Sisters of the sun

A film about flows of time and language on the Volcanic Plains of Western Victoria. Directed by Simon Wilmot. Produced by Patrick West & Simon Wilmot. Script by Patrick West.

The past has its place in the future. Wombeetch Puyuun is teaching Scottish-born settler Isabella Dawson his aboriginal tongue so that her father, James Dawson, can write his book. But how can language preserve the past in a land where time overwhelms words? Meanwhile, contemporary Australians from the Volcanic Plains of Victoria’s Western District meditate over life in a place of sheep, algae, eels, lava and stars. Susan Cole and Janice Austin, descendents of Isabella and Wombeetch’s people united for the first time, reflect on Wombeetch’s friendship with James, and what it means to be ‘the last of your tribe.’

The event 'Flows and Catchments' was held at the Warrnambool Art Gallery on 2/12/2012.

Sisters of the Sun has also screened at Lake Bolac Eel Festival (March 2014) and Warnambool Art Gallery (Feb 2013)

Learning from ordered sets and applications in collaborative ranking

Ranking over sets arise when users choose between groups of items. For example, a group may be of those movies deemed 5 stars to them, or a customized tour package. It turns out, to model this data type properly, we need to investigate the general combinatorics problem of partitioning a set and ordering the subsets. Here we construct a probabilistic log-linear model over a set of ordered subsets. Inference in this combinatorial space is highly challenging: The space size approaches (N!/2)6.93145N+1 as N approaches infinity. We propose a split-and-merge Metropolis-Hastings procedure that can explore the state-space efficiently. For discovering hidden aspects in the data, we enrich the model with latent binary variables so that the posteriors can be efficiently evaluated. Finally, we evaluate the proposed model on large-scale collaborative filtering tasks and demonstrate that it is competitive against state-of-the-art methods.

Microscopic / telescopic (universes unfold)

This exhibition was inspired by lens based observation; what is observed through the microscope – plankton and single cell organisms – finds its origin in what is observed through the telescope – stars and galaxies. The project explores two spatially divergent contexts. Artist, Melinda Capp explores the micro-scopic with porcelain objects, artist books and images derived microscopes and Daniel Armstrong references the macro-scopic with video, photography, lens based objects and installation of interactive sculpture / optical instruments to create an experiential connection between celestial phenomena/images and the viewer.

Bollywood’s Australian yarn

 It’s 101 years since the birth of Bollywood, the world’s largest and most vibrant movie industry and, of course, that’s more than enough time to mature and alter, to grow arms and legs. For some time, but since the 1990s particularly, the connections between Australia and Bollywood have really taken hold. So sit back and enjoy a cinematic journey that’s sure to entertain. As a genre Bollywood has grown and developed over a period of 100 years, coloured by India’s history, politics, socio-economic conditions, culture, sensibilities, dreams, fantasies, hopes and expectations. The ever-increasing presence of the Indian diaspora in different parts of the world has helped to realise what we might think of as Bollywood’s cultural diplomacy project. Various Australian state tourism bodies have since supported Indian productions and used Bollywood stars as ambassadors to promote Australia as a welcoming nation. The 1996 film Indian has been credited for featuring the first appearance of kangaroos in Indian cinema. But I have noticed that as early as 1974, a Hindi film Majboor made first reference to Australia and its iconic boxing kangaroo. It featured Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan with a poster captioned: ‘Just hop, skip and jump every Thursday to Perth Sydney’. Australia is now a hot destination for Bollywood as well as regional language film-makers, with a successful foray of films from Soldier (1998) to Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013). Over the past two decades, Australian films such as Holy Smoke! (1999), The Waiting City (2009), Save Your Legs! (2012), feature India, not just as a background location but as an integral part of the plot. Bollywood’s influence on Australia can be gauged by the direction of Australian film careers. Be it the Indian-Australian actress Pallavi Sharda (Besharam) or Australia’s bowling sensation Brett Lee (Asha and Friends), Mary Ann Evans – AKA Fearless Nadia, Louise Lightfoot, Tom Cowan, Bob Christo, Tania Zaetta (Salaam Namaste), Nicholas Brown (Kites), Tabrett Bethell (Dhoom 3), Rebecca Breeds (Bhaag Milkha Bhaag), Kristina Akheeva (Yamla Pagla Deewana 2), Emma Brown Garett (Yamala Pagla Deewana), Vimala Raman (Mumbai Mirror), Anusha Dandekar (Delhi Belly), and Maheep Sandhu (Shivam). In this paper I would focus on the journeys and stories of actors, chiefly Fearless Nadia, Bob Christo, and Pallavi Sharda; and also compare a few Bollywood films, particularly Kya Kehna (2000) and Salaam Namaste (2005) made on same theme but set in India and Australia respectively, to show how Australia as has been presented as sexually liberating, visually romantic, and fantastical land of beaches and beauties.

Who is he now? The unearthly David Bowie

The question that has led and organised this special edition on David Bowie draws provocative attention to the way his career has been narrated by the constant transformation and recasting of his star image. By asking who is he now? the edition recognises that Bowie is a chameleon figure, one who reinvents himself in and across the media and art platforms that he is found in. This process of renewal means that Bowie constantly kills himself, an artistic suicide that allows for dramatic event moments to populate his music, and for a rebirth to emerge at the same time or shortly after he expires. Bowie has killed Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack, Aladdin Sane, and the Thin White Duke to name but a few of his alter-egos. In this environment of death and resurrection, Bowie becomes a heightened, exaggerated enigma, a figure who constantly seems to be artificial or constructed and yet whose work asks us to look for his real self behind the mask – to ask the question, is this now the real Bowie that faces us? Of course, the answer is always no because Bowie is a contradictory constellation of images, stories and sounds whose star image rests on remaining an enigma, and like all stars in our midst, exists as a representation. Nonetheless, with Bowie - with this hyper- schizophrenic, confessional artist – the fan desire to get to know him, to immerse oneself in his worlds, fantasises, and projections - is particularly acute. With the unexpected release of The Next Day ((Iso/Columbia) on the 8th March 2013, the day of his 66th birthday, Bowie was resurrected again. The album and subsequent music videos drew explicitly on the question of who Bowie was and had been, creating a media frenzy around his past work, fan nostalgia for previous Bowie incarnations, and a pleasurable negotiation with his new output. In this special edition, edited by life-long Bowie fans, with contributions from die-hard Bowie aficionados, we seek to find him in the fragments and remains of what once was, and in the new enchantments of his latest work.

Towards a BIM-based energy rating system

Governments in Australia are faced with policy implementation that mandates higher energy efficient housing (Foran, Lenzen & Dey 2005). To this effect, the National Construction Code (NCC) 2013 stipulates the minimum energy performance for residential buildings as 114MJ/m2 per annum or 6 stars on an energy rating scale. Compliance with this minimum is mandatory but there are several methods through which residential buildings can be rated to comply with the deemed to satisfy provisions outlined in the NCC. FirstRate5 is by far the most commonly used simulation software used in Victoria, Australia. Meanwhile, Building Information Modelling (BIM), using software such as ArchiCAD has gained a foothold in the industry. The energy simulation software within ArchiCAD, EcoDesigner, enables the reporting on the energy performance based on BIM elements that contain thermal information. This research is founded on a comparative study between FirstRate5 and EcoDesigner. Three building types were analysed and compared. The comparison finds significant differences between simulations, being, measured areas, thermal loads and potentially serious shortcomings within FirstRate5, that are discussed along with the future potential of a fully BIM-integrated model for energy rating certification in Victoria. © 2014, The Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA), Hong Kong.

Why cereal lovers won't be giving up their two-star Coco-Pops

Coco Pops has received two stars in the voluntary health star rating system, but don't expect a huge change in buying patterns, at least in the short-term.

Digital shimmer: popular music and the intimate nexus between fan and star

Conception of ‘star performance’ through popular music is stratified which generates diverse and often contradictory forms of thought. For example, stars and celebrities plausibly act as a ‘culture medium’ in which, through imagination, one’s identity is assembled, realised or constructed. What to become and how to be are questions we individually and collectively contend with throughout our lives to varying degrees (Maslow, 1954; 1968). Predominant use of digital technologies has seen the delivery of sound much altered. Music, be it Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata or Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast, once sourced via analogue legacy devices such as ‘old-school’ tape cassette or vinyl record is now a series of zero and one digits. Advocates argue that the key benefit of digitalisation is the ability to compress data because sound generates large files of information. The discourse of digitalisation begs the question of how a series of ones and zeros, albeit in a plethora of configurations, registers with listening bodies and affects ‘the sublime’. It is without doubt that some musical experiences afford indescribable, unlocatable sensation—even enchantment (as defined by Bennett, 2001: 5 and called forth by Redmond: 2014: 126). Such musical experiences might be in the presence of the performer or in their absence such as in the case of recorded music. In this context, any sense of ’real’ space and place is less definitive allowing for ‘special encounters’ to be imagined and felt. For these reasons, music and all that the use of the word might convey, the proposed notion of phaino-ken here, acts as the lens through which to examine the meaning and value of celebrity and star embodiment.

Salt reduction in Australia: from advocacy to action

BACKGROUND: As part of its endorsement of the World Health Organization's Global Action Plan to prevent non-communicable diseases, the Federal Government of Australia has committed to a 30% reduction in average population salt intake by 2025. Currently, mean daily salt intake levels are 8-9 g, varying by sex, region and population group. A number of salt reduction initiatives have been established over the last decade, but key elements for a co-ordinated population-level strategy are still missing. The objective of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of existing population-level salt reduction activities in Australia and identify opportunities for further action.

METHODS: A review of the published literature and stakeholder activities was undertaken to identify and document current activities. The activities were then assessed against a pre-defined framework for salt reduction strategies.

RESULTS: A range of initiatives were identified from the review. The Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health (AWASH) was established in 2005 and in 2007 launched its Drop the Salt! Campaign. This united non-governmental organisations (NGOs), health and medical and food industry organisations in a co-ordinated advocacy effort to encourage government to develop a national strategy to reduce salt. Subsequently, in 2010 the Federal Government launched its Food and Health Dialogue (FHD) with a remit to improve the health of the food supply in Australia through voluntary partnerships with food industry, government and non-government public health organisations. The focus of the FHD to date has been on voluntary reformulation of foods, primarily through salt reduction targets. More recently, in December 2014, the government's Health Star Rating system was launched. This front of pack labelling scheme uses stars to highlight the nutritional profile of packaged foods. Both government initiatives have clear targets or criteria for industry to meet, however, both are voluntary and the extent of industry uptake is not yet clear. There is also no parallel public awareness campaign to try and influence consumer behaviour relating to salt and no agreed mechanism for monitoring national changes in salt intake. The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) has recently instigated a State-level partnership to advance action and will launch its strategy in 2015.

CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, salt reduction activities are currently being implemented through a variety of different programs but additional efforts and more robust national monitoring mechanisms are required to ensure that Australia is on track to achieve the proposed 30% reduction in salt intake within the next decade.

Back then, and now - just who is David Bowie?

Our lives are often shaped and made meaningful by the stars and celebrities who enter them. Our bedrooms can become shrines of longing, identification and desire, and the friends we make and the lovers we take can gravitate around the famous figure we together so admire. For the writers of this piece, David Bowie is one such star-man: his music, lyrics, writings and performances are felt to wrap themselves around their youth, their rebellion, their hurt, and their love.

Swivelling the spotlight: stardom, celebrity and ‘me’

Celebrity studies critiques the ways in which celebrity culture constructs discourses of authenticity and disclosure, offering the cultural and economic circulation of the ‘private’ self. Rarely, however, do we turn the spotlight on ourselves as not only scholars of stardom and celebrity, but also part of the audience. Autoethnography has become increasingly important across different disciplines, although its status within media and cultural studies is less visible and secure, not least because the emphasis on personal attachments to media forms may threaten the discipline’s still contested claim to cultural legitimacy. The study of stars and celebrities has often found itself at the ‘lower’ end of this already debased continuum, perhaps making such tensions particularly acute. Based on three personal narratives of engagements with stars and celebrities, this co-authored article explores the potential relationships between autoethnography and celebrity studies, and considers the personal, intellectual, and political implications of bringing the scholar into the celebrity frame.

O gerenciamento de impressões e a qualidade dos serviços nos hotéis da Paraíba

The present study has got as its aim to show how the impressions management is being used by the hotels in Paraiba State. For that, the dramma or role play perspective has been adopted as a model for service management. From the theater metaphor, the physical environment and its components can be seen as a scenery of the service show. We conduct the reader to notice the importance of the consummer about the service quality demand and its influence on his satisfaction. A methodology with exploring and qualifying nature has been adopted by using the analyses of content technique in interviews applied to hotel managers lebeled as having 4 and 5 stars in the State, trying to check how impression management takes place, identifying impression management tools used in relation to the physical evidences and to contacting people, as well as checking managers views in the survey about the use of impression management for client satisfaction make. The information revealed that managers, maybe for being unaware about impression management theory, haven t considered neither the physical evidences yet, nor contacting people as marketing tools. About the physical evidences, we could see that hotels take actions in a pulverized way referring to environment decoration and colors, however there isn t a global usage of physical evidences to highlight the service. Contacting people by their turn, receive better importance and attention. It was possible to make sure that managers are aware about the influence of the employee over the attendance quality. This way, we may come into a conclusion that impression management at Paraiba hotels has been under used, as long as managers seem to be, most times, turned to actions related to contacting people, not having realized the planning importance and national-wide use of service scenery in a genaral way yet

Gestão do marketing de relacionamento: um estudo em empresas hoteleiras de Natal - RN

The present study it analyzes the Management of the Marketing of strategy Relationship as distinguishing for the host s companies of the city of Natal - RN. To carry through this analysis interviews with managers had been carried through, as well as the direct comment of processes, documents, actions and strategies developed for the hotels, with intention to know the level of perception and valuation of the relationship with customers, to verify resources and technologies used in the Management of the Relationship Marketing, identification, segmentation and differentiation of customers, personalization of products and services, and results of the emphasis in the relationship with customers for the host s companies. The research can be classified as exploratory - descriptive, and its universe is limited to the city of Natal, having enclosed hotels that have carried through tourist activity in 2005 and 2006. Still on the criteria of election of the sample, the study it investigated host s companies who if fit in the category superior luxury, or either, five stars, pertaining the national nets and international. How much to the treatment and analysis of the data the was made to leave of the theoretical support of the authors who work the thematic one and of the analysis of the interviews with managers, documents and processes observed for the researcher in the studied hotels. The research sample that the interviewed ones understand the importance to work the Management of the Marketing of Relationship in the host s companies me intention to get sustainable competitive advantage. One still evidenced that the searched hotels make use of strategies and instruments of Management of the Marketing of Relationship, however without an ample theoretical knowledge and yes only as base in the experience of the managers and spread processes already, generating one moment competitive advantage and not relationships of long duration

Influência das tensões tectônicas na permeabilidade da formação Açu - Bacia Potiguar

The behavior of the fluid flux in oil fields is influenced by different factors and it has a big impact on the recovery of hydrocarbons. There is a need of evaluating and adapting the actual technology to the worldwide reservoirs reality, not only on the exploration (reservoir discovers) but also on the development of those that were already discovered, however not yet produced. The in situ combustion (ISC) is a suitable technique for these recovery of hydrocarbons, although it remains complex to be implemented. The main objective of this research was to study the application of the ISC as an advanced oil recovery technique through a parametric analysis of the process using vertical wells within a semi synthetic reservoir that had the characteristics from the brazilian northwest, in order to determine which of those parameters could influence the process, verifying the technical and economical viability of the method on the oil industry. For that analysis, a commercial reservoir simulation program for thermal processes was used, called steam thermal and advanced processes reservoir simulator (STARS) from the computer modeling group (CMG). This study aims, through the numerical analysis, find results that help improve mainly the interpretation and comprehension of the main problems related to the ISC method, which are not yet dominated. From the results obtained, it was proved that the mediation promoted by the thermal process ISC over the oil recovery is very important, with rates and cumulated production positively influenced by the method application. It was seen that the application of the method improves the oil mobility as a function of the heating when the combustion front forms inside the reservoir. Among all the analyzed parameters, the activation energy presented the bigger influence, it means, the lower the activation energy the bigger the fraction of recovered oil, as a function of the chemical reactions speed rise. It was also verified that the higher the enthalpy of the reaction, the bigger the fraction of recovered oil, due to a bigger amount of released energy inside the system, helping the ISC. The reservoir parameters: porosity and permeability showed to have lower influence on the ISC. Among the operational parameters that were analyzed, the injection rate was the one that showed a stronger influence on the ISC method, because, the higher the value of the injection rate, the higher was the result obtained, mainly due to maintaining the combustion front. In connection with the oxygen concentration, an increase of the percentage of this parameter translates into a higher fraction of recovered oil, because the quantity of fuel, helping the advance and the maintenance of the combustion front for a longer period of time. About the economic analysis, the ISC method showed to be economically feasible when evaluated through the net present value (NPV), considering the injection rates: the higher the injection rate, the higher the financial incomes of the final project

Estudo paramétrico da segregação gravitacional na injeção contínua de vapor

Steam injection is the most used method of additional recovery for the extraction of heavy oil. In this type procedure is common to happen gravitational segregation and this phenomenon can affect the production of oil and therefore, it shoulds be considered in the projects of continuous steam injection. For many years, the gravitational segregation was not adequately considered in the calculation procedures in Reservoir Engineering. The effect of the gravity causes the segregation of fluids inside the porous media according to their densities. The results of simulation arising from reservoirs could provide the ability to deal with the gravity, and it became apparent that the effects of the gravity could significantly affect the performance of the reservoir. It know that the gravitational segregation can happen in almost every case where there is injection of light fluid, specially the steam, and occurs with greater intensity for viscous oil reservoirs. This work discusses the influence of some parameters of the rock-reservoir in segregation as viscosity, permeability, thickness, cover gas, porosity. From a model that shows the phenomenon with greater intensity, optimized some operational parameters as the rate flow rate steam, distance between the wells injector-producer, and interval of completion which contributed to the reduction in gravity override, thus increasing the oil recovery. It was shown a greater technical-economic viability for the model of distance between the wells 100 m. The analysis was performed using the simulator of CMG (Computer Modeling Group-Stars 2007.11, in which was observed by iterating between studied variables in heavy oil reservoirs with similar characteristics to Brazilian Northeast