthMap project for People With HIV, (PWHIV) designers employed a collaborative rapid ‘persona-building' workshop with health researchers to develop patient personas that embodied patient-centred design goals and contextual awareness from a variety of qualitative and quantitative data. On reflection, this collaborative rapid workshop was a process for drawing together the divergent user research insights and expertise of stakeholders into focus for a chronic disease self-management design. This paper discusses, (i) an analysis of the transcript of the workshop and, (ii) interviews with five practising senior designers, in order to reflect on how the persona-building process was enacted and its role in the HealthMap design evolution. The collaborative rapid persona-building methodology supported: embedding user research insights, eliciting domain expertise, introducing design thinking, facilitating stakeholder collaboration and defining early design requirements. The contribution of this paper is to model the process of collaborative rapid persona-building and to introduce the collaborative rapid persona-building framework as a method to generate design priorities from domain expertise and user research data.