Can risk management boost the supply of affordable housing development and management?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the risk management process conducted by some private and not-for-profit affordable housing providers in South East Queensland, and draw conclusions about the relationship between risk assessments/responses and past experiences.----- Design/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews of selected non-government housing providers have been conducted to facilitate an understanding of their approach to risk assessment in developing and in managing affordable housing projects. Qualitative data are analysed using thematic analysis to find emerging themes suggested by interview participants.----- Findings: The paper finds that informal risk management process is used as part of normal business process in accordance with industry standards. Many interviewees agree that the recognition of financial risk and the fear of community rejection of such housing projects have restrained them from committing to such investment projects. The levels of acceptance of risk are not always consistent across housing providers which create opportunities to conduct multi-stakeholder partnership to reduce overall risk.----- Research limitations/implications: The paper has implications for developers or investors who seek to include affordable housing as part of their portfolio. However, data collected in the study are a cross-section of interviews that will not include the impact on recent tax incentives offers by the Australian Commonwealth Government.----- Practical implications: The study suggests that implementing improvements to the risk mitigation and management framework may assist in promoting the supply of affordable housing by non-government providers.----- Originality/value: The focus of the study is the interaction between partnerships and risk management in development and management of affordable rental housing.

Moving towards a knowledge city : Brisbane's experience in knowledge-based urban development

In the global knowledge economy, knowledge-intensive industries and knowledge workers are extensively seen as the primary factors to improve the welfare and competitiveness of cities. To attract and retain such industries and workers, cities produce knowledge-based urban development strategies, where such strategising is also an important development mechanism for cities and their economies. This paper investigates Brisbane’s knowledge-based urban development strategies that support generation, attraction, and retention of investment and talent. The paper provides a clear understanding on the policy frameworks, and relevant applications of Brisbane’s knowledge-based urban development experience in becoming a prosperous knowledge city.

The role of intermediaries in the implementation and development of asynchronous rural access

In Orissa state, India, the DakNet system supports asynchronous Internet communication between an urban hub and rural nodes. DakNet is noteworthy in many respects, not least in how the system leverages existing transport infrastructure. Wi-Fi transceivers mounted on local buses send and receive user data from roadside kiosks, for later transfer to/from the Internet via wireless protocols. This store-and-forward system allows DakNet to offer asynchronous communication capacity to rural users at low cost. The original ambition of the DakNet system was to provide email and SMS facilities to rural communities. Our 2008 study of the communicative ecology surrounding the DakNet system revealed that this ambition has now evolved – in response to market demand – to the extent that e-shopping (rather than email) has become the primary driver behind the DakNet offer.

Sustainable urban futures : an ecological approach to sustainable urban development

In recent years, cities show increasing signs of environmental problems due to the negative impacts of urban activities. The degradation and depletion of natural resources, climate change and development pressure on green areas have become major concerns for cities. In response to these problems, urban planning policies have shifted to a sustainable focus and authorities have begun to develop new strategies for improving the quality of urban ecosystems. An extremely important function of an urban ecosystem is to provide healthy and sustainable environments for both natural systems and communities. Therefore, ecological planning is a functional requirement in the establishment of sustainable built environment. With ecological planning human needs are supplied while natural resources are used in the most effective and sustainable manner. And the maintenance of ecological balance is sustained. Protecting human and environmental health, having healthy ecosystems, reducing environmental pollution and providing green spaces are just a few of the many benefits of ecological planning. In this context, the paper briefly presents a short overview of the importance of the implementation of ecological planning into sustainable urban development. Furthermore, the paper defines the conceptual framework of a new method for developing sustainable urban ecosystems through ecological planning approach. In the future of the research, this model will be developed as a guideline for the assessment of the ecological sustainability in built environments.

A decision support system for sustainable urban development : the integrated land use and transportation indexing model

The broad definition of sustainable development at the early stage of its introduction has caused confusion and hesitation among local authorities and planning professionals. The main difficulties are experience in employing loosely-defined principles of sustainable development in setting policies and goals. The question of how this theory/rhetoric-practice gap could be filled will be the theme of this study. One of the widely employed sustainability accounting approaches by governmental organisations, triple bottom line, and applicability of this approach to sustainable urban development policies will be examined. When incorporating triple bottom line considerations with the environmental impact assessment techniques, the framework of GIS-based decision support system that helps decision-makers in selecting policy option according to the economic, environmental and social impacts will be introduced. In order to embrace sustainable urban development policy considerations, the relationship between urban form, travel pattern and socio-economic attributes should be clarified. This clarification associated with other input decision support systems will picture the holistic state of the urban settings in terms of sustainability. In this study, grid-based indexing methodology will be employed to visualise the degree of compatibility of selected scenarios with the designated sustainable urban future. In addition, this tool will provide valuable knowledge about the spatial dimension of the sustainable development. It will also give fine details about the possible impacts of urban development proposals by employing disaggregated spatial data analysis (e.g. land-use, transportation, urban services, population density, pollution, etc.). The visualisation capacity of this tool will help decision makers and other stakeholders compare and select alternative of future urban developments.

Decentred optical axes and aberrations along principal visual field meridians

Suggestions that peripheral imagery may affect the development of refractive error have led to interest in the variation in refraction and aberration across the visual field. It is shown that, if the optical system of the eye is rotationally symmetric about an optical axis which does not coincide with the visual axis, measurements of refraction and aberration made along the horizontal and vertical meridians of the visual field will show asymmetry about the visual axis. The departures from symmetry are modelled for second-order aberrations, refractive components and third-order coma. These theoretical results are compared with practical measurements from the literature. The experimental data support the concept that departures from symmetry about the visual axis in the measurements of crossed-cylinder astigmatism J45 and J180 are largely explicable in terms of a decentred optical axis. Measurements of the mean sphere M suggest, however, that the retinal curvature must differ in the horizontal and vertical meridians.

Sustainable urban development : a quadruple bottom line assessment framework

Sustainable development has long been promoted as the best answer to the world's environmental problems. This term has generated mass appeal as it implies that the development of the built environment and its associated resource consumption can both be achieved without jeopardising the natural environment. In the urban context, sustainability issues have been reflected in the pomotion of sustainable urbanisation in a manner that allows future generations to repeat this process. This paper attempts to highlight an increasing urgency in formulating a suitable model for assessing sustainability at urban level, because this is where the bulk of a nation's population reside, and where sustainability problems mostly occur. It will also point out to the increasing importance of governance in facilitating urban sustainability research. This assessment involves the use of physical, social, environmental and goverance aspects in assessing the extent to which development of an urban settlement is sustainable. Specifically, this assessment model is carried out to determine whether or not sustainable urban development pratice is implemented in the provision of residential development, and in particular whether the development of master-planned residential communities have more desireable outcomes compared to traditional residential subdivision.

Effect of orthokeratology on peripheral aberrations of the eye

Purpose: To investigate the effect of orthokeratology on peripheral aberrations in two myopic volunteers. Methods: The subjects wore reverse geometry orthokeratology lenses overnight and were monitored for 2 weeks of wear. They underwent corneal topography, peripheral refraction (out to ±34° along the horizontal visual field) and peripheral aberration measurements across the 42° × 32° central visual field using a modified Hartmann-Shack aberrometer. Results: Spherical equivalent refraction was corrected for the central 25° of the visual fields beyond which it gradually returned to its preorthokeratology values. There were increases in axial coma, spherical aberration, higher order root mean square aberrations, and total root-mean-squared aberrations (excluding defocus). The rates of change of vertical and horizontal coma across the field changed in sign. Total root mean square aberrations showed a quadratic rate of change across the visual field which was greater subsequent to orthokeratology. Conclusion: Although orthokeratology can correct peripheral relative hypermetropia it induces dramatic increases in higher-order aberrations across the field

A Conceptualisation of Courseware Development Process in Malaysian Educational Context

Multimedia-based learning has been accepted as an effective learning tool and has broadly prevailed in various types of education around the world. The Malaysian ministry of education has also adopted this information communication technology (ICT) as the means of an education reformation project called, ‘Smart School’ since 1998, aiming to improve all Malaysian Primary and Secondary students’ learning ability, attitudes, achievement, and further enhance teachers’ teaching performance. As a result, Malaysian Ministry of Education has distributed a number of interactive courseware of the key learning domains such as Mathematics, Science, Bahasa Melayu (Malay language), and English. According to recent reports by Malaysian Ministry of Education (MOE), however, the courseware has not been effectively used in schools, and many researchers point out there are vital issues concerning the interface and interaction design. Within this context, this paper presumes that one of the main reasons could derive from a structural aspect of the course development process that is devaluing or ignoring the importance of interface and interaction design. Therefore, it is imperative to conceptualise the courseware development process in terms of creating interactive and quality learning experiences through defining the stakeholders’ needs in terms of better learning and teaching. Within this context, this paper reviews the current development process and proposes a new concept called the interactive communication component which enables courseware developers to embed interactive and quality learning experiences into their courseware development process. The key objective is to provide opportunities to discuss the courseware development process from the different stakeholders’ perspectives of the educational courseware in a Malaysian context.

The Quality of Interface Design for Educational Courseware Development in Malaysian Educational Context

Interactive educational courseware has been adopted in diverse education sectors such as primary, secondary, tertiary education, vocational and professional training. In Malaysian educational context, the ministry of education has implemented Smart School Project that aims to increase high level of academic achievement in primary and secondary schools by using interactive educational courseware. However, many researchers have reported that many coursewares fail to accommodate the learner and teacher needs. In particular, the interface design is not appropriately designed in terms of quality of learning. This paper reviews educational courseware development process in terms of defining quality of interface design and suggests a conceptual model of interface design through the integration of design components and interactive learning experience into the development process. As a result, it defines the concept of interactive learning experience in a more practical approach in order to implement each stage of the development process in a seamless and integrated way.

Online nail art application : proceeding of the project development

Online Nail Artist (ONA) project aims to create a web-based application for nail salon customers. The application will help customers to customize their hands virtually and find suitable nail colors. The main research question is to reconfigure user experience in relation to product service in terms of customization of user needs. As results, the key function of the application will be to customize a virtual hand image by selecting a matched skin tone, a nail length, and a nail shape in accordance with their hands. The objectives of the project proceeding are to 1) identify customers’ experience in relation to the product features through preliminary research on existing products; 2) create a conceptual framework of the project development in order to reflect the user experience identified; and 3) present a mock up which include key features of the ONA for the future development.

Influence of presbyopic corrections on driving-related eye and head movements

Purpose: To investigate whether wearing different presbyopic vision corrections alters the pattern of eye and head movements when viewing and responding to driving-related traffic scenes. Methods: Participants included 20 presbyopes (mean age: 56.1 ± 5.7 years) who had no experience of wearing presbyopic vision corrections, apart from single vision (SV) reading spectacles. Each participant wore five different vision corrections: distance SV lenses, progressive addition spectacle lenses (PAL), bifocal spectacle lenses (BIF), monovision (MV) and multifocal contact lenses (MTF CL). For each visual condition, participants were required to view videotape recordings of traffic scenes, track a reference vehicle, and identify a series of peripherally presented targets. Digital numerical display panels were also included as near visual stimuli (simulating the visual displays of a vehicle speedometer and radio). Eye and head movements were measured, and the accuracy of target recognition was also recorded. Results: The path length of eye movements while viewing and responding to driving-related traffic scenes was significantly longer when wearing BIF and PAL than MV and MTF CL (both p ≤ 0.013). The path length of head movements was greater with SV, BIF, and PAL than MV and MTF CL (all p < 0.001). Target recognition and brake response times were not significantly affected by vision correction, whereas target recognition was less accurate when the near stimulus was located at eccentricities inferiorly and to the left, rather than directly below the primary position of gaze (p = 0.008), regardless of vision correction. Conclusions: Different presbyopic vision corrections alter eye and head movement patterns. The longer path length of eye and head movements and greater number of saccades associated with the spectacle presbyopic corrections may affect some aspects of driving performance.

The Autistic Behavioural Indicators Instrument (ABII) : development and instrument utility in discriminating autistic disorder from speech and language impairment and typical development

The Autistic Behavioural Indicators Instrument (ABII) is an 18-item instrument developed to identify children with Autistic Disorder (AD) based on the presence of unique autistic behavioural indicators. The ABII was administered to 20 children with AD, 20 children with speech and language impairment (SLI) and 20 typically developing (TD) children aged 2-6 years. Results indicated that the ABII discriminated children diagnosed with AD from those diagnosed with SLI and those who were TD, based on the presence of specific social attention, sensory, and behavioural symptoms. A combination of symptomology across these domains correctly classified 100% of children with and without AD. The paper concludes that the ABII shows considerable promise as an instrument for the early identification of AD.