Four Ideas to Improve the Human Condition

A collection of four progressive ideas targeted for the improvement of the human condition has been compiled in this book. They were derived from the first attempted MEDP Australian Summit. Although the Summit itself did not meet expectations for a variety of reasons, the four ideas contained herein are gems derived from the Summit processes.

ePortfolios and preservice teachers : governing at a distance through non-human actors

This chapter seeks to develop an analysis of the contemporary use of the ePortfolio (Electronic Portfolio) in education practices. Unlike other explorations of this new technology which are deterministic in their approach, the authors seek to reveal the techniques and practices of government which underpin the implementation of the e-portfolio. By interrogating a specific case study example from a large Australian university’s preservice teacher program, the authors find that the e-portfolio is represented as eLearning technology but serves to govern students via autonomization and self responsibilization. Using policy data and other key documents, they are able to reveal the e-portfolio as a delegated authority in the governance of preservice teachers. However, despite this ongoing trend, they suggest that like other practices of government, the e-portfolio will eventually fail. This however the authors conclude opens up space for critical thought and engagement which is not afforded presently.

Identity and text : developing self-conscious readers

Globalisation and societal change suggest the language and literacy skills needed to make meaning in our lives are increasing and changing radically. Multiliteracies are influencing the future of literacy teaching. One aspect of the pedagogy of multiliteracies is recruiting learners’ previous and current experiences as an integral part of the learning experience. This paper examines the implications of results from a project that examined student responses to a postmodern picture book, in particular, ways teachers might develop students’ self-knowledge about reading. It draws on Freebody and Luke’s Four Resources Model of Reading and recently developed models for teaching multiliteracies.

Image synthesis based on a model of human vision

Modern computer graphics systems are able to construct renderings of such high quality that viewers are deceived into regarding the images as coming from a photographic source. Large amounts of computing resources are expended in this rendering process, using complex mathematical models of lighting and shading. However, psychophysical experiments have revealed that viewers only regard certain informative regions within a presented image. Furthermore, it has been shown that these visually important regions contain low-level visual feature differences that attract the attention of the viewer. This thesis will present a new approach to image synthesis that exploits these experimental findings by modulating the spatial quality of image regions by their visual importance. Efficiency gains are therefore reaped, without sacrificing much of the perceived quality of the image. Two tasks must be undertaken to achieve this goal. Firstly, the design of an appropriate region-based model of visual importance, and secondly, the modification of progressive rendering techniques to effect an importance-based rendering approach. A rule-based fuzzy logic model is presented that computes, using spatial feature differences, the relative visual importance of regions in an image. This model improves upon previous work by incorporating threshold effects induced by global feature difference distributions and by using texture concentration measures. A modified approach to progressive ray-tracing is also presented. This new approach uses the visual importance model to guide the progressive refinement of an image. In addition, this concept of visual importance has been incorporated into supersampling, texture mapping and computer animation techniques. Experimental results are presented, illustrating the efficiency gains reaped from using this method of progressive rendering. This visual importance-based rendering approach is expected to have applications in the entertainment industry, where image fidelity may be sacrificed for efficiency purposes, as long as the overall visual impression of the scene is maintained. Different aspects of the approach should find many other applications in image compression, image retrieval, progressive data transmission and active robotic vision.

Labelled silhouettes for human pose estimation

This paper proposes a new method of using foreground silhouette images for human pose estimation. Labels are introduced to the silhouette images, providing an extra layer of information that can be used in the model fitting process. The pixels in the silhouettes are labelled according to the corresponding body part in the model of the current fit, with the labels propagated into the silhouette of the next frame to be used in the fitting for the next frame. Both single and multi-view implementations are detailed, with results showing performance improvements over only using standard unlabelled silhouettes.

Examining the role of human resource management in continuous improvement

The objective of this paper is to take a first step in developing a theoretical framework describing the role of HRM in successful CI, based on the current literature from both fields. To this end, elements from the CI Maturity Model and a framework depicting the role of HRM in innovation serve as a foundation for examining how specific bundles of HRM practices utilised during different phases of the CI implementation process may contribute to sustained organisational and enhanced operational performance. The primary contribution of this paper is theoretical; however, the framework has practical value in that it suggests important relationships between HRM practices and behaviours necessary for successful CI. A preliminary test of the framework in an empirical setting is summarised at the conclusion of this paper, where a number of possible research avenues are also suggested.

The Sociology of Cosmopolitanism:Globalization, Identity, Culture and Government

The dream of a cosmopolitical utopia has been around for thousands of years. Yet the promise of being locally situated and at the same time globally connected and mobile has never seemed more possible than it is today. The question remains as to whether it is positive and realistic for us to have multiple loyalties. Can we sustain community and solidarity with our neighbours while we look beyond our nation? And if we can't - or won't – consider distant strangers as part of our own world, are there increasingly dire consequences? This book reconnects classical sociological theory and contemporary ideas on mobility, otherness, material assemblages, consumption and surveillance to render the idea of a global cosmopolitan utopia amenable to sociological investigation. The book takes a realistic approach to the development of cosmopolitical arrangements. It embraces the imaginative impulses the cosmopolitan dream provides, but takes into account the political, ethical and cultural dimensions of such cosmopolitan developments. In revisiting the relevance of classical sociological approaches in the context of contemporary theoretical challenges, the distinctive approach this book takes to understanding cosmopolitanism will be of use to scholars and students alike.

Demographic category membership and leadership in small groups : a social identity analysis

Developing the social identity theory of leadership (e.g., [Hogg, M. A. (2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 184–200]), an experiment (N=257) tested the hypothesis that as group members identify more strongly with their group (salience) their evaluations of leadership effectiveness become more strongly influenced by the extent to which their demographic stereotype-based impressions of their leader match the norm of the group (prototypicality). Participants, with more or less traditional gender attitudes (orientation), were members, under high or low group salience conditions (salience), of non-interactive laboratory groups that had “instrumental” or “expressive” group norms (norm), and a male or female leader (leader gender). As predicted, these four variables interacted significantly to affect perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Reconfiguration of the eight conditions formed by orientation, norm and leader gender produced a single prototypicality variable. Irrespective of participant gender, prototypical leaders were considered more effective in high then low salience groups, and in high salience groups prototypical leaders were more effective than less prototypical leaders. Alternative explanations based on status characteristics and role incongruity theory do not account well for the findings. Implications of these results for the glass ceiling effect and for a wider social identity analysis of the impact of demographic group membership on leadership in small groups are discussed.

Automatic tracking, super-resolution and recognition of human faces from surveillance video

Identifying an individual from surveillance video is a difficult, time consuming and labour intensive process. The proposed system aims to streamline this process by filtering out unwanted scenes and enhancing an individual's face through super-resolution. An automatic face recognition system is then used to identify the subject or present the human operator with likely matches from a database. A person tracker is used to speed up the subject detection and super-resolution process by tracking moving subjects and cropping a region of interest around the subject's face to reduce the number and size of the image frames to be super-resolved respectively. In this paper, experiments have been conducted to demonstrate how the optical flow super-resolution method used improves surveillance imagery for visual inspection as well as automatic face recognition on an Eigenface and Elastic Bunch Graph Matching system. The optical flow based method has also been benchmarked against the ``hallucination'' algorithm, interpolation methods and the original low-resolution images. Results show that both super-resolution algorithms improved recognition rates significantly. Although the hallucination method resulted in slightly higher recognition rates, the optical flow method produced less artifacts and more visually correct images suitable for human consumption.

A critical analysis of sperm donation practices : the personal and social effects of disrupting the unity of biological and social relatedness for the offspring

This thesis critically analyses sperm donation practices from a child-centred perspective. It examines the effects, both personal and social, of disrupting the unity of biological and social relatedness in families affected by donor conception. It examines how disruption is facilitated by a process of mediation which is detailed using a model provided by Sunderland (2002). This model identifies mediating movements - alienation, translation, re-contextualisation and absorption - which help to explain the powerful and dominating material, and social and political processes which occur in biotechnology, or in reproductive technology in this case. The understanding of such movements and mediation of meanings is inspired by the complementary work of Silverstone (1999) and Sunderland. This model allows for a more critical appreciation of the movement of meaning from previously inalienable aspects of life to alienable products through biotechnology (Sunderland, 2002). Once this mediation in donor conception is subjected to critical examination here, it is then approached from different angles of investigation. The thesis posits that two conflicting notions of the self are being applied to fertility-frustrated adults and the offspring of reproductive interventions. Adults using reproductive interventions receive support to maximise their genetic continuity, but in so doing they create and dismiss the corresponding genetic discontinuity produced for the offspring. The offspring’s kinship and identity are then framed through an experimental postmodernist notion, presenting them as social rather than innate constructs. The adults using the reproductive intervention, on the other hand, have their identity and kinship continuity framed and supported as normative, innate, and based on genetic connection. This use of shifting frameworks is presented as unjust and harmful, creating double standards and a corrosion of kinship values, connection and intelligibility between generations; indeed, it is put forward as adult-centric. The analysis of other forms of human kinship dislocation provided by this thesis explores an under-utilised resource which is used to counter the commonly held opinion that any disruption of social and genetic relatedness for donor offspring is insignificant. The experiences of adoption and the stolen generations are used to inform understanding of the personal and social effects of such kinship disruption and potential reunion for donor offspring. These examples, along with laws governing international human rights, further strengthen the appeal here for normative principles and protections based on collective knowledge and standards to be applied to children of reproductive technology. The thesis presents the argument that the framing and regulation of reproductive technology is excessively influenced by industry providers and users. The interests of these parties collide with and corrode any accurate assessments and protections afforded to the children of reproductive technology. The thesis seeks to counter such encroachments and concludes by presenting these protections, frameworks, and human experiences as resources which can help to address the problems created for the offspring of such reproductive interventions, thereby illustrating why these reproductive interventions should be discontinued.

Improving automatic speaker verification using SVM techniques

Automatic recognition of people is an active field of research with important forensic and security applications. In these applications, it is not always possible for the subject to be in close proximity to the system. Voice represents a human behavioural trait which can be used to recognise people in such situations. Automatic Speaker Verification (ASV) is the process of verifying a persons identity through the analysis of their speech and enables recognition of a subject at a distance over a telephone channel { wired or wireless. A significant amount of research has focussed on the application of Gaussian mixture model (GMM) techniques to speaker verification systems providing state-of-the-art performance. GMM's are a type of generative classifier trained to model the probability distribution of the features used to represent a speaker. Recently introduced to the field of ASV research is the support vector machine (SVM). An SVM is a discriminative classifier requiring examples from both positive and negative classes to train a speaker model. The SVM is based on margin maximisation whereby a hyperplane attempts to separate classes in a high dimensional space. SVMs applied to the task of speaker verification have shown high potential, particularly when used to complement current GMM-based techniques in hybrid systems. This work aims to improve the performance of ASV systems using novel and innovative SVM-based techniques. Research was divided into three main themes: session variability compensation for SVMs; unsupervised model adaptation; and impostor dataset selection. The first theme investigated the differences between the GMM and SVM domains for the modelling of session variability | an aspect crucial for robust speaker verification. Techniques developed to improve the robustness of GMMbased classification were shown to bring about similar benefits to discriminative SVM classification through their integration in the hybrid GMM mean supervector SVM classifier. Further, the domains for the modelling of session variation were contrasted to find a number of common factors, however, the SVM-domain consistently provided marginally better session variation compensation. Minimal complementary information was found between the techniques due to the similarities in how they achieved their objectives. The second theme saw the proposal of a novel model for the purpose of session variation compensation in ASV systems. Continuous progressive model adaptation attempts to improve speaker models by retraining them after exploiting all encountered test utterances during normal use of the system. The introduction of the weight-based factor analysis model provided significant performance improvements of over 60% in an unsupervised scenario. SVM-based classification was then integrated into the progressive system providing further benefits in performance over the GMM counterpart. Analysis demonstrated that SVMs also hold several beneficial characteristics to the task of unsupervised model adaptation prompting further research in the area. In pursuing the final theme, an innovative background dataset selection technique was developed. This technique selects the most appropriate subset of examples from a large and diverse set of candidate impostor observations for use as the SVM background by exploiting the SVM training process. This selection was performed on a per-observation basis so as to overcome the shortcoming of the traditional heuristic-based approach to dataset selection. Results demonstrate the approach to provide performance improvements over both the use of the complete candidate dataset and the best heuristically-selected dataset whilst being only a fraction of the size. The refined dataset was also shown to generalise well to unseen corpora and be highly applicable to the selection of impostor cohorts required in alternate techniques for speaker verification.

Skydweller and representations of the adolescent crisis : group identity versus alienation

This document contains a creative work – the text of a young adult novel, Skydweller – and an exegesis discussing the ways in which identity and the adolescent crisis of group identity versus alienation are represented in young adult science fiction/fantasy novels.

ACE's role in developing Australia's human capital : a structural analysis

This project explored ways in which Adult and Community Education (ACE) could make a greater contribution to the human capital development outcome under the National Reform Agenda (NRA), and increase the number of skilled workers in Australia. Data on current vocational and non-vocational ACE programs was analysed. Strategies to improve ACE were collated for consideration by government authorities and ACE providers. There is much diversity in the perceived role and activities of ACE. Researchers have found it challenging to create a profile that depicts the whole sector, particularly in the absence of much reliable, valid and comparable data on ACE activities and outcomes. However, there is evidence indicative of ACE’s assistance in re-engaging with learning and training, and initiating pathways to further training or employment. The potential for ACE to make a bigger contribution to skilling Australia is recognised by governments across the nation (Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education Committee, 1997). Yet policy changes to facilitate an increased role of ACE in the skilling process, and resourcing for ACE programs continue to receive less attention. This project explored three research questions: • What does the current profile of the ACE sector look like? • How is ACE contributing to reducing the skills deficit? • How can ACE enhance its contributions to reduce the skills deficit and achieve the human capital development outcome of the National Reform Agenda? The responsiveness

QUT speaker identity verification system for EVALITA 2009

This document outlines the system submitted by the Speech and Audio Research Laboratory at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) for the Speaker Identity Verication: Application task of EVALITA 2009. This submission consisted of a score-level fusion of three component systems, a joint-factor GMM system and two SVM systems using GLDS and GMM supervector kernels. Development and evaluation results are presented, demonstrating the effectiveness of this fused system approach.