The motivation and structure of corrupt police networks : theorising the dark side of the ‘thin blue line’

In recent times considerable research attention has been directed to understanding dark networks, especially criminal and terrorist networks. Dark networks are those in which member motivations are self rather than public interested, achievements come at the cost of other individuals, groups or societies and, in addition, their activities are both ‘covert and illegal’ (Raab & Milward, 2003: 415). This ‘darkness’ has implications for the way in which these networks are structured, the strategies adopted and their recruitment methods. Such entities exhibit distinctive operating characteristics including most notably the tension between creating an efficient network structure while retaining the ability to hide from public view while avoiding catastrophic collapse should one member cooperate with authorities (Bouchard 2007). While theoretical emphasis has been on criminal and terrorist networks, recent work has demonstrated that corrupt police networks exhibit some distinctive characteristics. In particular, these entities operate within the shadows of a host organisation - the Police Force and distort the functioning of the ‘Thin Blue Line’ as the interface between the law abiding citizenry and the criminal society. Drawing on data derived from the Queensland Fitzgerald Commission of Enquiry into Police Misconduct and related documents, this paper examines the motivations, structural properties and operational practices of corrupt police networks and compares and contrasts these with other dark networks with ‘bright’ public service networks. The paper confirms the structural differences between dark corrupt police networks and bright networks and suggests. However, structural embeddedness alone is found to be an insufficient theoretical explanation for member involvement in networks and that a set of elements combine to impact decision-making. Although offering important insights into network participation, the paper’s findings are especially pertinent in identifying additional points of intervention for police corruption networks.

Conversation, community and kids: blogging for youth at Gold Coast City Council libraries

In late 2007, Gold Coast City Council libraries embarked on an online library project, designed to ramp up libraries’ online services to customers. As part of this project, the Young People’s team identified a need to connect with youth aged 12 to 16 in the online environment, in order to create a direct channel of communication with this market segment and encourage them to engage with the library. Blogging was identified as an appropriate means of communicating with both current and potential library customers from this age group. The Young People’s team consequently prepared a concept plan for a youth blog for launch in Children’s Book Week 2008 and are working towards development of management and administrative models and documentation and implementation of the blog itself. While many libraries have been quick to take up Web 2.0-style services, there has been little formal publication about the successes (or failures) of this type of project. Likewise, few libraries have published about the planning, management, and administration of such services. The youth blog currently in development at Gold Coast City Council libraries will be supported by a robust planning phase and will be rigorously evaluated as part of the project. This paper will report on the project (its aims, objectives and outputs), the planning process, and the evaluation activities and outcomes.

Effect of differentially heating and consequent transient behaviour for natural convection within an enclosure of sinusoidal corrugated side walls

Unsteady natural convection due to differentially heating of the sinusoidal corrugated side walls of a modified square enclosure has been numerically investigated. The fluid inside the enclosure is air, initially as quiescent. The flat top and bottom surfaces are considered as adiabatic. The numerical scheme is based on the finite element method adapted to triangular non-uniform mesh element by a non-linear parametric solution algorithm. The results are obtained for the Rayleigh number, Ra ranging from 1e+05 to 1e+08 for different corrugation amplitude and frequency with constant physical properties for the fluid medium considered. The streamlines, isotherms and average Nusselt numbers are presented to observe the effect of sudden heating and its consequent transient behavior on fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics for the range of governing parameters. The present results show that the transient phenomena are greatly influenced by the variation of the aforementioned parameters.

Was By The Northern Coast

‘Was by the Northern Coast’ was an installation at MetroArts in Brisbane. A pile of warped timber, evocative of a dismantled boat, sits in the middle of the gallery space on a bed of carefully-laid bands of polyester insulation and pine battening. From within the wood stack, the sound of dripping water indicates the flow of water created by a silent internal pump. The sound of water intermingles with a soft soundtrack of Kulning, an archaic form of Scandinavian song. In ‘Was by the Northern Coast’, the detritus of timber mimics the Romantic sublime of the mountain peak and nautical wreckage while the snowy drifts of the Northern European landscape become mistranslated as a field of artificial ceiling insulation. In employing such slippages, the work attempted to create the imaginative landscape of an aesthetic displaced by distance and time.

Integrating electrical vehicles to demand side response scheme in Queensland Australia

Depleting fossil fuel resources and increased accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions are increasingly making electrical vehicles (EV) attractive option for the transportation sector. However uncontrolled random charging and discharging of EVs may aggravate the problems of an already stressed system during the peak demand and cause voltage problems during low demand. This paper develops a demand side response scheme for properly integrating EVs in the Electrical Network. The scheme enacted upon information on electricity market conditions regularly released by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on the internet. The scheme adopts Internet relays and solid state switches to cycle charging and discharging of EVs. Due to the pending time-of-use and real-price programs, financial benefits will represent driving incentives to consumers to implement the scheme. A wide-scale dissemination of the scheme is expected to mitigate excessive peaks on the electrical network with all associated technical, economic and social benefits.

Local Hollywood: global film production and the Gold Coast

Hollywood films and television programs are watched by a global audience. While many of these productions are still made in southern California, the last twenty years have seen new production centres emerge in the US, Canada and other locations worldwide. Global Hollywood has been made possible by this growing number of Local Hollywoods: locations equipped with the requisite facilities, resources and labour, as well as the political will and tax incentives, to attract and retain high-budget, Hollywood-standard projects. This new book gives an unprecedented insight into how the Gold Coast became the first outpost of Hollywood in Australia. When a combination of forces drove Hollywood studios and producers to work outside California, the Gold Coast's unique blend of government tax support, innovative entrepreneurs and diverse natural settings made it a perfect choice to host Hollywood productions. 'Local Hollywood' makes an essential contribution to the field of film and media studies, as well as giving film buffs a behind-the-scenes tour of the film industry.

Unsteady natural convection within a differentially heated enclosure of sinusoidal corrugated side walls

Numerically investigation of natural convection within a differentially heated modified square enclosure with sinusoidally corrugated side walls has been performed for different values of Rayleigh number. The fluid inside the enclosure considered is air and is quiescent, initially. The top and bottom surfaces are flat and considered as adiabatic. Results reveal three main stages: an initial stage, a transitory or oscillatory stage and a steady stage for the development of natural convection flow inside the corrugated cavity. The numerical scheme is based on the finite element method adapted to triangular non-uniform mesh element by a non-linear parametric solution algorithm. Investigation has been performed for the Rayleigh number, Ra ranging from 105 to 108 with variation of corrugation amplitude and frequency. Constant physical properties for the fluid medium have been assumed. Results have been presented in terms of the isotherms, streamlines, temperature plots, average Nusselt numbers, traveling waves and thermal boundary layer thickness plots, temperature and velocity profiles. The effects of sudden differential heating and its consequent transient behavior on fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics have been observed for the range of governing parameters. The present results show that the transient phenomena are greatly influenced by the variation of the Rayleigh Number with corrugation amplitude and frequency.

ACE research vignette 019 : exploring the "Dark Side" of entrepreneurship

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurhsip researchers. In this vignette, Dr Rene Bakker explores "the dark side" of entrepreneurship.

Determination of coastal ground and surface water processes and character by use of hydrochemistry and stable isotopes, Fraser Coast, Queensland

This study was part of an integrated project developed in response to concerns regarding current and future land practices affecting water quality within coastal catchments and adjacent marine environments. Two forested coastal catchments on the Fraser Coast, Australia, were chosen as examples of low-modification areas with similar geomorphological and land-use characteristics to many other coastal zones in southeast Queensland. For this component of the overall project, organic , physico-chemical (Eh, pH and DO), ionic (Fe2+, Fe3+), and isotopic (ä13CDIC, ä15NDIN ä34SSO4) data were used to characterise waters and identify sources and processes contributing to concentrations and form of dissolved Fe, C, N and S within the ground and surface waters of these coastal catchments. Three sites with elevated Fe concentrations are discussed in detail. These included a shallow pool with intermittent interaction with the surface water drainage system, a monitoring well within a semi-confined alluvial aquifer, and a monitoring well within the fresh/saline water mixing zone adjacent to an estuary. Conceptual models of processes occurring in these environments are presented. The primary factors influencing Fe transport were; microbial reduction of Fe3+ oxyhydroxides in groundwaters and in the hyporheic zone of surface drainage systems, organic input available for microbial reduction and Fe3+ complexation, bacterial activity for reduction and oxidation, iron curtain effects where saline/fresh water mixing occurs, and variation in redox conditions with depth in ground and surface water columns. Data indicated that groundwater seepage appears a more likely source of Fe to coastal waters (during periods of low rainfall) via tidal flux. The drainage system is ephemeral and contributes little discharge to marine waters. However, data collected during a high rainfall event indicated considerable Fe loads can be transported to the estuary mouth from the catchment.

A cross sectional observational study of child restraint use in Queensland following changes in legislation

As part of an evaluation of the 2010 legislation for child vehicle occupants in Queensland, road-side observations of private passenger vehicles were used to estimate the proportions of children 0-under 7 years travelling in each of the 5 different restraint types (eg. forward facing child restraint). Data was collected in 4 major population centres: Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Mackay and Townsville. Almost all children were restrained (95.1%, 95% CI 94.3-95.9%), with only 3.3% (95% CI 2.6-4.0%) clearly unrestrained and 44 (1.6%, 95% CI 1.1-2.1%) for whom restraint status could not be determined (‘unknown’). However, around 24.0% (95 CI 21.8-26.2%) of the target-aged children were deemed inappropriately restrained, primarily comprised of 3-6 year olds in seatbelts (18.7% of the 0-6 year olds, 95% CI 16.3-21.1%) or unrestrained (3.7% of the 0-6 year olds, 95% CI 2.5-4.9%) instead of booster seats. In addition, compliance appeared significantly lower for some regional locations where the proportion of children observed as completely unrestrained was relatively high and of concern

Smart grid-demand side response model for optimization air conditioning

The growing demand of air-conditioning is one of the largest contributors to Australia’s overall electricity consumption. This has started to create peak load supply problems for some electricity utilities particularly in Queensland. This research aimed to develop consumer demand side response model to assist electricity consumers to mitigate peak demand on the electrical network. The model developed demand side response model to allow consumers to manage and control air conditioning for every period, it is called intelligent control. This research investigates optimal response of end-user toward electricity price for several cases in the near future, such as: no spike, spike and probability spike price cases. The results indicate the potential of the scheme to achieve energy savings, reducing electricity bills (costs) to the consumer and targeting best economic performance for electrical generation distribution and transmission.

The integrated land use and transportation indexing model : assessing the sustainability of the Gold Coast, Australia

Urban sustainability and sustainable urban development concepts have been identified as the ultimate goal of many contemporary planning endeavours and have become central concepts on which the urban development policies are formulated. In the confinement of these concepts, land use and transport integration has been highlighted as one of the most important policy objectives considering the interrelationship between them and available intervention means of planning. While its interpretation varies, in Australia, it has been embraced as integration of land use and transport planning/policies and been an integral part of regional and local plans. Accordingly, a number of principles have been defined to guide its implementation, to name a few, planning for compact and connected urban development, encouraging active transport modes, creation of mixed-use activity centres and public transport precincts, provision of high quality public transport services, and enhancing character and amenity of urban areas. However, there is lack of an evaluation framework to measure the extent of achievement of implementation of these principles. In pursuit of filling this gap, this study aims to devise an evaluation framework to measure the performance of urban settings according to the integration principles in South East Queensland, Australia context and to demarcate problematic areas which can be intervened by planning tools...