Assessing the long term viability of leasehold rural land in Queensland

Rural land holdings in a number of states in Australia can be freehold or leasehold. The actual type and tenure of the leasehold varies according to each state, but the underlying principles of ownership, transferability and farming and grazing rights are reasonably similar. There are rural areas that are all leasehold title such as the western lands in NSW, while rural land in some states and areas can be a mix of both freehold and lease hold rural property. Over the years many rural farming areas that were originally developed or granted as leasehold land have been converted to freehold title. In many instances the cost of purchasing perpetual leasehold property is similar to the equivalent freehold property despite the fact that an additional rental charge is applied to this form of ownership. Many of the current leasehold rural holdings are located in the more arid regions of the state and the prevailing agricultural farming system is either cattle or sheep grazing

Valuers' Liability: the impact of torts reform in Queensland

Historically there has been a correlation between the economic cycles and litigation in the area of professional negligence relating to valuers. Negligence actions have principally been instigated by financiers for valuations prepared during more buoyant economic times but where there has been a subsequent loss due to a reduction in property value. More specifically during periods of economic downturn such as 1982 to 1983 and 1990 to 1998 there has been an increased focus by academic writers on professional negligence as it relates to property valuers. Based on historical trends it is anticipated that the end of an extended period of economic prosperity such as has been experienced in Australia, will once again be marked by an increase in litigation against valuers for professional negligence. However, the context of valuers liability has become increasingly complex as a result of statutory reforms introduced in response to the Review of the Law of Negligence Final Report 2002 (“the IPP Report”), in particular the introduction of Civil Liability Acts introducing proportionate liability provisions. This paper looks at valuers’ liability for professional negligence in the context of statutory reforms in Queensland and recent case law to determine the most significant impacts of recent statutory reform on property valuers

Assessing the long term viability of leasehold rural land in Queensland

Rural land holdings in a number of states in Australia can be freehold or leasehold. The actual type and tenure of the leasehold varies according to each state, but the underlying principles of ownership, transferability and farming and grazing rights are reasonably similar. There are rural areas that are all leasehold title such as the western lands in NSW, while rural land in some states and areas can be a mix of both freehold and lease hold rural property. Over the years many rural farming areas that were originally developed or granted as leasehold land have been converted to freehold title. In many instances the cost of purchasing perpetual leasehold property is similar to the equivalent freehold property despite the fact that an additional rental charge is applied to this form of ownership. Many of the current leasehold rural holdings are located in the more arid regions of the state and the prevailing agricultural farming system is either cattle or sheep grazing

Retirement villages: time for a change?

In retirement, many Australians relocate to a less onerous form of home occupation. Some downsize their house, or move to a strata title complex. Others, attracted by lifestyle perceptions, move into a retirement village. However, research shows Retirement Village documentation is complex and more analogous to commercial leasing than home ownership. The most recent government review by New South Wales, confirms the need for change. This paper identifies the current retirement village tenure models generally available in Australia. By comparing the various State/Territory systems the authors draw conclusions regarding the adoption of standardised documentation and uniform Australian Retirement Village legislation

From The Shadows of Incarceration to Higher Education: Associated Invisible Identity Development of College Students with Incarcerated Parents

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of college students who have experienced parental incarceration and explore how they make meaning of their associated invisible identity in the campus environment at four-year institutions in the U.S. Traditionally socio-historical events and messages about system-impacted individuals, their families, and children have contributed to the invisibility of this population in educational settings. This study employed a narrative inquiry approach. Also, it applied Bronfenbrenner’s (1977, 1979, 1993) ecological model to explore the college experiences of ACIPs while not excluding wider societal and environmental factors that could shape their associated invisible identity and development. Nine themes were identified and outlined in response to Bronfenbrenner’s (1977, 1979, 1993) proposed four interrelated components: process-person-context-time (PPCT) model. Findings suggest that participants’ associated invisible identity was not more salient than other parts of their identity. However, participants revealed that interactions in the classroom, with faculty and administrators, and with family did contribute to their self-understanding of their identity at their respective institutions. Additionally, this study provides insight on the disclosure process. All participants expressed selective personal choice in how they dealt with the disclosure. Generally, participants felt disclosing their associated invisible identity was unique to the setting

Biomechanical Comparison of Lower Limb Unloading Between Common Modalities of Ankle Foot Orthoses

Tibial stress fractures and other lower extremity injuries can be treated using an ankle foot orthosis (AFO). AFOs are popular because they allow the patient to ambulate somewhat naturally while reducing weight bearing on the injured limb. Despite their popularity, it is currently unclear how well AFOs reduce lower extremity weight bearing. The first objective of this investigation was to examine the ability of three commonly used ankle foot orthoses to reduce weight bearing within the lower limb by comparing the ground reaction force measured from a force platform to the force measured from an insole pressure measurement device inside the AFO. Results indicated that the corset-style AFO was more effective in reducing the load compared to the camwalker and patellar-tendon bearing AFOs. The second objective was to examine and quantify the kinematic and kinetic changes made in the natural gait pattern of the participants when wearing an AFO. Wearing an AFO alters the geometry and inertial properties of the limb which causes the wearer to alter their natural gait pattern which could lead to addition problems such as low back pain. Results indicated that the camwalker AFO changed gait the most, the patellar-tendon bearing AFO altered gait to some extent, and the corset-style AFO changed gait minimally

Mild Cognitive Impairment: Implications of Diagnosis

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) reflects the interim stage between normal cognitive functioning and more severe and irreversible cognitive decline that can be associated with dementia. Prevalence estimates suggest 12% to 18% of older adults (>60 years) develop MCI [1]. Risk factors for MCI include being male, older age, lower education level (i.e., lower cognitive reserve), diabetes and hypertension, apolipoprotein E (APOE) e4 genotype, and sleep disorders [2]. MCI presents as four phenotypes: amnestic single, amnestic multiple, non-amnestic single and non-amnestic multiple, and classification depends upon the affected cognitive domain. MCI is a common precursor to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders including dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia, and vascular cognitive impairment [1]

Multislice Modularity Optimization in Community Detection and Image Segmentation

Because networks can be used to represent many complex systems, they have attracted considerable attention in physics, computer science, sociology, and many other disciplines. One of the most important areas of network science is the algorithmic detection of cohesive groups (i.e., "communities") of nodes. In this paper, we algorithmically detect communities in social networks and image data by optimizing multislice modularity. A key advantage of modularity optimization is that it does not require prior knowledge of the number or sizes of communities, and it is capable of finding network partitions that are composed of communities of different sizes. By optimizing multislice modularity and subsequently calculating diagnostics on the resulting network partitions, it is thereby possible to obtain information about network structure across multiple system scales. We illustrate this method on data from both social networks and images, and we find that optimization of multislice modularity performs well on these two tasks without the need for extensive problem-specific adaptation. However, improving the computational speed of this method remains a challenging open problem.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, to appear in IEEE International Conference on Data Mining PhD forum conference proceeding