The impact of rhetoric and reality on community anticipation of risk in the development of multi-purpose services (MPS) : A grounded theory study

better health service.Conclusion:This research provides an insight into the perceptions of the rhetoric and reality of community member involvement in the process of developing multi-purpose services. It revealed a grounded theory in which fear and trust were intrinsic to a process of changing from a traditional hospital service to the acceptance of a new model of health care provided at a multi-purpose service.

Raman microscopy study of tyrolite : a multi-anion arsenate mineral

The Raman spectrum of tyrolite, CaCu5(AsO4)2(CO3)(OH) 4.6H2O, from Brixlegg, Tyrol, Austria, is reported. Comparison with copper hydroxy-arsenate and basic carbonates was used to achieve assignments of the observed bands. The AsO43- group is characterized by two υ4 modes around 433 and 480 cm-1 plus a broad band around 840 cm-1 as the υ overlapping with the υ. The υ3 mode is observed as a single band around 355 cm -1. The CO32- υ1 mode is observed around 1035 and 1088 cm-1, although this assignment is difficult because of the in-plane OH bending vibrations at similar frequencies. Two υ4 modes are assigned to the 717 and 755 cm-1 bands. The υ3 mode is present as three bands at 1431, 1463, and 1498 cm-1. A large split caused by bridging carbonates may explain the band at 1370 cm -1. The H2O bending region shows two bands at 1635 and 1667 cm-1 together with stretching modes around 3204 and 3303 cm-1, the first associated with adsorbed H2O, while the second indicates more strongly bonded H2O. Three bands around 3534, 3438, and 3379 cm -1 are assigned to OH stretching modes of the OH groups in the crystal structure. The 202, 262, 301, 524, and 534 cm-1 bands are assigned to Cu-OH bending and stretching modes, whereas the bands around 179, 202, and 217 cm-1 are ascribed to O-(Ca, Cu)-O(H) with the O(H) at much greater distance from the cation. The bands around 503, 570, and 598 cm-1 are ascribed to the Cu-O stretching modes.

Selection of solar energy for green building using superiority and inferiority multi-criteria ranking (SIR) method

Green energy is one of the key factors, driving down electricity bill and zero carbon emission generating electricity to green building. However, the climate change and environmental policies are accelerating people to use renewable energy instead of coal-fired (convention type) energy for green building that energy is not environmental friendly. Therefore, solar energy is one of the clean energy solving environmental impact and paying less in electricity fee. The method of solar energy is collecting sun from solar array and saves in battery from which provides necessary electricity to whole house with zero carbon emission. However, in the market a lot of solar arrays suppliers, the aims of this paper attempted to use superiority and inferiority multi-criteria ranking (SIR) method with 13 constraints establishing I-flows and S-flows matrices to evaluate four alternatives solar energies and determining which alternative is the best, providing power to sustainable building. Furthermore, SIR is well-known structured approach of multi-criteria decision support tools and gradually used in construction and building. The outcome of this paper significantly gives an indication to user selecting solar energy.

Exploring the role of the governing body (board) in information technology governance : a study of Australian universities

In this thesis, I advance the understanding of information technology (IT) governance research and corporate governance research by considering the question “How do boards govern IT?” The importance of IT to business has increased over the last decade, but there has been little academic research which has focused on boards and their role in the governance of IT (Van Grembergen, De Haes and Guldentops, 2004). Most of the research on information technology governance (ITG) has focused on advancing the understanding and measurement of the components of the ITG model (Buckby, Best & Stewart, 2008; Wilkin & Chenhall, 2010), a model recommended by the IT Governance Institute (2003) as ‘best practice’ for boards to use in governing IT. IT governance is considered to be the responsibility of the board and is said to form an important subset of an organisation’s corporate governance processes (Borth & Bradley, 2008). Boards need to govern IT as a result of the large capital investment in IT resources and high dependency on IT by organisations. Van Grembergen, De Haes and Guldentops (2004) and De Haes & Van Grembergen (2009) indicate that corporate governance matters are not able to be effectively discharged unless IT is being governed properly, and call for further specific research on the role of the board in ITG. Researchers also indicate that the link between corporate governance and IT governance has been neglected (Borth & Bradley, 2008; Musson & Jordan, 2005; Bhattacharjya & Chang, 2008). This thesis will address this gap in the ITG literature by providing the bridge between the ITG and corporate governance literatures. My thesis uses a critical realist epistemology and a mixed method approach to gather insights into my research question. In the first phase of my research I develop a survey instrument to assess whether boards consider the components of the ITG model in governing IT. The results of this first study indicated that directors do not conceptualise their role in governing IT using the elements of the ITG model. Thus, I moved to focus on whether prominent corporate governance theories might elucidate how boards govern IT. In the second phase of the research, I used a qualitative inductive case based study to assess whether agency, stewardship and resource dependence theories explain how boards govern IT in Australian universities. As the first in-depth study of university IT governance processes, my research contributes to the ITG research field by revealing that Australian university board governance of IT is characterized by a combination of agency theory and stewardship theory behaviours and processes. The study also identified strong links between a university’s IT structure and evidence of agency and stewardship theories. This link provides insight into the structures element of the emerging enterprise governance of IT framework (Van Grembergen, De Haes & Guldentops, 2004; De Haes & Van Grembergen, 2009; Van Grembergen & De Haes, 2009b; Ko & Fink, 2010). My research makes an important contribution to governance research by identifying a key link between corporate and ITG literatures and providing insight into board IT governance processes. The research conducted in my thesis should encourage future researchers to continue to explore the links between corporate and IT governance research.

A hardware-based multi-disciplinary design optimization method for aeronautical applications

There are many applications in aeronautics where there exist strong couplings between disciplines. One practical example is within the context of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) automation where there exists strong coupling between operation constraints, aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics, mission and path planning. UAV path planning can be done either online or offline. The current state of path planning optimisation online UAVs with high performance computation is not at the same level as its ground-based offline optimizer's counterpart, this is mainly due to the volume, power and weight limitations on the UAV; some small UAVs do not have the computational power needed for some optimisation and path planning task. In this paper, we describe an optimisation method which can be applied to Multi-disciplinary Design Optimisation problems and UAV path planning problems. Hardware-based design optimisation techniques are used. The power and physical limitations of UAV, which may not be a problem in PC-based solutions, can be approached by utilizing a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) as an algorithm accelerator. The inevitable latency produced by the iterative process of an Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) is concealed by exploiting the parallelism component within the dataflow paradigm of the EA on an FPGA architecture. Results compare software PC-based solutions and the hardware-based solutions for benchmark mathematical problems as well as a simple real world engineering problem. Results also indicate the practicality of the method which can be used for more complex single and multi objective coupled problems in aeronautical applications.

Hybrid-Game Strategies for multi-objective design optimization in engineering

A number of Game Strategies (GS) have been developed in past decades. They have been used in the fields of economics, engineering, computer science and biology due to their efficiency in solving design optimization problems. In addition, research in multi-objective (MO) and multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) has focused on developing robust and efficient optimization methods to produce a set of high quality solutions with low computational cost. In this paper, two optimization techniques are considered; the first optimization method uses multi-fidelity hierarchical Pareto optimality. The second optimization method uses the combination of two Game Strategies; Nash-equilibrium and Pareto optimality. The paper shows how Game Strategies can be hybridised and coupled to Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEA) to accelerate convergence speed and to produce a set of high quality solutions. Numerical results obtained from both optimization methods are compared in terms of computational expense and model quality. The benefits of using Hybrid-Game Strategies are clearly demonstrated

Robotics, Vision and Control : Fundamental Algorithms in MATLAB

The practice of robotics and computer vision each involve the application of computational algorithms to data. The research community has developed a very large body of algorithms but for a newcomer to the field this can be quite daunting. For more than 10 years the author has maintained two open-source MATLAB® Toolboxes, one for robotics and one for vision. They provide implementations of many important algorithms and allow users to work with real problems, not just trivial examples. This new book makes the fundamental algorithms of robotics, vision and control accessible to all. It weaves together theory, algorithms and examples in a narrative that covers robotics and computer vision separately and together. Using the latest versions of the Toolboxes the author shows how complex problems can be decomposed and solved using just a few simple lines of code. The topics covered are guided by real problems observed by the author over many years as a practitioner of both robotics and computer vision. It is written in a light but informative style, it is easy to read and absorb, and includes over 1000 MATLAB® and Simulink® examples and figures. The book is a real walk through the fundamentals of mobile robots, navigation, localization, arm-robot kinematics, dynamics and joint level control, then camera models, image processing, feature extraction and multi-view geometry, and finally bringing it all together with an extensive discussion of visual servo systems.

Measurement of total body water (TBW) and total energy expenditure (TEE) using stable isotopes

Understanding the relationship between diet, physical activity and health in humans requires accurate measurement of body composition and daily energy expenditure. Stable isotopes provide a means of measuring total body water and daily energy expenditure under free-living conditions. While the use of isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) for the analysis of 2H (Deuterium) and 18O (Oxygen-18) is well established in the field of human energy metabolism research, numerous questions remain regarding the factors which influence analytical and measurement error using this methodology. This thesis was comprised of four studies with the following emphases. The aim of Study 1 was to determine the analytical and measurement error of the IRMS with regard to sample handling under certain conditions. Study 2 involved the comparison of TEE (Total daily energy expenditure) using two commonly employed equations. Further, saliva and urine samples, collected at different times, were used to determine if clinically significant differences would occur. Study 3 was undertaken to determine the appropriate collection times for TBW estimates and derived body composition values. Finally, Study 4, a single case study to investigate if TEE measures are affected when the human condition changes due to altered exercise and water intake. The aim of Study 1 was to validate laboratory approaches to measure isotopic enrichment to ensure accurate (to international standards), precise (reproducibility of three replicate samples) and linear (isotope ratio was constant over the expected concentration range) results. This established the machine variability for the IRMS equipment in use at Queensland University for both TBW and TEE. Using either 0.4mL or 0.5mL sample volumes for both oxygen-18 and deuterium were statistically acceptable (p>0.05) and showed a within analytical variance of 5.8 Delta VSOW units for deuterium, 0.41 Delta VSOW units for oxygen-18. This variance was used as “within analytical noise” to determine sample deviations. It was also found that there was no influence of equilibration time on oxygen-18 or deuterium values when comparing the minimum (oxygen-18: 24hr; deuterium: 3 days) and maximum (oxygen-18: and deuterium: 14 days) equilibration times. With regard to preparation using the vacuum line, any order of preparation is suitable as the TEE values fall within 8% of each other regardless of preparation order. An 8% variation is acceptable for the TEE values due to biological and technical errors (Schoeller, 1988). However, for the automated line, deuterium must be assessed first followed by oxygen-18 as the automated machine line does not evacuate tubes but merely refills them with an injection of gas for a predetermined time. Any fractionation (which may occur for both isotopes), would cause a slight elevation in the values and hence a lower TEE. The purpose of the second and third study was to investigate the use of IRMS to measure the TEE and TBW of and to validate the current IRMS practices in use with regard to sample collection times of urine and saliva, the use of two TEE equations from different research centers and the body composition values derived from these TEE and TBW values. Following the collection of a fasting baseline urine and saliva sample, 10 people (8 women, 2 men) were dosed with a doubly labeled water does comprised of 1.25g 10% oxygen-18 and 0.1 g 100% deuterium/kg body weight. The samples were collected hourly for 12 hrs on the first day and then morning, midday, and evening samples were collected for the next 14 days. The samples were analyzed using an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. For the TBW, time to equilibration was determined using three commonly employed data analysis approaches. Isotopic equilibration was reached in 90% of the sample by hour 6, and in 100% of the sample by hour 7. With regard to the TBW estimations, the optimal time for urine collection was found to be between hours 4 and 10 as to where there was no significant difference between values. In contrast, statistically significant differences in TBW estimations were found between hours 1-3 and from 11-12 when compared with hours 4-10. Most of the individuals in this study were in equilibrium after 7 hours. The TEE equations of Prof Dale Scholler (Chicago, USA, IAEA) and Prof K.Westerterp were compared with that of Prof. Andrew Coward (Dunn Nutrition Centre). When comparing values derived from samples collected in the morning and evening there was no effect of time or equation on resulting TEE values. The fourth study was a pilot study (n=1) to test the variability in TEE as a result of manipulations in fluid consumption and level of physical activity; the magnitude of change which may be expected in a sedentary adult. Physical activity levels were manipulated by increasing the number of steps per day to mimic the increases that may result when a sedentary individual commences an activity program. The study was comprised of three sub-studies completed on the same individual over a period of 8 months. There were no significant changes in TBW across all studies, even though the elimination rates changed with the supplemented water intake and additional physical activity. The extra activity may not have sufficiently strenuous enough and the water intake high enough to cause a significant change in the TBW and hence the CO2 production and TEE values. The TEE values measured show good agreement based on the estimated values calculated on an RMR of 1455 kcal/day, a DIT of 10% of TEE and activity based on measured steps. The covariance values tracked when plotting the residuals were found to be representative of “well-behaved” data and are indicative of the analytical accuracy. The ratio and product plots were found to reflect the water turnover and CO2 production and thus could, with further investigation, be employed to identify the changes in physical activity.

Multi-objective optimisation of bijective s-boxes

In this paper we investigate the heuristic construction of bijective s-boxes that satisfy a wide range of cryptographic criteria including algebraic complexity, high nonlinearity, low autocorrelation and have none of the known weaknesses including linear structures, fixed points or linear redundancy. We demonstrate that the power mappings can be evolved (by iterated mutation operators alone) to generate bijective s-boxes with the best known tradeoffs among the considered criteria. The s-boxes found are suitable for use directly in modern encryption algorithms.