Profiling the nature and context of the Australian prefabricated housing industry

The current state of the prefabricated housing market in Australia is systematically profiled, guided by a theoretical systems model. Particular focus is given to two original data collections. The first identifies manufacturers and builders using prefabrication innovations, and the second compares the context for prefabricated housing in Australia with that of key international jurisdictions. The results indicate a small but growing market for prefabricated housing in Australia, often building upon expertise developed through non-residential building applications. The international comparison highlighted the complexity of the interactions between macro policy decisions and historical influences and the uptake of prefabricated housing. The data suggest factors such as the small scale of the Australian market, and a lack of investment in research, development and training have not encouraged prefabrication. A lack of clear regulatory policy surrounding prefabricated housing is common both in Australia and internationally, with local effects in regards to home warranties and housing finance highlighted. Future research should target the continuing lack of consideration of prefabrication from within the housing construction industry, and build upon the research reported in this paper to further quantify the potential end user market and the continuing development of the industry.

Photography & Fictions: Locating Dynamics of Practice

What happens to photographic truth when it is thwarted, subverted, stretched and even outwitted? The photography presented in this book provides a range of responses and practices- from the blatant to the exquisitely subtle- and all in the name of fiction. With full-colour images, Photography & Fiction: locating dynamics of practice illustrates and explains the latest issues and ingenious creativity involved in making pictures. The book is the consequence of a significant gathering of photographers, curators, and academics during the 5th Queensland Festival of Photography. Its themes include Fiction-as-Truth, deceptive photography, technology’s fictive potential, as well as the highly personal and inner worlds of human experience.

Attributing human uniqueness and human nature to cultural groups : distinct forms of subtle dehumanization

Research on subtle dehumanization has focused on the attribution of human uniqueness to groups (infrahumanization), but has not examined another sense of humanness, human nature. Additionally, research has not extended far beyond Western cultures to examine the universality of these forms of dehumanization. Hence, the attribution of both forms of humanness was examined in three cross-cultural studies. Anglo-Australian and ethnic Chinese attributed values and traits (Study 1, N = 200) and emotions (Study 2, N = 151) to Australian and Chinese groups, and rated these characteristics on human uniqueness and human nature. Both studies found evidence of complementary attributions of humanness for Australians, who denied Chinese human nature but attributed them with greater human uniqueness. Chinese denied Australians human uniqueness, but their attributions of human nature varied for traits, values, and emotions. Study 3 (N = 54) demonstrated similar forms of dehumanization using an implicit method. These results and their implications for dehumanization and prejudice suggest the need to broaden investigation and theory to encompass both forms of humanness, and examine the attribution of both lesser and greater humanness to outgroups.

Racism, Representation and Photography

Representation of Aborigines by Aborigines and non -Aborigines; articles by Andrew Dewdney, Mervyn Biship, Alana Harris, Sandy Edwards, Rea Saunders, Ricky Maynard , Brenda Croft, Ruth Braunstein, Michael Riley, Huw Davies, Penny Taylor, Darlene McKenzie, Kurt Brereton and Eric Michaels, annotated separately.

Slippage: Reclaiming personal family history through contemporary photomedia

This paper addresses the role of photography as a documentary medium and how this forms a basis for my practice-led studio investigations. In it, I will explore how photography is used to create histories and sustain specific notions of ‘legacy’ within the context of the family photo album. Family history is often based on stories to which the photo album provides a visual point of reference. Despite the ostensible ‘objectivity’ of the family photograph though it is nonetheless as subjective as the stories that surround it. In this way, the photo album perpetuates a hegemony of truth that obscures the fragmentary and highly selective nature of these documents and stories. The result is that every photo album implicitly documents the gaps or voids present in understandings of our own histories. Homi Bhabha refers to these kinds of voids as ‘disjunctive historical spaces’ – spaces of slippage that create the opportunity for new narratives and understandings to occur. Using Bhabha’s ideas as a chief point of reference, I will explore how these voids or gaps in information – and the opportunities for re-examination that they open up - can be explored through contemporary photomedia. Digital technologies such as camera phones and scanners generate a space in which photography���s own documentary conventions can be turned in on themselves to create a subterfuge. My current studio-based research involves using the scanner to navigate through my family’s sometimes-‘occulted’ history, in order to explore, document and recover my connection to this narrative. I am primarily interested in the scanner as a tool for capturing not simply surfaces, but objects, moments or movements in time. Objects or moments captured by the scanner can often be simultaneously distorted and consolidated, blurred and sharpened. This paper will propose that this ‘slippage’, literally expressed in the disruption of the pixelated field, can be used to create a space in which alternative readings or understandings of past events can be explored and new narratives produced.

Conceptual beliefs about human values and their implications: Human nature beliefs predict value importance, value trade-offs, and responses to value-laden rhetoric

Beliefs that may underlie the importance of human values were investigated in 4 studies, drawing on research that distinguishes natural-kind (natural), nominal-kind (conventional), and artifact (functional) beliefs. Values were best characterized by artifact and nominal-kind beliefs, as well as a natural-kind belief specific to the social domain, “human nature” (Studies 1 and 2). The extent to which values were considered central to human nature was associated with value importance in both Australia and Japan (Study 2), and experimentally manipulating human nature beliefs influenced value importance (Study 3). Beyond their association with importance, human nature beliefs predicted participants’ reactions to value trade-offs (Study 1) and to value-laden rhetorical statements (Study 4). Human nature beliefs therefore play a central role in the psychology of values.

The fluid nature of action research

Action research is a fluid, unfolding process of research. It involves cycles of questioning, gathering data, critical reflection and deciding on a course of action (Stringer, 2008). Through action research, educators research their own practice in their own setting. They learn from their experiences as the action research cycles progress, and apply new learning to practice.

Adaptive nature of coordinated road traffic injury prevention responses in some OECD countries

This study examines the context of coordinated responses, triggers for coordinated responses, and preference for or choice of coordinating strategies in road traffic injury prevention at a local level in some OECD countries. This aim is achieved through a mixed-methodology. In this respect, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with road traffic injury prevention experts from five OECD countries. In addition, 31 professional road traffic injury prevention stakeholders from seven OECD nations completed a self-administered, online survey. It found that there was resource limitation and inter-dependence across actors within the context of road traffic injury prevention at a local level. Furthermore, this study unveiled the realization of resource-dependency as a trigger for coordinated responses at a local level. Moreover, the present examination has revealed two coordinating strategies favored by experts in road traffic injury prevention – i.e. self-organizing community groups, which are deemed to have a platform to deliver programs within communities, and the funding of community groups to forge partnerships. However, the present study did not appear to endorse other strategies such as the formalization of coordinated responses or a legal mandate to coordinate responses. In essence, this study appears to suggest a need to manage coordinated responses from an adaptive perspective with interactions across road traffic injury prevention programs being forged on a mutual understanding of inter-dependency arising out of resource scarcity. In fact, the role of legislation and top-down national models in local level management of coordinated responses is likely to be one of identifying opportunities to interact with self-organized community groups and fund partnership-based road traffic injury prevention events.

The dual nature of information systems in enabling a new wave of hardware ventures: Towards a theory

Hardware ventures are emerging entrepreneurial firms that create new market offerings based on development of digital devices. These ventures are important elements in the global economy but have not yet received much attention in the literature. Our interest in examining hardware ventures is specifically in the role that information system (IS) resources play in enabling them. We ask how the role of IS resources for hardware ventures can be conceptualized and develop a framework for assessment. Our framework builds on the distinction of operand and operant resources and distinguishes between two key lifecycle stages of hardware ventures: start-up and growth. We show how this framework can be used to discuss the role, nature, and use of IS for hardware ventures and outline empirical research strategies that flow from it. Our work contributes to broadening and enriching the IS field by drawing attention to its role in significant and novel phenomena.

Re-thinking sustainable solutions: Innovation inspired by nature

Australian rural landscapes are facing a crisis from land degradation due to rising salinity levels, soil acidification and soil erosion. There is growing consensus amongst the businesses community, government departments and research organisations that the real solution to these problems and the broader sustainability dilemma comes by taking a ‘whole of system’ approach to agricultural and rangelands management. This article introduces two cutting-edge concepts – Biomimicry and Natural Sequence Farming – to illustrate how whole-system thinking can effectively and profitably address the challenges facing agriculture and rangelands.

The culture wars of climate change

Of late, there has been a growth in cultural expression about climate change – with the rise of climate fiction (‘cli-fi’); art and photography responding to changes in nature; musical anthems about climate change; plays and dramas about climate change; and environmental documentaries, and climate cinema. Drawing comparisons to past controversies over cultural funding, this paper considers the cultural wars over climate change. This article considers a number of cultural fields. Margaret Atwood made an important creative and critical contribution to the debate over climate change. The work examines Ian McEwan's novel, Solar, a tragi-comedy about authorship, invention, intellectual property, and climate science. After writing a history of Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have experimented with fiction – as well as history. This article focuses upon artistic works about climate change. It analyses James Balog’s work with the Extreme Ice Survey, which involved photography of glaciers under retreat in a warming world. The work was turned into a documentary called Chasing Ice. It also considers the artistic project of 350.org 'to transform the human rights and environmental issues connected to climate change into powerful art that gets people to stop, think and act.' The paper examines musical storytelling in respect of climate change. The paper explores dramatic works about climate change including Steve Waters' The Contingency Plan, Stephen Emmott's Ten Billion, and Andrew Bovell's When the Rain Stops Falling and Hannie Rayson’s Extinction. The paper also examines the role of documentary film-making. It also considers the cinematographic film, Beasts of the Southern Wild. Such a survey will enable a consideration of the larger question of whether creative art about climate change matters; and whether it is deserving of public funding.

The nature of academic leadership at the colleges of the Royal University of Bhutan

This qualitative case study explored leaders' and faculty members' perspectives on the nature of academic leadership at the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) Colleges. The study revealed that academic leadership at the Colleges is a complex and emergent fusion of Western and Buddhist leadership. The research recommended a hybrid model intended to inform academic leadership development in Bhutanese higher education and contribute to the realisation of the Gross National Happiness philosophy. The model incorporates Buddhist-influenced leadership and other relevant leadership approaches and is expected to contribute to academic rigour through effective learning and research leadership.

Mandatory reporting laws: Their origin, nature, and development over time

Dozens of countries have enacted mandatory reporting laws in various forms to respond to child abuse and neglect. Other countries including England are currently considering whether to introduce them, and if so in what form. It is important for policymakers, practitioners and researchers to understand these laws’ background, nature and purpose. This chapter outlines the origins and provenance of the first mandatory reporting laws; discusses their nature; describes major developments over time; and identifies some major effects and their consequences. It is shown that the laws are a heterogeneous, organic, flexible mechanism enabling social intervention where otherwise such intervention is severely compromised or impossible. Their primary function is to comprise but one aspect of a multifaceted child welfare system by identifying cases of serious maltreatment which would not otherwise come to light: sexual abuse and severe physical abuse are paradigm examples. The essential role of these laws is therefore primarily a tertiary aspect of a public health model, rather than a purely preventative strategy. Mandatory reporting laws are made by each specific jurisdiction according to its preferred design and function within its socio-political system. There is a spectrum of different approaches from which a jurisdiction can choose: they can apply to a broad or a narrow range of reporter groups, a broad or a narrow range of types of maltreatment, and a broad or a narrow range of instances where abuse or neglect occurs.

A dynamic navigation model for unmanned aircraft systems and an application to autonomous front-on environmental sensing and photography using low-cost sensor systems

This paper presents an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that uses a probabilistic model for autonomous front-on environmental sensing or photography of a target. The system is based on low-cost and readily-available sensor systems in dynamic environments and with the general intent of improving the capabilities of dynamic waypoint-based navigation systems for a low-cost UAS. The behavioural dynamics of target movement for the design of a Kalman filter and Markov model-based prediction algorithm are included. Geometrical concepts and the Haversine formula are applied to the maximum likelihood case in order to make a prediction regarding a future state of a target, thus delivering a new waypoint for autonomous navigation. The results of the application to aerial filming with low-cost UAS are presented, achieving the desired goal of maintained front-on perspective without significant constraint to the route or pace of target movement.

Introduction to "International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in the Creative Industries Film, Video and Photography"

The creative industries are particularly fecund empirical fields for investigating the processes of business innovation and disruption. The creative industries are some of the fastest growing sectors in many economies (European Commission, 2001; OECD, 2006; United States Census Bureau, 2010) and thus are worthy of study in their own right. Additionally, the study of the creative industries affords insights into how we understand the current economic transformation towards knowledge- based economies more broadly. The transformation toward knowledge- based economies has been foreshadowed by the transformation of creative industries such as publishing, film, video, photography, music and so on...