Limitations of a laboratory scale model in predicting optimal pilot scale conditions for dilute acid pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse

Pilot and industrial scale dilute acid pretreatment data can be difficult to obtain due to the significant infrastructure investment required. Consequently, models of dilute acid pretreatment by necessity use laboratory scale data to determine kinetic parameters and make predictions about optimal pretreatment conditions at larger scales. In order for these recommendations to be meaningful, the ability of laboratory scale models to predict pilot and industrial scale yields must be investigated. A mathematical model of the dilute acid pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse has previously been developed by the authors. This model was able to successfully reproduce the experimental yields of xylose and short chain xylooligomers obtained at the laboratory scale. In this paper, the ability of the model to reproduce pilot scale yield and composition data is examined. It was found that in general the model over predicted the pilot scale reactor yields by a significant margin. Models that appear very promising at the laboratory scale may have limitations when predicting yields on a pilot or industrial scale. It is difficult to comment whether there are any consistent trends in optimal operating conditions between reactor scale and laboratory scale hydrolysis due to the limited reactor datasets available. Further investigation is needed to determine whether the model has some efficacy when the kinetic parameters are re-evaluated by parameter fitting to reactor scale data, however, this requires the compilation of larger datasets. Alternatively, laboratory scale mathematical models may have enhanced utility for predicting larger scale reactor performance if bulk mass transport and fluid flow considerations are incorporated into the fibre scale equations. This work reinforces the need for appropriate attention to be paid to pilot scale experimental development when moving from laboratory to pilot and industrial scales for new technologies.

Bringing the farmer perspective to agricultural robots

The research reported in this paper explores autonomous technologies for agricultural farming application and is focused on the development of multiple-cooperative agricultural robots (AgBots). These are highly autonomous, small, lightweight, and unmanned machines that operate cooperatively (as opposed to a traditional single heavy machine) and are suited to work on broadacre land (large-scale crop operations on land parcels greater than 4,000m2). Since this is a new, and potentially disruptive technology, little is yet known about farmer attitudes towards robots, how robots might be incorporated into current farming practice, and how best to marry the capability of the robot with the work of the farmer. This paper reports preliminary insights (with a focus on farmer-robot control) gathered from field visits and contextual interviews with farmers, and contributes knowledge that will enable further work toward the design and application of agricultural robotics.

Ants, apples and the ABCs: The use of commercial phonics programmes in prior-to-school children's services

Commercial phonics programmes (e.g. Jolly Phonics and Letterland) are becoming widely used in the early years of school. These programmes claim to use a systematic explicit approach, considered as the preferred method of phonics instruction for teaching alphabetic code-breaking skills in Australia and the UK in the first years of school (Department of Education, Science and Training, 2005; Rose, 2006). However, little is known about the extent to which they are being used in prior-to-school settings, and the reasons behind decisions to use them. This study surveyed 283 early childhood staff in Sydney, Australia and found that commercial phonics programmes were being used in 36% of the early childhood settings surveyed. Staff with early childhood univer- sity qualifications and staff working in not-for-profit service types were less likely to use a commercial phonics programme than staff without university qualifications and staff working in for-profit services. Staff with less than 10 years’ experience were also more likely to use a commercial phonics programme. The rationale behind decisions deter- mining whether or not staff used the programmes ranged from pragmatic reasons, such as parent pressure or higher management decisions, to pedagogical reasons, such as teacher beliefs about how children learn to read and write. The practices staff engage in to teach phonics are explored.

Self-reported circumstances and consequences of driving while sleepy

Driver surveys are indispensable sources of information when estimating the role of sleepiness in crash causation. The purpose of the study was to (1) identify the prevalence of driving while sleepy among Finnish drivers, (2) determine the circumstances of such instances, and (3) identify risk factors and risk groups. Survey data were collected from a representative sample of active Finnish drivers (N = 1121). One-fifth of the drivers (19.5%) reported having fallen asleep at the wheel during their driving career, with 15.9% reporting having been close to falling asleep or having difficulty staying awake when driving during the previous twelve months. Epworth Sleepiness Scale scores were found to be associated with both types of sleepiness-related driving instances, while sleep quality was associated only with the latter. Compared to women, men more often reported falling asleep at the wheel; the differences were somewhat smaller with respect to fighting sleep while driving during the previous twelve months. The reported discrepancy in sleepiness-related instances (high prevalence of fighting sleep while driving during the previous twelve months and lower proportion of actually falling asleep) identifies young men (⩽25 years) as one of the main target groups for safety campaigns. Approximately three-quarters of drivers who had fallen asleep while driving reported taking action against falling asleep before it actually happened. Furthermore, almost all drivers who had fallen asleep while driving offered at least one logical reason that could have contributed to their falling asleep. These data indicate some degree of awareness about driving while sleepy and of the potential pre-trip factors that could lead to sleepiness while driving, and supports the notion that falling asleep at the wheel does not come as a (complete) surprise to the driver.

Parallel streaming signature EM-tree: A clustering algorithm for web scale applications

The proliferation of the web presents an unsolved problem of automatically analyzing billions of pages of natural language. We introduce a scalable algorithm that clusters hundreds of millions of web pages into hundreds of thousands of clusters. It does this on a single mid-range machine using efficient algorithms and compressed document representations. It is applied to two web-scale crawls covering tens of terabytes. ClueWeb09 and ClueWeb12 contain 500 and 733 million web pages and were clustered into 500,000 to 700,000 clusters. To the best of our knowledge, such fine grained clustering has not been previously demonstrated. Previous approaches clustered a sample that limits the maximum number of discoverable clusters. The proposed EM-tree algorithm uses the entire collection in clustering and produces several orders of magnitude more clusters than the existing algorithms. Fine grained clustering is necessary for meaningful clustering in massive collections where the number of distinct topics grows linearly with collection size. These fine-grained clusters show an improved cluster quality when assessed with two novel evaluations using ad hoc search relevance judgments and spam classifications for external validation. These evaluations solve the problem of assessing the quality of clusters where categorical labeling is unavailable and unfeasible.

Pull-through failure tests of thin steel roof battens under wind uplift load

Thin profiled steel roof sheeting and battens are increasingly used in the construction of roofing systems of residential, commercial, industrial and farm buildings in Australia. The critical load combination of external wind suction and internal wind pressures that occur during high wind events such as thunderstorms and tropical cylcones often dislocate the roofing systems partially or even completely due to premature roof connection failures. Past wind damage investigations have shown that roof sheeting failures occured at their screw connections to battens. In most of these cases, the screw fastener head pulled through the thin roof sheeting whilst the screw fasteners also pulled out from the battens. Research studis undertaken on the roof sheeting to batten connection failures have improved this situation. However, the batten to rafter or truss connections have not been investigated adequately. Failure of these connections can cause the failure of the entire roof structure as observed during the recent high wind events. Therefore a detailed experimental study consisting of both small scale and full scale tests has been undertaken to investigate the steel roof batten pull-through failures in relation to many critical parameters such as steel batten geometry, thickness and grade, screw fastener head sizes and screw tightening. This paper presents the details of this experimental study and the pull-through failure load results obtained from them. Finally it discusses the development of suitable design rules that can be used to determine the pull-through connection capacities of thin steel roof battens under wind uplift loads.

Mobile app rating scale: A new tool for assessing the quality of health mobile apps

Background The use of mobile apps for health and well being promotion has grown exponentially in recent years. Yet, there is currently no app-quality assessment tool beyond “star”-ratings. Objective The objective of this study was to develop a reliable, multidimensional measure for trialling, classifying, and rating the quality of mobile health apps. Methods A literature search was conducted to identify articles containing explicit Web or app quality rating criteria published between January 2000 and January 2013. Existing criteria for the assessment of app quality were categorized by an expert panel to develop the new Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) subscales, items, descriptors, and anchors. There were sixty well being apps that were randomly selected using an iTunes search for MARS rating. There were ten that were used to pilot the rating procedure, and the remaining 50 provided data on interrater reliability. Results There were 372 explicit criteria for assessing Web or app quality that were extracted from 25 published papers, conference proceedings, and Internet resources. There were five broad categories of criteria that were identified including four objective quality scales: engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information quality; and one subjective quality scale; which were refined into the 23-item MARS. The MARS demonstrated excellent internal consistency (alpha = .90) and interrater reliability intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC = .79). Conclusions The MARS is a simple, objective, and reliable tool for classifying and assessing the quality of mobile health apps. It can also be used to provide a checklist for the design and development of new high quality health apps.

Information technology investment governance: What is it and does it matter?

While the growth in the number of IT investments remains strong, research in the IT investment field is limited, resulting in suboptimal practical guidance on effectively governing IT investments. Based on resource-based theory, this paper reports the initial work involved in developing a construct names IT investment governance (ITIG), because it can be used to measure organizations' capability to govern their IT investments. This paper then empirically examines the association of ITIG and corporate performance. The preliminary result is a four-factor, 16-item instrument for assessing the ITIG construct. This method's factors are IT investment value governance, IT investment value monitoring, IT investment appraisals and IT investment project management. The impact of ITIG on corporate performance was demonstrated with a significant and positive relationship found to exist between the ITIG construct and corporate performance, thus supporting the effectiveness of the ITIG construct. Corporations with higher levels of ITIG capability are more likely to maximize the contribution of their IT investments to firm value.

Australian Commercial Law

Australian Commercial Law offers a concise yet comprehensive introduction to commercial law in Australia. The textbook provides a thorough and detailed discussion of a variety of topics in commercial law such as agency, bailment, the sale of goods, the transfer of property and the Personal Property Securities Act. The book also offers a detailed overview of topics within the Australian Consumer Law that are now relevant to commercial practice such as unconscionable conduct, consumer guarantees, and misleading and deceptive conduct. Written in a clear and accessible style, each chapter features key points and further reading to enhance students' understanding. Significant cases are discussed in detail and include excerpts from judgments to illustrate points of law. Australian Commercial Law is an indispensable resource for students who are seeking a comprehensive understanding of commercial law.

Validity of the geriatric depression scale and the collateral source version of the geriatric depression scale in nursing homes

Background Depression is a common psychiatric disorder in older people. The study aimed to examine the screening accuracy of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Collateral Source version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (CS-GDS) in the nursing home setting. Methods Eighty-eight residents from 14 nursing homes were assessed for depression using the GDS and the CS-GDS, and validated against clinician diagnosed depression using the Semi-structured Clinical Diagnostic Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I Disorders (SCID) for residents without dementia and the Provisional Diagnostic Criteria for Depression in Alzheimer Disease (PDCdAD) for those with dementia. The screening performances of five versions of the GDS (30-, 15-, 10-, 8-, and 4-item) and two versions of the CS-GDS (30- and 15-item) were analyzed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results Among residents without dementia, both the self-rated (AUC = 0.75–0.79) and proxy-rated (AUC = 0.67) GDS variations performed significantly better than chance in screening for depression. However, neither instrument adequately identified depression among residents with dementia (AUC between 0.57 and 0.70). Among the GDS variations, the 4- and 8-item scales had the highest AUC and the optimal cut-offs were >0 and >3, respectively. Conclusions The validity of the GDS in detecting depression requires a certain level of cognitive functioning. While the CS-GDS is designed to remedy this issue by using an informant, it did not have adequate validity in detecting depression among residents with dementia. Further research is needed on informant selection and other factors that can potentially influence the validity of proxy-based measures in the nursing home setting.

Cyclic Salinity Model for deposition of large-scale coal deposits

Existing field data for Rangal coals (Late Permian) of the Bowen Basin, Queensland, Australia, are inconsistent with the depositional model generally accepted in the current geological literature to explain coal deposition. Given the apparent unsuitability of the current depositional model to the Bowen Basin coal data, a new depositional model, here named the Cyclic Salinity Model, is proposed and tested in this study.

Applications of real-time machine vision to the control of mining equipment

The mining industry presents us with a number of ideal applications for sensor based machine control because of the unstructured environment that exists within each mine. The aim of the research presented here is to increase the productivity of existing large compliant mining machines by retrofitting with enhanced sensing and control technology. The current research focusses on the automatic control of the swing motion cycle of a dragline and an automated roof bolting system. We have achieved: * closed-loop swing control of an one-tenth scale model dragline; * single degree of freedom closed-loop visual control of an electro-hydraulic manipulator in the lab developed from standard components.

Community engagement or community conversation?: Boomtown, a large-scale regional, outdoor community theatrical event

On the 18th of July 2013, three hundred local members of Gladstone, Queensland erupted into song and dance performing the fraught history of their community harbourside through tug boat ballets, taiko drumming, German bell ringing and BMX bike riding. Over 17,500 people attended the four performances of Boomtown, a Queensland Music Festival event. This was the largest regional, outdoor community-engaged musical performance staged in Australia. The narrative moved beyond the dominant, pejorative view of Gladstone as an industrial town to include the community members’ sense of purpose and aspirations. It was a celebratory, contentious and ambitious project that sought to disrupt the traditional conventions of performance-making through working in artistically democratic ways. This article explores the potential for Australian Community Engaged Arts (CEA) projects such as Boomtown to democratically engage community members and co-create culturally meaningful work within a community. Research into CEA projects rarely consider how the often delicate conversations between practitioners and the community work. The complex processes of finding and co-writing the narrative, casting, and rehearsing Boomtown are discussed with reference to artistic director/dramaturge Sean Mee’s innovative approaches. Boomtown began with and concluded with community conversations. Skilful negotiation ensured congruence between the townspeople’s stories and the “community story” presented on stage, abrogating potential problems of narrative ownership. To supplement the research, twenty-one personal interviews were undertaken with Gladstone community members invested in the production before, during and after the project: performers, audience members and local professionals. The stories shared and emphasised in the theatricalised story were based on propitious, meaningful, local stories from lived experiences rather than preconceived, trivial or tokenistic matters, and were underpinned by a consensus formed on what was in the best interests of the majority of community members. Boomtown exposed hidden issues in the community and gave voice to thoughts, feelings and concerns which triggered not just engagement, but honest conversation within the community.

Large scale monitoring of crowds and building utilisation: A new database and distributed approach

Public buildings and large infrastructure are typically monitored by tens or hundreds of cameras, all capturing different physical spaces and observing different types of interactions and behaviours. However to date, in large part due to limited data availability, crowd monitoring and operational surveillance research has focused on single camera scenarios which are not representative of real-world applications. In this paper we present a new, publicly available database for large scale crowd surveillance. Footage from 12 cameras for a full work day covering the main floor of a busy university campus building, including an internal and external foyer, elevator foyers, and the main external approach are provided; alongside annotation for crowd counting (single or multi-camera) and pedestrian flow analysis for 10 and 6 sites respectively. We describe how this large dataset can be used to perform distributed monitoring of building utilisation, and demonstrate the potential of this dataset to understand and learn the relationship between different areas of a building.

International regulation of large-scale land acquisition involving foreign entities

Outlines some of the potential risks or actual harms that result from large-scale land leases or acquisitions and the relevant human rights and environmental law principles.