Trans digital storytelling : everyday activism, mutable identity and the problem of visibility

Mainstream representations of trans people typically run the gamut from victim to mentally ill and are almost always articulated by non-trans voices. The era of user-generated digital content and participatory culture has heralded unprecedented opportunities for trans people who wish to speak their own stories in public spaces. Digital Storytelling, as an easy accessible autobiographic audio-visual form, offers scope to play with multi-dimensional and ambiguous representations of identity that contest mainstream assumptions of what it is to be ‘male’ or ‘female’. Also, unlike mainstream media forms, online and viral distribution of Digital Stories offer potential to reach a wide range of audiences, which is appealing to activist oriented storytellers who wish to confront social prejudices. However, with these newfound possibilities come concerns regarding visibility and privacy, especially for storytellers who are all too aware of the risks of being ‘out’ as trans. This paper explores these issues from the perspective of three trans storytellers, with reference to the Digital Stories they have created and shared online and on DVD. These examplars are contextualised with some popular and scholarly perspectives on trans representation, in particular embodied and performed identity. It is contended that trans Digital Stories, while appearing in some ways to be quite conventional, actually challenge common notions of gender identity in ways that are both radical and transformative.

Leveraging R&D to advance digital modelling practice in Australian construction

This paper describes a lead project currently underway through Australia’s Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre, evaluating impacts, diffusion mechanisms and uptake of R&D in the Australian building and construction industry. Building on a retrospective analysis of R&D trends and industry outcomes, a future-focused industry roadmap will be developed to inform R&D policies more attuned to future industry needs to improve investment effectiveness. In particular, this research will evaluate national R&D efforts to develop, test and implement advanced digital modelling technologies into the design/construction/asset management cycle. This research will build new understandings and knowledge relevant to R&D funding strategies, research team formation and management (with involvement from public and private sectors, and research and knowledge institutions), dissemination of outcomes and uptake. This is critical due to the disaggregated nature of the industry, intense competition, limited R&D investment; and new challenges (e.g. digital modelling, integrated project delivery, and the demand for packaged services). The evaluation of leading Australian and international efforts to integrate advanced digital modelling technologies into the design/construction/asset management cycle will be undertaken as one of three case studies. Employing the recently released Australian Guidelines for Digital Modelling developed with buildingSMART (International Alliance for Interoperability) and the Australian Institute of Architects, technical and business benefits across the supply chain will be highlighted as drivers for more integrated R&D efforts.

Unpacking Japan's 21st century "National Conversation" : images of the future beyond the iron cage of the "Catch Up" model

How does the image of the future operate upon history, and upon national and individual identities? To what extent are possible futures colonized by the image? What are the un-said futurecratic discourses that underlie the image of the future? Such questions inspired the examination of Japan’s futures images in this thesis. The theoretical point of departure for this examination is Polak’s (1973) seminal research into the theory of the ‘image of the future’ and seven contemporary Japanese texts which offer various alternative images for Japan’s futures, selected as representative of a ‘national conversation’ about the futures of that nation. These seven images of the future are: 1. Report of the Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan’s Goals in the 21st Century—The Frontier Within: Individual Empowerment and Better Governance in the New Millennium, compiled by a committee headed by Japan’s preeminent Jungian psychologist Kawai Hayao (1928-2007); 2. Slow Is Beautiful—a publication by Tsuji Shinichi, in which he re-images Japan as a culture represented by the metaphor of the sloth, concerned with slow and quality-oriented livingry as a preferred image of the future to Japan’s current post-bubble cult of speed and economic efficiency; 3. MuRatopia is an image of the future in the form of a microcosmic prototype community and on-going project based on the historically significant island of Awaji, and established by Japanese economist and futures thinker Yamaguchi Kaoru; 4. F.U.C.K, I Love Japan, by author Tanja Yujiro provides this seven text image of the future line-up with a youth oriented sub-culture perspective on that nation’s futures; 5. IMAGINATION / CREATION—a compilation of round table discussions about Japan’s futures seen from the point of view of Japan’s creative vanguard; 6. Visionary People in a Visionless Country: 21 Earth Connecting Human Stories is a collection of twenty one essays compiled by Denmark born Tokyo resident Peter David Pedersen; and, 7. EXODUS to the Land of Hope, authored by Murakami Ryu, one of Japan’s most prolific and influential writers, this novel suggests a future scenario portraying a massive exodus of Japan’s youth, who, literate with state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICTs) move en masse to Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido to launch a cyber-revolution from the peripheries. The thesis employs a Futures Triangle Analysis (FTA) as the macro organizing framework and as such examines both pushes of the present and weights from the past before moving to focus on the pulls to the future represented by the seven texts mentioned above. Inayatullah’s (1999) Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is the analytical framework used in examining the texts. Poststructuralist concepts derived primarily from the work of Michel Foucault are a particular (but not exclusive) reference point for the analytical approach it encompasses. The research questions which reflect the triangulated analytic matrix are: 1. What are the pushes—in terms of current trends—that are affecting Japan’s futures? 2. What are the historical and cultural weights that influence Japan’s futures? 3. What are the emerging transformative Japanese images of the future discourses, as embodied in actual texts, and what potential do they offer for transformative change in Japan? Research questions one and two are discussed in Chapter five and research question three is discussed in Chapter six. The first two research questions should be considered preliminary. The weights outlined in Chapter five indicate that the forces working against change in Japan are formidable, structurally deep-rooted, wide-spread, and under-recognized as change-adverse. Findings and analyses of the push dimension reveal strong forces towards a potentially very different type of Japan. However it is the seven contemporary Japanese images of the future, from which there is hope for transformative potential, which form the analytical heart of the thesis. In analyzing these texts the thesis establishes the richness of Japan’s images of the future and, as such, demonstrates the robustness of Japan’s stance vis-à-vis the problem of a perceived map-less and model-less future for Japan. Frontier is a useful image of the future, whose hybrid textuality, consisting of government, business, academia, and creative minority perspectives, demonstrates the earnestness of Japan’s leaders in favour of the creation of innovative futures for that nation. Slow is powerful in its aim to reconceptualize Japan’s philosophies of temporality, and build a new kind of nation founded on the principles of a human-oriented and expanded vision of economy based around the core metaphor of slowness culture. However its viability in Japan, with its post-Meiji historical pushes to an increasingly speed-obsessed social construction of reality, could render it impotent. MuRatopia is compelling in its creative hybridity indicative of an advanced IT society, set in a modern day utopian space based upon principles of a high communicative social paradigm, and sustainability. IMAGINATION / CREATION is less the plan than the platform for a new discussion on Japan’s transformation from an econo-centric social framework to a new Creative Age. It accords with emerging discourses from the Creative Industries, which would re-conceive of Japan as a leading maker of meaning, rather than as the so-called guzu, a term referred to in the book meaning ‘laggard’. In total, Love Japan is still the most idiosyncratic of all the images of the future discussed. Its communication style, which appeals to Japan’s youth cohort, establishes it as a potentially formidable change agent in a competitive market of futures images. Visionary People is a compelling image for its revolutionary and subversive stance against Japan’s vision-less political leadership, showing that it is the people, not the futures-making elite or aristocracy who must take the lead and create a new vanguard for the nation. Finally, Murakami’s Exodus cannot be ruled out as a compelling image of the future. Sharing the appeal of Tanja’s Love Japan to an increasingly disenfranchised youth, Exodus portrays a near-term future that is achievable in the here and now, by Japan’s teenagers, using information and communications technologies (ICTs) to subvert leadership, and create utopianist communities based on alternative social principles. The principal contribution from this investigation in terms of theory belongs to that of developing the Japanese image of the future. In this respect, the literature reviews represent a significant compilation, specifically about Japanese futures thinking, the Japanese image of the future, and the Japanese utopia. Though not exhaustive, this compilation will hopefully serve as a useful starting point for future research, not only for the Japanese image of the future, but also for all image of the future research. Many of the sources are in Japanese and their English summations are an added reason to respect this achievement. Secondly, the seven images of the future analysed in Chapter six represent the first time that Japanese image of the future texts have been systematically organized and analysed. Their translation from Japanese to English can be claimed as a significant secondary contribution. What is more, they have been analysed according to current futures methodologies that reveal a layeredness, depth, and overall richness existing in Japanese futures images. Revealing this image-richness has been one of the most significant findings of this investigation, suggesting that there is fertile research to be found from this still under-explored field, whose implications go beyond domestic Japanese concerns, and may offer fertile material for futures thinkers and researchers, Japanologists, social planners, and policy makers.

Pre-digital Virtuality: Early Modern Scholars and the Republic of Letters

This chapter explores the idea of virtual participation through the historical example of the republic of letters in early modern Europe (circa 1500-1800). By reflecting on the construction of virtuality in a historical context, and more specifically in a pre-digital environment, it calls attention to accusations of technological determinism in ongoing research concerning the affordances of the Internet and related media of communication. It argues that ‘the virtual’ is not synonymous with ‘the digital’ and suggests that, in order to articulate what is novel about modern technologies, we must first understand the social interactions underpinning the relationships which are facilitated through those technologies. By analysing the construction of virtuality in a pre-digital environment, this chapter thus offers a baseline from which scholars might consider what is different about the modes of interaction and communication being engaged in via modern media.

Working in Australia's digital games industry consolidation report

The Working in Australia’s Digital Games Industry: A Consolidation Report is the outcome of a comprehensive study on the games industry in Australia by Dr Sandra Haukka from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) based at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. The study responds to concerns that Australia’s games industry would not reach its full potential due to a lack of local, highly skilled staff, and a lack of appropriately trained graduates with the necessary knowledge and skills. This is the first of two reports produced with the support of the Games Developers’ Association of Australia. Over coming months researchers will develop a future skills strategy report for the industry.

E-Government and the digital divide

Many governments world wide are attempting to increase accountability, transparency, and the quality of services by adopting information and communications technologies (ICTs) to modernize and change the way their administrations work. Meanwhile e-government is becoming a significant decision-making and service tool at local, regional and national government levels. The vast majority of users of these government online services see significant benefits from being able to access services online. The rapid pace of technological development has created increasingly more powerful ICTs that are capable of radically transforming public institutions and private organizations alike. These technologies have proven to be extraordinarily useful instruments in enabling governments to enhance the quality, speed of delivery and reliability of services to citizens and to business (VanderMeer & VanWinden, 2003). However, just because the technology is available does not mean it is accessible to all. The term digital divide has been used since the 1990s to describe patterns of unequal access to ICTs—primarily computers and the Internet—based on income, ethnicity, geography, age, and other factors. Over time it has evolved to more broadly define disparities in technology usage, resulting from a lack of access, skills, or interest in using technology. This article provides an overview of recent literature on e-government and the digital divide, and includes a discussion on the potential of e-government in addressing the digital divide.

Comparison of standard image segmentation methods for segmentation of brain tumors from 2D MR images

In the analysis of medical images for computer-aided diagnosis and therapy, segmentation is often required as a preliminary step. Medical image segmentation is a complex and challenging task due to the complex nature of the images. The brain has a particularly complicated structure and its precise segmentation is very important for detecting tumors, edema, and necrotic tissues in order to prescribe appropriate therapy. Magnetic Resonance Imaging is an important diagnostic imaging technique utilized for early detection of abnormal changes in tissues and organs. It possesses good contrast resolution for different tissues and is, thus, preferred over Computerized Tomography for brain study. Therefore, the majority of research in medical image segmentation concerns MR images. As the core juncture of this research a set of MR images have been segmented using standard image segmentation techniques to isolate a brain tumor from the other regions of the brain. Subsequently the resultant images from the different segmentation techniques were compared with each other and analyzed by professional radiologists to find the segmentation technique which is the most accurate. Experimental results show that the Otsu’s thresholding method is the most suitable image segmentation method to segment a brain tumor from a Magnetic Resonance Image.

Forced landing technologies for unmanned aerial vehicles : towards safer operations

While using unmanned systems in combat is not new, what will be new in the foreseeable future is how such systems are used and integrated in the civilian space. The potential use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in civil and commercial applications is becoming a fact, and is receiving considerable attention by industry and the research community. The majority of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles performing civilian tasks are restricted to flying only in segregated space, and not within the National Airspace. The areas that UAVs are restricted to flying in are typically not above populated areas, which in turn are the areas most useful for civilian applications. The reasoning behind the current restrictions is mainly due to the fact that current UAV technologies are not able to demonstrate an Equivalent Level of Safety to manned aircraft, particularly in the case of an engine failure which would require an emergency or forced landing. This chapter will preset and guide the reader through a number of developments that would facilitate the integration of UAVs into the National Airspace. Algorithms for UAV Sense-and-Avoid and Force Landings are recognized as two major enabling technologies that will allow the integration of UAVs in the civilian airspace. The following sections will describe some of the techniques that are currently being tested at the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA), which places emphasis on the detection of candidate landing sites using computer vision, the planning of the descent path trajectory for the UAV, and the decision making process behind the selection of the final landing site.

Design and development of automatic visual inspection system for PCB manufacturing

Inspection of solder joints has been a critical process in the electronic manufacturing industry to reduce manufacturing cost, improve yield, and ensure product quality and reliability. This paper proposes two inspection modules for an automatic solder joint classification system. The “front-end” inspection system includes illumination normalisation, localisation and segmentation. The “back-end” inspection involves the classification of solder joints using the Log Gabor filter and classifier fusion. Five different levels of solder quality with respect to the amount of solder paste have been defined. The Log Gabor filter has been demonstrated to achieve high recognition rates and is resistant to misalignment. This proposed system does not need any special illumination system, and the images are acquired by an ordinary digital camera. This system could contribute to the development of automated non-contact, non-destructive and low cost solder joint quality inspection systems.