Towards a universal and integrated digital representation of physical phenomena: a model to investigate comfort and energy efficiency in future environments

This thesis describes the exploration and the development of computational means to investigate the behaviour of design objects before they are available for investigation in the physical world. The motivation is to inform the design process about the design object's performance in order to achieve better--more performance-oriented--design outcomes in the sense of energy efficiency and comfort performance than can be achieved by conventional design techniques.

Sustainability and integrated reporting : a study of the inhibitors and enablers of integrated reporting

 Integrated Reporting is an emerging phenomenon that promises to bring together the material information about an organisation's strategy, governance, performance and prospects in a way that reflects the commercial, social and environmental context within which it operates. This report captures the variety of organisational factors that are relevant to decisions about Integrated Reporting in Australia. 

Forming and sustaining partnerships to provide integrated services for young people : an overview based on the headspace Geelong experience

Aim: To discuss critical considerations in the formation and maintenance of agency partnerships designed to provide integrated care for young people.

Methods: Two years after its establishment, an evaluation of the headspace Barwon collaboration and a review of the health-care and management literature on agency collaboration were conducted. The principal findings together with the authors' experience working at establishing and maintaining the partnership are used to discuss critical issues in forming and maintaining inter-agency partnerships.

Results: Structural and process considerations are necessary but not sufficient for the successful formation and maintenance of inter-agency partnerships and integrated care provision. Specifically, organizational culture change and staff engagement is a significant challenge and planning for this is essential and often neglected.

Conclusions: Although agreeing on common goals and objectives is an essential first step in forming partnerships designed to provide integrated care, goodwill is not enough, and the literature consistently shows that most collaborations fail to meet their objectives. Principles and lessons of organizational behaviour and management practices in the business sector can contribute a great deal to partnership planning.

The silicon ceiling : women managers and leaders in ICT in Australia

When I was in high school, it was always talked up that women could do science, engineering and technical [work] too. While we are just as capable as men, when we get into these industries, we face other challenges. There have been brave women who have done their bit to overcome these challenges, but it also requires brave men to challenge the attitudes of these industries to women participating in their workplaces. (APESMA, 2010) Silicon: Elemental silicon has a large impact on the modern world economy ... Because of wide use of silicon in integrated circuits, the basis of most computers, a great deal of modern technology depends on it. (Wikipedia, 2011) The chapter begins with a historical and current analysis of female participation in the workforce, in education and in leadership. The second section focuses on the information and communication technology (ICT) workforce in particular. The third section presents findings from a recent case study that gathered both quantitative and qualitative data from a diverse group of professional women in ICT. The case study provides a view into the ICT profession from the female perspective and identifies a selection of factors that would make a significant difference to female participation and longevity in the profession. The conclusion reached after this investigation is that the silicon ceiling is certainly not visible, yet remains fixed due to nonessential job characteristics that persist in the industry. The future looks bleak unless more female managers and male champions ensure that these nonessential employment characteristics are removed from ICT positions.

Integrated construction supply chain design and delivery solutions

This study describes the development of a decision framework to support multi-disciplinary information and knowledge management model which focuses on integrated design and delivery solutions for all construction supply chain actors. The framework was developed within the context of two national information technology research projects in Australia. The first study used diffusion theory to explain the barriers and enablers to future adoption of advanced information technology solutions such as building information modelling (BIM). A grounded theory methodology was deployed and a pathways model for innovative information technology diffusion accommodating diverse patterns of adoption and different levels of expertize was developed. The second study built on the findings of the first study but specifically focussed on innovators, early and late adopters of BIM and the development of a decision framework towards advanced collaborative platform solutions. This study summarizes the empirical results of the previous studies. The core of the decision framework is the creation, use and ownership of building information sub-models and integrated models. The decision framework relies on holistic collaborative design management. Design expertise is diffused and can be found in various locations along the construction supply chain within project teams. A wide definition of design is considered from conceptual to developed to detailed design. The recent development to the decision model offers much potential as the early upstream decisions are often made in a creative, collaborative and uncertain environment. However, decision making needs to balance both a reductionist and exploratory creative empowerment approach. Shared team expertise and competency and team mental models are explored as a fundamental requirement to collaborative BIM. New skills in interdisciplinarity are discussed as an implication of future construction industry collaborative platforms.

Implementation of dual stack technique for reducing leakage and dynamic power

This paper deals with proposal of a new dual stack approach for reducing both leakage and dynamic powers. The development of digital integrated circuits is challenged by higher power consumption. Thecombination of higher clock speeds, greater functional integration, and smaller process geometries has contributed to significant growth in power density. Scaling improves transistor density and functionality ona chip. Scaling helps to increase speed and frequency of operation and hence higher performance. As voltages scale downward with the geometries threshold voltages must also decrease to gain the performance advantages of the new technology but leakage current increases exponentially. Today leakage power has become anincreasingly important issue in processor hardware and software design. It can be used in various applications like digital VLSI clocking system, buffers, registers, microprocessors etc. The leakage power increases astechnology is scaled down. In this paper, we propose a new dual stack approach for reducing both leakage and dynamic powers. Moreover, the novel dual stack approach shows the least speed power product whencompared to the existing methods. All well known approach is “Sleep” in this method we reduce leakage power. The proposed Dual Stack approach we reduce more power leakage. Dual Stack approach uses theadvantage of using the two extra pull-up and two extra pull-down transistors in sleep mode either in OFF state or in ON state. Since the Dual Stack portion can be made common to all logic circuitry, less number of transistors is needed to apply a certain logic circuit.The dual stack approach shows the least speed power product among all methods. The Dual Stack technique provides new ways to designers who require ultra-low leakage power consumption with much less speedpower product.

Exercise, diet and skeletal muscle gene expression

Skeletal muscle, as a consequence of its mass and great capacity for altered metabolism, has a major impact on whole-body metabolic homeostasis and is capable of remarkable adaptation in response to various physiological stimuli, including exercise and dietary intervention. Exercise-induced increases in skeletal muscle mRNA levels of a number of genes have been reported, due to transcriptional activation and/or increased mRNA stability. The cellular adaptations to exercise training appear to be due to the cumulative effects of transient increases in gene transcription after repeated exercise bouts. The relative importance of transcriptional (mRNA synthesis) and translational (mRNA stability or translational efficiency) mechanisms for the training-induced increases in skeletal muscle protein abundance remains to be fully elucidated. Dietary manipulation, and the associated alterations in nutrient availability and hormone levels, can also modify skeletal muscle gene expression, although fewer studies have been reported. A major challenge is to understand how exercise and diet exert their effects on gene and protein expression in skeletal muscle. In relation to exercise, potential stimuli include stretch and muscle tension, the pattern of motor nerve activity and the resultant calcium transients, the energy charge of the cell and substrate availability, oxygen tension and circulating hormones. These are detected by various cellular signaling mechanisms, acting on a range of downstream targets and a wide range of putative transcription factors. A key goal in the years ahead is to identify how alterations at the level of gene expression are coupled to the changes in skeletal muscle phenotype. It is clear that gene expression, although representing a specific site of regulation, is only one step in a complex cascade from the initial stimulus to the final phenotypic adaptation and integrated physiological response.

Planning, delivery and evaluation of information literacy training for engineering and technology students

Information literacy has become an important skill for undergraduate students due to societal changes that have seen information become a valuable commodity, the need for graduates to become lifelong learners, and the recognition that information literacy is an underpinning generic skill for effective learning in higher education. This paper describes a sequence of activities and technologies designed to help students learn and practice information literacy skills. These activities have been purposefully designed and integrated into a first-year engineering and technology study unit as a core syllabus element. A formal evaluation of aspects of these activities was planned and undertaken in semester one 2003.

Information literacy for a sustainable career in engineering and technology

Information literacy has become an important skill for undergraduate students due to societal changes that have seen information become a valuable commodity, the need for graduates to become lifelong learners to remain effective across their working lives, and the recognition by many stakeholders that information literacy is an underpinning generic skill for effective learning in higher education. Important elements in the design and delivery of information literacy training include the collaborative process between library and academic staff, the need to link generic information literacy skills into the specific discipline context of the students, and catering for a wide diversity in the student body including off-campus students. This paper describes a sequence of activities designed to help students learn and practice information literacy skills that have been purposefully designed and integrated into a first-year engineering and technology study unit as a core element of the unit syllabus.

Towards a renewable adaptive recyclable and environmental architecture

Research in pursuit of an effective response to the demands for a sustainable architecture has lead towards the conception of a Renewable, Adaptive, Recyclable and Environmental (R.A.R.E.) building typology. The term R.A.R.E. expresses issues that have assumed central importance in the current architectural debate. This paper establishes the principles of the typology, drawing on the contents and pedagogical methods applied in a building technology academic course, at fourth year level. The R.A.R.E methodology is presented to and explored by students in the search for a definition of an innovative architecture, which is both progressive and sustainable. The unit is structured into eight subjects: Sustainable Site & Climate Analysis; Flexible & Adaptive Structural Systems; Renewable & Environmental Building Materials; Modular Building Systems; Innovative Building Envelope Systems; Renewable & Non-conventional Energy Systems; Innovative Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning Systems; Water Collection & Storage Systems. Through a holistic and integrated approach, the unit presents a comprehensive overview of these ‘Sustainable Building Categories’, so that the students can produce a guide towards the design requirements of a Renewable, Adaptive, Recyclable and Environmental (R.A.R.E.) Architecture.

So what do customer value propositions and strategic planning have to do with teaching and learning?

Within most universities there are central areas that assist with teaching and learning and, in the case of universities offering programs through distance education or flexible learning, there are also units that develop and or manufacture course material. As budget constraints squeeze universities and, with a plethora of choices in online and integrated learning, the usefulness of centralised learning resource units can be called into question. To ensure these units remain vital and can justify their budgets to their parent organisations they need to demonstrate delivery of customer value. What do faculty staff value from a central unit? What irritates students about their course materials? What are the most important services from the point of view of a head of school? This paper outlines the process followed by Learning Services at Deakin University to discover its customers’ value model. Customer value propositions and the removal of what irritates the customer are then used to drive strategic planning, service offerings and continuous process improvement.