General practice access in regional and remote Australia for ageing populations

Identifying and removing access barriers to the timely provision of comprehensive health care is increasingly important for the wellbeing of Australia's rapidly ageing and frail populations, particularly those in non‐metropolitan settings. This study has examined if current general practice (GP) locations in non‐metropolitan South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA) are geographically accessible to the rapidly growing frail and prefrail populations known to have a high level of health service use and reduced mobility. Geospatial analysis linking 60‐kilometre GP service catchments, 2016 population counts, and 2027 population projections has estimated that the size of the frail and prefrail population that live outside these GP service catchments will double, reaching 7,800 people by 2027. The maldistribution of GP locations was most evident in WA. As regional and remote populations continue to age, the challenge of health service provision, including geographic access to care, must be resolved to ensure that populations in these areas have the best opportunity to age well. Geospatial methods linking service and demographic information, such as the approach used in this analysis, can aid in planning the equitable provision of health care for older Australians.     

Squabbling Siblings: Gender and Monastic Life in Late Anglo‐Saxon Winchester

In early medieval Winchester, three monastic communities were enclosed together in the south‐eastern corner of the town. By the later Anglo‐Saxon period, Old Minster was a monastic cathedral and New Minster and Nunnaminster were monastic communities for men and women respectively. This paper addresses ways in which the three foundations collaborated and co‐ordinated with each other and with the city. While gender segregated these communities, both liturgy and the urban context integrated them, as can be seen from the books used and produced by religious men and women in this city in later Anglo‐Saxon England. The importance of prayer to the inhabitants of the city and the wider locale can be seen in the documents that request liturgical services – most often prayers and masses – in return for grants of land and other gifts. Ecclesiastical and lay individuals alike allied themselves to these religious houses, seeking commemoration and often also burial in their cemeteries and hoping to benefit spiritually from their prayers. The ways in which gender affected the religious experiences of Winchester's citizens and their consecrated brothers and sisters are complex, but they are also important in understanding how the saints and their servants on earth related to God, to each other and to the surrounding urban space.     

‘My Freind who Writes for Me’: Scribes and Scribal Relationships in the Letters of Seamen, 1793–1815

This article examines the use of scribes in letters of one group of men during a specific period: British Royal Navy servicemen below the rank of commissioned officer during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793–1815. The letters of one such seaman in particular, Richard Greenhalgh, are unusual in that he himself could write, but preferred to have someone to write for him, as is shown by many references to ‘his freind who writes for me’. Contrasts between the scribe’s style of writing and that of Greenhalgh are noticeable, especially after Greenhalgh and his scribe were parted by being sent to serve on different ships. The letters also reveal the relationship between writer and scribe, and the writer’s family and his scribe. The letters contain messages to be passed between a network of family and friends on board ship and on shore, strengthening ties between them, vital in wartime to the morale of the seamen and for the reassurance of those at home. References found in other surviving letters demonstrate the use of scribes by different seamen, also seamen acting as scribes for shipmates, adding to knowledge of scribal culture among this social group.     

Sex,Fashion, Work: James Joyce and the Late-Victorian Actress

This article considers the presence of three late-Victorian actresses (Mrs Patrick Campbell, Eleonora Duse, and Sarah Bernhardt) in the work of James Joyce. The first appears in Joyce’s short story ‘A Mother’ (Dubliners). The strong influence of the other two is also detectable in the characterization of Ulysses’ heroines, Gerty MacDowell and Molly Bloom, and in a seminal text of late modernism, Finnegans Wake. In ‘A Mother’, Joyce’s attention to the importance of fashion on the stage and to poor working conditions for female performers calls to mind the career of Mrs Patrick Campbell. In Ulysses, Gerty’s performance in ‘Nausicaa’ recalls the techniques of the Ibsenian actress Eleonora Duse, known especially for her blushing; I argue that, given this famous skill and Joyce’s fascination with her, Duse directly informs Gerty’s characterization. Finally, Molly Bloom’s repertoire of dramatic references, including Trilby, Lillie Langtry, Sarah Bernhardt, publicity photographs, and Pineroticism, suggests Joyce’s immersion in a late-Victorian dramatic world. After sketching these connections in detail, I show that his interest in these actresses encourages scholars to continue to question the validity of traditional periodization boundaries. I end by arguing that the appearance of these actresses in these examples of early, high, and late modernism indicates the cultural richness of the long nineteenth century for Joyce, which continues throughout modernism’s successive phases.     

Inaccessible childhoods: evaluating accessibility in homes,schools and neighbourhoods with disabled children

Accessible built environments are a critical component of Canada’s commitment to disabled children’s ‘right to enjoy full and decent lives’ [United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 1989. Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York. [Google Scholar]. Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York.] . Although valid, reliable research data about the accessibility of built environments are key to developing related policies, these data currently do not exist. To begin to redress this gap, we conducted a case study series followed by a survey to determine the accessibility of schools, homes and neighbourhoods directly from disabled children (The ScHaN Project). To present a concise summary of the findings that can inform equitable, evidence-based policies, we developed a scoring system for their homes, schools and neighbourhoods. Although our findings illustrate that eliciting and interpreting data from these children were complex undertakings, it is clear that none of these central environments met Canada’s obligation to enhance equity by enabling their access, inclusion and participation.     

Academic Journals in the Digital Age: An Editor’s Perspective

The contributors to this forum each reflect on a particular aspect of the future of academic publishing. James Mussell outlines how the form of the online academic journal, and in particular ongoing use of pdf, remains resistant to the potential that the digital environment can offer. Lucinda Matthews-Jones continues the conversation by explaining how journal blogs, such as JVC Online, act as digital spaces that facilitate more creative engagement with multimedia and which allow authors to foster and to interact with new and often broader networks of readers. Finally, Helen Rogers surveys the current landscape of academic publishing and urges us, as scholars, to move beyond the traditional schema and embrace the potential that Web 2.0 can offer. As more and more of our scholarly lives are lived online, the investment of the scholarly journal in print culture becomes apparent. These essays recognize the value of longevity, of scholarship’s commitment to both the past and the future, but they also suggest that scholarly publication needs to attend more closely to the times in which it is published.     

Developing graduate attributes through participation in undergraduate research conferences

Graduate attributes are a framework of skills, attitudes, values and knowledge that graduates should develop by the end of their degree programmes. Adopting a largely qualitative approach and using semi-structured interviews, this paper outlines students’ experiences at a national undergraduate research conference over three years and evidences the graduate attributes developed. The students demonstrated intellectual autonomy, repurposing their work for presentation to a multidisciplinary audience through conversation with and benchmarking against peers. They gained confidence in expressing their identity as researchers and moved towards self-authorship, consciously balancing the contextual nature of their disciplinary knowledge with intra-personally grounded goals and values.     

‘A Billion Dollar Racket’: the United States,South Vietnam,and Global Currency Manipulation during War, 1968–9

While most historians have discussed corruption as a key factor leading to South Vietnam's downfall, they have not fully analysed the US and international dimensions of South Vietnamese corruption. This article argues that economic, political, and diplomatic circumstances of the Vietnam War encouraged widespread US participation in currency manipulation, an economically destructive form of corruption that had serious implications for the stability of the South Vietnamese state. The US inability to shape South Vietnam's setting of the official exchange rate allowed South Vietnam to overvalue the piaster at the cost of US taxpayers. Combined with the structural economic problems produced by the war, such as inflation, the favourable exchange rate encouraged Americans, Vietnamese, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, and other internationals to make quick profits through illegal transactions. From bookstores in Saigon to banks in Hong Kong, Dubai, and New York, currency manipulation involved a host of individuals and organisations around the globe. Although many critics of the war cited South Vietnamese corruption in their arguments for US withdrawal, congressional investigation into currency manipulation revealed that without the direct contributions of US soldiers and civilians, the magnitude of illegal economic transactions would not have existed as it did.