Bouncing back : the role of design in facilitating students to understand and deal with adversity

After state-wide flooding and a category-5 tropical cyclone, three-quarters of the state of Queensland was declared a disaster zone in early 2011. This deluge of adversity had a significant impact on university students, a few weeks prior to the start of the academic semester. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that design plays in facilitating students to understand and respond to, adversity. The participants of this study were second and fourth year architectural design students at a large Australian University, in Queensland. As a part of their core architectural design studies, students were required to provide architectural responses to the recent catastrophic events in Queensland. Qualitative data was obtained through student surveys, work design work submitted by students and a survey of guests who attending an exhibition of the student work. The results of this research showed that the students produced more than just the required set of architectural drawings, process journals and models, but also recognition of the important role that the affective dimension of the flooding event and the design process played in helping them to both understand and respond to, adversity. They held the ‘real world’ experience and practical aspect of the assessment in higher regard than their typical focus on aesthetics and the making of iconic design. Perhaps most importantly, the students recognised that this process allowed them to have a voice, and a means to respond to adversity through the powerful language of design.

Visceral hedonic rhetoric

Emotional responses can incite and entice consumers to select a particular product from a row of similar items and thus have a considerable impact on purchase decisions. Consequently, more and more companies are challenging designers to address the emotional impact of their work and to design for emotion and consumerproduct relationships. Furthermore, the creation of emotional attachment to one’s possessions is one way of approaching a sustainable consumer-product relationship. The aim of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the instantaneous emotional attachment that consumers form with products and its subsequent implications for product development. The foci of the study are visceral design, consumer hedonics and product rhetoric. Studied in a conglomerate they become an area of new investigation: visceral hedonic rhetoric. In this context, the term “visceral hedonic rhetoric” is defined as the properties of a product that persuasively elicit the pursuit of pleasure at an instinctual level of cognition. This study explores visceral hedonic rhetoric evident in the design of interactive products and resides within the context of emotional design research. It employs an empirical approach to understand how consumers respond hedonically on a visceral level to rhetoric in products. Specifically, it examines visceral hedonic responses given by thirty participants to the stimuli of six mobile telephones, six Mp3 players and six USB memory flash drives. The study findings demonstrate a hierarchy of visceral hedonic rhetoric evident in interactive products. This hierarchy of visceral hedonic attributes include: colour, size, shape, intrigue, material, perceived usability, portability, perceived function, novelty, analogy, brand, quality, texture and gender. However, it is the interrelationships between these visceral hedonic attributes that are the most significant findings of this research. Certain associations were revealed between product attribute combinations and consumer perception. The most predominant of these were: gender bias associated with colour selection; the creation of intrigue through a vibrant attention-grabbing colour; perceived ease of use and function; product confidence as a result of brand familiarity and perceived usability; analogous association through familiarity with similar objects and shapes; and the association of longevity with quality, novelty or recent technology. A significant outcome of the research is the distillation of visceral hedonic rhetoric design principles, and a tool to assist designers in harnessing the full potential of visceral hedonic rhetoric. This study contributes to the identification of the emerging research field of visceral hedonic rhetoric. Application of this study’s findings has the potential to provide a hedonic consumer-product relationship that is more meaningful, less disposable and more sustainable. This theory of visceral hedonic rhetoric is not only a significant contribution to design knowledge but is also generally transferable to other research domains, as later suggested in future research avenues.

The influence of cultural selection on strategic communication

Strategic communication is held to be a key process by which organisations respond to environmental uncertainty. In the received view articulated in the literatures of organisational communication and public relations, strategic communication results from collaborative efforts by organisational members to create shared understanding about environmental uncertainty and, as a result of this collective understanding, formulate appropriate communication responses. In this study, I explore how such collaborative efforts towards the development of strategic communication are derived from, and bounded by, culturally shared values and assumptions. Study of the influences of an organisation‟s culture on the formulation of strategic communication is a fundamental conceptual challenge for public relations and, to date, a largely unaddressed area of research. This thesis responds to this challenge by describing a key property of organisational culture – the action of cultural selection (Durham, 1992). I integrate this property of cultural selection to extend and refine the descriptive range of Weick‟s (1969, 1979) classic sociocultural model of organizing. From this integration I propose a new model, the Cultural Selection of Strategic Communication (CSSC). Underpinning the CSSC model is the central proposition that because of the action of cultural selection during organizing processes, the inherently conservative properties of an organisation‟s culture constrain development of effective strategic communication in ways that may be unrelated to the outcomes of “environmental scanning” and other monitoring functions heralded by the public relations literature as central to organisational adaptation. Thus, by examining the development of strategic communication, I describe a central conservative influence on the social ecology of organisations. This research also responds to Butschi and Steyn‟s (2006) call for the development of theory focusing on strategic communication as well as Grunig (2006) and Sriramesh‟s (2007) call for research to further understand the role of culture in public relations practice. In keeping with the explorative and descriptive goals of this study, I employ organisational ethnography to examine the influence of cultural selection on the development of strategic communication. In this methodological approach, I use the technique of progressive contextualisation to compare data from two related but distinct cultural settings. This approach provides a range of descriptive opportunities to permit a deeper understanding of the work of cultural selection. Findings of this study propose that culture, operating as a system of shared and socially transmitted social knowledge, acts through the property of cultural selection to influence decision making, and decrease conceptual variation within a group. The findings support the view that strategic communication, as a cultural product derived from the influence of cultural selection, is an essential feature to understand the social ecology of an organisation.

Regimes and rebels

The end of the recent Communist occupation of the many countries bordering Russia marked an end to the tyranny of illegal and forced annexation. Amid these countries are my parents’ homelands, the small Baltic nations of Latvia and Estonia. Their occupation contravenes many of the numerous Articles listed by The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2008), constituting many acts of violation. As a filmmaker, I was unusually incognizant of these events, despite my relationship to them. My parents never discussed the war, while during the ensuing Communist era, information was conspicuously absent. However, this lack of knowledge provided the incentive that compelled a journey of discovery that resulted in the making of Regimes and Rebels. This Masters project is presented is two parts. The film equates to 70% of the project (52 minutes in length), whilst the exegesis represents the remaining 30%. The film is a ‘human rights’, ‘video diary’ styled documentary film about the Communist occupation of my parents’ homelands, Latvia and Estonia, and the resonating effect of the occupation on our family living in Australia and family still living in the homelands. The production of the video diary is contextualised by this exegesis, which concurrently discusses the burgeoning video diary format as the basis for making a ‘human rights’ documentary film. A discussion about the latter genre of documentary film ensues, encompassing modes of representation, followed by various issues related to production including: issues of aesthetics, styles, digital media, lack of evidence and subjectivity analogous with both filmmaker and audience. Next, work by other filmmakers in the ‘human rights’ genre, linked to the proliferation of Communism in Europe, is discussed and analysed in terms of production and modes of representation. The exegesis ends with my experience as filmmaker and an analysis of factors that arose in making Regimes and Rebels.

The global division of labour and the division in global labour

Since the 1980s the locus of manufacturing and some services have moved to countries of the Global South. Liberalization of trade and investment has added two billion people to world labour supply and brought workers everywhere into intense competition with each other. Under orthodox neoliberal and neoclassical approaches free trade and open investment should benefit all countries and lead to convergence. However considerable differences in wages and working hours exist between workers of the Global North and those of the Global South. The organising question for the thesis is why workers in different countries but the same industries get different wages. Empirical evidence reviewed in the thesis shows that productivity does not explain these wage differences and that workers in some parts of the South are more productive than workers in the North. Part of the thesis examines the usefulness of explanations drawn from Marxist, institutionalist and global commodity chain approaches. There is a long established argument in Marxist and neo-Marxist writings that differences between North and South result from imperialism and the exercise of power. This is the starting point to review ways of understanding divisions between workers as the outcome of a global class structure. In turn, a fault line is postulated between productive and unproductive labour that largely replicates the division between the Global North and the Global South. Workers and their organizations need shared actions if they are to resist global competition and wage disparities. Solidarity has been the clarion of progressive movements from the Internationals of the early C19th through to the current Global Unions and International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICTU). The thesis examines how nationalism and particular interests have undermined solidarity and reviews the major implications for current efforts to establish and advance a global labour position.

Towards an understanding of teacher judgement in the context of social moderation

Social moderation involves teachers gathering together to discuss their judgements of the quality of student work and to reach agreement regarding the standard awarded. This qualitative study conducted over a three-year period investigated the social practice of moderation and the influence on teachers’ judgements of students work. An initial survey of teachers’ understandings of moderation and standards, pre-interviews of teachers who participated in the moderation meetings, observations of these meetings with a particular focus on one teacher (focus teachers) comprised the data collection methods. Data analysis involved organising, matching, coding, identifying patterns and themes using a constant comparative method. Socio-cultural theories of learning and assessment underpinned the approach to data analysis and proved helpful in explaining the diverse influences on teachers’ judgements beyond the task criteria, and the progressive development of shared understandings through engaging in professional discussions of students’ work. The study revealed that the process is not clear and linear and is influenced by factors such as the representation of the standards and the knowledge base of the teachers.

The influence of glass types on the performance of air-conditioned office buildings in Australia

Windows are one of the most significant elements in the design of buildings. Whether there are small punched openings in the facade or a completely glazed curtain wall, windows are usually a dominant feature of the building's exterior appearance. From the energy use perspective, windows may also be regarded as thermal holes for a building. Therefore, window design and selection must take both aesthetics and serviceability into consideration. In this paper, using building computer simulation techniques, the effects of glass types on the thermal and energy performance of a sample air-conditioned office building in Australia are studied. It is found that a glass type with lower shading coefficient will have a lower building cooling load and total energy use. Through the comparison of results between current and future weather scenarios, it is identified that the pattern found from the current weather scenario would also exist in the future weather scenario, although the scale of change would become smaller. The possible implication of glazing selection in face of global warming is also examined. It is found that compared with its influence on building thermal performance, its influence on the building energy use is relatively small or insignificant.

A descriptive approach for power system stability and security assessment

Power system dynamic analysis and security assessment are becoming more significant today due to increases in size and complexity from restructuring, emerging new uncertainties, integration of renewable energy sources, distributed generation, and micro grids. Precise modelling of all contributed elements/devices, understanding interactions in detail, and observing hidden dynamics using existing analysis tools/theorems are difficult, and even impossible. In this chapter, the power system is considered as a continuum and the propagated electomechanical waves initiated by faults and other random events are studied to provide a new scheme for stability investigation of a large dimensional system. For this purpose, the measured electrical indices (such as rotor angle and bus voltage) following a fault in different points among the network are used, and the behaviour of the propagated waves through the lines, nodes, and buses is analyzed. The impact of weak transmission links on a progressive electromechanical wave using energy function concept is addressed. It is also emphasized that determining severity of a disturbance/contingency accurately, without considering the related electromechanical waves, hidden dynamics, and their properties is not secure enough. Considering these phenomena takes heavy and time consuming calculation, which is not suitable for online stability assessment problems. However, using a continuum model for a power system reduces the burden of complex calculations

Integrated approach for HP-LNG pump diagnosis and prognostics based on health state probability estimation

This paper presents an innovative prognostics model based on health state probability estimation embedded in the closed loop diagnostic and prognostic system. To employ an appropriate classifier for health state probability estimation in the proposed prognostic model, the comparative intelligent diagnostic tests were conducted using five different classifiers applied to the progressive fault levels of three faults in HP-LNG pump. Two sets of impeller-rubbing data were employed for the prediction of pump remnant life based on estimation of discrete health state probability using an outstanding capability of SVM and a feature selection technique. The results obtained were very encouraging and showed that the proposed prognosis system has the potential to be used as an estimation tool for machine remnant life prediction in real life industrial applications.

Importance of soil ecology in vegetation rehabilitation on a North Stradbroke Island sand mine

Sibelco Australia Limited (SAL), a mineral sand mining operation on North Stradbroke Island, undertakes progressive rehabilitation of mined areas. Initial investigations have found that some areas at SAL’s Yarraman Mine have failed to redevelop towards approved criteria. This study, undertaken in 2010, examined ground cover rehabilitation of different aged plots at the Yarraman Mine to determine if there was a relationship between key soil and vegetation attributes. Vegetation and soil data were collected from five plots rehabilitated in 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and one unmined plot. Cluster (PATN) analysis revealed that vegetation species composition, species richness and ground cover differed between plots. Principal component analysis (PCA) extracted ten soil attributes that were then correlated with vegetation data. The attributes extracted by PCA, in order of most common variance, were: water content, pH, terrolas depth, elevation, slope angle, leaf litter depth, total organic carbon, and counts of macrofauna, fungi and bacteria. All extracted attributes differed between plots, and all except bacteria correlated with at least one vegetation attribute. Water content and pH correlated most strongly with vegetation cover suggesting an increase in soil moisture and a reduction in pH are required in order to improve vegetation rehabilitation at Yarraman Mine. Further study is recommended to confirm these results using controlled experiments and to test potential solutions, such as organic amendments.

Should athletes return to sport after applying Ice? A systematic review of the effect of local 3 cooling on functional performance

Applying ice or other forms of topical cooling is a popular method of treating sports injuries. It is commonplace for athletes to return to competitive activity, shortly or immediately after the application of a cold treatment. In this article, we examine the effect of local tissue cooling on outcomes relating to functional performance and to discuss their relevance to the sporting environment. A computerized literature search, citation tracking and hand search was performed up to April, 2011. Eligible studies were trials involving healthy human participants, describing the effects of cooling on outcomes relating to functional performance. Two reviewers independently assessed the validity of included trials and calculated effect sizes. Thirty five trials met the inclusion criteria; all had a high risk of bias. The mean sample size was 19. Meta-analyses were not undertaken due to clinical heterogeneity. The majority of studies used cooling durations >20 minutes. Strength (peak torque/force) was reported by 25 studies with approximately 75% recording a decrease in strength immediately following cooling. There was evidence from six studies that cooling adversely affected speed, power and agility-based running tasks; two studies found this was negated with a short rewarming period. There was conflicting evidence on the effect of cooling on isolated muscular endurance. A small number of studies found that cooling decreased upper limb dexterity and accuracy. The current evidence base suggests that athletes will probably be at a performance disadvantage if they return to activity immediately after cooling. This is based on cooling for longer than 20 minutes, which may exceed the durations employed in some sporting environments. In addition, some of the reported changes were clinically small and may only be relevant in elite sport. Until better evidence is available, practitioners should use short cooling applications and/or undertake a progressive warm up prior to returning to play.

Global civil society and adult education for social change : a postcolonial perspective

Adult education plays an important role in global economic development and features prominently in debates about changing requirements of post-industrial knowledge societies. This dominant technical-instrumental understanding of adult education in public discourse masks the transformative function of certain types of adult education - that is, the possibilities of adult education to improve social justice issues such as workers’ rights, human rights, civic participation in governance and socially just development. Given the increasing social stratification between and within the North and South in the global era, the potential of adult education to effect social change has been rediscovered by organisations within global civil society, namely international non-governmental organisations (INGOs). The broad objective of this research was to carry out an in-depth qualitative case study of a human rights advocacy program provided by a Northern INGO predominantly operating within the global South. The study analyses how participants see this program in terms of its potential to contribute to progressive social change in their home communities across the Asia-Pacific region. The following questions guided the study: 1. To what extent does this adult education program challenge existing systems of domination and marginalisation? 2. How did completion of the program affect participants’ views of their abilities to facilitate social action within their communities? Data sources for this research were interviews with 19 participants and staff and questionnaires from 28 participants of the program from a variety of countries in the Asia-pacific region. The gap in the literature that this study addressed is that existing empirical research sidelines the analysis of the globalisation, adult education, and social change nexus from a perspective that takes the marginalised other seriously, tending instead to mirror the material subjugation of the South in discursive practices. Social change is highly context-specific and strategies to advance it depend on the way in which people understand their reality and are affected by adverse social conditions. The present study employed a postcolonial framework that provided a holistic approach to analysing adult education for social change inclusive of material, political, and social conditions and the interplay between these from the local to the global level. The program convincingly exemplified an example of adult education for counter-hegemonic resistance against the dominant neoliberal discourse. It achieved this by enabling participants, based on Freirian pedagogical principles, to locate the problem of social change and frame their strategies to address it within mutually constitutive local and global developments and the discourses that describe them. It provided the underpinning knowledge and skills for effective advocacy and created opportunities to build networks between various stakeholders. At minimum, most advocates accord their participation in the program a supporting role in enhancing their ability to examine causes for social injustices and ways to address these. Some advocates even regarded their program participation as fundamental in understanding these issues. Almost all participants reported an increased skill-set that enabled them to become more effective advocates.

Microcosm study of ion mobilization and greenhouse gas evolution in soils of a plantation-forested subtropical coastal catchment

This study examined the potential for Fe mobilization and greenhouse gas (GHG, e.g. CO2, and CH4) evolution in SEQ soils associated with a range of plantation forestry practices and water-logged conditions. Intact, 30-cm-deep soil cores collected from representative sites were saturated and incubated for 35 days in the laboratory, with leachate and headspace gas samples periodically collected. Minimal Fe dissolution was observed in well-drained sand soils associated with mature, first-rotation Pinus and organic Fe complexation, whereas progressive Fe dissolution occurred over 14 days in clear-felled and replanted Pinus soils with low organic matter and non-crystalline Fe fractions. Both CO2 and CH4 effluxes were relatively lower in clear-felled and replanted soils compared with mature, first-rotation Pinus soils, despite the lack of statistically significant variations in total GHG effluxes associated with different forestry practices. Fe dissolution and GHG evolution in low-lying, water-logged soils adjacent to riparian and estuarine, native-vegetation buffer zones were impacted by mineral and physical soil properties. Highest levels of dissolved Fe and GHG effluxes resulted from saturation of riparian loam soils with high Fe and clay content, as well as abundant organic material and Fe-metabolizing bacteria. Results indicate Pinus forestry practices such as clear-felling and replanting may elevate Fe mobilization while decreasing CO2 and CH4 emissions from well-drained, SEQ plantation soils upon heavy flooding. Prolonged water-logging accelerates bacterially mediated Fe cycling in low-lying, clay-rich soils, leading to substantial Fe dissolution, organic matter mineralization, and CH4 production in riparian native-vegetation buffer zones.

The pomegranate cycle : reconfiguring opera through performance, technology & composition

The Pomegranate Cycle is a practice-led enquiry consisting of a creative work and an exegesis. This project investigates the potential of self-directed, technologically mediated composition as a means of reconfiguring gender stereotypes within the operatic tradition. This practice confronts two primary stereotypes: the positioning of female performing bodies within narratives of violence and the absence of women from authorial roles that construct and regulate the operatic tradition. The Pomegranate Cycle redresses these stereotypes by presenting a new narrative trajectory of healing for its central character, and by placing the singer inside the role of composer and producer. During the twentieth and early twenty-first century, operatic and classical music institutions have resisted incorporating works of living composers into their repertory. Consequently, the canon’s historic representations of gender remain unchallenged. Historically and contemporarily, men have almost exclusively occupied the roles of composer, conductor, director and critic, and therefore men have regulated the pedagogy, performance practices, repertoire and organisations that sustain classical music. In this landscape, women are singers, and few have the means to challenge the constructions of gender they are asked to reproduce. The Pomegranate Cycle uses recording technologies as the means of driving change because these technologies have already challenged the regulation of the classical tradition by changing people’s modes of accessing, creating and interacting with music. Building on the work of artists including Phillips and van Veen, Robert Ashley and Diamanda Galas, The Pomegranate Cycle seeks to broaden the definition of what opera can be. This work examines the ways in which the operatic tradition can be hybridised with contemporary musical forms such as ambient electronica, glitch, spoken word and concrete sounds as a way of bringing the form into dialogue with contemporary music cultures. The ultilisation of other sound cultures within the context of opera enables women’s voices and stories to be presented in new ways, while also providing a point of friction with opera’s traditional storytelling devices. The Pomegranate Cycle simulates aesthetics associated with Western art music genres by drawing on contemporary recording techniques, virtual instruments and sound-processing plug-ins. Through such simulations, the work disrupts the way virtuosic human craft has been used to generate authenticity and regulate access to the institutions that protect and produce Western art music. The DIY approach to production, recording, composition and performance of The Pomegranate Cycle demonstrates that an opera can be realised by a single person. Access to the broader institutions which regulate the tradition are not necessary. In short, The Pomegranate Cycle establishes that a singer can be more than a voice and a performing body. She can be her own multimedia storyteller. Her audience can be anywhere.

An Economic Exclusion/Male Peer Support Model Looks at 'Wedfare' and Woman Abuse

In recent years ‘‘welfare reform’’ has become a vehicle for many neo-conservative social commentators to invoke marriage vows as a cure for poverty and the abuse of poor women. Their basic claim is that cohabiting relationships are not only more violent than marriages, but that married couples are happier, healthier, and wealthier than cohabiting ones. A policy then of encouraging cohabitants to marry, they claim, would lead to increased family wealth and decreased family violence. We examine these claims in this article, along with the alternative argument that marriage per se is not a solution to these problems. Alternatively we propose an economic exclusion/male peer support model that explains why many cohabiting men abuse women in intimate relationships. If forcing these couples to marry is not a solution, then structural solutions are necessary, along with progressive policy suggestions that address the antecedents of poverty and abuse.