Film Independent

This is an overview of a presentation to be given at the Camden Museum, NSW, on 8 April 2026. It consists ot the title, a summary of the presentation and a short author bio.

This study offers an in-depth summary of the Chinese privatization of its state-owned enterprises (SOEs), exploring the link between government ownership concentration and firm performance and examining the connection between seasoned equity offering (SEO) methods and the market reaction of the offering companies. The evidence indicates a correlation between the firm's future performance and its choice of SEO. Firms that use rights offerings as their equity offering method consistently fare worse than those firms that use either public offerings or private placements. This discrepancy in performance implies that private placement investors, through their concentrated capital commitments to Chinese SOEs, provide their operational expertise, which improves the financial performance of the Chinese SOEs. In addition, the Chinese privatization process tends to have a positive impact on international relations, fostering economic cooperation and trade agreements by integrating with the global economy and increasing foreign direct investment (FDI).

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

This blog post tells the story of how, on March 27, 2026, the Camden Civic Centre hosted a Cultural Concert and Dinner, attracting over 200 attendees. The event, part of Multicultural March, showcased diverse performances, promoting inclusion and belonging within the community. Mayor Theresa Fedeli celebrated Camden's cultural richness, emphasising the importance of unity and connection among different backgrounds.

How to be Queer: An Ancient Guide to Sexuality. Sappho, Plato and Other Lovers (S.) Nooter (ed., trans.). Pp. xii + 245. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024. Cased, £14.99, US$17.95. ISBN: 978-0-691-24861-5. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691248615/how-to-be-queer

This newspaper article explores the history of the Clintons Motors new car showroom, which opened on Argyle Street, Camden, in 1948. Designed in an iconic, stylish Art Deco Interwar influenced building with its clean, streamlined appearance drawn from American and French influences. Clintons sold the newly released FX Holden sedan for £675 and first displayed the new model car in December 1948. The business also sold tyres, motor accessories and electrical goods, including refrigerators. The showroom "combined all the features modern merchants in America have developed to improve their service to their customers". The Clinton Motors Group is a well-established and trusted business in the local area and continues to sell motor cars.

Abstract The geologically oldest known crinoid pentacrinoid larva is reported from Verulam Formation (Katian) from the Lafarge Cannifton Agg Quarry in Cannifton, Ontario, Canada. The entire specimen (arms, aboral cup, and incomplete column) is ~4.2 mm high with the aboral cup only ~1.3 mm high. The specimen is comparable in size to the early pentacrinoid larva of the living crinoid Metacrinus rotundatus Carpenter, 1885. As known, the morphology of this pentacrinoid larva does not correspond in all details with any adult crinoid in the Cannifton area or from the nearby Brechin Lagerstätte fauna, suggesting that considerable morphological change occurred during ontogeny of this taxon.

Abstract Despite the expansion of research on South Asian courtesans, there has been no attempt at a critical historiography on courtesans alone. Within this larger gap, the specific connections between travel, mobility, and female performers in South Asia have not been adequately theorised. By making a critical intervention into the historiography of courtesans, we hope to aid in the establishment of what could be termed ‘South Asian courtesan studies’ as a recognised field of scholarship. Foregrounding the historical method for research into courtesans, the articles here show that beyond conventional ethnographic sources, there is a rich textual, visual, and material archive, largely unexplored until recently. They reveal both the transnational and local, and the spectacular and quotidian circuits of female performers’ travels. These include religious sites and participation in rites of passage like weddings but also extend beyond South Asia into the theatre spectacles and exhibitions of Europe. In the context of empire, this volume maps how female performers travelled in local, regional, and transnational contexts, and whether they were able to transcend the hypersexualised colonial trope of the ‘ nautch girl’. This special issue offers a sample of the new developments in this growing field to catalyse its further expansion.

Information about a treatment's benefits and harms available to a patient often relies on text. However, for many medical conditions, patients must trade off benefits and harms across multiple competing treatments. It remains unknown how to appropriately communicate information on benefits and harms to patients. We compared three communication tools using textual information (Cochrane summary of findings table) or increasing combinations of textual and graphical information (Kilim and Vitruvian plots, respectively) to convey the available evidence. Communication of Benefit-Risk Information, an online randomised controlled trial, is a three-group, parallel, open-label, automated, randomised controlled trial (no. NCT05917639). We recruited participants aged between 18 and 65 years from the general population. Participants were randomly allocated (1:1:1) to one of the three communication tools providing information on competing fictional treatments for social anxiety, and were asked to choose one based on externally provided preferences. The primary outcome was the perceived level of decisional conflict when selecting a treatment (decisional conflict scale (DCS): 0 = best, 100 = worst). Because this was an all-or-nothing, single-visit trial, only those participants providing data contributed to the primary analyses (modified intention to treat). We recruited 2178 adults between 1 June and 27 November 2023. Vitruvian and Kilim plots outperformed the Cochrane summary of findings table on the primary outcome (adjusted mean difference -10.9, 95% CI -13.5 to -8.2, P < 0.0001 and -9.7, 95% CI -12.4 to -7.1, P < 0.0001), respectively). Results varied by participants' literacy and numeracy skills, lived experience of the condition of interest, ethnic group, gender assigned at birth and age. Combining graphical and textual information, as opposed to text only, improved communication and reduced decisional conflict when choosing across multiple competing medical interventions. Organisations involved in disseminating scientific evidence should consider endorsing a combined graphical and textual approach and adopting more intuitive and accessible communication methods. We identified several prognostic factors that should inform the development of future patient decision aids and communication of scientific findings. NCT05917639.