The body keeps the score

American animator Robert Breer has been credited in introducing the first visual bomb to cinema in his loop film Image by Images I (1954), Two abstract animated films by Robert Breer are examined: 69 (1968 5 minutes) and Fuji (1974 10 minutes). Using Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological perspective, though these films are not representational or photographic in the traditional sense it is argued that they are still able to talk to us about real experiences because ‘the lived perspective, that which we actually perceive, is not a geometric or photographic one.’(Merleau-Ponty, 1964b: 14) 69 provides a metaphor for a system that collapses and Fuji as an articulation of that embodied seeing required for train travel. It is argued that Breer’s work in its explorations of style ahead of content is research into an act of viewing that offers a contemporary simulation of the impact of a traumatic experience on the body. Just as one cannot grab each object in the landscape at the speed of train travel nor can one grab or understand each frame that is presented to the retina of a Robert Breer film. What is required to attain “stillness” is a more dissociated way of looking that allows the images to wash over you. Such a “stillness” may be more about suppression than contemplation and could involve a process of metamorphosis.

Population-Based Randomized Controlled Trial of a Stage-Targeted Physical Activity Intervention

BACKGROUND: Intervention trials with self-selected participants have shown that mailed stage-targeted print materials can increase participation in physical activity in the short term. We examined the effects of a mailed stage-targeted print intervention designed to promote physical activity, in a random sample of adults living in a regional city.

METHOD: Participants (n = 462, 40-60 years of age) were randomly allocated to an intervention (n = 227) or control group (n = 235). Measures included validated 2-week physical activity recall and stage of motivational readiness for physical activity. The intervention consisted of a single mailing of a letter and full-color stage-targeted booklets (specific to precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, and action/maintenance) 1 week postbaseline. Follow-up interviews were conducted at 2 and 6 months postbaseline.

RESULTS: After 2 months, participants in the intervention group were significantly more likely to meet the current American College of Sports Medicine/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation for sufficient physical activity than those in the control group (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 2.40; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.44-3.99). After 6 months, intervention participants who reported receiving and reading the intervention materials were significantly more likely to be meeting the sufficient physical activity criterion compared with the control group (adjusted OR = 2.03; 95% CI = 1.16-3.56).

CONCLUSIONS: The stage-targeted print intervention was effective in promoting short-term increases in physical activity and was most effective for participants who recognized and used the materials. This low-cost, generalizable intervention has demonstrated potential as a practical population-based physical activity promotion strategy. Further research is required before widespread dissemination would be justified, as additional strategies may be required to ensure sustained change.

Opting out of shareholder governance rights: a new perspective on contractual freedom in Australian corporate law

One of the classic debates in corporate law relates to whether the rules of corporate law are ar should be 'mandatory', in that companies must comply, or 'enabling' - meaning a set of default rules which companies have the choice of adopting or 'opting out' of through alternative contractual arrangements. The so-called 'mandatory/enabling' debate has been especially prominent in the United States fro numerous reasons, yet has also received some attention in Australia. That said, the extent to which companies can 'opt out' of corporate law has rarely been considered as a practical issue in Australia - particularly whether Australian companies can 'opt out' of provisions under the Corporations Act ("the Act"). However, just recently, two high-profile events in Australia have made 'opting out' of corporate law a relevant issue, especially the question of whether companies are free to 'opt out' of provisions of the Corporations Act  which provide express governance rights to shareholders. These events were Boral's constitutional amendment in 2003 to restrict the ability of shreholders to propose amendments to the company's constitution, and the contemplation and introduction of so-called 'pre-nuptial' agreements- designed to by-pass the right of shreholders to vote on removing directors in public companies. In the light of these two recent events, in this article the authors revisit the mandatory/enabling debate. However, rather than going over old ground as to whether a mandatory or enabling approach to corporate regulation is desirable, the authors approach the issue from a fresh perspective: that Australian Securitiesand Investments Commission's ("ASIC") existing relief powers under the Act should be extended to provide a means for companies to opt out of provisions containing shareholder governance rights.

Motivational readiness for active commuting by university students : incentives and barriers

Issue addressed: Walking for transport can contribute significantly to health enhancing physical activity. We examined the associations of stages of motivational readiness for active transport with perceived barriers and incentives to walking to and from university among students. Methods: Mail-back surveys were completed by 781 students in a regional university in southeast Queensland. They identified one of eight options on motivational readiness for active commuting, which were then classified as: pre-contemplation; contemplation-preparation; or, action-maintenance. Open-ended questions were used to identify relevant barriers and incentives. Logistic regressions were used to examine the barriers and incentives that distinguished between those at different stages of motivational readiness. Results: Barriers most frequently reported were long travel distances, inconvenience and time constraints. Incentives most frequently reported were shorter travel distance, having more time, supportive infrastructure and better security. Those not considering active commuting (pre-contemplation) were significantly more likely to report shorter travel distance as an incentive compared to those in contemplation-preparation. Those in contemplation-preparation were significantly more likely to report lack of motivation, inadequate infrastructure, shorter travel distance and inconvenience as barriers; and, having more time, supportive infrastructure, social support and incentive programs as encouragement. Conclusions: Different barriers and incentives to walking to or from university exist for students in the different stages of motivational readiness for active commuting. Interventions targeted specifically to stage of motivational readiness may be potentially helpful in increasing activity levels, through active transport.

Crisis of meanings : divergent experiences and perceptions of the marine environment in Victoria, Australia

The oceans of the world are regularly depicted as under threat from human exploitation with the problem portrayed as being of 'global' concern. In a world market characterised by the division of labour, many of those who eat fish do so without directly experiencing the ocean as a domain of productive utility. Rather, their encounters are with representations that depict the 'natural' world as an aesthetic object of contemplation, and environmentalist discourses that identify human activities as' threatening marine ecosystems. So prevalent is this experience that tangible institutions, such as state fisheries management bodies, have emerged, acting to reinforce the ontology of this 'contemplated' ocean, giving weight to the illusion that humans can, and should, appreciate it only from afar. In this representation, commercial fishers are regularly depicted as transgressing a 'natural' boundary between humans and the environment. It is when the world is simultaneously encountered as an object of consumptive utility and aesthetic utility that the human role in the environment becomes ambiguous and a sense of crisis arises. This paper investigates disjunctions in experiences and understandings that contribute to environmental anxiety, and debates over the appropriate use of the ocean.

Pierre Hadot (1922-2010)

Pierre Hadot, classical philosopher and historian of philosophy, is best known for his conception of ancient philosophy as a bios or way of life (manière de vivre). His work has been widely influential in classical studies and on thinkers, including Michel Foucault. According to Hadot, twentieth- and twenty-first-century academic philosophy has largely lost sight of its ancient origin in a set of spiritual practices that range from forms of dialogue, via species of meditative reflection, to theoretical contemplation. These philosophical practices, as well as the philosophical discourses the different ancient schools developed in conjunction with them, aimed primarily to form, rather than only to inform, the philosophical student. The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. To cultivate philosophical discourse or writing without connection to such a transformed ethical comportment was, for the ancients, to be as a rhetorician or a sophist, not a philosopher. However, according to Hadot, with the advent of the Christian era and the eventual outlawing, in 529 C.E., of the ancient philosophical schools, philosophy conceived of as a bios largely disappeared from the West. Its spiritual practices were integrated into, and adapted by, forms of Christian monasticism. The philosophers’ dialectical techniques and metaphysical views were integrated into, and subordinated, first to revealed theology and then, later, to the modern natural sciences. However, Hadot maintained that the conception of philosophy as a bios has never completely disappeared from the West, resurfacing in Montaigne, Rousseau, Goethe, Thoreau, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, and even in the works of Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Heidegger.

Hadot’s conception of ancient philosophy and his historical narrative of its disappearance in the West have provoked both praise and criticism. Hadot received a host of letters from students around the world telling him that his works had changed their lives, perhaps the most fitting tribute given the nature of Hadot’s meta-philosophical claims. Unlike many of his European contemporaries, Hadot’s work is characterized by lucid, restrained prose; clarity of argument; the near-complete absence of recondite jargon; and a gentle, if sometimes self-depreciating, humor. While Hadot was an admirer of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and committed to a kind of philosophical recasting of the history of Western ideas, Hadot’s work lacks any eschatological sense of the end of philosophy, humanism, or the West. Late in life, Hadot would report that this was because he was animated by the sense that philosophy, as conceived and practiced in the ancient schools, remains possible for men and women of his era: “from 1970 on, I have felt very strongly that it was Epicureanism and Stoicism which could nourish the spiritual life of men and women of our times, as well as my own” (PWL 280).

Linking student evaluations to institutional goals : a change story

For the past 30 years, beginning with the seminal work of Herbert Marsh in Australia and New Zealand, institutions of higher education have developed internal practices and procedures to collect and analyse student evaluations of teaching and learning. However, the question remains: has this development resulted in the achievement of institutional goals that maximise learning across all teaching contexts? As is the case in many other countries, a recent review of Australian national student evaluation data failed to conclude that student evaluations have improved overall teaching. However, these data have made student perceptions of teaching and learning more salient in the minds of tertiary educators. Certainly, teaching staff are aware of the impacts of student evaluations on informed decision-making, such as the continuation or discontinuation of courses, and on their promotion processes. This paper will review student evaluation practices according to criteria used in change theories, such as the transtheoretical change model (TTM). TTM construes organisational change as a process involving progress through a series of five stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. This paper will focus on organisational and behavioural outcomes that can be linked to the use of student data. It will recommend strategies for better aligning evaluation results to the stages of change.

To say goodbye loop

A composition that has a deep and longing feel to it. It evokes loss and love and features guitar, drums, synths and gated vocals in the bridge.

Ambient forest 30 sec

An ambient, new age style short composition featuring; African percussion and synths; 30 seconds in length.

Ambient slide guitar short

A short instrumental featuring slide guitar, drums, a synth pass and pad.

Autonomy full length ambient electronic

A full length composition that is ambient electronic in style and features analogue and software synths with electronic drums. A gentle sound-bed that would suit contemplative design projects.

Analysis of the stages of change model of drug and alcohol treatment readiness among prisoners

A classification and regression tree (CART) analysis was applied to data for 237 male participants (M = 31.93 years, SD = 7.64) in a prison-based substance abuse treatment program to study the integrity of the Stages of Change model of treatment readiness. Using the Stages of Change Questionnaire (STOCQ), participants were assigned to Contemplation (102), Action (118), or Maintenance (17) groups. A CART analysis then examined differences in the overall group profiles on the basis of scores on the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking, the Situational Confidence Questionnaire, and the Carlson Psychological Survey. The assumption of discrete stages of change was not supported. Alternative models are suggested: one based on states of change and one on personality characteristics. A focus on equal attention to both cognitive and behavioral aspects of substance abuse treatment readiness is suggested.

Controlling the philosophical imaginary: reading Pierre Hadot with Luiz Costa Lima

This essay proffers a critical complement to Luiz Costa Lima's claims concerning the nature, history, and control of the imagination in Western culture. Accepting the wide scope of Costa Lima's critical claim about the socio-political control of imaginative literature in Western history, we claim that Pierre Hadot's work on philosophy as a bios in the ancient West cautions us lest we position philosophy in this history as always and necessarily an agency of control. At different times, philosophy has rather stood as an ally in practicing and promoting forms of criticity, and the playful, creative, and transformative envisaging of alternative ways of experiencing the world Costa Lima theoretically celebrates in literary fiction. Any critique of philosophy as always opposed to the critical imagination can only stand, we have argued, relative to philosophy as conceived on what Hadot suggests is but one, albeit the now hegemonic model: namely, as a body of systematic rational discourses, including discourses about the literary, poetics, and imaginary. What this vision of philosophy misses, Hadot shows, is how the ancient conception of philosophy (which survives in figures like Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Goethe) as a way of life promoted distinctly literary, aesthetic, and imaginative practices; first, to assist in the existential internalisation of the schools' ideas; secondly, to envisage in the sage and utopias edifying counterfactuals to help students critically reimagine accepted norms; and thirdly, in the conception of a transformed way of living and perceiving ‘according to nature’, whose parameters of autonomy and pleasurable contemplation of the singularity of the present experiences anticipate the experiences delineated in modern aesthetic theory.

Eye tracking the sublime in spectacular moments of science fiction film

In this chapter I will explore science fiction film spectacle as a particular type of endangering sensorial experience. Employing eye-tracking technology to assess where a small group of viewers look, I will contend that through its spectacular set pieces, science fiction film creates two distinct gazing regimes. First, such spectacular scenes create an experience of sublime contemplation where the viewer is (haptically) lost in the wondrous images liquefying before them. These moments of sublime contemplation create the condition where the viewer feels as if they have had an outer-body experience; one that has been cut free from the borders of the linguistic-led self of everyday life. Second, I will argue that certain scenes of science fiction spectacle work to commodify the viewing experience, creating a gazing pattern that is ‘driven’ by the mechanics of the event moment, by the theme park ride aesthetic and the logic of late capitalism. Set in this sensible, empirical context, the sublime dangers of science fiction film can be considered in two distinct ways. On the one hand, when the viewer is caught gazing in a moment of sublime contemplation there is embodied transgression and transcendence: here I will postulate that the viewer exists purely as a carnal being, or are newly if momentarily constituted as post-human, in the impossible present or possible future world that has been spectacularly imagined for them. On the other hand, when the viewer is presented with a spectacle that demands attention to the mechanics and drivers of the scene as it unfolds, a viewing position is created where the very rhythms of the theme park ride is created, where capitalist life is simply being re-engineered. Sublime and spectacular science fiction endangerment, then, liberates and destroys, and it is the encounter between these two vexing poles that is of central concern in this chapter. My focus will predominately be on the eyes, on vision. Undertaking a small-scale empirical study that uniquely utilizes eye tracking technology, this chapter will concentrate on what viewers attend to, gaze at and ‘contemplate’ when viewing two differently constituted ‘spectacle’ sequences: the sun explodes scene from Sunshine (Boyle, 2007) and the Godzilla enters Manhattan scene from Godzilla (Emmerich, 1998).

Predictors of primary care referrals to a vascular disease prevention lifestyle program among participants in a cluster randomised trial

Background

Cardiovascular disease accounts for a large burden of disease, but is amenable to prevention through lifestyle modification. This paper examines patient and practice predictors of referral to a lifestyle modification program (LMP) offered as part of a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) of prevention of vascular disease in primary care.

Methods

Data from the intervention arm of a cluster RCT which recruited 36 practices through two rural and three urban primary care organisations were used. In each practice, 160 eligible high risk patients were invited to participate. Practices were randomly allocated to intervention or control groups. Intervention practice staff were trained in screening, motivational interviewing and counselling and encouraged to refer high risk patients to a LMP involving individual and group sessions. Data include patient surveys; clinical audit; practice survey on capacity for preventive care; referral records from the LMP. Predictors of referral were examined using multi-level logistic regression modelling after adjustment for confounding factors.

Results

Of 301 eligible patients, 190 (63.1%) were referred to the LMP. Independent predictors of referral were baseline BMI ≥ 25 (OR 2.87 95%CI:1.10, 7.47), physical inactivity (OR 2.90 95%CI:1.36,6.14), contemplation/preparation/action stage of change for physical activity (OR 2.75 95%CI:1.07, 7.03), rural location (OR 12.50 95%CI:1.43, 109.7) and smaller practice size (1–3 GPs) (OR 16.05 95%CI:2.74, 94.24).

Conclusions

Providing a well-structured evidence-based lifestyle intervention, free of charge to patients, with coordination and support for referral processes resulted in over 60% of participating high risk patients being referred for disease prevention. Contrary to expectations, referrals were more frequent from rural and smaller practices suggesting that these practices may be more ready to engage with these programs.