Prospects and Contestations- Quad’s Import

1. Contestations over development

Australia is a rich first world nation. In 2007–08 it had a $1 trillion economy as measured by nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with per capita income of over $A50 000. In recent years mining sector revenue has constituted a growing share of the national economy, reaching about 11 per cent of GDP in 2007–08 with a value of $A119 billion (Reserve Bank of Australia 2009). The Minerals Council...

Contestations and Constraints for Databases

Rabbinic Contestations of Authority

The following well-known text from the Babylonian Talmud (redacted ca. 600 C.E.) has had an enormous influence on scholarly accounts of the relation between divine authority and human authority in talmudic rabbinic Judaism. [Regarding a certain kind of oven, R. Eliezer rules that it is ritually pure and the sages rule that it is ritually impure.] It was taught: On that day, R. Eliezer responded...

Hardware Accelerated Soft Shadows using Penumbra Quads

Shadow mapping is a commonly used technique for generating hard shadows in real time. However, existing shadow map based algorithms cannot render full soft shadows penumbras onto arbitrary dynamic geometry by utilizing only consumer level programmable graphics hardware. In this paper we introduce a new fully hardware accelerated penumbra map algorithm which stores additional penumbra informatio...

Quads, Farmers 50+ Years of Age, and Safety in Australia

Quads are the leading cause of fatal non-intentional injuries on Australian farms. Due to normal age-related physiological and cognitive changes, farmers 50-years of age and above are at increased risk when using quads. This study identifies a non-statistically significant increasing trend for fatal quad incidents involving this cohort in Australia. It is contended that these vehicles are not “...