Using a Book Group to Facilitate Student Learning About Social Work

The focus of this short paper is the increasingly popular format of the book group. This format has been used on an undergraduate social work programme in the UK with the aim of engaging students, as some enjoy reading fiction for pleasure but find it harder to read social science. The BA Social Work Book Group has met regularly to discuss non-social science books, such as novels and autobiographies. A specific example is presented of a best-selling novel with significant social work content (J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy) and the book group's discussion of this. The strengths and limitations of book groups in social work education are drawn out.     

Always Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth: Community Organisations Controlling Assets

The idea of community-based organisations (CBOs) owning or managing physical assets, such as land or buildings, has a long history in many countries. This paper examines policy and practice in the UK where there has been significant interest in this field. A variety of benefits have been attributed to the role of assets including motivating community engagement, providing a vehicle for outsourcing public services, or creating financially sustainable organisations. The empirical research reveals there is a heterogeneous set of CBOs holding assets, but the majority of them are small with few paid staff. The analysis proposes a spectrum of CBO types in the field. It concludes that policy makers will need to recognise that these types are informed by contrasting traditions, ideas and operating logics that affect their different practices and resource dependencies.     

Urban noise affects song structure and daily patterns of song production in Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus)

Traffic noise is becoming a more prominent fixture in urban environments as cities and highways expand to accommodate the growing human population. Birds, in particular, rely heavily on vocal communication and have recently been shown to change the structure of their signals in response to environmental noise. Our objective was to determine the impact of traffic noise on Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) song structure and song timing. We recorded bird songs using a directional microphone and installed permanent recording devices to monitor daily song patterns at both high traffic noise sites and low traffic noise sites throughout southern Ontario, Canada. Our results indicate that at sites with high traffic noise, Red-winged Blackbirds sing songs with fewer introductory syllables, which are an important component of individual recognition and repertoire formation. In addition, the typical diurnal singing pattern of birds associated with noisy urban sites is more homogeneous than that of birds associated with quiet rural marshes. In the early morning and evening, singing effort was higher at rural sites than at urban sites, while in the midday singing effort at urban sites was higher than at rural sites. Birds at our noisy urban sites appear to be avoiding acoustic masking by increasing song production during the quiet part of the day and decreasing song production during the noisy rush hour periods. Based on our results, urban noise is impacting communication structure and the daily pattern of song production in a marsh-nesting species. These results have important implications for avian conservation and land use planning for urban development.     

Bayesian texture segmentation of weed and crop images using reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methods

Summary. A Bayesian method for segmenting weed and crop textures is described and implemented. The work forms part of a project to identify weeds and crops in images so that selective crop spraying can be carried out. An image is subdivided into blocks and each block is modelled as a single texture. The number of different textures in the image is assumed unknown. A hierarchical Bayesian procedure is used where the texture labels have a Potts model (colour Ising Markov random field) prior and the pixels within a block are distributed according to a Gaussian Markov random field, with the parameters dependent on the type of texture. We simulate from the posterior distribution by using a reversible jump Metropolis–Hastings algorithm, where the number of different texture components is allowed to vary. The methodology is applied to a simulated image and then we carry out texture segmentation on the weed and crop images that motivated the work.     

Indigenous persons with disability in remote Australia: research methodology and Indigenous community control

Abstract

Decolonisation aims to deconstruct the hegemonic traditional Western academic practices and values that oppress Indigenous peoples. Decolonising research methodologies is a relatively new practice in disability research in colonised nations. This paper details the Indigenous community-controlled research methodology that underpinned a disability research project with the Anangu and Yarnangu of Central Australia, ‘Walykumunu Nyinaratjaku: To Live a Good Life’. The project aimed to identify and explore how to support Indigenous people with a disability in the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Lands to live a good life. The research was structured on a decolonising methodology to situate the control and governance of the research with the Indigenous peoples. Our experience could assist other disability researchers working with Indigenous peoples in remote communities.