Responding to sustainability challenge and cost implications in highway construction projects

Highway construction often requires a significant capital input; therefore it often causes serious financial implications for developers, owners and operators. The recent industry-wide focus on sustainability has added a new dimension to the evaluation of highway projects, particularly on the economical scale of ‘going green’. Comprehensive analysis of the whole-of-life highway development that responds to sustainability challenges is one of the primary concerns for stakeholders. Principles of engineering economics and life cycle costing have been used to determine the incremental capacity investments for highway projects. However, the consideration of costs and issues associated with sustainability is still very limited in current studies on highway projects. Previous studies have identified that highway project investments are primarily concerned with direct market costs that can be quantified through life cycle costing analysis (LCCA). But they tend to ignore costs that are difficult to calculate, as those related to environmental and social elements. On a more positive note, these studies proved that the inclusion of such costs is an essential part of the overall development investment and a primary concern for decision making by the stakeholders. This paper discusses a research attempt to identify and categorise sustainability cost elements for highway projects. Through questionnaire survey, a set of sustainability cost elements on highway projects has been proposed. These cost elements are incorporated into the extension of some of the existing Life Cycle Costing Analysis (LCCA) models in order to produce a holistic financial picture of the highway project. It is expected that a new LCCA model will be established to serve as a suitable tool for decision making for highway project stakeholders.

Intellectual property : designing 4 success. Safeguarding your innovations - rights, obligations and opportunities in creating intellectual property by design

Design talks LOUDLY!!! Is a series of interactive presentations exploring issues and opportunities involving professional design. --------------- These seminars are organised by the Industrial Design Network Queensland (IDnetQLD) in coordination with the Design Institute of Australia (DIA). This event was held at the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) with invited public presentations by a panel of industry experts from the Australian Government – IP Australia. --------------- The first seminar "Intellectual Property : designing 4 success" highlighted to design professionals how the various forms of Intellectual Property interact, what protections and pitfalls exist, and how these impact upon the work and responsibilities of designers. The overlaps, gaps and in congruencies in the various IP protection systems were highlighted by the expert line-up of speakers. --------------- The underlying message is that a clear understanding of all IP types is necessary in order to gain the best advantage from IP protection and therefore eliminate potential IP ownership issues before they become a problem.

Public asset management framework for local governments : opportunities and challenges for public asset managers

The aim of the study is to identify the opportunities and challenges a local government public asset manager is most likely to deal with when adopting the appropriate Public Asset Management Framework especially in developing countries. In order to achieve its aim, this study employs a Case Study in Indonesia for collecting all data i.e. interviews, document analysis and observations at South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. The study concludes that there are significant opportunities and challenges that local governments in developing countries, especially Indonesia, might be required to manage if apply public asset management framework appropriately. The opportunities are more effective and efficient local government, accountable and auditable local government organization, increase local government portfolio, reflect up to date information for decision makers in local government, and improve the quality of public services. On the other hand, there are also challenges. Those challenges are local governments has no clear legal and institutional framework to support the asset management application, non-profit principle of public assets, cross jurisdictions and applications in public asset management, the complexity of public organization objectives, and data availability required for managing public property. The study only covers the condition of developing countries where Indonesia as an example, which could not represent exactly the whole local governments’ condition in the world. Further study to develop an asset management system applicable for all local governments in developing countries is urgently needed. Findings from this study will provide useful input for the policy maker, scholars and asset management practitioners to develop an asset management framework for more efficient and effective local governments.

The significant of public asset management framework application for Indonesian local governments : Opportunities and challenges

The purpose of this paper is to emphasis the significance of public asset management in Indonesia that is by identifying opportunities and challenges of Indonesian local governments in adopting current practice of Public Asset Management System. A Case Study, in South Sulawesi Provincial government was used as the approach to achieve the research objective. The case study involved two data collection techniques i.e. interviews followed by study on documents. The result of the study indicates there are some significant opportunities and challenges that Indonesian local government might deal with in adopting current practice of public asset management. There are opportunities that can lead to more effective and efficient local government, accountable and auditable local government organization, increase local government portfolio, and improve the quality of public services. The challenges include no clear institutional and legal framework to support the asset management application, non-profit principle of public assets, cross jurisdictions in public asset management, complexity of local government objectives, and unavailability of data for managing public property. The study only covers condition of South Sulawesi Province, which could not represent exactly the whole local governments’ condition in Indonesia. Findings from this study provide useful input for the policy makers, scholars and asset management practitioners in Indonesia to establish a public asset management framework that suitable for Indonesia.

Property development cycle and acquisition strategies

This presenation is part of the UDIA (Qld) Property Development Essentials program, which is a two-day introductory course designed for new entrants to the property industry. The course provides practical advice and direction for those looking to take the first steps into the development industry. This presentation identifies economic factors and their influence on land acquisitions, as well as providing an understanding the property development and business cycles and their impacts on acquisition strategies (long v. short term projects)

Assessing the impact of floods and flood legislation on residential property prices

The changing development and population sprawl in major cities, especially those located in high rainfall areas, has resulted in the need to review and re-assess potential flood impacts in these cities. In many cases these new flood lines and flood maps have placed residential property that was previously considered to be flood free to now be considered to be potentially flood liable. Previous research based in Sydney and the UK has identified the fact that residential property that has been subject to flooding has a decreased price and higher investment risk than flood free property in the same location. These studies have also shown that the greatest impact on residential property subject to flooding is just following a flood event. In June 2009, Brisbane City Council released revised flood maps for the Greater Brisbane region and these maps have identified areas that have not previously been considered flood liable. This paper will analyse the sale performance of flood liable streets in the main flood areas of Brisbane over the period January 1990 through to June 2009, to determine the variation in price for these flood liable areas to the residential property immediately adjoining them. The average sale price will be tracked on both a geographic location and socio-economic basis.

Deployment and connectivity repair of a sensor net with a flying robot

We consider multi-robot systems that include sensor nodes and aerial or ground robots networked together. Such networks are suitable for tasks such as large-scale environmental monitoring or for command and control in emergency situations. We present a sensor network deployment method using autonomous aerial vehicles and describe in detail the algorithms used for deployment and for measuring network connectivity and provide experimental data collected from field trials. A particular focus is on determining gaps in connectivity of the deployed network and generating a plan for repair, to complete the connectivity. This project is the result of a collaboration between three robotics labs (CSIRO, USC, and Dartmouth). © Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2006.

Real-time vision, tracking and control

This paper, which serves as an introduction to the mini-symposium on Real-Time Vision, Tracking and Control, provides a broad sketch of visual servoing, the application of real-time vision, tracking and control for robot guidance. It outlines the basic theoretical approaches to the problem, describes a typical architecture, and discusses major milestones, applications and the significant vision sub-problems that must be solved.

Assessing the impact of infrastructure charges on land values and land supply in SEQ

This is a preliminary scoping presentation. It outlines some of the very early issues identified this research topic.

Literacy and religion : the textual politics and practice of Seventh-day Adventism

This book explores the interrelation of literacy and religion as practiced by Western Christians in, first, historical contexts and, second, in one contemporary church setting. Using both a case study and a Foucauldian theoretical framework, the book provides a sustained analysis of the reciprocal discursive construction of literacy, religiosity and identity in one Seventh-day Adventist Church community of Northern Australia. Critical linguistic and discourse analytic theory is used to disclose processes of theological (church), familial (home) and educational (school) normalisation of community members into regulated ways of hearing and speaking, reading and writing, being and believing. Detailed analyses of spoken and written texts taken from institutional and local community settings show how textual religion is an exemplary technology of the self, a politics constituted by canonical texts, interpretive norms, textual practices, ritualised events and sociopolitical protocols that, ultimately, are turned in upon the self. The purpose of these analyses is to show how, across denominational difference in belief (tradition) and practice, particular versions of self and society are constructed through economies of truth from text, enabling and constraining what can and cannot be spoken and enacted by believers.

Autonomous deployment and repair of a sensor network using an unmanned aerial vehicle

We describe a sensor network deployment method using autonomous flying robots. Such networks are suitable for tasks such as large-scale environmental monitoring or for command and control in emergency situations. We describe in detail the algorithms used for deployment and for measuring network connectivity and provide experimental data we collected from field trials. A particular focus is on determining gaps in connectivity of the deployed network and generating a plan for a second, repair, pass to complete the connectivity. This project is the result of a collaboration between three robotics labs (CSIRO, USC, and Dartmouth.).

Vision-based detection and tracking of aerial targets for UAV collision avoidance

Machine vision represents a particularly attractive solution for sensing and detecting potential collision-course targets due to the relatively low cost, size, weight, and power requirements of the sensors involved (as opposed to radar). This paper describes the development and evaluation of a vision-based collision detection algorithm suitable for fixed-wing aerial robotics. The system was evaluated using highly realistic vision data of the moments leading up to a collision. Based on the collected data, our detection approaches were able to detect targets at distances ranging from 400m to about 900m. These distances (with some assumptions about closing speeds and aircraft trajectories) translate to an advanced warning of between 8-10 seconds ahead of impact, which approaches the 12.5 second response time recommended for human pilots. We make use of the enormous potential of graphic processing units to achieve processing rates of 30Hz (for images of size 1024-by- 768). Currently, integration in the final platform is under way.

Guided chaos : path planning and control for a UAV-forced landing

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in combat, and their potential applications in civil and commercial roles are also receiving considerable attention by industry and the research community. There are numerous published reports of UAVs used in Earth science missions [1], fire-fighting [2], and border security [3] trials, with other speculative deployments, including applications in agriculture, communications, and traffic monitoring. However, none of these UAVs can demonstrate an equivalent level of safety to manned aircraft, particularly in the case of an engine failure, which would require an emergency or forced landing. This may be arguably the main factor that has prevented these UAV trials from becoming full-scale commercial operations, as well as restricted operations of civilian UAVs to only within segregated airspace.

Factors contributing to successful public private partnership projects : comparing Hong Kong with Australia and the United Kingdom

Purpose: With the increasing interest in Public Private Partnership (PPP) there is a need to investigate the factors contributing to successful delivery of PPP projects. Design/methodology/approach: An empirical questionnaire survey was conducted in Hong Kong and Australia. The survey respondents were asked to rate eighteen factors which contribute to delivering successful PPP projects. Findings: The findings from this survey were further compared with the results achieved by a previous researcher (Li, 2003) in a similar survey conducted in the United Kingdom. The comparison showed that amongst the top five success factors ranked by Hong Kong respondents, three were also ranked highly by the Australians and British. These success factors included: ‘Commitment and responsibility of public and private sectors’; ‘Strong and good private consortium’; and ‘Appropriate risk allocation and risk sharing’. Originality/value: These success factors were therefore found to be important for contributing to successful PPP projects irrespective of geographical locations.

The public sector’s perspective on procuring public works projects : comparing the views of practitioners in Hong Kong and Australia

Hong Kong has been one of the early jurisdictions to adopt Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for delivering large public infrastructure projects. The development of this procurement approach in Hong Kong has followed an intricate path. As such, it is believed that there are a number of areas which are interesting to unveil. As part of a comprehensive research study looking at implementing PPPs, interviews with experienced local industrial practitioners from the public sector were conducted to realize their perspective on the topic of procuring public works projects. Amongst these interviews, fourteen were launched government officials and advisers. The interview findings show that the majority of the Hong Kong and Australian interviewees had previously conducted some kind of research in the field of PPP. Both groups of interviewees agreed that “PPPs gain private sector’s added efficiency/expertise/management skills” when compared to projects procured traditionally. Also, both groups of interviewees felt that projects best suited to use PPP are those that have an “Economic business case”. The interviewees believed that “Contractor’s performance” could be used as key performance indicators for PPP projects. A large number of critical success factors were identified by the interviewees for PPP projects; two of these were similar for both groups of interviewees. These included “Project objectives well defined” and “Partnership spirit/commitment/trust”. Finally it was found that in-house guidance materials were more common in the organizations of the Australian interviewees compared to the Hong Kong ones. This paper studies the views of the public sector towards the topic of PPPs in Hong Kong and Australia, which helps to answer some of the queries that both academics and the private sector in these jurisdictions are keen to know. As a result the private sector can be more prepared when negotiating with the public sector and realise their needs better, academics on the other hand are provided a wider perspective of this topic benefiting the research industry at large.