Use and usefulnss of PDSs in the financial planning context

Following considerable criticism of the complexity and lack of readability of product disclosure statements (PDSs), regulatory changes were introduced requiring shorter PDSs for certain investment products. This paper reports the findings of an online survey of financial planners regarding use of managed investment scheme (MIS) PDSs with clients, the perceived usefulness of PDSs as an information source, and their views on shorter PDSs. Our findings highlight major concerns about the usefulness of the PDS and disclosure reforms.

Footprints to pathways : reconciliation action planning in industry to sustain Indigenous employment in Queensland

This paper provides an introductory discussion to a study focusing on industry Reconciliation Action Plans (RAP) and sustaining Indigenous employment in Queensland. Indigenous people continue to experience deep and persistent disadvantage in employment, which limits their life prospects (McLachlan, Gilgillan & Gordon, 2013). A major contributing factor to this detriment is irregular employment and or unemployment. A reasonable standard of living has been found to be determined by access to economic resources such as income and wealth. Denial of this access, denies access to income streams, social status, and engagement in meaningful activities. Hence, job loss and joblessness are triggers of disadvantage (McLachlan, et al., 2013). For young Indigenous people, lack of access has lasting effects particularly if they have multiple characteristics that place them at risk of disadvantage. The project aims to develop knowledge and understanding of Industry RAPs mediate employment opportunities for Indigenous people and how young Indigenous people conceive of their employment options and the processes by which employers can best support Indigenous people. It adopts two theoretical frameworks to investigate the aim of the study : (1) Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of communities of practice and, (2) Sen’s (1993) capability approach which provides a structure for examining individual well-being in the context of societal inequality. This paper discusses the first research question of the study: What are Industry Reconciliation Action Plans? What is included in RAPs? Why do Industries develop RAPs? How do RAPs attract, recruit, retain, and tenure Indigenous people? The project’s significance rests with its focus on Industry, employers, policies and practices that aid the attraction and retention of Indigenous people in employment.

Optimal camera planning under versatile user constraints in multi-camera image processing systems

The selection of optimal camera configurations (camera locations, orientations, etc.) for multi-camera networks remains an unsolved problem. Previous approaches largely focus on proposing various objective functions to achieve different tasks. Most of them, however, do not generalize well to large scale networks. To tackle this, we propose a statistical framework of the problem as well as propose a trans-dimensional simulated annealing algorithm to effectively deal with it. We compare our approach with a state-of-the-art method based on binary integer programming (BIP) and show that our approach offers similar performance on small scale problems. However, we also demonstrate the capability of our approach in dealing with large scale problems and show that our approach produces better results than two alternative heuristics designed to deal with the scalability issue of BIP. Last, we show the versatility of our approach using a number of specific scenarios.

FixVegas : facilitating multi-directional communication between government officials and citizens to support urban planning in the city of Brisbane

The goal of this project was to develop a mobile application for the iOS platform, that would support the partner of this project, the Brisbane City Council, in stronger engage citizens in participating in urban planning and development projects. The resulting application is an extended version of FixVegas, a system that allows citizens to report maintenance request to the Brisbane City Council through their smartphone. The new version of the system makes all incoming requests publicly available within the application, allows users to support, comment or disapprove of these. As an addition, the concept of the idea has been introduced. Citizens can submit suggestions for improving the city to the municipality, discuss them with other fellow citizens and, ideally, also with Council representatives. The city officials as well are provided with the ability of publishing development project as an idea and let citizens deliberate it. This way, bidirectional communication between these two parties is created. A web interface complements the iPhone application. The system has been developed after the principle of User Centered Design, by assessing user needs, creating and evaluating prototypes and conducting a user study. The study showed that FixVegas2 has been perceived as an enhancement compared to the previous version, and that the idea concept has been received on a positive note. Indepth questions, such as the influence the system could have on community dynamics or the public participation in urban planning projects could only hardly investigated. However, these findings can be achieved by the alternative study designs that have been proposed.

An interactive planning and scheduling framework for optimising pits-to-crushers operations

In this paper, an interactive planning and scheduling framework are proposed for optimising operations from pits to crushers in ore mining industry. Series of theoretical and practical operations research techniques are investigated to improve the overall efficiency of mining systems due to the facts that mining managers need to tackle optimisation problems within different horizons and with different levels of detail. Under this framework, mine design planning,mine production sequencing and mine transportation scheduling models are integrated and interacted within a whole optimisation system. The proposed integrated framework could be used by mining industry for reducing equipment costs, improving the production efficiency and maximising the net present value.

Doing adaptation differently? Does neoliberalism influence adaptation planning in Queensland?

Australian cities are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Adapting to climate change is a critical task for contemporary spatial planning, one that is widely recognised by the planning profession and beginning to receive substantive attention in planning policy. However adaptation takes place within the context of established spatial governance regimes and planning cultures, and examples of effective adaptation are often grounded in progressive contexts markedly different than Australia. In Australia, planning is subject to strong neoliberal reform agendas (Gleeson & Low, 2000a, 2000b) and national adaptation policies align with neoliberal views (Granberg & Glover, 2011). Planning in Queensland has been subject to deregulation (Buxton et al., 2012) and the continued influence of neoliberalism (Wright & Cleary, 2012). The influence of neoliberalism on climate change adaptation has received little consideration in research and literature. This paper reviews a case study of adaptation planning through the lens of the recent and contemporary influences of neoliberalism. It examines spatial/land-use planning for climate change adaptation in Queensland, identifying the underlying rationales, priorities and strategies. A justification for such an investigation is advanced based on the challenges to planning facilitating adaptation and identified links to neoliberalism. A preliminary analysis of interviews with planners is then used to identify and discuss the ideological influences practitioners perceive in current approaches to adaptation in Queensland and the implications of such.

Motion planning and stochastic control with experimental validation on a planetary rover

Motion planning for planetary rovers must consider control uncertainty in order to maintain the safety of the platform during navigation. Modelling such control uncertainty is difficult due to the complex interaction between the platform and its environment. In this paper, we propose a motion planning approach whereby the outcome of control actions is learned from experience and represented statistically using a Gaussian process regression model. This model is used to construct a control policy for navigation to a goal region in a terrain map built using an on-board RGB-D camera. The terrain includes flat ground, small rocks, and non-traversable rocks. We report the results of 200 simulated and 35 experimental trials that validate the approach and demonstrate the value of considering control uncertainty in maintaining platform safety.

Development of an integrated GIS and land use planning course : impacts of hybrid instructional methods

This study reports an action research undertaken at Queensland University of Technology. It evaluates the effectiveness of the integration of GIS within the substantive domains of an existing land use planning course in 2011. Using student performance, learning experience survey, and questionnaire survey data, it also evaluates the impacts of incorporating hybrid instructional methods (e.g., in-class and online instructional videos) in 2012 and 2013. Results show that: students (re)iterated the importance of GIS in the course justifying the integration; the hybrid methods significantly increased student performance; and unlike replacement, the videos are more suitable as a complement to in-class activity.

Loss reduction planning in electric distribution networks of IRAN until 2025

In this paper, a loss reduction planning in electric distribution networks is presented based on the successful experiences in distribution utilities of IRAN and some developed countries. The necessary technical and economical parameters of planning are calculated from related projects in IRAN. Cost, time, and benefits of every sub-program including seven loss reduction approaches are determined. Finally, the loss reduction program, the benefit per cost, and the return of investment in optimistic and pessimistic conditions are introduced.

Real-time image classification for adaptive mission planning using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Real-time image analysis and classification onboard robotic marine vehicles, such as AUVs, is a key step in the realisation of adaptive mission planning for large-scale habitat mapping in previously unexplored environments. This paper describes a novel technique to train, process, and classify images collected onboard an AUV used in relatively shallow waters with poor visibility and non-uniform lighting. The approach utilises Förstner feature detectors and Laws texture energy masks for image characterisation, and a bag of words approach for feature recognition. To improve classification performance we propose a usefulness gain to learn the importance of each histogram component for each class. Experimental results illustrate the performance of the system in characterisation of a variety of marine habitats and its ability to operate onboard an AUV's main processor suitable for real-time mission planning.

Go with the flow : optimal AUV path planning in coastal environments

This paper describes a novel optimum path planning strategy for long duration AUV operations in environments with time-varying ocean currents. These currents can exceed the maximum achievable speed of the AUV, as well as temporally expose obstacles. In contrast to most other path planning strategies, paths have to be defined in time as well as space. The solution described here exploits ocean currents to achieve mission goals with minimal energy expenditure, or a tradeoff between mission time and required energy. The proposed algorithm uses a parallel swarm search as a means to reduce the susceptibility to large local minima on the complex cost surface. The performance of the optimisation algorithms is evaluated in simulation and experimentally with the Starbug AUV using a validated ocean model of Brisbane’s Moreton Bay.

Working knowledge for collaborative water planning in Australia’s Wet Tropics region

Cooperation between multiple environmental decision-makers and activities is necessary to address the impacts of diffuse sources of agricultural pollution on the water quality entering Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Water planning efforts requires available knowledge to inform this co-operative water program implementation and reform. This paper uses knowledge sharing, translation and feedback features of collaboration as a way to assess knowledge work practices during key phases of the water planning process. This enabled a systematic review of knowledge work practices in partnership with collaborative water planning groups established to inform water quality program investment decisions in the GBR’s Wet Tropics region. This research builds on the growing academic and policy interest in the conditions required to enable different types of knowledge to be successfully used for policy-making by focusing on when, how and why knowledge work to meet these conditions is required.

Remote sensing and core data needed to support planning and policy decision making

A variety of sustainable development research efforts and related activities are attempting to reconcile the issues of conserving our natural resources without limiting economic motivation while also improving our social equity and quality of life. Land use/land cover change, occurring on a global scale, is an aggregate of local land use decisions and profoundly impacts our environment. It is therefore the local decision making process that should be the eventual target of many of the ongoing data collection and research efforts which strive toward supporting a sustainable future. Satellite imagery data is a primary source of data upon which to build a core data set for use by researchers in analyzing this global change. A process is necessary to link global change research, utilizing satellite imagery, to the local land use decision making process. One example of this is the NASA-sponsored Regional Data Center (RDC) prototype. The RDC approach is an attempt to integrate science and technology at the community level. The anticipated result of this complex interaction between research and the decision making communities will be realized in the form of long-term benefits to the public.

Carbon, biodiversity and regional natural resource planning : towards high impact next generation plans

Given the increased importance of adaptation debates in global climate negotiations, pressure to achieve biodiversity, food and water security through managed landscape-scale adaptation will likely increase across the globe over the coming decade. In parallel, emerging market-based, terrestrial greenhouse gas abatement programs present a real opportunity to secure such adaptation to climate change through enhanced landscape resilience. Australia has an opportunity to take advantage of such programs through regional planning aspects of its governance arrangements for NRM. This paper explores necessary reforms to Australia's regional NRM planning systems to ensure that they will be better able to direct the nation's emerging GGA programs to secure enhanced landscape adaptation. © 2013 Planning Institute Australia.

An approach for adaptive and integrated environmental planning to deal with uncertainty in a Great Barrier Reef Catchment

This paper presents the Mossman Mill District Practices Framework. It was developed in the Wet Tropics region within the Great Barrier Reef in north-eastern Australia to describe the environmental benefits of agricultural management practices for the sugar cane industry. The framework translates complex, unclear and overlapping environmental plans, policy and legal arrangements into a simple framework of management practices that landholders can use to improve their management actions. Practices range from those that are old or outdated through to aspirational practices that have the potential to achieve desired resource condition targets. The framework has been applied by stakeholders at multiple scales to better coordinate and integrate a range of policy arrangements to improve natural resource management. It has been used to structure monitoring and evaluation in order to underpin a more adaptive approach to planning at mill district and property scale. Potentially, the framework and approach can be applied across fields of planning where adaptive management is needed. It has the potential to overcome many of the criticisms of property-scale and regional Natural Resource Management.