The Guardian reportage of the UK MP expenses scandal: a case study of computational journalism

The Guardian reportage of the United Kingdom Member of Parliament (MP) expenses scandal of 2009 used crowdsourcing and computational journalism techniques. Computational journalism can be broadly defined as the application of computer science techniques to the activities of journalism. Its foundation lies in computer assisted reporting techniques and its importance is increasing due to the: (a) increasing availability of large scale government datasets for scrutiny; (b) declining cost, increasing power and ease of use of data mining and filtering software; and Web 2.0; and (c) explosion of online public engagement and opinion.. This paper provides a case study of the Guardian MP expenses scandal reportage and reveals some key challenges and opportunities for digital journalism. It finds journalists may increasingly take an active role in understanding, interpreting, verifying and reporting clues or conclusions that arise from the interrogations of datasets (computational journalism). Secondly a distinction should be made between information reportage and computational journalism in the digital realm, just as a distinction might be made between citizen reporting and citizen journalism. Thirdly, an opportunity exists for online news providers to take a ‘curatorial’ role, selecting and making easily available the best data sources for readers to use (information reportage). These activities have always been fundamental to journalism, however the way in which they are undertaken may change. Findings from this paper may suggest opportunities and challenges for the implementation of computational journalism techniques in practice by digital Australian media providers, and further areas of research.

Responses to 2008 Apology : Digital story collection

On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an apology to Australia’s Indigenous People on behalf of the Parliament of Australia. The State Library of Queensland, with assistance from Queensland University of Technology and Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, captured responses to this historic event in a collection of digital stories. Stories were created with: Tiga Bayles; Jeremy Robertson; Natalie Alberts; Sam Wagan Watson Jr; Nadine McDonald-Dowd; Anna Bligh; and Quentin Bryce.

Resilient creative economies? Creative industries on the urban fringe

The relationship between culture and the economy is of growing interest to researchers, writers and policy makers. Advanced economies have become increasingly ‘culturalised’, pushing culture from the periphery to the centre of policy concerns and action. The economic downturn commencing in late 2008 generated predictions that ranged from the apocalyptic to the sanguine, across all sectors. This article offers an insight into the relationship between the economy, the creative industries and their geographic localities. It investigates creative industries situated away from the urban core, and located in the outer suburbs of Melbourne and Brisbane. We suggest that for creative industries situated in outer suburbs, there are characteristics that may contribute to their economic resilience.

The promise of computational journalism.

There are at least four key challenges in the online news environment that computational journalism may address. Firstly, news providers operate in a rapidly evolving environment and larger businesses are typically slower to adapt to market innovations. News consumption patterns have changed and news providers need to find new ways to capture and retain digital users. Meanwhile, declining financial performance has led to cost cuts in mass market newspapers. Finally investigative reporting is typically slow, high cost and may be tedious, and yet is valuable to the reputation of a news provider. Computational journalism involves the application of software and technologies to the activities of journalism, and it draws from the fields of computer science, social science and communications. New technologies may enhance the traditional aims of journalism, or may require “a new breed of people who are midway between technologists and journalists” (Irfan Essa in Mecklin 2009: 3). Historically referred to as ‘computer assisted reporting’, the use of software in online reportage is increasingly valuable due to three factors: larger datasets are becoming publicly available; software is becoming sophisticated and ubiquitous; and the developing Australian digital economy. This paper introduces key elements of computational journalism – it describes why it is needed; what it involves; benefits and challenges; and provides a case study and examples. Computational techniques can quickly provide a solid factual basis for original investigative journalism and may increase interaction with readers, when correctly used. It is a major opportunity to enhance the delivery of original investigative journalism, which ultimately may attract and retain readers online.

Perspectives on the recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse police

Purpose: The aims of this paper are: to investigate the perceptions held by police (insiders) and community member (outsiders) of the recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse employees of Victoria Police; and, to develop a model that can assist in future recruitment and retention policy development.---------- Design/methodology/approach: Structured focus group interviews were conducted based on an instrument deduced from existing literature. Police and community members were interviewed separate cohorts. The discussions were thematically coded to themes and sub-themes.---------- Findings: Specific differences were identified in perceptions of the importance of recruiting culturally and linguistically diverse groups, barriers to recruitment, recruitment methods, and retention methods.---------- Research limitations/implications: Based on these perceptions, a propose a model addresses the importance of cultural diversity in policing and barriers to recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse employees. Further research is necessary to assess the broader applicability of this model.---------- Practical implications: The proposed model is may be used as the basis for future recruitment and retention activities, and human resource management policy development.---------- Originality/value: This is the first study in the Australian context of recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse police that addresses both community and police perspectives. Aligning the demographic profile of the police service with that of the community is beneficial to effective policing.

Making sense of brain tumour: A qualitative investigation of personal and social processes of adjustment

This study investigated personal and social processes of adjustment at different stages of illness for individuals with brain tumour. A purposive sample of 18 participants with mixed tumour types (9 benign and 9 malignant) and 15 family caregivers was recruited from a neurosurgical practice and a brain tumour support service. In-depth semi-structured interviews focused on participants’ perceptions of their adjustment, including personal appraisals, coping and social support since their brain tumour diagnosis. Interview transcripts were analysed thematically using open, axial and selective coding techniques. The primary theme that emerged from the analysis entailed “key sense making appraisals”, which was closely related to the following secondary themes: (1) Interactions with those in the healthcare system, (2) reactions and support from the personal support network, and (3) a diversity of coping efforts. Adjustment to brain tumour involved a series of appraisals about the illness that were influenced by interactions with those in the healthcare system, reactions and support from people in their support network, and personal coping efforts. Overall, the findings indicate that adjustment to brain tumour is highly individualistic; however, some common personal and social processes are evident in how people make sense of and adapt to the illness over time. A preliminary framework of adjustment based on the present findings and its clinical relevance are discussed. In particular, it is important for health professionals to seek to understand and support individuals’ sense-making processes following diagnosis of brain tumour.

Review of Apple iPad news applications : new media service

The launch of the Apple iPad on January 2010 has seen considerable interest from the newspaper and publishing industry in developing content and business models for the tablet PC device that can address the limits of both the print and online news and information media products. It is early days in the iPad’s evolution, and we wait to see what competitor devices will emerge in the near future. It is apparent, however, that it has become a significant “niche” product, with considerable potential for mass market expansion over the next few years, possibly at the expense of netbook sales. The scope for the iPad and tablet PCs to become a “fourth screen” for users, alongside the TV, PC and mobile phone, is in early stages of evolution. The study used five criteria to assess iPad apps: • Content: timeliness; archive; personalisation; content depth; advertisements; the use of multimedia; and the extent to which the content was in sync with the provider brand. • Useability: degree of static content; ability to control multimedia; file size; page clutter; resolution; signposts; and customisation. • Interactivity: hyperlinks; ability to contribute content or provide feedback to news items; depth of multimedia; search function; ability to use plug-ins and linking; ability to highlight, rate and/or save items; functions that may facilitate a community of users. • Transactions capabilities: ecommerce functionality; purchase and download process; user privacy and transaction security. • Openness: degree of linking to outside sources; reader contribution processes; anonymity measures; and application code ownership.

Queensland Government’s people’s question time : the challenges and opportunities of population growth in Queensland

As AITPM National President, I was invited by Queensland’s Premier, Hon. Anna Bligh MP, as an audience guest to People’s Question Time on Wednesday 24 March 2010, which focused on ‘The Challenges and Opportunities of Population Growth in Queensland’. On the panel were: Premier and Minister for the Arts, Anna Bligh; Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Kate Jones; Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Stirling Hinchliffe; Michael Rayner – Growth Management Summit Advisory Panel, Principal Director, Cox Rayner Architects; and Greg Hallam – Executive Director, Local Government Association of Queensland. The moderator for this session was Law Academic Erin O’Brien, of Queensland University of Technology.

The role of ecological constraints on expertise development

The role of ecological constraints on the acquisition of sport expertise is gaining attention in sport science, although more research is needed. In this position paper we provide an ecological explanation for expertise acquisition, as alluding to qualitative data that support the idea that unconventional, even aversive, environmental constraints may play an important role in the development of world-class athletes. We exemplify this argument by profiling the role of unconventional practice environments using association football in Brazilian society as a task vehicle. Contrary to the traditional idea that only deliberate training and development programmes can lead to the evolution of expertise, we propose how expert performance might be gained through highly unstructured activities in Brazilian football, that represent a powerful and little understood implicit environmental constraint that can lead to expertise development in sport.

Frequency decomposition techniques for increased discriminative 3D facial information capture

Eigen-based techniques and other monolithic approaches to face recognition have long been a cornerstone in the face recognition community due to the high dimensionality of face images. Eigen-face techniques provide minimal reconstruction error and limit high-frequency content while linear discriminant-based techniques (fisher-faces) allow the construction of subspaces which preserve discriminatory information. This paper presents a frequency decomposition approach for improved face recognition performance utilising three well-known techniques: Wavelets; Gabor / Log-Gabor; and the Discrete Cosine Transform. Experimentation illustrates that frequency domain partitioning prior to dimensionality reduction increases the information available for classification and greatly increases face recognition performance for both eigen-face and fisher-face approaches.

AITPM national newsletter President's report May 2010

We’ve had a bit of sticker shock in these parts. Well, apparently. Since my last missive, Brisbane’s Clem Jones Tunnel which was initially free now has a toll, at least partially, at the introductory rate of $2.95 for a one-way car ride between 5a.m. and midnight – free overnight. From 9 May 2010 the toll will be $4.28. Since the introductory toll was introduced, use of the tunnel appears to have declined somewhat – no surprise to transport professionals I suppose. An additional factor may have been that the “novelty value” of driving through the tunnel for free had worn off. This demonstrates to me that much of the community may still see the use of road infrastructure as a rite of passage, with only some actually weighing up the true value of their travel time and vehicle wear and tear against their out of pocket (or onto credit card) cost. Thus, we’re in pioneering times and the role of transport economics in the overall transport infrastructure planning realm is of considerable importance – especially as much of the new big ticket infrastructure is likely to be tolled into the future. The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, made poignant commentary about Brisbane City Council’s tunnel use in that such infrastructure is built for future times and not just as a quick fix for current traffic problems. My expectation is that once Airport Link, which is really the northern half of the corridor, opens in 2012, there will be a significant spike in Clem7 usage.

A mathematical model of chlamydial infection incorporating movement of chlamydial particles

We present a spatiotemporal mathematical model of chlamydial infection, host immune response and spatial movement of infectious particles. The re- sulting partial differential equations model both the dynamics of the infection and changes in infection profile observed spatially along the length of the host genital tract. This model advances previous chlamydia modelling by incorporating spatial change, which we also demonstrate to be essential when the timescale for movement of infectious particles is equal to, or shorter than, the developmental cycle timescale. Numerical solutions and model analysis are carried out, and we present a hypothesis regarding the potential for treatment and prevention of infection by increasing chlamydial particle motility.

An obsession with storytelling : conducting oral history interviews for creative writing

Anna Hirsch and Clare Dixon (2008, 190) state that creative writers’ ‘obsession with storytelling…might serve as an interdisciplinary tool for evaluating oral histories.’ This paper enters a dialogue with Hirsch and Dixon’s statement by documenting an interview methodology for a practice-led PhD project, The Artful Life Story: Oral History and Fiction, which investigates the fictionalising of oral history. ----- ----- Alistair Thomson (2007, 62) notes the interdisciplinary nature of oral history scholarship from the 1980s onwards. As a result, oral histories are being used and understood in a variety of arts-based settings. In such contexts, oral histories are not valued so much for their factual content but as sources that are at once dynamic, emotionally authentic and open to a multiplicity of interpretations. How can creative writers design and conduct interviews that reflect this emphasis? ----- ----- The paper briefly maps the growing trend of using oral histories in fiction and ethnographic novels, in order to establish the need to design interviews for arts-based contexts. I describe how I initially designed the interviews to suit the aims of my practice. Once in the field, however, I found that my original methods did not account for my experiences. I conclude with the resulting reflection and understanding that emerged from these problematic encounters, focusing on the technique of steered monologue (Scagliola 2010), sometimes referred to as the Biographic Narrative Interpretative Method (Wengraf 2001, Jones 2006).

Sound in the Aboriginal Australian Films of Rolf de Heer

Anna Hickey-Mody and Melissa Iocca invented a new name for the cinema-goer at "Bad Boy Bubby" (1993) when they wrote: "In de Heer's film, the viewer is primarily a listener, or aurator, and secondly a spectator" and I have argued the label 'aurator' can also be used for the person experiencing "Ten Canoes" (2006). This Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime fable features dialogue recorded entirely in the Ganalbingu language of the Indigenous people it stars, and is a prime example of what I would suggest can be labeled 'The Aboriginal Australian Films of Rolf de Heer'. "The Tracker" (2002) and "Dr. Plonk" (2007) have also included depictions of Aboriginal Australians and each of the trio utilizes Cat Hope's "innovative sound ideas" to present what I argue is an aural auteur's signature revealing a post-colonial Australian world-view that privileges the justice system and eco-spirituality of Aboriginal Australians.