Xavier Herbert: Forgotten or Repressed?

Xavier Herbert is one of Australia’s outstanding novelists and one of the more controversial. In his time, he was also an outspoken public figure. Yet many young Australians today have not heard of the man or his novels. His key works Capricornia (1938) and Poor Fellow My Country (1975) won major awards and were judged as highly significant on publication, yet there has been relatively little analysis of their impact. Although providing much material for Baz Luhrmann’s blockbuster film Australia (2008), his works are rarely recommended as texts in school curricula or in universities. Gough Whitlam took a particular interest in the final draft of Poor Fellow My Country, describing it as a work of ‘national significance’ and ensuring the manuscript was sponsored to final publication. In 1976 Randolph Stow described it as ‘THE Australian classic’. Yet, a search of the Australian Literature database will show that it is one of the most under-read and least taught works in the Australian literary canon. In our view, an examination of his legacy is long overdue. This collection brings together new scholarship that explores the possible reasons for Herbert’s eclipse within public recognition, from his exposure of unpalatable truths such as interracial intimacy, to his relationship with fame. This reevaluation gives new readings of the works of this important if not troublesome public intellectual and author

Lester Milbrath's 'The Washington Lobbyists' Fifty Years On: An Enduring Legacy

Published in 1963, Lester Milbrath’s The Washington Lobbyists has become indispensable for understanding how lobbying operates and the societal benefits it brings. Milbrath there presented the first detailed survey of lobbying activities, and his findings have been generally affirmed by a range of later studies, although his conviction that lobbying was an essentially benign force which exerted relatively little impact on policy has been more contested. Milbrath’s theoretical model of lobbying as a communication process has enduring value to scholars and practitioners alike, and the definition of lobbying which he formulated continues to be useful. This article seeks explicitly to celebrate Milbrath’s outstanding research on lobbyists, more than 50 years after his book was published, and highlights some elements of Milbrath’s work which have not yet been fully explored by scholars. </jats:p

An Investigation of Distributed Schema Free Tabular Data Storage Technologies on Google App Engine and Microsoft Azure

This paper examines schema free non-relational tabular storage for two important emerging Platform as a Service (PaaS) environments, where Google App Engine applications persist data to the Google Datastore, and Microsoft Azure applications store data in Azure Tables. A simple mobile web application was initially developed for both platforms, to understand how an application could be developed and deployed. Java Data Objects (JDO) was selected for Google App Engine and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) in C# for Microsoft Azure. Many applications have a requirement to store complex data that is organised in relations in the order of One to One, One to Many and Many to Many that are often implemented in a relational database. Azure SQL and Google Cloud SQL are RDBMS technologies implemented on these Cloud platforms but are more costly to use. A testbed was developed to investigate implementation of these relations using automatic management features and developer managed techniques on each platform using JDO and WCF. An evaluation on primitive operations was carried out on both environments indicating each provided adequate operations to create, update, delete and display data. Due to design differences App Engine JDO scored better. An evaluation of how relations could be implemented was also conducted. Google App Engine JDO provides automatic management of One to One and One to Many relations while Microsoft Azure does not provide any relations management features. Google App Engine JDO permits storage of non-primitive types such as java.util.List objects which allows for tracking of child entity keys with ease, but this is not available in Azure Tables. Attempting to develop Join semantics in application code proved to be error prone and difficult with Azure Tables. A number of alternative proposals are made to implement relations on Azure Tables

Investigating the influence of commensal Limosilactobacillus reuteri and Ruminococcus gnavus on infection with enteropathogenic Escherichia coli in a microaerobic human intestinal cell model.

The gut microbiota has an important role in maintaining intestinal health and protecting against enteric infections (colonisation resistance). Nevertheless, most of these interactions haven’t been explored, largely due to a lack of experimental model systems that can culture oxygen-sensitive commensals alongside intestinal cells. In this project, we have established a novel in vitro model system of the human intestinal epithelium (Vertical Diffusion Chamber, VDC) which supports growth of strictly anaerobic bacteria. We have applied this system to investigate the interactions of gut commensals Ruminococcus gnavus and Limosilactobacillus reuteri with a functioning mucus-producing epithelium, established using T84 and goblet-like LS174T cell lines, and their effect on infection with enteric pathogen enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC). Previously published work identified a culture medium that supports commensal and EPEC growth whilst maintaining epithelial integrity and barrier function. This was achieved by establishing bacterial growth curves in different media and assessing epithelial barrier function by transepithelial electrical resistance and immunofluorescence staining (IFS) of tight-junction protein occludin. Further IFS demonstrated that introduction of LS174T cells to the epithelium caused mucin secretion and facilitates colonisation by commensals. Co-culture of EPEC with commensals reduces numbers of viable and adherent EPEC, as well secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-8 by the infected epithelia. For R. gnavus, reduced EPEC viability and adherence is only observed when LS174T are present. Here, we build on existing work showing potential colonisation resistance activities which would not be possible to study using traditional cell culture models. As the resident bacterial of the human gut are predominantly oxygen-sensitive, this system can be used to study a plethora of host-pathogen-commensal interactions and aid development of probiotic therapies

Xavier Herbert: Forgotten or Repressed?

Xavier Herbert is one of Australia’s outstanding novelists and one of the more controversial. In his time, he was also an outspoken public figure. Yet many young Australians today have not heard of the man or his novels. His key works Capricornia (1938) and Poor Fellow My Country (1975) won major awards and were judged as highly significant on publication, yet there has been relatively little analysis of their impact. Although providing much material for Baz Luhrmann’s blockbuster film Australia (2008), his works are rarely recommended as texts in school curricula or in universities. Gough Whitlam took a particular interest in the final draft of Poor Fellow My Country, describing it as a work of ‘national significance’ and ensuring the manuscript was sponsored to final publication. In 1976 Randolph Stow described it as ‘THE Australian classic’. Yet, a search of the Australian Literature database will show that it is one of the most under-read and least taught works in the Australian literary canon.1 In our view, an examination of his legacy is long overdue. This collection brings together new scholarship that explores the possible reasons for Herbert’s eclipse within public recognition, from his exposure of unpalatable truths such as interracial intimacy, to his relationship with fame. This reevaluation gives new readings of the works of this important if not troublesome public intellectual and author

The use of 'Precision Teaching' in enhancing medical students’ dermatological diagnostic skills

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. BackgroundEducators have been challenged to provide more effective dermatology teaching methods. Drawing from the discipline of Applied Behaviour Analysis, Precision Training (PT) (e.g. using flashcards during timed learning sessions) can promote fluency i.e. accuracy and speed in a particular skill. We aimed to determine the impact of PT on medical students' dermatology diagnostic skills.MethodsA between-groups controlled interventional study was conducted. Third year medical students were allocated to an intervention (PT + traditional teaching) or control (traditional teaching) group. For the PT group, we designed 50 dermatological image flashcards. Flashcard practice (using the Say All Fast Minute Each Day Shuffle method) took place 2-3 times/day and students' data on accuracy recorded over 5 days. Pre / post-training tests were carried out to determine the impact of PT on students' diagnostic skills.ResultsIn total, 70 students (intervention group) / 65 (control group). Analysis of covariance was used to calculate the change score (comparing pre- and post-test). A statistically significant improvement of 8.8% (95% CIs; 4.9-12.7, p&lt;0.001) was detected in the intervention group.ConclusionsThe findings of this study demonstrated a positive effect of PT on medical students' dermatology diagnostic skills. This study signals new pedagogical opportunities for PT in undergraduate dermatology teaching.</ns4:p

Digital engagement strategies and tactics in social media marketing

Purpose: Digitalisation has increased the importance of online forms of marketing, including social media (SM) marketing, for entrepreneurial firms. This paper aims to identify digital engagement strategies and tactics in developing SM marketing capability. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses ethnographic content analysis of an entrepreneurial firm and a network of business-to-business (B2B) actors to classify 1,248 B2B Facebook posts and Twitter tweets from a case of an artisan food producer in addition to semi-structured interviews with 26 networked actors. Findings: The authors derive a range of digital engagement strategies (8 in total) and tactics (15 in total) for the four defining layers of SM marketing capability, namely, connect, engage, co-ordinate and collaborate. Research limitations/implications: This research focuses on a case study and a network of B2B actors within the artisan food sector. However, the strategies and tactics are applicable to other entrepreneurial firms and contexts. Practical implications: The digital engagement strategies and tactics are of direct practical benefit to entrepreneurial firms willing to learn and develop SM marketing capability in interaction with their B2B partners. Originality/value: This study investigates three under-researched areas, SM as it relates to B2B relationships, and entrepreneurship, and marketing capability gaps in an era of rapid digitalisation. The definition of SM marketing capability and associated digital engagement strategies and tactics are new to the extant literature moving forward the understanding of SM B2B marketing in theory and practice

The impact of social media on resource mobilisation in entrepreneurial firms

This paper examines the impact that social media has on the development of entrepreneurial firms' new, and maintenance of existing, B2B relationships and networks through resource mobilisation. Using the craft brewing and artisan food sectors, the empirical research entailed content analysis of the entrepreneurs' social media platforms complemented by in-depth interviews. Findings demonstrate that Facebook and Twitter impact the entrepreneurial firms' dyadic and network actor engagement, information search and share, collaboration, and operational processes co-ordination and reconfiguration processes. Our research suggests that the impact of social media extends that of a virtual communication platform to a resource layer in the creation and maintenance of activity structures in business-to-business relationships and networks