Charismatic cops, patriarchs and a few good women : leadership, club culture and young peoples' drinking

The paper reports on key findings of a research project that examined the roles that communitybased
sporting clubs in the Australian state of Victoria play in shaping young people’s understandings and uses of alcohol. Our research imagined clubs as community hubs that are located in complex networks that impact on the ways that clubs understand their locations in communities, and which have unpredictable influences and consequences on club histories, culture and orientations to issues such as young people and alcohol use. The paper focuses on understanding the key roles played by club leaders in facilitating change and transformation in these contexts, particularly in terms of alcohol-related practices and the potential impact of these on young people’s uses and understanding of alcohol. We situate these findings in a framework that draws on the literature of complexity science and complex adaptive systems (CAS) to suggest that these practices and changes need to be understood in ways that allow for complexity, uncertainty, emergent behaviours and adaptive change.

Living the good life : how content providers can better conceptualize the content requirements of the ubiquitous technology user

Content provision via ubiquitous technology platforms such as smart mobile phones and personal digital assistants raises interesting practical and research challenges. Many current theoretical frameworks and models are based on assumptions which may not necessarily be valid in the case of ubiquitous technologies, which users employ in a variety of contexts and for different reasons. In this research-in-progress paper we explore how content providers can better conceptualize the content requirements of ubiquitous technology users. We introduce the principle of Continuous Quality of Life Optimization as a theoretical concept to understand the content requirements of these users. We put forth a number of propositions to guide further research and provide details about our own research approach, in which we are exploring ubiquitous content provision from the perspective of content providers.

Good lives sexual offender treatment for mentally disordered offenders

Purpose – The main aim of this paper is to describe the content, structure and preliminary evaluation of a new Good Lives sexual offender treatment group (SOTG) for male mentally disordered offenders.

Design/methodology/approach – As evaluation and work on the SOTG is necessarily ongoing, case study descriptions of each patient who attended the SOTG and of their progress throughout SOTG are described.

Findings – Overall, the case study progress reports suggest that mentally disordered male patients made some notable progress on SOTG despite their differential and complex needs. In particular, attention to each patient's life goals and motivators appeared to play a key role in promoting treatment engagement. Furthermore, patients with lower intelligence quotient and/or indirect pathways required additional support to understand the links between the Good Lives Model (GLM) and their own risk for sexual offending.

Research limitations/implications – Further evaluations of SOTG groups, that incorporate higher numbers of participants and adequate control groups, are required before solid conclusions and generalisations can be made.

Practical implications – Practitioners should consider providing additional support to clients when implementing any future SOTGs for mentally disordered patients.

Originality/value – This is the first paper to outline and describe implementation of the GLM in the sexual offender treatment of mentally disordered male patients group format. As such, it will be of interest to any professionals involved in the facilitation of sexual offender treatment within this population.

The architecture of peer assessment : do academically successful design students make good team mates in design assignments?

This paper considers the relationship between architecture and construction management students’ overall academic abilities (as measured by Weighted Average Marks [WAMs]), their peer ratings for contributions to team design assignments (as measured by an online Self-and-Peer-Assessment [SAPA] tool), and their specific abilities as building designers (as measured by grades in individual design assignments). The research was conducted to determine whether a student’s prior academic achievements might indicate how well they will work in teams. The research demonstrates a statistically significant relationship between WAMs and SAPA ratings indicating that academically successful students more often than not make good teammates. However, the study also highlights that when peers are assessing contributions to teamwork they are assessing skills and qualities in their teammates other than overall academic ability or the ability to design well. Whilst this study is largely located within the field of design, the findings are relevant to any group work where teachers aim to design assessment that unravels group and individual contribution.

Good teaching matters

Equity is not an add-on to good teaching, it is part of it. It contributes to the part of teaching that makes it good, says Trevor Gale.

The impact of textile wet colouration on the environment in 2011

Wet textile colouration has the highest environmental impact of all textile processing steps. It consumes water, chemicals and energy and produces liquid, heat and gas waste streams. Liquid effluent streams are often quite toxic to the environment. There are a number of different dyeing processes, normally fibre type specific, and each has a different impact on the environment. This research investigated the energy, chemical and water requirements for the exhaust colouration of cotton, wool, polyester and nylon. The research investigated the liquid waste biological and chemical oxygen demand, salinity, pH and colour along with the energy required for drying after colouration. Polyester fibres had the lowest impact on the environment with lowest water and energy consumption in dyeing, good dye bath exhaustion, the lowest salinity levels in their effluent, relatively neutral pH effluent and low energy in drying. The wool and nylon had similar dye bath requirements and outputs however the nylon could be dyed at far lower liquor ratios and hence provided better energy and water use figures. The cotton and wool required high energy consumption in drying after colouration. Cotton performed poorly in all of the measured parameters.