Integrating PV systems into distribution networks with battery energy storage systems

Integrating Photovoltaic (PV) systems with battery energy storage in the distribution network will be essential to allow for continued uptake of domestic PV system installations. With increasing concerns regarding environmental and climate change issues, incorporating sources of renewable energy into power networks across the world will be key for a sustainable future. Australia is well placed to utilise solar energy as a significant component of its future energy generation and within the last 5 years there has been a rapid growth in the penetration levels seen by the grid. This growth of PV systems is causing a number of issues including intermittency of supply, negative power flow and voltage rises. Using the simulator tool GridLAB-D with a model of a typical South-East Queensland (SEQ) 11 kV distribution feeder, the effect of various configurations of PV systems have been offset with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). From this, combinations of PV and storage that are most effective at mitigating the issues were explored.

Teacher and student readiness to use Facebook for learning in an adult vocational educational setting

The factors influencing both teacher and student readiness to use Facebook as part of their teaching and learning in a vocational educational institution were studied through a qualitative case study. Data included teacher and student questionnaire and focus group interviews. While it was found that the students demonstrated readiness and willingness to incorporate Facebook into their current learning, the teachers were more reluctant. Different perceptions around control of learning, time, and concerns around compartmentalisation of learning and social lives would need to be addressed before Facebook could be used as a formal learner engagement strategy.

Stochastic ranking method for thermostatically controllable appliances to provide regulation services

Demand response can be used for providing regulation services in the electricity markets. The retailers can bid in a day-ahead market and respond to real-time regulation signal by load control. This paper proposes a new stochastic ranking method to provide regulation services via demand response. A pool of thermostatically controllable appliances (TCAs) such as air conditioners and water heaters are adjusted using direct load control method. The selection of appliances is based on a probabilistic ranking technique utilizing attributes such as temperature variation and statuses of TCAs. These attributes are stochastically forecasted for the next time step using day-ahead information. System performance is analyzed with a sample regulation signal. Network capability to provide regulation services under various seasons is analyzed. The effect of network size on the regulation services is also investigated.

Improving treatment for obese women with early stage cancer of the uterus : rationale and design of the levonorgestrel intrauterine device ±Metformin ±weight loss in endometrial cancer (feMME) trial

Purpose Endometrial adenocarcinoma (EC) is the most common gynaecologic cancer. Up to 90% of EC patients are obese which poses a health threat to patients post-treatment. Standard treatment for EC includes hysterectomy, although this has significant side effects for obese women at high risk of surgical complications and for women of childbearing age. This trial investigates the effectiveness of non-surgical or conservative treatment options for obese women with early stage EC. The primary aim is to determine the efficacy of: levonorgestrel intrauterine device (LNG-IUD); with or without metformin (an antidiabetic drug); and with or without a weight loss intervention to achieve a pathological complete response (pCR) in EC at six months from study treatment initiation. The secondary aim is to enhance understanding of the molecular processes and to predict a treatment response by investigating EC biomarkers. Methods An open label, three-armed, randomised, phase-II, multi-centre trial of LNG-IUD ± metformin ± weight loss intervention. 165 participants from 28 centres are randomly assigned in a 3:3:5 ratio to the treatment arms. Clinical, quality of life and health behavioural data will be collected at baseline, six weeks, three and six months. EC biomarkers will be assessed at baseline, three and six months. Conclusions There is limited prospective evidence for conservative treatment for EC. Trial results could benefit patients and reduce health system costs through a reduction in hospitalisations and through lower incidence of adverse events currently observed with standard treatment.

Australian Library and Information Association Course Accreditation Review 2013

This report has been prepared for the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) in response to the request to undertake a literature review and environmental scan to inform discussions of the issues associated with professional accreditation. ALIA is the peak body which develops and monitors the professional standards that ensure the high quality of graduates entering the library and information services (LIS) profession in Australia. The report presents a themed discussion of the issues identified in the literature review and environmental scan to build a full picture of the role of course accreditation in LIS education. This is set against developments in the wider context of quality assurance in Australian tertiary education, to analyse the implications of this changing environment for ALIA’s accreditation policies and ractices.

Utilizing reactive capability of PV inverters and battery systems to improve voltage profile of a residential distribution feeder

Significant increase in installation of rooftop Photovoltaic (PV) in the Low-Voltage (LV) residential distribution network has resulted in over voltage problems. Moreover, increasing peak demand creates voltage dip problems and make voltage profile even worse. Utilizing the reactive power capability of PV inverter (RCPVI) can improve the voltage profile to some extent. Resistive caharcteristic (higher R/X ratio) limits the effectiveness of reactive power to provide voltage support in distribution network. Battery Energy Storage (BES), whereas, can store the excess PV generation during high solar insolation time and supply the stored energy back to the grid during peak demand. A coordinated algorithm is developed in this paper to use the reactive capability of PV inverter and BES with droop control. Proposed algorithm is capable to cater the severe voltage violation problem using RCPVI and BES. A signal flow is also mentioned in this research work to ensure smooth communication between all the equipments. Finally the developed algorithm is validated in a test distribution network.

The long and winding road : health services for clients with chronic leg ulcers in the community

The prevalence of leg ulcers of is 0.12%–1.1% and >3,000 lower limb amputations are performed yearly in Australia due to non-healing leg or foot ulcers. Although evidence on leg ulcer management is available, a significant evidence-practice gap exists. To identify current leg ulcer management, a cross-sectional retrospective study was undertaken in Brisbane, Australia. A sample of 104 clients was recruited from a community specialist wound clinic and a tertiary hospital outpatient’s specialist wound clinic. All clients had an ulcer below their knee or on their foot for ≥4 weeks. Data were collected on ulcer care, health service usage and clinical history for the year prior to admission. On admission, participants reported having their ulcer for a median of 25 weeks (range 2-728 weeks); with 51% (53/104) reporting an ulcer duration of ≥24 weeks. Including the wound clinic, participants sought ulcer care from a median of 3 health care providers (range 2-7). General Practitioners provided ulcer care to 82% of participants. Nearly half (42%) had self-cared for their ulcer; 29% (30/104) received treatment by a community nurse. A gap was found between the community-based ulcer care experienced by this population and evidence-based guidelines in regards to assessment, management, advice, and referrals.

Modelling the intention to adopt cloud computing services : a transaction cost theory perspective

This paper uses transaction cost theory to study cloud computing adoption. A model is developed and tested with data from an Australian survey. According to the results, perceived vendor opportunism and perceived legislative uncertainty around cloud computing were significantly associated with perceived cloud computing security risk. There was also a significant negative relationship between perceived cloud computing security risk and the intention to adopt cloud services. This study also reports on adoption rates of cloud computing in terms of applications, as well as the types of services used.

E-health: potential benefits and challenges in providing and accessing sexual health services

BACKGROUND: E-health has become a burgeoning field in which health professionals and health consumers create and seek information. E-health refers to internet-based health care and information delivery and seeks to improve health service locally, regionally and worldwide. E-sexual health presents new opportunities to provide online sexual health services irrespective of gender, age, sexual orientation and location. DISCUSSION: The paper used the dimensions of the RE-AIM model (reach, efficacy, adoption, implementation and maintenance) as a guiding principle to discuss potentials of E-health in providing and accessing sexual health services. There are important issues in relation to utilising and providing online sexual health services. For healthcare providers, e-health can act as an opportunity to enhance their clients' sexual health care by facilitating communication with full privacy and confidentiality, reducing administrative costs and improving efficiency and flexibility as well as market sexual health services and products. Sexual health is one of the common health topics which both younger and older people explore on the internet and they increasingly prefer sexual health education to be interactive, non-discriminate and anonymous. This commentary presents and discusses the benefits of e-sexual health and provides recommendations towards addressing some of the emerging challenges. FUTURE DIRECTIONS: The provision of sexual health services can be enhanced through E-health technology. Doing this can empower consumers to engage with information technology to enhance their sexual health knowledge and quality of life and address some of the stigma associated with diversity in sexualities and sexual health experiences. In addition, e-sexual health may better support and enhance the relationship between consumers and their health care providers across different locations. However, a systematic and focused approach to research and the application of findings in policy and practice is required to ensure that E-health benefits all population groups and the information is current and clinically valid and effective, including preventative approaches for various client groups with diverse needs.

Business transformation management : composition and orchestration of management services

This research develops a better understanding on how large-scale and complex IT-enabled business transformations are managed. Evidence from three global case studies suggest that business transformations can be composed and orchestrated like a jazz band, where improvisation plays a fundamental role to maintain the melody, harmony and rhythm of such initiatives. The thesis details how the jazz metaphor can assist senior management on how to reuse and reconfigure capabilities as services for transforming organizations. To the academic body of knowledge, the thesis provides a study on the use of management services as a theoretical lens to examine Business Transformation Management.

Identifying influential users of micro-blogging services : a dynamic action-based network approach

In this paper, we present a dynamic model to identify influential users of micro-blogging services. Micro-blogging services, such as Twitter, allow their users (twitterers) to publish tweets and choose to follow other users to receive tweets. Previous work on user influence on Twitter, concerns more on following link structure and the contents user published, seldom emphasizes the importance of interactions among users. We argue that, by emphasizing on user actions in micro-blogging platform, user influence could be measured more accurately. Since micro-blogging is a powerful social media and communication platform, identifying influential users according to user interactions has more practical meanings, e.g., advertisers may concern how many actions – buying, in this scenario – the influential users could initiate rather than how many advertisements they spread. By introducing the idea of PageRank algorithm, innovatively, we propose our model using action-based network which could capture the ability of influential users when they interacting with micro-blogging platform. Taking the evolving prosperity of micro-blogging into consideration, we extend our actionbaseduser influence model into a dynamic one, which could distinguish influential users in different time periods. Simulation results demonstrate that our models could support and give reasonable explanations for the scenarios that we considered.

Corporate governance quality, audit fees and non-audit services fees

This paper extends prior research on the relationship between governance quality and auditor remuneration.We examine the influence of audit committee effectiveness (ACE), a proxy for governance quality, on audit fees (AF) and non-audit services fees (NASF) using a new composite measure comprising audit committee independence, expertise, diligence and size. We find that after controlling for board of director characteristics, there is a significant positive association between ACE and AF only for larger clients. Our results indicate that effective audit committees undertake more monitoring which results in wider audit scope and higher audit fees. Contrary to our expectations, we find the association between ACE and NASF to be positive and significant, especially for larger clients. This suggests that larger clients are more likely to purchase non-audit services (NAS) even in the presence of effective audit committees probably due to the complexity of their activities. Overall, our findings support regulatory initiatives aimed at improving corporate governance quality.

A model predictive approach for community battery energy storage system optimization

This paper presents an efficient algorithm for optimizing the operation of battery storage in a low voltage distribution network with a high penetration of PV generation. A predictive control solution is presented that uses wavelet neural networks to predict the load and PV generation at hourly intervals for twelve hours into the future. The load and generation forecast, and the previous twelve hours of load and generation history, is used to assemble load profile. A diurnal charging profile can be compactly represented by a vector of Fourier coefficients allowing a direct search optimization algorithm to be applied. The optimal profile is updated hourly allowing the state of charge profile to respond to changing forecasts in load.

The educational context and services of children with additional needs in their first years of school in Australia

In Australia, children with additional needs are now primarily educated in mainstream regular classes and schools. While discussion has focused on teacher attitudes, teacher preparation and professional development to support the academic progress of children with additional needs, there is limited research examining the educational contexts and services provided to such children in Australian schools. This descriptive paper examines the educational contexts of 563 Australian children with additional needs, in reference to 3600 of their typically developing peers. Data in relation to educational setting, retention, prevalence of additional needs, access to specialist services, learning support, and individual programming are reported.

Can synchronous online counselling increase uptake of counselling services in secondary schools and what can promote or inhibit implementation?

This research showed that online counselling has the potential to increase the help-seeking of secondary school students - especially those who suffer from high levels of psychological distress. An investigation of why school counsellors are currently reluctant to provide an online counselling service identified a number of barriers to implementing such a potentially vital service. Response to focus groups and surveys completed by students and school counsellors indicated that more distressed students prefer to use online counselling and they would use it for sensitive topics. School counsellors remain concerned about effectiveness, ethical, legal and privacy issues as well as potential misuse of the service. Recommendations for implementation are made.