Social development and the status quo: professionalisation and Third Way co-optation

Social development is a massive undertaking that has spawned a multitude of organisational forms. It nevertheless remains an ambiguous term and ill-defined area of work, though some social development practitioners have succeeded in making small-scale local differences in particular situations. While largely a tool of the status quo, some believe that social development has transformative potential and provides valuable space to confront inequalities and deprivation. In this article, I argue that in contemporary neoliberal environments social development is being co-opted by Third Way politics and professionalisation processes. As it professionalises through the creation of professional structures and educational systems, it is becoming increasingly like social work, despite arguments that it is as an alternative approach to poverty and social exclusion. In the process, it is losing its transformative, critical edge, and morphing into a neoliberal, social investment approach that absolves government of its responsibility for the welfare of citizens

Building information modelling project decision support framework

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an information technology [IT] enabled approach to managing design data in the AEC/FM (Architecture, Engineering and Construction/ Facilities Management) industry. BIM enables improved interdisciplinary collaboration across distributed teams, intelligent documentation and information retrieval, greater consistency in building data, better conflict detection and enhanced facilities management. Despite the apparent benefits the adoption of BIM in practice has been slow. Workshops with industry focus groups were conducted to identify the industry needs, concerns and expectations from participants who had implemented BIM or were BIM “ready”. Factors inhibiting BIM adoption include lack of training, low business incentives, perception of lack of rewards, technological concerns, industry fragmentation related to uneven ICT adoption practices, contractual matters and resistance to changing current work practice. Successful BIM usage depends on collective adoption of BIM across the different disciplines and support by the client. The relationship of current work practices to future BIM scenarios was identified as an important strategy as the participants believed that BIM cannot be efficiently used with traditional practices and methods. The key to successful implementation is to explore the extent to which current work practices must change. Currently there is a perception that all work practices and processes must adopt and change for effective usage of BIM. It is acknowledged that new roles and responsibilities are emerging and that different parties will lead BIM on different projects. A contingency based approach to the problem of implementation was taken which relies upon integration of BIM project champion, procurement strategy, team capability analysis, commercial software availability/applicability and phase decision making and event analysis. Organizations need to understand: (a) their own work processes and requirements; (b) the range of BIM applications available in the market and their capabilities (c) the potential benefits of different BIM applications and their roles in different phases of the project lifecycle, and (d) collective supply chain adoption capabilities. A framework is proposed to support organizations selection of BIM usage strategies that meet their project requirements. Case studies are being conducted to develop the framework. The results of the preliminary design management case study is presented for contractor led BIM specific to the design and construct procurement strategy

A Rhythmic Acknowledgement of Country

This portfolio contains 'A Rhythmic Acknowledgment for walking experiences' & 'A Rhythmic Acknowledgment: Simone Young Conducts Tchaikovsky’s Ballet Music'. 'A Rhythmic Acknowledgment for walking experiences' soundscape was created during the lockdown in September 2021. A Rhythmic Acknowledgment for Walking Experiences is based on four different sound sources. These sounds sources include natures rhythms, clapstick corroboree rhythms based on the Gumberry Jah song, the ambiguous rhythms of the digeridoo, and an improvised clapstick rhythmic response to MAP mima’s Awabakal Country. These four sound sources are triggered by those walking past the sensors along the northern wall of the MAP mima building. The sound sources take a symphony-like approach; meaning each sound source has been created to blend with the next, and the speed at which those walking past will determine how one experiences this rhythmic acknowledgment. The rhythms performed by Manning on the clapsticks have been specifically captured to reference rhythms from early documented NSW corroborees (rhythms that once echoed out on our lands) or as modern rhythmic responses to Country. This work was extended by an invited performance with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, 'A Rhythmic Acknowledgment: Simone Young Conducts Tchaikovsky’s Ballet Music' in 2023. Portfolio details: a Rhythmic Acknowledgment for walking experiences, a Rhythmic Acknowledgment: Simone Young Conducts Tchaikovsky’s Ballet Musi

Real choice in education: public interest, state control and private freedom

In Australian educational policy debate, advocacy of choice and diversity has come to be linked to support for educational markets and therefore with educational reform and restructuring associated with 'economic rationalism'. Choice and diversity are better conceived within a framework of democratic educational philosophy and policy and in Australian educational policy development this was the case until the arrival of economic rationalism. Critics of 'choice' in the economic rationalist market context are mistaken to oppose choice as such. The focus should be on the relationship between choice and basic educational values such as participation, experiment and quality of provision. For these values to be realised in a mutually enhancing way, education systems need to promote sets of real options for students and families. 'Choice' is a secondary, or derivative, concept that emerges within this ethical, political and professional context. Markets are one, and only one, method for achieving educational participation, diversity and quality, and are not to be simplistically conflated with advocacy of quality and equity, diversity and choice

Antenatal Care In Three Provinces Of Vietnam: Long An, Ben Tre And Quang Ngai

PhD Doctorat

Psychology in the decision making of Industrialised Building Systems (IBS): a field of application

Research in decision making is diverse in content and perspective. There is much to be learned from more fundamental managerial disciplines. Decision making is a sub-set of human behaviour rather than a completely separate phenomenon. Currently, there are likely that few decisional issues in the application of Industrialised Building Systems (IBS) require the invention of a completely new theory. If IBS technology research bases its viewpoint only on technical and managerial issues, its development will become less relevant to the construction world at large. In order to explore decision research methods into IBS decision making, psychological elements are applied to determine their influences on the decisions of IBS technology application. This paper discusses psychological elements that are relevant to decision making and the focus is on the adoption of IBS technology in building construction. This is presented by a discussion of psychological factors influencing the decision making of construction technology application. This is followed by a review of some predictions on the future of behavioural economics in construction technology application. This paper is concluded by suggesting that the research of psychology decision making should positively contribute to decision makers' awareness, knowledge and skills, and these contributions should aim at the effectiveness of decision making in IBS technology application

Retrieving the exiled reference: Fred Vargas's fetishization of ancient legend

This article offers an analysis of the writerly reading praxis of Fred Vargas’s favourite, or fetish, detective, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. This praxis will also be shown to be that of a fetishistic detective, whose modus operandi we compare to the critical stance of the flâneur of Charles Baudelaire’s nineteenth-century prose poems. The response of the poet of Les Petits poèmes en prose will be revealed to be that of Freud’s fetishist, a mediation of traumatic present and a reconfigured, mythological past. In L’Homme à l’envers (1999) Vargas’s detective will be shown to engage actively with the murder text, his writerly reading ultimately making him co-author of the crime alongside the murderer. This textual performativity will be paralleled to the engagement with modernity that is the very substance of prose poetry; and what Nikki Santilli terms the ‘exiled reference’, the abstract stuff of verse poetry, will be shown to be simultaneously opposed to and always already repatriated into its existential counterpart

“I just wanted money for food”: a qualitative study of the experiences of Australians during the COVID-19 pandemic

Aim: The social and economic impacts that have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic can disproportionally affect those already experiencing poverty or at risk of poverty. Therefore, this study sought to explore the relationship between well-being and social determinants of health among Australian adults during the pandemic. Subject and Methods: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 20 participants, aged 21–65 years, from various socioeconomic areas. Results: Three main themes emerged from the analysis of the data: food security; housing outcomes; and psychological and emotional impact. Participants in low socioeconomic areas struggled with food security, having to access food banks, which was precipitated by employment loss during the pandemic. Some female participants experienced worsening inequalities and lack of financial and housing stability, affecting their overall well-being. Conclusion: This study identified that there was a clear social divide between adults living in low socioeconomic areas compared with those living in high socioeconomic areas, with participants in low socioeconomic areas faring worse in terms of exacerbated social determinants of health and consequent impacts on well-being

Time-frequency synthesis of noisy sounds with narrow spectral components

The inverse fast Fourier transform (FFT) method was proposed to alleviate the computational complexity of the additive sound synthesis method in real-time applications, and consists in synthesizing overlapping blocks of samples in the frequency domain. However, its application is limited by its inherent tradeoff between time and frequency resolution. In this paper, we propose an alternative to the inverse FFT method for synthesizing colored noise. The proposed approach uses subband signal processing to generate time–frequency noise with an autocorrelation function such that the noise obtained after converting it to time domain has the desired power spectral density. We show that the inverse FFT method can be interpreted as a particular case of the proposed method, and therefore, the latter offers some extra design flexibility. Exploiting this property, we present experimental results showing that the proposed method can offer a better tradeoff between time and frequency resolution, at the expense of some extra computations

Maxillary incisor palatal erosion: no correlation with dietary variables?

The objectives of the study were to examine a relationship between tooth erosion affecting the palatal aspects of permanent maxillary central incisors with dietary, behavioral and medical variables. The methods included, 251 schoolchildren aged 11 to 13 years were recruited to participate. Each subject had dental impressions of the palatal aspects of both upper central incisors recorded at baseline, 9 and 18 months intervals. From these, electroconductive replicas were fabricated, mapped and compared using a surface matching technique. At the end of the study all participants underwent a structured interview that sought to assay the level of potential erosive dietary, behavioral and medical risk factors. Correlation analyses of the responses given in the final structured interview with the degrees of palatal tooth substance loss (both previous and measured) were under taken. The results showed: (1) The degree of previous erosion did not predict the level of measured ongoing erosion. (2) Brushing the teeth more frequently with fluoridated toothpaste correlated significantly with lower levels of ongoing erosion (P = 0 011). It was concluded that: (1) Evidence of previous palatal erosion did not predict future erosion. (2) The application of topical fluoride as a by-product of tooth brushing may provide an element of protection against palatal erosion. (3) In view of the lack of correlation between exposure to potential risk factors and the level of ongoing palatal tooth surface loss in this study, other factors (such as an individual's susceptibility and salivary buffering power) may well be more important predictors. The clinical relevance included: Preventive advice to patients with dental erosion should not only include the use of topical fluoride, in the form of toothpaste, but recognize individual susceptibility to this condition