Throughout the twentieth century, nursing services gradually moved from being located within the community to being concentrated in institutions, such as hospitals. The aim of this thesis is to identify those nursing services that existed within the Rockhampton region from 1911 to 1957; to document the evolution of the services; and to explore those factors that influenced this evolution. In particular, an emphasis is placed on social and political factors. The nursing services explored in this thesis include private duty nursing, private hospitals, church and charity facilities, public hospitals and public community services. These services represent most nursing opportunities during the first half of the twentieth century. However, this thesis takes a unique position by exploring all services in detail within a limited location. In order to accomplish this, an empirical historical method is utilised, based on a wide range of documentary primary sources drawn from archival collections relating to Rockhampton and the nursing profession. By examining a limited geographical area, this thesis highlights the complexity of nursing in regards to who nursed, how nursing was practiced and what factors influenced nursing. A particular feature that emerges within this thesis is the important role untrained nurses played within nursing services throughout the period under review. This group dominated private duty nursing and lying-hospitals in the Rockhampton region, although were gradually restricted to facilities for the aged and chronically ill. Trained nurses also became more institutionalised throughout the period, gradually losing former levels of autonomy as they gained more controlled working conditions, wages and career structures. Finally, this thesis highlights variations in nursing services between metropolitan and regional areas of Queensland.

This study explores the internet experiences of women living in rural and regional Australia, their motives for internet uptake and use, the benefits they gain from using the internet, the difficulties they encounter in using the internet and whether the benefits are affected by technical factors, such as computer equipment and telecommunication infrastructure, availability of opportunities for developing online skills, and perceptions of the internet. Data was collected via an email snowball technique to contact women living in rural and regional Australia, resulting in participation by 40 women from throughout rural and regional areas. The research drew on the literature of internet research and media uses-and-gratifications. Although the internet is a relatively new communication technology, it has attracted a large amount of scholarly interest. However, there has been little research into internet use by individual populations. Women living in rural and regional areas of Australia experience geographical and social isolation, with limited access to goods, services and information, and could be expected, therefore, to gain significant benefits from use of the internet. However, the potential benefits of the internet could be offset by difficulties with internet use in rural and regional areas. A narrative approach was used to determine the motives for internet use by women living in rural and regional Australia, the benefits they gain from using the internet, the difficulties they encounter in using it and whether the difficulties affect the benefits they gain from internet use. The research findings show that, more than anything else, women living in rural and regional Australia use the internet to build and maintain relationships, including keeping in touch with family and friends, re-connecting with friends for the past and making new friends online. They also use the internet to facilitate involvement in community organisations, to contribute to social issues at the national, state and local level and to participate in community projects and events. In addition, women living in rural and regional Australia use the internet to undertake business and education related activities, pursue personal interests, seek emotional support and undertake practical tasks, such as finding and disseminating information, banking and shopping. However, the many benefits of the internet are offset to some extent by the many frustrations encountered in using it, particularly in regard to technical factors and developing online skills. Spam mail and viruses also cause considerable inconvenience.

There has been almost fifteen years of political controversy surrounding changes to the rules and procedures by which aircraft conduct their flight within regional Australia. Decisions based on a predominately heuristic (rule of thumb) approach to design have had many adverse consequences for the integrity of the proximity warning function. A sound mathematical model is required to establish this function on a mature engineering foundation. To achieve this, the proximity warning function has been investigated as a hybrid-system. This approach recognises the dual nature of the design: that aircraft dynamics give rise to continuous mathematical models while the communication protocols controlling proximity require discrete mathematical approaches. The blending of each aspect has yielded a deeper insight into the operational limitations and failure modes of this function. The presentation of the thesis follows a design thread through the function. It begins with a description of existing standards and implementations. Risk models are then developed. The pilot interface is recognised as a primary design constraint. Mathematical models are then developed to describe the topology of flow, proximity dynamics, and the scheduling constraints associated with visual, voice, and data-link communications required by the proximity warning function. These analyses show that many aspects of design can be bounded by analytical formulae that bring new robustness to the design and resolve some of the misconceptions arising from the often inaccurate perceptions of present airspace operations. Failure modes, unaccounted for in existing designs are found to actually aggravate failure in the very situations in which the airspace design should be robust and should act to prevent collisions. In particular, there are divergences of performance between the demands required by the system design and the ability of the pilot to deliver such performances. In some cases, these failures may be traced to policy decisions such as service between Instrument Flight Rule and Visual Flight Rule category aircraft. On the basis of the conclusions of this research, a formal engineering review of the proximity warning function is required to assure the containment of the likelihood of mid-air collision for all future operations.