Valuing arts & culture in the community

Despite the hype surrounding the mobilisation of the creative arts as a vehicle for social and physical regeneration, there are few systematic assessments of the success or otherwise of this agenda. This paper will present a framework for assessing the social, economic and cultural sustainability of a changing arts agenda in the regional city of Geelong, Australia. It will draw on general principles and local revaluations of the arts to present a historical account of why and how the value of the arts in this one community changed over time to produce a sustainable outcome.<br /

Desire, dryness and decadence: living big in Australia\u27s suburbs

There are (at least!) two remarkable things about Australia: one is that it is the driest inhabited&nbsp;continent on the planet and the second that it has the largest houses in the world.&nbsp;The relationship between these two facts serves as one way of understanding its settlement&nbsp;patterns and the character of its suburbs, foregrounding the desires that underpin their&nbsp;cultural economies

Re-placing gender? Reflections on 15 years of gender, place and culture

This article reflects on Gender, Place and Culture (GPC) from 1994 to mid-2008, to highlight some of the key subjects and debates which have been delimited and progressed within its pages. Launched simultaneously with the cultural turn in human geography, GPC proceeded to raise important questions about identity and difference, effectively reflecting but also driving a number of transformative intellectual and political agendas. This reflection will focus on three interrelated sites of such activity: empirical, theoretical and political. Empirically, numerous articles have examined the ways gender is lived, in and across spaces and these have been enlivened by approaches highlighting masculinities, sexualities and embodiment. Theoretically these subjects have been informed by post-colonial and post-structural frameworks, directing discussion towards multiple identities, reflexivity, research practice, performativity, material cultures, positionality and the nature of academic knowledge. In addition, GPC has registered progressive political concerns for justice and equality, though the nature and extent of its political import has been legitimately questioned from without and within the pages of the journal. The resolution of the many dilemmas associated with the ways gender is lived, thought about and practiced has not always been successful in the pages of GPC, and the ongoing reality of Anglo-American dominance, the persistence of women\u27s inequality and the tension between discursive and political activism, remains. However, in re-placing gender over the last 15 years, GPC has been a journal of serious and path-breaking scholarship which has further legitimized the value of feminist geography. <br /

Imperviousness in planning for water quality: a BASINS study

In an effort to help preserve the future of the natural environment through planning, this research focuses on the evaluation of impervious surfaces in land use development. While still embracing current growth and future development plans, an understanding of land use and the impact it has on the environment, especially water quality is needed. One way for planners to better evaluate the land use-water quality connection is the use of GIS and BASINS as a tool to plan for future land use scenarios. Also, within the research is an evaluation of low impact development as a land use planning technique for water resource management. BASINS, a software package and extension to GIS distributed by the EPA, allow users to evaluate imperviousness, runoff and nutrient loadings for watershed areas within a framework for planning. To illustrate these evaluation methods, the North Raccoon River Watershed past, current and future land use scenarios are used to understand the role impervious surfaces have on runoff and water quality. The outcome of this research is an evaluation of impervious surfaces in water resource management, and an examination of BASINS as an analytical tool for land use planning to contribute to water resource management for future development

The loss of anterior cruciate ligament integrity and the development of radiographic knee osteoarthritis

The knee is one of the most commonly injured joints with injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) being strongly associated with an increased risk of knee osteoarthritis (OA). As the risk of ACL injury is highest amongst adolescents who participate in sports the majority of the literature has focused on knee injury amongst this cohort. It is not currently understood whether a similar relationship exists in an elderly population. This thesis utilised participants from two different cohorts, the first being the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), which is an ongoing 10-year, multi-centered, prospective observational study designed to identify risk factors for the development and progression of knee OA. This cohort was utilized in chapters 3, 5, 6 and 7 to investigate whether elderly individuals with an ACL tear were at an increased risk of radiographic knee OA and to further examine the relationship between the severity of radiographic disease and the extent of injury to the ACL and the surrounding tissues as well as for the presence of knee symptoms. The second cohort was a 15-year prospective, longitudinal, single center study that contained participants who underwent primary reconstruction following ACL rupture. This cohort was utilized in chapter 4 to assess whether an age-related dose-response relationship existed for incident radiographic knee OA following ACL injury. Overall, knees that had a loss of ACL integrity secondary to age-related degeneration did not have an increased risk of incident radiographic knee OA. However, an ACL injury sustained in an aged knee was associated with an increased risk of radiographic OA development within the first 5 to 10 years of the initial injury and an increased risk of region specific disease progression secondary to meniscal and subchondral bone pathology. Overall joint damage patterns were similar amongst individuals with either a partial or complete ACL rupture suggesting that joint health carries a similar prognosis regardless of the extent of ACL fiber disruption. Finally, a loss of ACL integrity and radiographic OA severity was also associated with knee disability. Whilst injuries amongst the younger, active population have been the focus of study for the association of injuries and OA, injury amongst older adults demands significant attention