The ethics of regional water planning : planning and management of water resources in a growth region

Abstract Providing water infrastructure in times of accelerating climate change presents interesting new problems. Expanding demands must be met or managed in contexts of increasingly constrained sources of supply, raising ethical questions of equity and participation. Loss of agricultural land and natural habitats, the coastal impacts of desalination plants and concerns over re-use of waste water must be weighed with demand management issues of water rationing, pricing mechanisms and inducing behaviour change. This case study examines how these factors impact on infrastructure planning in South East Queensland, Australia: a region with one of the developed world’s most rapidly growing populations, which has recently experienced the most severe drought in its recorded history. Proposals to match forecast demands and potential supplies for water over a 20 year period are reviewed by applying ethical principles to evaluate practical plans to meet the water needs of the region’s activities and settlements.

Artful shaping : the ethics of fictionalising oral history

The paper documents the development of an ethical framework for my current PhD project. I am a practice-led researcher with a background in creative writing. My project invovles conducting a number of oral history interviews with individuals living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. I use the interviews to inform a novel set in Brisbane. In doing so, I hope to provide a lens into a cultural and historical space by creating a rich, textured and vivid narrative while still retaining some of the essential aspects of the oral history. While developing a methodology for fictionalising these oral histories, I have encountered a derserve range of ethical issues. In particular I have had to confront my role as a writer and researcher working with other people’s stories. In order to grapple with the complex ethics of such an engagment, I examine the devices and stratedgies employed by other creative practioners working in similar fields. I focus chielfy on Miguel Barnet’s Biography of a Runaway Slave (published in English in 1968) Dave Eggers’What is the what: The autobiography of Valentino Achek Deng, a novel (2005) in order to understand the complex processes of mediation invloved in the artful shaping of oral histories. The paper explores how I have confronted and resolved ethical considerations in my theoretical and creative work.

A world elsewhere : virtual reality, motion capture and early modern theatre

This paper investigates virtual reality representations of the 1599 Boar’s Head Theatre and the Rose Theatre, two renaissance places and spaces. These models become a “world elsewhere” in that they represent virtual recreations of these venues in as much detail as possible. The models are based on accurate archeological and theatre historical records and are easy to navigate particularly for current use. This paper demonstrates the ways in which these models can be instructive for reading theatre today. More importantly we introduce human figures onto the stage via motion capture which allows us to explore the potential between space, actor and environment. This facilitates a new way of thinking about early modern playwrights’ “attitudes to locality and localities large and small”. These venues are thus activated to intersect productively with early modern studies so that the paper can test the historical and contemporary limits of such research.

Tendering ethics : a study of collusive tendering from a marketing perspective

This thesis provides a behavioural perspective to the problem of collusive tendering in the construction market by examining the decision making factors of individuals potentially involved in such agreements using marketing ethics theory and techniques. The findings of a cross disciplinary literature review were synthesised into a model of factors theoretically expected to determine the individual's behavioural intent towards a set of collusive tendering agreements and the means of reaching them. The factors were grouped as internal cognitive (the individuals' value systems) and affective (demographic and psychographic characteristics) as well as external environmental (legal, industrial and organisational codes and norms) and situational (company, market and economic conditions). The model was tested using empirical data collected through a questionnaire survey of estimators employed in the largest Australian construction firms. All forms of explicit collusive tendering agreements were considered as having a prohibitive moral content by the majority of respondents who also clearly differentiated between agreements and discussions of contract terms (which they found to be a moral concern but not prohibitive) or of prices. The comparisons between those of the respondents that would never participate in a collusive agreement and the potential offenders clearly showed two distinctly different groups. The law abiding estimators are less reliant on situational factors, happier and more comfortable in their work environments and they live according to personal value and belief systems. The potential offenders on the other hand are mistrustful of colleagues, feel their values are not respected, put company priorities above principles and none of them is religious or a member of a professional body. The research results indicate that Australian estimators are, overall law abiding and principled and accept the existing codification of collusion as morally defensible and binding. Professional bodies' and organisational codes of conduct as well as personal value and belief systems that guide one's own conduct appear to be deterrents to collusive tendering intent and so are moral comfort and work satisfaction. These observations are potential indicators of areas where intervention and behaviour modification can increase individuals' resistance to collusion.

Re-thinking home economics : from modern to postmodern accounts of pedagogical bodies

Two perceptions of the marginality of home economics are widespread across educational and other contexts. One is that home economics and those who engage in its pedagogy are inevitably marginalised within patriarchal relations in education and culture. This is because home economics is characterised as women's knowledge, for the private domain of the home. The other perception is that only orthodox epistemological frameworks of inquiry should be used to interrogate this state of affairs. These perceptions have prompted leading theorists in the field to call for non-essentialist approaches to research in order to re-think the thinking that has produced this cul-de-sac positioning of home economics as a body of knowledge and a site of teacher practice. This thesis takes up the challenge of working to locate a space outside the frame of modernist research theory and methods, recognising that this shift in epistemology is necessary to unsettle the idea that home economics is inevitably marginalised. The purpose of the study is to reconfigure how we have come to think about home economics teachers and the profession of home economics as a site of cultural practice, in order to think it otherwise (Lather, 1991). This is done by exploring how the culture of home economics is being contested from within. To do so, the thesis uses a 'posthumanist' approach, which rejects the conception of the individual as a unitary and fixed entity, but instead as a subject in process, shaped by desires and language which are not necessarily consciously determined. This posthumanist project focuses attention on pedagogical body subjects as the 'unsaid' of home economics research. It works to transcend the modernist dualism of mind/body, and other binaries central to modernist work, including private/public, male/female,paid/unpaid, and valued/unvalued. In so doing, it refuses the simple margin/centre geometry so characteristic of current perceptions of home economics itself. Three studies make up this work. Studies one and two serve to document the disciplined body of home economics knowledge, the governance of which works towards normalisation of the 'proper' home economics teacher. The analysis of these accounts of home economics teachers by home economics teachers, reveals that home economics teachers are 'skilled' yet they 'suffer' for their profession. Further,home economics knowledge is seen to be complicit in reinforcing the traditional roles of masculinity and femininity, thereby reinforcing heterosexual normativity which is central to patriarchal society. The third study looks to four 'atypical'subjects who defy the category of 'proper' and 'normal' home economics teacher. These 'atypical' bodies are 'skilled' but fiercely reject the label of 'suffering'. The discussion of the studies is a feminist poststructural account, using Russo's (1994) notion of the grotesque body, which is emergent from Bakhtin's (1968) theory of the carnivalesque. It draws on the 'shreds' of home economics pedagogy,scrutinising them for their subversive, transformative potential. In this analysis, the giving and taking of pleasure and fun in the home economics classroom presents moments of surprise and of carnival. Foucault's notion of the construction of the ethical individual shows these 'atypical' bodies to be 'immoderate' yet striving hard to be 'continent' body subjects. This research captures moments of transgression which suggest that transformative moments are already embodied in the pedagogical practices of home economics teachers, and these can be 'seen' when re-looking through postmodemist lenses. Hence, the cultural practices ofhome economics as inevitably marginalised are being contested from within. Until now, home economics as a lived culture has failed to recognise possibilities for reconstructing its own field beyond the confines of modernity. This research is an example of how to think about home economics teachers and the profession as a reconfigured cultural practice. Future research about home economics as a body of knowledge and a site of teacher practice need not retell a simple story of oppression. Using postmodemist epistemologies is one way to provide opportunities for new ways of looking.

A comprehensive condition monitoring of modern railway

The demand for high quality rail services in the twenty-first century has put an ever increasing demand on all rail operators. In order to meet the expectation of their patrons, the maintenance regime of railway systems has to be tightened up, the track conditions have to be well looked after, the rolling stock must be designed to withstand heavy duty. In short, in an ideal world where resources are unlimited, one needs to implement a very rigorous inspection regime in order to take care of the modem needs of a railway system [1]. If cost were not an issue, the maintenance engineers could inspect the train body by the most up-to-date techniques such as ultra-sound examination, x-ray inspection, magnetic particle inspection, etc. on a regular basis. However it is inconceivable to have such a perfect maintenance regime in any commercial railway. Likewise, it is impossible to have a perfect rolling stock which can weather all the heavy duties experienced in a modem railway. Hence it is essential that some condition monitoring schemes are devised to pick up potential defects which could manifest into safety hazards. This paper introduces an innovative condition monitoring system for track profile and, together with an instrumented car to carry out surveillance of the track, will provide a comprehensive railway condition monitoring system which is free from the usual difficulty of electromagnetic compatibility issues in a typical railway environment

Levels of awareness of professional ethics used as a sensitizing method in project-based learning

There is a need for educational frameworks for computer ethics education. This discussion paper presents an approach to developing students’ moral sensitivity, an awareness of morally relevant issues, in project-based learning (PjBL). The proposed approach is based on a study of IT professionals’ levels of awareness of ethics. These levels are labelled My world, The corporate world, A shared world, The client’s world and The wider world. We give recommendations for how instructors may stimulate students’ thinking with the levels and how the levels may be taken into account in managing a project course and in an IS department. Limitations of the recommendations are assessed and issues for discussion are raised.