A Virtual Evaluation Track for Cross Language Link Discovery

The Wikipedia has become the most popular online source of encyclopedic information. The English Wikipedia collection, as well as some other languages collections, is extensively linked. However, as a multilingual collection the Wikipedia is only very weakly linked. There are few cross-language links or cross-dialect links (see, for example, Chinese dialects). In order to link the multilingual-Wikipedia as a single collection, automated cross language link discovery systems are needed – systems that identify anchor-texts in one language and targets in another. The evaluation of Link Discovery approaches within the English version of the Wikipedia has been examined in the INEX Link the-Wiki track since 2007, whilst both CLEF and NTCIR emphasized the investigation and the evaluation of cross-language information retrieval. In this position paper we propose a new virtual evaluation track: Cross Language Link Discovery (CLLD). The track will initially examine cross language linking of Wikipedia articles. This virtual track will not be tied to any one forum; instead we hope it can be connected to each of (at least): CLEF, NTCIR, and INEX as it will cover ground currently studied by each. The aim is to establish a virtual evaluation environment supporting continuous assessment and evaluation, and a forum for the exchange of research ideas. It will be free from the difficulties of scheduling and synchronizing groups of collaborating researchers and alleviate the necessity to travel across the globe in order to share knowledge. We aim to electronically publish peer-reviewed publications arising from CLLD in a similar fashion: online, with open access, and without fixed submission deadlines.

Radioactive residues associated with water treatment, use and disposal in Australia

Water resources are known to contain radioactive materials, either from natural or anthropogenic sources. Treatment, including wastewater treatment, of water for drinking, domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes has the potential to concentrate radioactive materials. Inevitably concentrated radioactive material is discharged to the environment as a waste product, reused for soil conditioning, or perhaps recycled as a new potable water supply. This thesis, presented as a collection of peer reviewed scientific papers, explores a number of water / wastewater treatment applications, and the subsequent nature and potential impact of radioactive residues associated with water exploitation processes. The thesis draws together research outcomes for sites predominantly throughout Queensland, Australia, where it is recognised that there is a paucity of published data on the subject. This thesis contributes to current knowledge on the monitoring, assessment and potential for radiation exposure from radioactive residues associated with the water industry.

Evolution of life drama program

Life Drama is a program of drama-based experiential learning activities involving groups of community leaders and members. The three-year project evolved from a theatre-in-education approach to an intercultural theatre approach incorporating Papua New Guinean performance traditions. It involved Australian, English and Papua New Guinean researchers at four key sites: Tari, Southern Highlands Province; Port Moresby, National Capital District; Madang, Madang Province; and Karkar Island, Madang Province. The project was innovative in a number of ways, including: a Participatory Action Research approach, involving community leaders at various levels as co-researchers; a participatory theatre approach as opposed to a performance approach; emphasis on sexual health promotion and HIV prevention through an experiential learning paradigm; addressing the norms and realities of the community rather than targeting only individual behaviour; an International Theatre Research Laboratory to explore the fusion of traditional cultural elements with contemporary health promotion aims; and an innovative method-assemblage approach to collecting and triangulating quantitative, qualitative, and performative data. The project attracted over $350,000 in funding and support from the Australian Research Council, National AIDS Secretariat in PNG, and private sector and non-government partners. Findings were presented at various conferences and symposia including the annual Medical Symposium in Wewak (2010), the triennial Research in Drama Education conference in Exeter (2011), and the International Research in Drama Education conference (Sydney 2009 and Limerick 2012). A number of peer-reviewed journal articles have been published. Elements of the program have been incorporated into the University of Goroka's compulsory HIV awareness program for undergraduate students. A national dissemination strategy for Life Drama in Papua New Guinea is now underway, with seed funding of AUD$74,000 from the National AIDS Council Secretariat, PNG.

Tabernacle-Game world

Tabernacle is an experimental game world-building project which explores the relationship between the map and the 3-dimensional visualisation enabled by high-end game engines. The project is named after the 6th century tabernacle maps of Cosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography. These maps articulate a cultural or metaphoric, rather than measured view of the world, contravening Alper's distinction which observes that “maps are measurement, art is experience”. The project builds on previous research into the use of game engines and 3D navigable representation to enable cultural experience, particularly non-Western cultural experiences and ways of seeing. Like the earlier research, Tabernacle highlights the problematic disjuncture between the modern Cartesian map structures of the engine and the mapping traditions of non-Western cultures. Tabernacle represents a practice-based research provocation. The project exposes assumptions about the maps which underpin 3D game worlds, and the autocratic tendencies of world construction software. This research is of critical importance as game engines and simulation technologies are becoming more popular in the recreation of culture and history. A key learning from the Tabernacle project was the ways in which available game engines – technologies with roots in the Enlightenment - constrained the team’s ability to represent a very different culture with a different conceptualisation of space and maps. Understanding the cultural legacies of the software itself is critical as we are tempted by the opportunities for representation of culture and history that they seem to offer. The project was presented at Perth Digital Arts and Culture in 2007 and reiterated using a different game engine in 2009. Further reflections were discussed in a conference paper presented at OZCHI 2009 and a peer-reviewed journal article, and insights gained from the experience continue to inform the author’s research.

Diffusion determinants for passive building technologies

This summary is based on an international review of leading peer reviewed journals, in both technical and management fields. It draws on highly cited articles published between 2000 and 2009 to investigate the research question, "What are the diffusion determinants for passive building technologies in Australia?". Using a conceptual framework drawn from the innovation systems literature, this paper synthesises and interprets the literature to map the current state of passive building technologies in Australia and to analyse the drivers for, and obstacles to, their optimal diffusion. The paper concludes that the government has a key role to play through its influence over the specification of building codes.

The Influence of work motivation on project success : towards a framework

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a framework to study the influence of 'Work motivation' on 'Project success' from a team members' perspective. Results from a literature review of 1345 articles on ' Project success' and 1063 articles of 'Work motivation' appearing in peer-reviewed journals between 1985 and 2005 are presented. We then propose a framework to study the impact of 'Work motivation' on 'Project success' by incorporating the key constructs pertaining to these variables derived from the literature review.

Disputes in Everyday Life : Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People

"The research presented in this volume has been undertaken in a range of settings and across ages, to display the rich, varied, and complex aspects of children and young people's everyday lives. The papers contribute to understanding children's disputes, framed as forms of social practice, by closely examining children's talk and interaction in disputes to offer insight into how they arrange their social lives within the context of school, home, neighborhood, correctional, and cafe settings. As such, this volume contributes to an emerging body of edited volumes that investigate children and young people's everyday interactions (Cromdal, 2009; Cromdal & Tholander, in press; Gardner & Forrester, 2010; Goodwin & Kyratzis, 2007; Hutchby & Moran-Ellis, 1998). Each paper has been peer reviewed, by respected researchers of the field, in some cases authors of this volume, and revised. We also thank Charlotte Cobb-Moore who so ably assisted in the final preparation of the manuscripts."---publisher website

Against Marginality: Arguments for a Public Criminology

Despite its accumulated theoretical and empirical heft, the discipline of criminology has had distressingly little impact on the course of public policy toward crime and criminal justice. This article addresses the sources of that troubling marginality, with special emphasis on the powerful disincentives to greater public impact that operate within the discipline itself and the research universities that mainly house it—including the pressure to publish ever more narrow research in peer-reviewed journals at the expense of efforts at synthesis and dissemination that could serve to educate a broader public. Achieving a greater voice in the world outside the discipline will require a concerted move toward a more explicitly public criminology, and seeing to it that the work of such a criminology is more reliably supported and rewarded within the universities and the profession as a whole.

Impact of opening a new emergency department on healthcare service and patient outcomes : analyses based on linking ambulance, emergency and hospital databases

Background Emergency department (ED) crowding caused by access block is an increasing public health issue and has been associated with impaired healthcare delivery, negative patient outcomes and increased staff workload. Aim To investigate the impact of opening a new ED on patient and healthcare service outcomes. Methods A 24-month time series analysis was employed using deterministically linked data from the ambulance service and three ED and hospital admission databases in Queensland, Australia. Results Total volume of ED presentations increased 18%, while local population growth increased by 3%. Healthcare service and patient outcomes at the two pre-existing hospitals did not improve. These outcomes included ambulance offload time: (Hospital A PRE: 10 min, POST: 10 min, P < 0.001; Hospital B PRE: 10 min, POST: 15 min, P < 0.001); ED length of stay: (Hospital A PRE: 242 min, POST: 246 min, P < 0.001; Hospital B PRE: 182 min, POST: 210 min, P < 0.001); and access block: (Hospital A PRE: 41%, POST: 46%, P < 0.001; Hospital B PRE: 23%, POST: 40%, P < 0.001). Time series modelling indicated that the effect was worst at the hospital furthest away from the new ED. Conclusions An additional ED within the region saw an increase in the total volume of presentations at a rate far greater than local population growth, suggesting it either provided an unmet need or a shifting of activity from one sector to another. Future studies should examine patient decision making regarding reasons for presenting to a new or pre-existing ED. There is an inherent need to take a ‘whole of health service area’ approach to solve crowding issues.