Towards green universities : a decision support framework for green roof and living wall implementation

This research examined why university campus development has not fully embraced green technology despite common expectations. Semi-structured interviews and a Delphi Study explored universities’ organisational issues and delivery processes for projects with a sustainability focus. Critical organisational components and their internal relationships were studied, and critical factors for project success identified. A decision-making framework was developed to provide strategic directions for universities to optimise organisational environment and overcome barriers in order to better deliver sustainable projects on campuses.

The impact of co-locating regulatory and directional signs on driver performance

The use of intelligent transport systems is proliferating across the Australian road network, particularly on major freeways. New technology allows a greater range of signs and messages to be displayed to drivers. While there has been a long history of human factors analyses of signage, no evaluation has been conducted on this novel, sometimes dynamic, signage or potential interactions when co-located. The purpose of this driving simulator study was to investigate drivers’ behavioural changes and comprehension resulting from the co-location of Lane Use Management Systems with static signs and (Enhanced) Variable Message Signs on Queensland motorways. A section of motorway was simulated, and nine scenarios were developed which presented a combination of signage cases across levels of driving task complexity. Two higher-risk road user groups were targeted for this research on an advanced driving simulator: older (65+ years, N=21) and younger (18-22 years, N=20) drivers. Changes in sign co-location and task complexity had small effect on driver comprehension of the signs and vehicle dynamics variables, including difference with the posted speed limit, headway, standard deviation of lane keeping and brake jerks. However, increasing the amount of information provided to drivers at a given location (by co-locating several signs) increased participants’ gaze duration on the signs. With co-location of signs and without added task complexity, a single gaze was over 2s for more than half of the population tested for both groups, and up to 6 seconds for some individuals.

An integrated framework for assessing community resilience in disaster management

Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events which pose significant challenges to the ability of government and other relief agencies to plan for, cope with and respond to disasters. Consequently, it is important that communities in climate sensitive and potential disaster prone areas strengthen their resilience to natural disasters in order to expeditiously recover from potential disruptions and damage caused by disasters. Building self reliance and, particularly in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, can facilitate short-term and long-term community recovery. To build stronger and more resilient communities, it is essential to have a better understanding of their current resilience capabilities by assessing areas of strength, risks and vulnerabilities so that their strengths can be enhanced and the risks and vulnerability can be appropriately addressed and mitigated through capacity building programs. While a number of conceptual frameworks currently exist to assess the resilience level of communities to disasters, they have tended to differ on their emphasis, scope and definition of what constitutes community resilience and how community resilience can be most effectively and accurately assessed. These limitations are attributed to the common approach of viewing community resilience through a mono-disciplinary lens. To overcome this, this paper proposes an integrated conceptual framework that takes into account the complex interplay of environmental, social, governance, infrastructure and economic attributes associated with community resilience. The framework can be operationalised using a range of resilience indicators to suit the nature of a disaster and the specific characteristics of a study region.

Valuing student and community voices in the university : action research as a framework for community service-learning

The Community Service-learning Lab (the Lab) was initiated as a university-wide service-learning experience at an Australian university. The Lab engages students, academics, and key community organisations in interdisciplinary action research projects to support student learning and to explore complex and ongoing problems nominated by the community partners. The current study uses feedback from the first offering of the Lab and focuses on exploring student experiences of the service learning project using an action research framework. Student reflections on this experience have revealed some positive outcomes of the Lab such as an appreciation for positive and strengths-based change. These outcomes are corroborated by collected reflections from community partners and academics. The students also identified challenges balancing the requirements for assessment and their goals to serve the community partner’s needs. This feedback has provided vital information for the academic team, highlighting the difficulties in balancing the agenda of the academic framework and the desire to give students authentic experiences.

Framework for implementing design build project delivery system in road infrastructure in Indonesia

The thesis provides a framework for potential implementation of the design-build (DB) project delivery system in road infrastructure projects in Indonesia. This framework proposed a structure of the hierarchy of factors promoting the potential implementation of the DB project delivery system and introduced ways to implement the DB project delivery system through level of hierarchical factors. These findings not only give benefit to the academic knowledge but also to the public officials in guiding them with regard to the priority of promoting factors in the process to implement the DB system.

An evaluation framework for cross-lingual link discovery

Cross-Lingual Link Discovery (CLLD) is a new problem in Information Retrieval. The aim is to automatically identify meaningful and relevant hypertext links between documents in different languages. This is particularly helpful in knowledge discovery if a multi-lingual knowledge base is sparse in one language or another, or the topical coverage in each language is different; such is the case with Wikipedia. Techniques for identifying new and topically relevant cross-lingual links are a current topic of interest at NTCIR where the CrossLink task has been running since the 2011 NTCIR-9. This paper presents the evaluation framework for benchmarking algorithms for cross-lingual link discovery evaluated in the context of NTCIR-9. This framework includes topics, document collections, assessments, metrics, and a toolkit for pooling, assessment, and evaluation. The assessments are further divided into two separate sets: manual assessments performed by human assessors; and automatic assessments based on links extracted from Wikipedia itself. Using this framework we show that manual assessment is more robust than automatic assessment in the context of cross-lingual link discovery.

The consequences of not taking reasonable steps to obtain finance

In Hauff v Miller [2013] QCA 48 the Queensland Court of Appeal considered an issue that has not previously arisen at appellate level. The case concerned the interaction of the well-known subject to finance clause and other standard contractual provisions...

A Critical Perspective of the Indonesian Institutional Framework for PPP Toll Roads

The development of toll roads in Indonesia started around 1978. Initially, the management and development of toll roads sat directly under the Government of Indonesia (GoI) being undertaken through PT JasaMarga, a state owned enterprise specifically established to provide toll roads. Due to the slow growth and low capability of toll roads to fulfil infrastructure needs in the first ten years of operation (only 2.688kms/year), GoI changed its strategy in 1989 to one of using private sector participation for roads delivery through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. In this latter period, PT JasaMarga had two roles, both as regulator on behalf of the private sector as well as being the operator. However, from 1989 to 2004 the growth rate of toll roads actually decreased further to 2.300kms/year. Facing this challenge of low growth rate of toll roads, in 2004GoI changed the toll road management system and the role of regulator was returned to the Government through the establishment of the Toll Road Regulatory Agency (BPJT). GoI also amended the institutional framework to strengthen the toll road management system. Despite the introduction of this new institutional framework, the growth of toll roads still showed insignificant change. This problem in toll road development has generated an urgent need for research into this issue. The aim of the research is to understand the performance of the new institutional framework in enhancing PPP procured toll road development. The methodology of the research was to undertake a questionnaire survey distributed to private sector respondents involved in toll road development. The results of this study show that there are several problems inherent in the institutional framework, but the most significant problem comes from the uncertainty of the function of the strategic executive body in the land expropriation process.

Justice for pollution-victims in China and Australia

The concept of environmental justice is well developed in North America, but is still at the evolutionary stage in most other jurisdictions around the globe. This paper seeks to explore two jurisdictions where incidents of environmental justice are likely to be seen in the future as a result of manufacturing and mining practices. The discussion will centre upon avenues to environmental justice for both private citizens and the public at large. The first jurisdiction considered is China, where environmental liability claims brought by Chinese citizens have increased at an annual average of 25% (Yang 2011). Manufacturing is at the core of the Chinese economy and is responsible for some of the unprecedented economic growth in the region. Less discussed are the industry impacts on water and air pollution levels and the associated implications of these pollutants on local communities. China introduced the Tort Liability Law (TLL) in 2010, which may provide avenues to justice for private citizens. The other jurisdiction considered by the paper is Australia, where the mining boom has buffered the Australian economy from the global financial crisis. There is some limited case law in Australia where private citizens have made a claim in toxic torts; however the framework is underdeveloped in terms of the significant risks facing indigenous and local communities in mining areas and also by comparison to the developments of the TLL framework in China. This paper traces the regulatory responses to the affects of major industries on communities in China and Australia. From this it examines the need for environmental justice avenues that align with rule of law principles.

A framework for cost-aware process management : cost reporting and cost prediction

Organisations are constantly seeking efficiency gains for their business processes in terms of time and cost. Management accounting enables detailed cost reporting of business operations for decision making purposes, although significant effort is required to gather accurate operational data. Process mining, on the other hand, may provide valuable insight into processes through analysis of events recorded in logs by IT systems, but its primary focus is not on cost implications. In this paper, a framework is proposed which aims to exploit the strengths of both fields in order to better support management decisions on cost control. This is achieved by automatically merging cost data with historical data from event logs for the purposes of monitoring, predicting, and reporting process-related costs. The on-demand generation of accurate, relevant and timely cost reports, in a style akin to reports in the area of management accounting, will also be illustrated. This is achieved through extending the open-source process mining framework ProM.

Director competencies for effective enterprise technology governance

In relation to enterprise technology governance (ETG), opinions differ between there being no need for board of director involvement to there being an urgent need for such involvement. This research highlights the need for boards to provide ETG oversight of technology-related strategy, investment and risk, and to be competent in doing so. We identify a large gap between board’s awareness of the importance of ETG, their taking action and the competency requirements for effective ETG. Further, while there is considerable research and literature about operational IT governance frameworks and operational IT competencies, there is no known research into the specific competencies boards of directors need to effectively govern enterprise technology. This research focuses on and develops a board-level ETG competency set using a mixed methods approach within a recognised competency development framework. Further development is tracked using a rigour scale to demonstrate a medium to high level of competency validity for the derived set. This research contributes to practice by providing the first known industry validated ETG competency set situated within new and emerging technology. It contributes to the body of knowledge in the modification and application of competency development and competency validation frameworks not previously applied to the role of board director.

On organisational legitimacy practices in developing economies : a profit and readability based approach

In this study, we investigate whether organisations in developing markets legitimise their use of societal resources. We concur that organisations’ existence in developing markets is also part of a social contract. Within this implied contract, organisations are to leverage resources in an equitable manner, allowing fair distribution of benefits to society and themselves. In this setting, we propose that the level of profit is the best indicator of the outcome of use of resources, and is subject to numerous societal emotions in developing economies. We also propose that readability of narratives relating to a level of profit is the best measure of organisations’ immediate legitimacy activities. Five-year data on profitability and readability of sections of corporate annual reports from 30 organisations reveals that organisations with higher profits present more readable narrative disclosures in their annual reports. This relationship is more evident in larger companies and with the public enterprises. These outcomes imply that organisations communicate their profit-related information in ways to manage an appropriate impression and legitimize a level of profit. The study’s outcomes also imply that authorities need to monitor organisations rights to protected existence continuously, as their legitimacy efforts suggest that higher levels of profit may be an outcome of potential misuse of resources.

A methodology to develop an urban transport disadvantage framework : the case of Brisbane, Australia

Most individuals travel in order to participate in a network of activities which are important for attaining a good standard of living. Because such activities are commonly widely dispersed and not located locally, regular access to a vehicle is important to avoid exclusion. However, planning transport system provisions that can engage members of society in an acceptable degree of activity participation remains a great challenge. The main challenges in most cities of the world are due to significant population growth and rapid urbanisation which produces increased demand for transport. Keeping pace with these challenges in most urban areas is difficult due to the widening gap between supply and demand for transport systems which places the urban population at a transport disadvantage. The key element in mitigating the issue of urban transport disadvantage is to accurately identify the urban transport disadvantaged. Although wide-ranging variables and multi-dimensional methods have been used to identify this group, variables are commonly selected using ad-hoc techniques and unsound methods. This poses questions of whether the current variables used are accurately linked with urban transport disadvantage, and the effectiveness of the current policies. To fill these gaps, the research conducted for this thesis develops an operational urban transport disadvantage framework (UTDAF) based on key statistical urban transport disadvantage variables to accurately identify the urban transport disadvantaged. The thesis develops a methodology based on qualitative and quantitative statistical approaches to develop an urban transport disadvantage framework designed to accurately identify urban transport disadvantage. The reliability and the applicability of the methodology developed is the prime concern rather than the accuracy of the estimations. Relevant concepts that impact on urban transport disadvantage identification and measurement and a wide range of urban transport disadvantage variables were identified through a review of the existing literature. Based on the reviews, a conceptual urban transport disadvantage framework was developed based on the causal theory. Variables identified during the literature review were selected and consolidated based on the recommendations of international and local experts during the Delphi study. Following the literature review, the conceptual urban transport disadvantage framework was statistically assessed to identify key variables. Using the statistical outputs, the key variables were weighted and aggregated to form the UTDAF. Before the variable's weights were finalised, they were adjusted based on results of correlation analysis between elements forming the framework to improve the framework's accuracy. The UTDAF was then applied to three contextual conditions to determine the framework's effectiveness in identifying urban transport disadvantage. The development of the framework is likely to be a robust application measure for policy makers to justify infrastructure investments and to generate awareness about the issue of urban transport disadvantage.

A Hybrid Queue-based Bayesian Network Framework for passenger facilitation modelling

This paper presents a novel framework for the modelling of passenger facilitation in a complex environment. The research is motivated by the challenges in the airport complex system, where there are multiple stakeholders, differing operational objectives and complex interactions and interdependencies between different parts of the airport system. Traditional methods for airport terminal modelling do not explicitly address the need for understanding causal relationships in a dynamic environment. Additionally, existing Bayesian Network (BN) models, which provide a means for capturing causal relationships, only present a static snapshot of a system. A method to integrate a BN complex systems model with stochastic queuing theory is developed based on the properties of the Poisson and Exponential distributions. The resultant Hybrid Queue-based Bayesian Network (HQBN) framework enables the simulation of arbitrary factors, their relationships, and their effects on passenger flow and vice versa. A case study implementation of the framework is demonstrated on the inbound passenger facilitation process at Brisbane International Airport. The predicted outputs of the model, in terms of cumulative passenger flow at intermediary and end points in the inbound process, are found to have an $R^2$ goodness of fit of 0.9994 and 0.9982 respectively over a 10 hour test period. The utility of the framework is demonstrated on a number of usage scenarios including real time monitoring and `what-if' analysis. This framework provides the ability to analyse and simulate a dynamic complex system, and can be applied to other socio-technical systems such as hospitals.