Quantum coins

One of the earliest cryptographic applications of quantum information was to create quantum digital cash that could not be counterfeited. In this paper, we describe a new type of quantum money: quantum coins, where all coins of the same denomination are represented by identical quantum states. We state desirable security properties such as anonymity and unforgeability and propose two candidate quantum coin schemes: one using black box operations, and another using blind quantum computation.

The risky behaviour of young drivers : developing a measurement tool

The contribution of risky behaviour to the increased crash and fatality rates of young novice drivers is recognised in the road safety literature around the world. Exploring such risky driver behaviour has led to the development of tools like the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) to examine driving violations, errors, and lapses [1]. Whilst the DBQ has been utilised in young novice driver research, some items within this tool seem specifically designed for the older, more experienced driver, whilst others appear to asses both behaviour and related motives. The current study was prompted by the need for a risky behaviour measurement tool that can be utilised with young drivers with a provisional driving licence. Sixty-three items exploring young driver risky behaviour developed from the road safety literature were incorporated into an online survey. These items assessed driver, passenger, journey, car and crash-related issues. A sample of 476 drivers aged 17-25 years (M = 19, SD = 1.59 years) with a provisional driving licence and matched for age, gender, and education were drawn from a state-wide sample of 761 young drivers who completed the survey. Factor analysis based upon a principal components extraction of factors was followed by an oblique rotation to investigate the underlying dimensions to young novice driver risky behaviour. A five factor solution comprising 44 items was identified, accounting for 55% of the variance in young driver risky behaviour. Factor 1 accounted for 32.5% of the variance and appeared to measure driving violations that were transient in nature - risky behaviours that followed risky decisions that occurred during the journey (e.g., speeding). Factor 2 accounted for 10.0% of variance and appeared to measure driving violations that were fixed in nature; the risky decisions being undertaken before the journey (e.g., drink driving). Factor 3 accounted for 5.4% of variance and appeared to measure misjudgment (e.g., misjudged speed of oncoming vehicle). Factor 4 accounted for 4.3% of variance and appeared to measure risky driving exposure (e.g., driving at night with friends as passengers). Factor 5 accounted for 2.8% of variance and appeared to measure driver emotions or mood (e.g., anger). Given that the aim of the study was to create a research tool, the factors informed the development of five subscales and one composite scale. The composite scale had a very high internal consistency measure (Cronbach’s alpha) of .947. Self-reported data relating to police-detected driving offences, their crash involvement, and their intentions to break road rules within the next year were also collected. While the composite scale was only weakly correlated with self-reported crashes (r = .16, p < .001), it was moderately correlated with offences (r = .26, p < .001), and highly correlated with their intentions to break the road rules (r = .57, p < .001). Further application of the developed scale is needed to confirm the factor structure within other samples of young drivers both in Australia and in other countries. In addition, future research could explore the applicability of the scale for investigating the behaviour of other types of drivers.

Managing illegal street racing and associated risky driving behaviour : An Australian perspective

Illegal street racing has received increased attention in recent years from the media, governments and road safety professionals. At the same time, there has been a shift from treating illegal street racing as a public nuisance issue to a road safety problem in Australia, as this behaviour now attracts a penalty of increased periods of vehicle impoundment leading to permanent vehicle forfeiture for repeat offences. This severe vehicle sanction is typically applied to repeat drink driving offenders and drivers who breach suspensions and disqualifications in North American jurisdictions, but was first introduced in Australia to deal with illegal street racing and associated risky driving behaviours, grouped together under the label of ‘hooning’ in Australian jurisdictions. This paper describes how Australian jurisdictions are dealing with this issue. The research described in this paper drew on multiple data sources to explore illegal street racing and the management of this issue in Australia. First, the paper reviews the relevant legislation in each Australian state to describe the cross-jurisdictional similarities and differences in approaches. It also describes some results from focus group discussions and a quantitative online survey with drivers who self-report engaging in illegal street racing and associated behaviours in Queensland, Australia. It was found that approaches to dealing with illegal street racing and associated risky driving behaviours in each Australian state are similar, with increasing periods of vehicle impoundment (leading to vehicle forfeiture) applied to repeat hooning offences within prescribed periods. Participants in the focus groups and respondents to the questionnaire generally felt these penalty periods were severe, with perceptions of severity increasing with the length of the penalty period. It was concluded that there is a need for each jurisdiction to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of their vehicle impoundment and forfeiture programs for hooning. These evaluations should compare the relative costs of these programs (e.g., enforcement, unrecovered towing and storage fees, and court costs) to the observed benefits (e.g., reduction in target behaviours, reduction in community complaints, and reduction in the number and severity of associated crashes).

Challenges in improving the safety of learner motorcyclists

Inexperience has been shown to be a major factor in many motorcycle crashes worldwide. Learner motorcyclists are not protected from the risks of the on-road environment to the same extent as learner car drivers. Whilst the learner stage has consistently been shown to be the safest phase for car drivers and the provisional stage to be the most dangerous, data from several Australian states has shown similar numbers of learner and provisionally licensed motorcyclists in crashes. This paper reports a review of learner rider safety research undertaken to inform potential future improvements to the licensing and training system in Queensland, Australia.

V2V/V2I augmented maps : state-of-the-art and contribution to real-time crash risk assessment

A number of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are currently being released on the market, providing safety functions to the drivers such as collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control or enhanced night-vision. These systems however are inherently limited by their sensory range: they cannot gather information from outside this range, also called their “perceptive horizon”. Cooperative systems are a developing research avenue that aims at providing extended safety and comfort functionalities by introducing vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) wireless communications to the road actors. This paper presents the problematic of cooperative systems, their advantages and contributions to road safety and exposes some limitations related to market penetration, sensors accuracy and communications scalability. It explains the issues of how to implement extended perception, a central contribution of cooperative systems. The initial steps of an evaluation of data fusion architectures for extended perception are exposed.

Strategic alliances in building construction : a tender evaluation tool for the public sector

Building construction is a highly competitive and risky business. This competitiveness is compounded where conflicting objectives amongst contracting and subcontracting firms set the stage for an adversarial and potentially destructive business relationship. Clients, especially those from the public sector, need broader tender evaluation criteria to complement the traditional focus on bid price. There is also a need for change in the construction industry—not only to a more cooperative approach between the constructing parties—but also from a confrontationist attitude to a more harmonious relationship between all stakeholders in providing constructed facilities. A strategic alliance is a cooperative relationship between two or more organisations that forms part of their overall strategies, and contributes to achieving their major goals and objectives. Strategic alliances in building construction may provide a useful tool to assist public sector construction managers evaluate tenders and concurrently encourage more cooperative relationships amongst construction stakeholders. This paper begins with an overview of the Australian building construction industry, then reviews the existing strategic alliance literature and describes an analysis framework comprising six attributes of strategic alliances for application to construction organisations—trust, commitment, interdependence, cooperation, communication, and joint problem solving. These attributes are currently being used to collect data from 70 building construction firms in Queensland to assess their respective levels of strategic alliance. Given the trend towards broader indicators of construction firm performance, these attributes are proposed as a tool for use in the tender evaluation process for public works.

The synergy of renewable energy technology and services to the public

This talk explores a new opportunity renewable energy technology has for society.

Using reputation management in participatory sensing for data classification

Participatory sensing enables collection, processing, dissemination and analysis of environmental sensory data by ordinary citizens, through mobile devices. Researchers have recognized the potential of participatory sensing and attempted applying it to many areas. However, participants may submit low quality, misleading, inaccurate, or even malicious data. Therefore, finding a way to improve the data quality has become a significant issue. This study proposes using reputation management to classify the gathered data and provide useful information for campaign organizers and data analysts to facilitate their decisions.

On secrets, lies, and fiction : girls learning the art of survival

This chapter’s interest in fiction’s relationship to truth, lies, and secrecy is not so much a matter of how closely fiction resembles or mirrors the world (its mimetic quality), or what we can learn from fiction (its epistemological value). Rather, the concern is both literary and philosophical: a literary concern that takes into account how texts that thematise secrecy work to withhold and to disclose their secrets as part of the process of narrating and sequencing; and a philosophical concern that considers how survival is contingent on secrets and other forms of concealment such as lies, deception, and half-truths. The texts selected for examination are: Secrets (2002), Skim (2008), and Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003). These texts draw attention to the ways in which the lies and secrets of the female protagonists are part of the intricate mechanism of survival, and demonstrate the ways in which fiction relies upon concealment and revelation as forms of truth-telling.

Teachers’ work in curricular markets : conditions of design and relations between the International Baccalaureate Diploma and the local curriculum

School level strategy enabled by neoliberal choice policies can produce internal curricular markets whereby branded curricula such as the International Baccalaureate are offered alongside the local government curriculum in the same school. This project investigated how such curricular markets operating in Australian schools impacted on teachers’ work. This paper reports on teachers work in three case study schools that offered both the International Baccalaureate Diploma program and the local senior schooling curriculum, then draws on an online survey of 225 teachers in 26 such schools across Australia. The analysis reveals the impact of curricular markets along two dimensions: the curriculum’s internal design; and the relational aspects of how schools manage to deliver tandem offerings within institutional constraints. Teachers working in the IBD Diploma program were shown to relish its design, despite additional demands, while teachers working in just the local curriculum reported more relational issues. The paper argues that these trends suggest that there are winners and losers emerging in the work conditions produced by curricular markets.  

Which Women are More Likely to be Abused? Public Housing, Cohabitation and Separated/Divorced Women.

Data collected at Canadian public housing estates in eastern Ontario are used here to analyze two hypotheses. Overall these women report more violence than do otherwise situated women in other general surveys. More specifically, complex theoretical models were designed to generate two hypotheses for further analysis: First, that separated/divorced women are more likely to be abused within public housing than married women. Second, that cohabiting women will report violence victimization at a higher rate than separated, divorced, or married women. Some support for both hypotheses were found, and the theoretical models are used to discuss these findings.

Identity verification in conveyancing : the failure of current legislative and regulatory measures, and recommendations for change

"Defrauding land titles systems impacts upon us all. Those who deal in land include ordinary citizens, big business, small business, governments, not-for-profit organisation, deceased estates...Fraud here touches almost everybody." the thesis presented in this paper is that the current and disparate steps taken by jurisdictions to alleviate land fraud associated with identity-based crimes are inadequate. The centrepiece of the analysis is the consideration of two scenarios that have recently occurred. One is the typical scenario where a spouse forges the partner's signature to obtain a mortgage from a financial institution. The second is atypical. It involves a sophisticated overseas fraud duping many stakeholders involved in the conveyancing process. After outlining these scenarios, we will examine how identity verification requirements of the United Kingdom, Ontario, the Australian states, and New Zealand would have been applied to these two frauds. Our conclusion is that even though some jurisdictions may have prevented the frauds from occurring, the current requirements are inadequate. We use the lessons learnt to propose what we consider core principles for identity verification in land transactions.

The roles of procedural justice and social learning in improving self organizing capabilities of local communities for sustainable development in decentralized Indonesia

The development planning process under Law No. 25/2004 is said to be a new approach to increase public participation in decentralised Indonesia. This Law has introduced planning mechanisms, called Musyawarah Perencanaan Pembangunan (Musrenbang), to provide a forum for development planning. In spite of the expressed intention of these mechanisms to improve public participation, some empirical observations have cast doubt on the outcomes. As a result, some local governments have tried to provide alternative mechanisms to promote for participation in local development planning. Since planning is often said to be one of the most effective ways to improve community empowerment, it is of particular concern, to examine the extent to which the current local development planning processes in Indonesia provide sufficient opportunities to improve the self organising capabilities of communities to sustain development programs to meet local needs. With this objective in mind, this paper examines problems encountered by the new local planning mechanism (Musrenbang) in increasing local community empowerment particularly regarding their self organising capabilities. The concept of community empowerment as a pathway to social justice is explored to identify its key elements and approaches and to show how they can be incorporated within planning processes. Having discussed this, it is then argued that to change current unfavorable outcomes, procedural justice and social learning approaches need to be adopted as pathways to community empowerment. Lastly it is also suggested that an alternative local planning process, called Sistem Dukungan (SISDUK), introduced in South Suluwezi in collaboration with JAICA in 2006 (?) offers scope to incorporate such procedural justice and social learning approaches to improve the self organizing capabilities of local communities.

Factors influencing funding decisions by elected politicians at the state/provincial level : a case study of public libraries in Canada

The purpose of this study was to determine factors (internal and external) that influenced Canadian provincial (state) politicians when making funding decisions about public libraries. Using the case study methodology, Canadian provincial/state level funding for public libraries in the 2009-10 fiscal year was examined. After reviewing funding levels across the country, three jurisdictions were chosen for the case: British Columbia's budget revealed dramatically decreased funding, Alberta's budget showed dramatically increased funding, and Ontario's budget was unchanged from the previous year. The primary source of data for the case was a series of semi-structured interviews with elected officials and senior bureaucrats from the three jurisdictions. An examination of primary and secondary documents was also undertaken to help set the political and economic context as well as to provide triangulation for the case interviews. The data were analysed to determine whether Cialdini's theory of influence (2001) and specifically any of the six tactics of influence (i.e, commitment and consistency, authority, liking, social proof, scarcity and reciprocity) were instrumental in these budget processes. Findings show the principles of "authority", "consistency and commitment" and "liking" were relevant, and that "liking" were especially important to these decisions. When these decision makers were considering funding for public libraries, they most often used three distinct lenses: the consistency lens (what are my values? what would my party do?), the authority lens (is someone with hierarchical power telling me to do this? are the requests legitimate?), and most importantly, the liking lens (how much do I like and know about the requester?). These findings are consistent with Cialdini's theory, which suggests the quality of some relationships is one of six factors that can most influence a decision maker. The small number of prior research studies exploring the reasons for increases or decreases in public library funding allocation decisions have given little insight into the factors that motivate those politicians involved in the process and the variables that contribute to these decisions. No prior studies have examined the construct of influence in decision making about funding for Canadian public libraries at any level of government. Additionally, no prior studies have examined the construct of influence in decision making within the context of Canadian provincial politics. While many public libraries are facing difficult decisions in the face of uncertain funding futures, the ability of the sector to obtain favourable responses to requests for increases may require a less simplistic approach than previously thought. The ability to create meaningful connections with individuals in many communities and across all levels of government should be emphasised as a key factor in influencing funding decisions.