The monthly seminar series aims to bring together students and staff from various disciplines University wide, to discuss research being undertaken with a focus on Asia.
Speakers:
Assoc Professor Shams Rahman, School of Management
-Barefooted OR and its Extension - Health System Planning in Rural Bangladesh-
There is considerable evidence that because of poor geographical accessibility, basic health care does not reach the majority of the population in Bangladesh. While government in this country has given high priority to improve accessibility, only rarely have formal methods for determining cost-effective (optimal) locations of health facilities been used as an aid to decision-making. In the absence of any formal analysis and generation of alternatives, the final decisions may be made on political or pragmatic considerations. As a result the decisions are very often far from optimal. This study reports on how OR models in conjunction with systems methodology were applied to locate health facilities at the community level in rural Bangladesh.
Dr. Yaso Nadarajah, Globalism Research Centre and Global Cities Institute
-Abiding by Malaysia: The Tamil Uprising-
Drawing from nearly three years of ethnographic fieldwork of community life in a large squatter settlement in the epicentre of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as part of broader community sustainability research across 4 countries in the Asia Pacific region; this talk will outline the growing anxieties and dilemmas of identity and belonging facing an ethnic and religious minority in the context of state-driven ethnic and religious nationalism.
RSVP: sheila.bellamy@rmit.edu.au by Monday 9 March.
Official Website: http://www.rmit.edu.au/bus/research/asia@rmit