Radio and affective rhythm in the everyday

This article explores the role of radio sound in establishing what I term ‘affective rhythms’ in everyday life. Through exploring the affective qualities of radio sound and its capacity for mood generation in the home, this article explores personal affective states and personal organisation. The term affective rhythm relates both to mood, and to routine. It is the combination of both that allows the possibility of thinking about sound and affect, and how they relate to, and integrate with, routine everyday life. The notion of ‘affective rhythm’ forces us to consider the idea of mood in the light of the routine nature of everyday domestic life

PACMAS state of media and communication report 2013

The PACMAS State of Media and Communication Report 2013 was undertaken through a partnership between RMIT University (Australia), the University of Goroka (Papua New Guinea) and UNITEC (New Zealand). The research for this report was developed and undertaken between June 2012 and April 2013 across 14 Pacific Island nations: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Republic of Nauru, Niue, Republic of Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The report provides a regional overview of the PACMAS key components (Media Policy, Media Systems, Media Capacity Building and Media Content) as they emerged through 212 interviews focused upon the six PACMAS strategic areas. It also provides basic background information, an overview of the media and communications landscape and discusses in detail media and communications technicians; emergency broadcast systems, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVETs), media associations, climate change and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). For this reason, observations on the four PACMAS components should be understood to represent changes in the media and communication environment based upon an investigation focused on the PACMAS strategic activities. Part 1 & Part II of the report make up a Regional Overview of the State of Media and Communication in the Pacific.  The report also includes 14 separate Country Reports which provide additional information on the media and communications landscape specific to each of the Pacific Island countries included in the PACMAS program.  The country reports were written with the objectives of the PACMAS program in mind, however they may have utility for media, communication and development practitioners across the region

Youth Internet Radio Network: Can we Innovate Democracy?

The Youth Internet Radio Network (YIRN) explores the connection between media technologies and citizenship, building on work by Hartley and Tacchi on 'radiocracy' (radio, democracy & development)4. YIRN combines: 1. Content creation: Establishing a network of young content providers across urban, regional, remote and Indigenous locations; 2. Ethnographic Action Research: Researching how young people interact as both producers and consumers of new media content and technology; 3. Technology Innovation: Identifying how different ‘communicative ecologies’ within the network influence and learn from each other; and, 4. Enterprise development: Understanding how culture and creativity combined with new technologies can be a seedbed for innovation and enterprise. Groups of young people across Queensland will be trained in how to produce content for a dedicated website - audio (music and speech), text (stories, reports, journals) and visuals (photographs, artworks). In addition, the network will allow groups of young people to interact with each other and with others (including Government) on topics and issues chosen by them - through forums, messaging services, message boards, blogs and emails. This research project investigates important questions about new media and participation. If the new economy is a network economy, if the new raw materials are information and knowledge, and if the new workforce needs content creation skills, how will these young people set about using and developing the YIRN network? How do creativity, access, networks and connectivity work together - what are the results of ensuring access and training at this level to a diverse and dispersed set of groups of young people? How does this network work as a communication space: how will the young people interact with each other? And how will they communicate with Government and other agencies? When they are participating in an interactive network are they simultaneously being citizens? Would enterprises built around creative content be civic institutions? This paper presents some of the challenges that face this research project as it seeks to discover how youth civic participation might be addressed through innovative Internet use by embracing practices that are often considered resistant and the domain of a 'subversive youth' (Hartley 1992, 21-42)

Proteomic investigation of the genome-reduced pathogen, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Science.Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae is a genome-reduced bacterium and an economically significant pathogen that chronically infects the respiratory tract of swine. This infection often leads to pneumonia and secondary infections, costing agricultural industries significantly in the use of antibiotics and vaccines, which are currently largely ineffective. An improved understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind the infection process is essential to our ability to rationally design better vaccine and therapeutic interventions. With fewer than 700 predicted protein coding sequences, M. hyopneumoniae possesses one of the smallest genomes of any free-living organism. As such, it lends itself well to thorough proteomic interrogation. In this thesis, a range of proteomic techniques have been used to investigate the M. hyopneumoniae global and surface proteome at the protein and peptide level, including surface shaving and labelling techniques, ligand and immuno-blotting and affinity chromatography, as well as N-terminal dimethyl labelling to determine true N-termini of mature proteins. This conceptually unbiased, function-oriented approach has revealed an unexpected level of complexity in the use of proteolytic processing, multifunctional proteins and moonlighting to compensate for reduced coding capacity at the genome level. While microarray and transcriptome studies suggest that under normal culture conditions, the majority of genes are transcribed; our analyses identified less than 400 detectable expressed protein products under similar conditions. A significant number of the expressed proteins were discovered to be multifunctional, post-translationally modified by proteolysis. Surface proteome analyses identified a range of proteins to be surface exposed, despite lacking known signal peptides. Even though many of these proteins had well-characterised functions in the cytoplasm, they were also identified to have secondary functions at the cell surface, a phenomenon known as moonlighting. Many of the proteins present at the cell surface were identified to be subjected to proteolytic cleavage events. These were predominantly cell surface adhesins, many of which have already been described in the literature, however a large number of cytoplasmic “housekeeping” proteins are also found to be post-translationally cleaved, multifunctional proteins or moonlighting proteins. These findings can be applied to improve the rational design and development of vaccines and therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, as well as having wider implications for the field of biology as a whole, if similar levels of post-translational regulation can be found in other bacterial pathogens

La figura del Procuratore negli organismi di giustizia internazionale

L'elaborato ha come oggetto l'evoluzione della figura del Procuratore quale organo d'accusa negli istituti di giustizia internazionale. La prima esperienza di Procuratore si ha nell'ambito dei Tribunali ad hoc per la ex-Jugoslavia e per il Ruanda, per poi essere ripresa e sviluppata anche nel primo tribunale penale internazionale a carattere permanente, ovvero la Corte Penale Internazionale. Nell'ultimo capitolo si analizza la nuova figura del Procuratore Europeo avanzata dalla Commissione UE e competente per i reati lesivi degli interessi finanziari dell'Unione Europe

Perceptions of Leadership : A Policy Capturing Approach

Drath’s (2001) meta-theory of leadership posits individuals’ developmental levels (dependent, interdependent, inter-independent) will influence their constructions of leadership (.Personal Dominance, Interpersonal Influence, Relational Dialogue) with advanced development subsuming and expanding less complex principles. While this meta-theory has been influential in practice, little research has investigated its propositions. For this thesis, a policy-capturing methodology with 23 leadership vignettes was used to examine (a) if individuals have different constructions of leadership, b) whether a crisis context will influence leadership perceptions, and (c) the effects of demographic and experiential factors on endorsement of varying leadership principles. Results suggest individuals vary in leadership constructions, with about a third being substantially less likely to endorse Relational Dialogue as leadership relative to Personal Dominance or Interpersonal Influence. No effects for demographics or leadership experience on perceptions of leadership were found

The "relationes ad limina" of the German Bishops. From Post-War Emergency to Confronting the 'Double' Materialist Threat (1948-1958)

The paper analyses the content of the "relationes ad limina" drawn up by German bishops between 1948 and 1958. In their abundance of information, these documents make it possible, among other things, to shed light on the episcopate's view of the material and moral condition of the German Catholic population in the immediate post-war period and in the 1950s, as well as on the situation of the Catholic Church in the two German states (FRG and GDR) separated by the 'Iron Curtain'. In the last years of Pius XII's pontificate, a cause of great concern for the ecclesiastical hierarchy was on the one hand 'practical' materialism in a West Germany that was experiencing a phase of rapid economic growth, and on the other dialectical materialism in an East Germany under Soviet influence

Action research and new media: Concepts, methods and cases

Action research is now a well-documented and well-accepted research methodology. Moreover, it is especially appropriate in new media research, where innovation and change are continual, and where processes and outcomes are usually not predictable and often involve fuzzy and subjective human elements. This book offers a systematic, in-depth academic overview of the application of action research methods to the field of new media. In this space, it is the first publication of its kind in what is a new but rapidly growing field. This book is divided into three sections. Introducing the two key concepts, namely, new media and action research, the first section describes the underlying principles, processes, questions, methods and tools that are relevant to an action research approach to new media inquiry. This is followed by a deeper exploration of three advanced, innovative approaches to action research and new media: ethnographic, network, and anticipatory action research. The third and final section presents four case studies and their individual applications of action research in different new media contexts

When and how does voice matter? And how do we know?

This chapter seeks to complicate our understanding of voice in development. It proposes that while it is important to consider not just voice, and the processes of valuing voice, it is also important to understand what voice and agency mean in the complexities of everyday life for populations who are marginalized or disadvantaged. The chapter draws on research in an Indian slum cluster to illustrate how an ethnographic approach can help us to appreciate these complexities and problematize notions of voice. It explores examples of the ways in which people seek to remain unheard and invisible in official and formal terms, and suggests ways that we can rethink what voice might mean in development. While communication for development and social change cannot simplify complexity, it does provide a way of facilitating participation in the design of development. It can highlight the contestations and different perspectives involved, and can draw attention to the relationships of developers and people in development contexts