Feral travel and the transport field: Some observations on the politics of regulating skating in Tasmania

Abstract

This paper summarises skating regulation around Australia, focusing on Tasmania. Such analysis is timely; the Australian Road Rules adopted in December 1999 expand skating from recreation to a mode of transport whose legitimacy assumes access to roads and footpaths, and deploys complex politics of identity and space, citizenship and access, and mobility.     

Australia's housing choices: Retrospect and prospect

This article identifies issues around the Auckland Region's strategy for urban intensification and discusses the ensuing policy implications. Medium density housing forms an important element of the strategy for growth management. Implications for its success are primarily drawn from research into a major housing development in Waitakere City. It is argued that for ideological, political and technical reasons the strategy could be easily undermined. The article also suggests that something of a paradigm shift is underway in urban planning.     

Key factors determining the energy rating of existing English houses

In the UK, the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is used to rate the energy performance of existing dwellings whenever they are let or sold. This study investigates which of the inputs to SAP account for the most variance in energy rating across existing gas central heated houses in England. Data from the English Housing Survey (EHS) 2009 are used to generate a representative set of dwellings and variance-based global sensitivity analysis is then applied to assess each input's contribution to the variance in the calculated ratings. It is demonstrated that heating system efficiency, external wall U-value and dwelling geometry account for 75% of the variance of the energy rating of gas central heated houses in England. This suggests that improving heating system efficiencies and wall U-values of the worst performing dwellings will go a long way towards improving their energy rating and potentially reducing their energy consumption. It is also demonstrated that dwelling geometry has a much bigger influence on the calculated carbon emissions (accounting for 80% of the variance) than it does on the SAP energy rating (accounting for 30%), meaning that significant improvements in energy rating might not be accompanied by significant reductions in carbon emissions.     

Architecture,Cigarettes AND THE Dispositif

This paper aims to explore the concept of the dispositif and develop arguments as to its value in reconceptualising the social function of architecture. The notion of the dispositif is derived from the writings of Michel Foucault and is explored in respect to the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The notion of the dispositif of concern emerges from Foucault's concepts of an apparatus that manages relationships of power between different bodies and organisations. Foucault considers the dispositif to be at once object and apparatus – a dynamic tension that is well recognised by theorists of architecture as a potentially productive condition. It is upon this dynamic tension that the present paper will focus and present an exploration of Giuseppe Terragni's Casa del Fascio as an example of an architectural dispositif.     

Adelaide: Reflections on the scope for public policy

Abstract

Metropolitan Adelaide, a crucible of urban policy innovation in the 1970s, has recently been the subject of pessimistic prognoses about its economic future. The pessimism is overstated. This article documents positive features — economic, institutional, historical — which might form the basis for greater optimism.     

The Australian Manufacturing Shift: The Experience of Country Localities

In Western Europe and the US the experience of nonmetropolitan growth in manufacturing employment plays a vital role in accounting for industrial change, metropolitan declines and regional development. In Australia, the experience of country localities has made minimal or insignificant contributions to these debates. This paper points out that there has, however, been significant widespread growth in manufacturing employment in country localities and that this growth has been characterised by a dynamism in industry sectors and capital restructuring that is closely tied yet contrasting to the traditional industrial areas. The experiences of NSW is examined as a case study. The implications of these findings are to question the appropriateness of US and European models (and Australian conceptions) of regional change.     

Computer-aided qualitative data analysis: panacea or paradox?

Following the methodological debate within the construction management research community in the 1990s, research studies adopting inductive methodologies have increased. Many such projects have adopted computer-aided qualitative data analysis in order both to facilitate the research process and to ensure methodological rigour and transparency. However, there remains a paucity of critical discourse within the construction management research literature about the impact of such approaches on the depth and rigour of the resulting analyses. This paper posits that so-called computer-aided approaches have the potential to affect detrimentally the outcomes of construction management research if researchers see such tools as a panacea for ensuring the rigour and transparency of their work. Paradoxically, computer-aided approaches often restrict rather than aid the analytical process. The paper draws upon the authors' experiences of using a leading package from which a number of considerations for the use of computers in qualitative data analysis are discussed. It is concluded that the research community would benefit from an open debate on whether computer packages really do provide a panacea to the analysis of qualitative data in applied construction management research projects or whether their use merely provides a label with which to convince sceptical positivists of the rigour of inductive research techniques.     

Chlorophyll-a in the rivers of eastern England

Chlorophyll-a concentration variations are described for two major river basins in England, the Humber and the Thames and related to catchment characteristics and nutrient concentrations across a range of rural, agricultural and urban/industrial settings. For all the rivers there are strong seasonal variations, with concentrations peaking in the spring and summer time when biological activity is at its highest. However, there are large variations in the magnitude of the seasonal effects across the rivers. For the spring-summer low-flow periods, average concentrations of chlorophyll-a correlate with soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP). Chlorophyll-a is also correlated with particulate nitrogen (PN), organic carbon (POC) and suspended sediments. However, the strongest relationships are with catchment area and flow, where two straight line relationships are observed. The results indicate the importance of residence times for determining planktonic growth within the rivers. This is also indicated by the lack of chlorophyll-a response to lowering of SRP concentrations in several of the rivers in the area due to phosphorus stripping of effluents at major sewage treatment works. A key control on chlorophyll-a concentration may be the input of canal and reservoir waters during the growing period: this too relates to issues of residence times. However, there may well be a complex series of factors influencing residence time across the catchments due to features such as inhomogeneous flow within the catchments, a fractal distribution of stream channels that leads to a distribution of residence times and differences in planktonic inoculation sources. Industrial pollution on the Aire and Calder seems to have affected the relationship of chlorophyll-a with PN and POC. The results are discussed in relation to the Water Framework Directive.     

Modelling natural capital: The case of landscape restoration on the South Downs, England

Habitat suitability modelling has shown itself to be an important decision support tool for those concerned with the problem of where to target habitat and landscape restoration efforts. However, present approaches generally focus upon the biophysical characteristics of habitats and sites, and tend to ignore the social values associated with landscapes and habitat features. As a result current approaches only partially resolve the problems we face when dealing with a multifunctional landscape. In this paper, we examine how these limitations of current approaches may be overcome.The paper shows that present approaches to suitability modelling can be broadened by linking them to ideas about natural capital and landscape function. The approach is illustrated by means of a case study from the South Downs of England. It is suggested that by using the approach to model the spatial aspects of the natural capital associated with a given landscape, we may provide the user community with a framework that more fully addresses management issues that arise in the context of a sustainable, multifunctional landscape. In the case of the South Downs we show that restoration strategies that seek to take account of the multiple functions of downland differ from those which focus exclusively on enhancing or restoring the biodiversity of these areas.