The Light Inside: A Reflection on an Art Program, Traumatised Women and Thriving during the 2020 Pandemic

COVID-19 and the lockdown are not the worst things to have been imposed upon the people with whom I work. In fact, their lives marinated in childhood sexual trauma, abuse, neglect, family violence, severe mental ill health, and/or disability, have prepared them well for isolation, self-reliance, and uncertainty. Deep wells of resilience, coping skills and an outlook on life formed in the shadow of trauma has enabled these women to manage the impact of the virus much better than they or I expected at the start of the pandemic lockdown. However, that is not to say it has been all smooth sailing.  This study reflects on some of the inner and external resources that supported women through this. As users of this service receive National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding, it is valuable to reflect upon how its continued active support of users assists them and helps minimise the multiple losses and effects of the lockdown and virus. This is a case study of one small art service being provided to women in Melbourne, Australia. It explores how COVID-19 has impacted them, some of their losses, and their desires for the future post-lockdown. Its focus is on the threads that have woven a sense of community through this service and how women who have never met each other have provided practical and emotional support to each other to alleviate some of the adverse effects of the virus. It speaks to the artist's contributions, the NDIS, and the service provided in enabling those who could have expected to be overwhelmed and severely impacted by this situation, if not to flourish during this time, at least not sink into despair and depression

Governing landscape transitions in Cambodia

Achieving sustainable development in tropical forest landscapes is inherently challenging. Entwined issues of poverty and natural resource degradation provoke international attention, and the diversity of complex situations means there will not be one solution. In recognition of this, attempts to influence development trajectories focus on landscapes; geographical spaces, delimited by a set of locally identified problems, where decision-making unfolds. Understanding the unique, complex drivers of change occurring in different landscapes, and how change might be nurtured to improve existing systems, is fundamental to efforts seeking inclusive, locally desired, and environmentally-sound development pathways. In Cambodia, communities, government, and non-government organizations hold diverse and conflicting visions exist over the future of rapidly changing rural forest landscapes. Current production and consumption systems drive inequality and environmental degradation. Protected areas exist to retain habitat for globally significant biodiversity but compete for land against rural people seeking to improve their well-being. Institutions, processes, and structures that govern inherent conservation and development trade-offs are not delivering the desired outcomes for people and nature. In this thesis, I examine two changing forest landscapes in Cambodia to determine how local governance can enable better environmental and social outcomes. I ask (I) what are the trajectories of change for rural landscapes in Cambodia, and (II) how can institutions nurture change for sustainable development? Using place-based sustainability science, I engaged with the Wildlife Conservation Society and government and non-government organizations involved in conservation and development at the landscape scale. I gathered information through interviews, group discussions, questionnaires, and built upon previous studies that took place in the landscapes. I focused my analysis on local perspectives of conservation and development and the institutional arrangements and leverage points for managing landscape transitions. I find that forest landscapes in Cambodia are transitioning at a rapid pace. Proliferating infrastructure and agricultural expansion drive wealth accumulation. These conditions enable rural prosperity which allows households to increase off-farm income; well-being improves with each generation. Households that are locked out of increasing their assets, through hard or soft infrastructural isolation, remain in a poverty trap. Local agencies responsible for managing conservation and development trade-offs lack technical capacity and resources, and rent seeking is entrenched in decision-making. As a result, conservation agencies struggle to prevent deforestation and environmental degradation. Opportunities for nurturing landscape transitions in Cambodia lie within existing decision-making networks between government, non-government, and local actors. Local agencies must be willing to solve problems, and external actors must engage with local institutional processes, targeting resources to improve their capacity for governing change. Conservation agencies must accept trade-offs that arise from improving well-being in rural areas and consider long term realistic scenarios for the future of Cambodia's forests. In tropical forest landscapes, efforts to nurture sustainability must be embedded in the social-political context, including decision-making and drivers of change at multiple temporal and hierarchical scales. The degree to which landscapes deliver sustainable inclusive development will depend on the institutions that govern them

The female perspective on technology

Concern about the imbalance in the number of males and females in the physical sciences and engineering has been expressed for many years. A number of recent publications suggest that scientists and technologists should stop thinking of girls and women as lacking in ability or as problematic because they are not interested in technology, and should instead start to analyse and question the nature, history, procedures and aims of science and technology

Financial Statement Disclosure of Carbon Footprint Costs in the Airline Industry

Unaccountable corporate polluters profit short term at the expense of global economic sustainability. The purpose of the study was to determine if carbon dioxide (CO2) penalties on the airline emissions would result in financial statement disclosure and emission mitigation. Contributing to environmental accounting, the study was based in corporate social responsibility with a conceptual framework based on economically-centered CO2 studies. A random sample of 69 global airlines, taken from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) memberships, was stratified between EU bound and non-EU bound airlines. The research questions explored (a) the frequency mean differences in disclosed CO2 costs between the strata based upon the European Union\u27s environmental trading scheme (EU-ETS) and (b) whether international financial reporting standards (IFRS) influenced the financial statement reporting of CO2 emissions costs. Financial statement data were analyzed in a 3-year longitudinal, ex-post, quasi-experimental, repeated measures factorial ANOVA and ANCOVA, pretest-posttest control group design. The results showed significant CO2 disclosure differences between the experimental (EU bound) airlines and control group (non-EU) airlines and for those airlines with IFRS prepared statements. These results should convince accounting practitioners that the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas pollution can become the catalyst for improved operations and commercial sustainability. Positive social change to mitigate anthropogenic pollution should result and should promote normative accounting practice to hold those responsible to a higher global accountability

Lost contexts and the tyranny of products

While making products has always been an essential part of D&T, the motivation for doing so may have changed. Such change is illustrated in the National Curriculum (England and Wales) documents 1989 to 1999. In the Interim Report products are "developed in response to perceived needs or opportunities" and technology is identified as taking "place within a context". The current Order (DFE 1995) requires pupils to judge the quality of a product by assessing how the product meets a need and is fit for its purpose. This paper explores the view that the curriculum is increasingly centred on decontextualised products where pupils acquire skills and knowledge to make products which are then evaluated against criteria which have little relation to a realistic context. Product evaluation is undertaken in a similar manner and the subject may be seen as 'pure' technology. Combined with increasing consumerism, this loss of contexts will have a significant effect on the image of technology being promoted and an uncritical technicist view, in which people are passive recipients of technology, could be encouraged. The paper concludes by exploring new cross-curricular initiatives and raises important issues for all those involved in design and technology education

Values and design and technology: exploring an issue

The two presenters will deliver a dialogue which will explore the value judgements made, especially, around a particular issue, i.e. the value of recycling, or the need to recycle materials. Initially they will suggest possible technological projects and, as a consequence, explore the knowledge, skills and value judgements likely to be involved. The presentation will pursue the following steps: exploring the issue using stimulation material and information, including ideas from different cultures; suggesting possible technology projects; highlighting value judgements that would need to be taken; deciding appropriate criteria; suggesting strategies for widening the evidence that might be taken into account, clarifying perspectives and facing up to value conflicts

Technology and the humanities: opportunities for educating about value issues

In this paper a case is made for developing a curriculum framework for educating about value issues. The case is made in general terms for the interface between technological education and the humanities in the context of the National Curriculum in England and Wales. A provisional agenda for such a framework is set out together with a rationale for the multidisciplinary, cross-curricular approach necessary for its success

Science embedded in local forest landscape management improves benefit flows to society

There is a global shift of forest management to local levels to better reconcile local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. We argue that achieving such outcomes will require embedding science in landscape-scale management systems. We show that science can contribute to local learning and adaptation within landscape contexts. Complexity and power relations have hampered scientists' efforts to engage with the people who use and influence the use of resources at landscape scales. Landscape approaches present an opportunity for science to help steer local management to address local contexts. We have conducted research at the interface of policy and management at landscape scales. More effort must go toward transdisciplinary approaches to co-generate knowledge and create “Communities of Commitment” for continual learning and adaptation amongst landscape-scale actors. Embedded science incorporating local knowledge and contexts and engaged in landscape scale development processes is necessary for improving decision and policy-making

Delivery of adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) to veterans with resected colon cancer

Patients with incomplete administration of AC for colon cancer (CC) likely experience inferior survival while oxaliplatin- and capecitabine-containing AC may not improve survival for older patients. The influence on AC completion of age, other baseline patient characteristics, or regimen characteristics is unknown. We evaluated the association of baseline characteristics and planned AC regimen with AC delivery in resected CC patients