ResearchFest: Celebrating ANU Research Students

The Research Student Development Centre at the Australian National University is organizing ResearchFest: a week of fun, informative and stimulating activities celebrating the contribution and teaching of research students.

ResearchFest schedule

The Nation’s Ashtray

It’s a pretty common sight to see bumper stickers here sporting the text The Nation’s Capital.

But, to the point, quoting from wikipedia:

In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) a smoking ban will apply to all enclosed public places by December 2006. However, if the proportion of the public place that is is “open” (open to the outdoors) is greater than 25% of the total surface area of the ceiling or roof (assuming that this is flat) and the walls and windows (whether fixed or able to be opened), then the premises will not be considered ‘substantially enclosed’ and therefore, the smoking prohibition in the Act does not apply

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals in this document released on 15 September 2006:

• Tobacco smoking is the largest single preventable cause of death and disease in Australia (Cancer Council 2006).
• It was estimated that tobacco smoking was responsible for about 8% of the total burden of disease and injury for all Australians (9.5% of total for males and 6.1% of total for females) (AIHW 2006: Begg et al in press).
• In 2004-05, 23% of adults were current smokers, about 3.5 million persons.

All statistics notwithstanding, it’s really difficult to walk any length of distance in Canberra without encountering second-hand smoke.

With the glaringly high incidence of smoking for a rather spartanly populated city, a bumper sticker with the blurb The Nation’s Ashtray wouldn’t be too far from the truth!

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Bookshops are like… Ration Shops…?

Maybe state controlled ration shops are not a familiar idiom in Oz (they’re getting out of vogue in other parts of the world too), but visiting Borders’ in the Canberra Center sure was interesting!

Lines of people… queueing up with their purchases of books. At a casual count there were more than 30 people in the queue.

Wow! Not unlike folks queueing up for long hours with empty cans for kerosene at ration shops. But, one’s a necessity.

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Botanic Garden in Canberra

Featuring:the water dragon!

 

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Commencing a PhD!

I have officially commenced a program of study for a PhD at the Australian National University in picturesque Canberra.

The broad area of research is Software Complexity Management. This research is supported by the AutoCRC, and coordinated by Dr Clive Boughton.

Exciting times ahead!