Sustainability evaluation, life cycle assessment and facilities management for Geelong Retail Development

Value management is a technique used during the design stage to justify cost and worth of a proposal. Designer must never center only to save capital expenditure but consider holistically the whole building life which will be sustainable. Therefore, sustainability evaluation must adopt a long term view and will properly include three crucial elements: economic, social and environmental. Lack of awareness of value management during the design stage of a building project will adversely impact on the life cycle assessment (LCA) and facilities management (FM). This paper provides a review of the sustainable elements that must be considered when designing and costing a new retail development in the Geelong region of Australia and how these factors influence the whole building life. The result of this research helps to create a greater understanding of the different attributes that will affect the LCA and FM decisions made on sustainable development in this and other regional Australian cities that are undergoing major population growth.

Survival misperception, time inconsistency, and implications for life-cycle saving and welfare

Some empirical studies firmly reveal that people tend to form overly pessimistic survival expectations for relatively less distant ages and overly optimistic survival expectations for relatively more distant ages. We incorporate this observation into a life-cycle continuous time overlapping-generations model of consumption/saving with a general form for a subjective survival function. Resulting time-inconsistent optimal control problem has been analytically solved. At the micro level, time inconsistency leads to higher consumption at young and old ages, but this alone fails to improve lifetime well-being since micro-level decisions made with a lack of information about true mortality are suboptimal. In general equilibrium, however, such time inconsistent behavior with survival misperception is conducive to aggregate capital accumulation and greater equilibrium bequest income. The latter effects can produce substantial welfare gains. We also note that empirically observed old age optimistic bias is an important phenomenon, as it helps to avoid unrealistic very old-age debt accumulation within a life-cycle model. In addition, if for a given level of optimistic bias we increase early-life pessimism, this would result in slower capital accumulation, lower bequest income, and thus be detrimental to welfare. Since recent literature reports that young-age survival pessimism has grown over time, it raises some concerns.

Modelling and simulation of regeneration in AC traction propulsion system of electrified railway

This paper presents a robust model and its simulation to investigate the performance of an AC propulsion system in a rail vehicle for directly returning the regenerative braking power to the feeder substation of an AC traction network. This direct returning method can be an efficient approach for energy recovery if the regenerative braking is reliably applied. However, it is shown that this method can cause undesired voltage fluctuations if the regenerative braking regime or braking location of the rail vehicle change. The load torque on the traction motor (TM) is precisely modelled when pure electrical braking is applied. Different states of the direct torque controlled inverter are modelled when the TM regenerates. A circuit model for the utility grid, load impedances and the traction network is developed to evaluate the network receptivity against the regenerated power. The dynamics of the electromagnetic torque and the fluctuations of the DC-link voltage are investigated for two operational conditions: changes on the regenerative braking regime and changes on the rail vehicle braking location. The results justify how the DC-link voltage dramatically fluctuates with variations of the rail vehicle's operation conditions, whereas the electromagnetic torque is maintained on optimum rates.

Soft tissue modelling for haptic rendering in virtual environments

This paper focuses on the development of a haptic recording and modelling system. Currently being evaluated for multiple uses in surgery and manufacturing, this recording system evaluates haptic data captured via a robotic ann coupled with real time high-resolution load cell. This data is then analysed and validated against previous samples and a generated model before being logged for playback during simulation and training of a human operator. 3D models of point force interactions are created allowing unique visuals to be presented to a user. Primarily designed for the medical field, recorded results of soft tissue cutting have been presented.

Project quality management in virtual environments : a primer

The rise of geographically dispersed project teams enabled by technology has made project quality management a significant challenge for organizations. This paper uses findings from a project on geographically dispersed, cooperating SMEs in the building trade, to explore whether concepts and artefacts from the Rational Unified Process® (RUP®) software development approach could be adapted and used to better manage quality in virtual projects. Our future research aims to explore the use of RUP artefacts in a virtual environment and their impact on
project management and quality.

Information navigation and knowledge discovery in virtual communities

Over the past decade, advances in the Internet and media technology have literally brought people closer than ever before. It is interesting to note that traditional sociological definitions of a community have been outmoded, for community has extended far beyond the geographical boundaries that were held by traditional definitions (Wellman & Gulia, 1999). Virtual or online community was defined in such a context to describe various forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC). Although virtual communities do not necessarily arise from the Internet, the overwhelming popularity of the Internet is one of the main reasons that virtual communities receive so much attention (Rheingold, 1999). The beginning of virtual communities is attributed to scientists who exchanged information and cooperatively conduct research during the 1970s. There are four needs of participants in a virtual community: member interest, social interaction, imagination, and transaction (Hagel & Armstrong, 1997). The first two focus more on the information exchange and knowledge discovery; the imagination is for entertainment; and the transaction is for commerce strategy. In this article, we investigate the function of information exchange and knowledge discovery in virtual communities. There are two important inherent properties embedded in virtual communities (Wellman, 2001):

Cultural regionalism and environmental planning and design : charting regionalism in deference to globalism

The last 400 years has witnessed Western colonialism spread across the Asian communities and landscape transforming and re-defining their identity, culture, landscape patterns and meanings, as well as their land ethic. Whilst independence has brought forth robust attempts at nationalism it has been at the deference of regionalism and cultural identity. Instead, modernism, economic regeneration and growth, and attempts to define a nationalist image out of the newly created nations that are often a patchwork quilt of pre-colonial empires, are signalling the demise of critical regionalism and Indigenous knowledge systems. This paper considers the changes and cultural transformations over the last 400 years pointing to key dilemmas in regionalist growth, deterioration and stabilisation that are causing a loss of environmental and cultural values, morals and codes. These are the cultural and planning ‘rules’ that originally structured and guided the sustainable life and spirit of community, land and culture as an integrated whole. Particular attention will be drawn to the Indigenous communities of Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia that are struggling to maintain identity and environmental ethic in the shadow of major disjointed and multi-objectival national and international economic growth and digital transformation advances. Several possible answers or mediated strategies are offered, through a cultural heritage and planning lens, that could afford a respect and creative integration of these Indigenous knowledge systems to better inform regional growth and land management strategies so that it was regionally relevant.

Cloud-linked and campus-linked students’ perceptions of collaborative learning and design based learning in engineering

The aim of this paper is to analyse and present cloud- link as well as campus-linked students’ perceptions of collaborative learning and design based learning in engineering. Project oriented design based learning (PODBL) is a learning and teaching approach, where students learn through design activities while being driven by project(s). PODBL enhances cloud-linked and campus-linked students’ ability to acquire career essential skills that fulfill future industry needs. A paper-based survey is used to recognise a cohort of students' experience of collaborative learning and design based learning in engineering. The paper-based survey was given to 30 students from an engineering discipline. The quantitative analysis of the survey results shows that more than 50% of the students view collaborative learning to have a large benefit in design-based learning.

Planning education and indigenous knowledge systems in Australia: where are we?

In 2008 Sarah Oberklaid reviewed the state of Indigenous knowledge systems in the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA)-accredited University planning programs and found a fragmented unfocused suite of agendas and attempts at addressing this increasingly important moral, cultural and land use management issue. While Oberklaid statistically validated what several authors have observed, and continue to observe, there appears to have been little action by programs, and specifically the PIA (Planning Institute of Australia), to address this issue and reposition their education accreditation policies; with the latter increasingly reluctant to engage with their professional responsibilities. This paper appraises this situation and foreshadows continuing research that may better inform and support a change of perspective by the PIA andthese programs.

Rural women and local economic development in south-west Victoria

In the 1990s, the appearance of women in leadership roles in local economic development organisations in small south-west Victorian towns heralded a change in gender relations in rural Australia. This paper contributes to an understanding of this process by investigating the actions and motives of women in leadership roles in small rural towns in south-west Victoria. The paper begins by establishing a framework of analysis based upon a notion of ‘paradigms in progress’. The argument is that in an increasingly interconnected world broader economic, social and political concerns encroach upon local cultures. In this process, older social paradigms or popularly accepted models for how the world works are either transformed, discarded or replaced on different levels. The different levels to which this paper refers are the macromodels of patriarchy, the mesomodels of economic development and the micromodels of leadership. It is the way that these levels intersect and how they are being changed that informs the explanation of women and leadership in south-west Victoria. The paper applies this framework to an analysis of interviews with 15 women in small towns in south-west Victoria. The paper concludes that women in the south-west have been able both to feminise the politics of local economic development as well as reposition the feminine in local social discourses.

Investigating social marketing, benchmarking and public policy development in environmental management

This paper discusses, an application of social marketing relating to pro-environmental awareness and social change. The integration of consumer behaviour theory into social marketing has been highlighted in the literature as requiring greater attention. Social marketing campaigns, like all marketing activities, rely on an understanding of stakeholders' attitudes and motivations in regard to the issue of concern, as well as towards the desired modified behaviour or lack of behaviour. The study highlights the marketing paradigms of benchmarking and social marketing in a not for profit governmental environment. Serrated Tussock has been designated as a weed of national significance and therefore the program has national implications (Thorp 2000). Even though issues associated with introduced species are less publicised than other environmental issues on the world stage, the associated environmental problems are no less severe than those caused by production and consumption activities. Weed control is a widespread problem facing individuals, communities and governments at all levels. A triangulatory approach, involving three distinct phases and incorporating both qualitative and quantitative tools, was used for the research design. The qualitative phase involved focus groups and in depth interviews with landholders, focus groups with professionals in the field and a focus group of key stakeholders. The mail survey resulted in a representative sample of 608 usable responses from the infestation area. The research conducted in this study illustrates how the various stages in the social marketing process were achieved and recommendations consistent with social marketing theory were generated.