Meeting under the “Omei” Tree in the Torres Strait Islands : networks and funds of knowledge of mathematical ideas

This paper focuses on the turning point experiences that worked to transform the researcher during a preliminary consultation process to seek permission to conduct of a small pilot project on one Torres Strait Island. The project aimed to learn from parents how they support their children in their mathematics learning. Drawing on a community research design, a consultative meeting was held with one Torres Strait Islander community to discuss the possibility of piloting a small project that focused on working with parents and children to learn about early mathematics processes. Preliminary data indicated that parents use networks in their community. It highlighted the funds of knowledge of mathematics that exist in the community and which are used to teach their children. Such knowledges are situated within a community’s unique histories, culture and the voices of the people. “Omei” tree means the Tree of Wisdom in the Island community.

"Participation" in participatory design research

This thesis is about defining participation in the context of fostering research cohesion in the field of Participatory Design. The systematic and incremental building of new knowledge is the process by which science and research is advanced. This process requires a certain type of cohesion in the way research is undertaken for new knowledge to be built from the knowledge provided by previous projects and research. To support this process and to foster research cohesion three conditions are necessary. These conditions are: common ground between practitioners, problem-space positioning, and adherence to clear research criteria. The challenge of fostering research cohesion in Participatory Design is apparent in at least four themes raised in the literature: the role of politics within Participatory Design epistemology, the role of participation, design with users, and the ability to translate theory into practice. These four thematic challenges frame the context which the research gap is situated. These themes are also further investigated and the research gap – a general lack of research cohesion – along with one avenue for addressing this gap – a clear and operationalizable definition for participation – are identified. The intended contribution of this thesis is to develop a framework and visual tool to address this research gap. In particular, an initial approximation for a clear and operationalizable definition for participation will be proposed such that it can be used within the field of Participatory Design to run projects and foster research cohesion. In pursuit of this contribution, a critical lens is developed and used to analyse some of the principles and practices of Participatory Design that are regarded as foundational. This lens addresses how to define participation in a way that adheres to basic principles of scientific rigour – namely, ensuring that the elements of a theory are operationalizable, falsifiable, generalizable, and useful, and it also treats participation as a construct rather than treating the notion of participation as a variable. A systematic analysis is performed using this lens on the principles and practices that are considered foundational within the field. From this analysis, three components of the participation construct – impact, influence, and agency – are identified. These components are then broken down into two constituent variables each (six in all) and represented visually. Impact is described as the relationship between the quality and use of information. Influence is described as the relationship between the amount and scope of decision making. Agency is described as the relationship between the motivation of the participant and the solidarity of the group. Thus, as a construct, participation is described as the relationship between a participant’s impact, influence, and agency. In the concluding section, the value of this participation construct is explored for its utility in enhancing project work and fostering research cohesion. Three items of potential value that emerge are: the creation of a visual tool through the representation of these six constituent variables in one image; the elaboration of a common language for researchers based on the six constituent variables identified; and the ability to systematically identify and remedy participation gaps throughout the life of the project. While future research exploring the applicability of the participation construct in real world projects is necessary, it is intended that this initial approximation of a participation construct in the form of the visual tool will serve as the basis for a cohesive and rigorous discussion about participation in Participatory Design.

Semantic service discovery in the service ecosystem

Electronic services are a leitmotif in ‘hot’ topics like Software as a Service, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Service oriented Computing, Cloud Computing, application markets and smart devices. We propose to consider these in what has been termed the Service Ecosystem (SES). The SES encompasses all levels of electronic services and their interaction, with human consumption and initiation on its periphery in much the same way the ‘Web’ describes a plethora of technologies that eventuate to connect information and expose it to humans. Presently, the SES is heterogeneous, fragmented and confined to semi-closed systems. A key issue hampering the emergence of an integrated SES is Service Discovery (SD). A SES will be dynamic with areas of structured and unstructured information within which service providers and ‘lay’ human consumers interact; until now the two are disjointed, e.g., SOA-enabled organisations, industries and domains are choreographed by domain experts or ‘hard-wired’ to smart device application markets and web applications. In a SES, services are accessible, comparable and exchangeable to human consumers closing the gap to the providers. This requires a new SD with which humans can discover services transparently and effectively without special knowledge or training. We propose two modes of discovery, directed search following an agenda and explorative search, which speculatively expands knowledge of an area of interest by means of categories. Inspired by conceptual space theory from cognitive science, we propose to implement the modes of discovery using concepts to map a lay consumer’s service need to terminologically sophisticated descriptions of services. To this end, we reframe SD as an information retrieval task on the information attached to services, such as, descriptions, reviews, documentation and web sites - the Service Information Shadow. The Semantic Space model transforms the shadow's unstructured semantic information into a geometric, concept-like representation. We introduce an improved and extended Semantic Space including categorization calling it the Semantic Service Discovery model. We evaluate our model with a highly relevant, service related corpus simulating a Service Information Shadow including manually constructed complex service agendas, as well as manual groupings of services. We compare our model against state-of-the-art information retrieval systems and clustering algorithms. By means of an extensive series of empirical evaluations, we establish optimal parameter settings for the semantic space model. The evaluations demonstrate the model’s effectiveness for SD in terms of retrieval precision over state-of-the-art information retrieval models (directed search) and the meaningful, automatic categorization of service related information, which shows potential to form the basis of a useful, cognitively motivated map of the SES for exploratory search.

The role of organisational culture, trust and mechanisms in inter-project knowledge sharing

Knowledge has been recognised as a powerful yet intangible asset, which is difficult to manage. This is especially true in a project environment where there is the potential to repeat mistakes, rather than learn from previous experiences. The literature in the project management field has recognised the importance of knowledge sharing (KS) within and between projects. However, studies in that field focus primarily on KS mechanisms including lessons learned (LL) and post project reviews as the source of knowledge for future projects, and only some preliminary research has been carried out on the aspects of project management offices (PMOs) and organisational culture (OC) in KS. This study undertook to investigate KS behaviours in an inter-project context, with a particular emphasis on the role of trust, OC and a range of knowledge sharing mechanisms (KSM) in achieving successful inter-project knowledge sharing (I-PKS). An extensive literature search resulted in the development of an I-PKS Framework, which defined the scope of the research and shaped its initial design. The literature review indicated that existing research relating to the three factors of OC, trust and KSM remains inadequate in its ability to fully explain the role of these contextual factors. In particular, the literature review identified these areas of interest: (1) the conflicting answers to some of the major questions related to KSM, (2) the limited empirical research on the role of different trust dimensions, (3) limited empirical evidence of the role of OC in KS, and (4) the insufficient research on KS in an inter-project context. The resulting Framework comprised the three main factors including: OC, trust and KSM, demonstrating a more integrated view of KS in the inter-project context. Accordingly, the aim of this research was to examine the relationships between these three factors and KS by investigating behaviours related to KS from the project managers‘ (PMs‘) perspective. In order to achieve the aim, this research sought to answer the following research questions: 1. How does organisational culture influence inter-project knowledge sharing? 2. How does the existence of three forms of trust — (i) ability, (ii) benevolence and (iii) integrity — influence inter-project knowledge sharing? 3. How can different knowledge sharing mechanisms (relational, project management tools and process, and technology) improve inter-project knowledge sharing behaviours? 4. How do the relationships between these three factors of organisational culture, trust and knowledge sharing mechanisms improve inter-project knowledge sharing? a. What are the relationships between the factors? b. What is the best fit for given cases to ensure more effective inter-project knowledge sharing? Using multiple case studies, this research was designed to build propositions emerging from cross-case data analysis. The four cases were chosen on the basis of theoretical sampling. All cases were large project-based organisations (PBOs), with a strong matrix-type structure, as per the typology proposed by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) (2008). Data were collected from project management departments of the respective organisations. A range of analytical techniques were used to deal with the data including pattern matching logic and explanation building analysis, complemented by the use of NVivo for data coding and management. Propositions generated at the end of the analyses were further compared with the extant literature, and practical implications based on the data and literature were suggested in order to improve I-PKS. Findings from this research conclude that OC, trust, and KSM contribute to inter-project knowledge sharing, and suggest the existence of relationships between these factors. In view of that, this research identified the relationships between different trust dimensions, suggesting that integrity trust reinforces the relationship between ability trust and knowledge sharing. Furthermore, this research demonstrated that characteristics of culture and trust interact to reinforce preferences for mechanisms of knowledge sharing. This means that cultures that facilitate characteristics of Clan type are more likely to result in trusting relationships, hence are more likely to use organic sources of knowledge for both tacit and explicit knowledge exchange. In contrast, cultures that are empirically driven, based on control, efficiency, and measures (characteristics of Hierarchy and Market types) display tendency to develop trust primarily in ability of non-organic sources, and therefore use these sources to share mainly explicit knowledge. This thesis contributes to the project management literature by providing a more integrative view of I-PKS, bringing the factors of OC, trust and KSM into the picture. A further contribution is related to the use of collaborative tools as a substitute for static LL databases and as a facilitator for tacit KS between geographically dispersed projects. This research adds to the literature on OC by providing rich empirical evidence of the relationships between OC and the willingness to share knowledge, and by providing empirical evidence that OC has an effect on trust; in doing so this research extends the theoretical propositions outlined by previous research. This study also extends the research on trust by identifying the relationships between different trust dimensions, suggesting that integrity trust reinforces the relationship between ability trust and KS. Finally, this research provides some directions for future studies.

A hierarchical evolutionary algorithmic design (HEAD) system for generating and evolving building design models

This thesis develops a detailed conceptual design method and a system software architecture defined with a parametric and generative evolutionary design system to support an integrated interdisciplinary building design approach. The research recognises the need to shift design efforts toward the earliest phases of the design process to support crucial design decisions that have a substantial cost implication on the overall project budget. The overall motivation of the research is to improve the quality of designs produced at the author's employer, the General Directorate of Major Works (GDMW) of the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces. GDMW produces many buildings that have standard requirements, across a wide range of environmental and social circumstances. A rapid means of customising designs for local circumstances would have significant benefits. The research considers the use of evolutionary genetic algorithms in the design process and the ability to generate and assess a wider range of potential design solutions than a human could manage. This wider ranging assessment, during the early stages of the design process, means that the generated solutions will be more appropriate for the defined design problem. The research work proposes a design method and system that promotes a collaborative relationship between human creativity and the computer capability. The tectonic design approach is adopted as a process oriented design that values the process of design as much as the product. The aim is to connect the evolutionary systems to performance assessment applications, which are used as prioritised fitness functions. This will produce design solutions that respond to their environmental and function requirements. This integrated, interdisciplinary approach to design will produce solutions through a design process that considers and balances the requirements of all aspects of the design. Since this thesis covers a wide area of research material, 'methodological pluralism' approach was used, incorporating both prescriptive and descriptive research methods. Multiple models of research were combined and the overall research was undertaken following three main stages, conceptualisation, developmental and evaluation. The first two stages lay the foundations for the specification of the proposed system where key aspects of the system that have not previously been proven in the literature, were implemented to test the feasibility of the system. As a result of combining the existing knowledge in the area with the newlyverified key aspects of the proposed system, this research can form the base for a future software development project. The evaluation stage, which includes building the prototype system to test and evaluate the system performance based on the criteria defined in the earlier stage, is not within the scope this thesis. The research results in a conceptual design method and a proposed system software architecture. The proposed system is called the 'Hierarchical Evolutionary Algorithmic Design (HEAD) System'. The HEAD system has shown to be feasible through the initial illustrative paper-based simulation. The HEAD system consists of the two main components - 'Design Schema' and the 'Synthesis Algorithms'. The HEAD system reflects the major research contribution in the way it is conceptualised, while secondary contributions are achieved within the system components. The design schema provides constraints on the generation of designs, thus enabling the designer to create a wide range of potential designs that can then be analysed for desirable characteristics. The design schema supports the digital representation of the human creativity of designers into a dynamic design framework that can be encoded and then executed through the use of evolutionary genetic algorithms. The design schema incorporates 2D and 3D geometry and graph theory for space layout planning and building formation using the Lowest Common Design Denominator (LCDD) of a parameterised 2D module and a 3D structural module. This provides a bridge between the standard adjacency requirements and the evolutionary system. The use of graphs as an input to the evolutionary algorithm supports the introduction of constraints in a way that is not supported by standard evolutionary techniques. The process of design synthesis is guided as a higher level description of the building that supports geometrical constraints. The Synthesis Algorithms component analyses designs at four levels, 'Room', 'Layout', 'Building' and 'Optimisation'. At each level multiple fitness functions are embedded into the genetic algorithm to target the specific requirements of the relevant decomposed part of the design problem. Decomposing the design problem to allow for the design requirements of each level to be dealt with separately and then reassembling them in a bottom up approach reduces the generation of non-viable solutions through constraining the options available at the next higher level. The iterative approach, in exploring the range of design solutions through modification of the design schema as the understanding of the design problem improves, assists in identifying conflicts in the design requirements. Additionally, the hierarchical set-up allows the embedding of multiple fitness functions into the genetic algorithm, each relevant to a specific level. This supports an integrated multi-level, multi-disciplinary approach. The HEAD system promotes a collaborative relationship between human creativity and the computer capability. The design schema component, as the input to the procedural algorithms, enables the encoding of certain aspects of the designer's subjective creativity. By focusing on finding solutions for the relevant sub-problems at the appropriate levels of detail, the hierarchical nature of the system assist in the design decision-making process.

Ontology-based knowledge management for enterprise systems

Companies face the challenges of expanding their markets, improving products, services and processes, and exploiting intellectual capital in a dynamic network. Therefore, more companies are turning to an Enterprise System (ES). Knowledge management (KM) has also received considerable attention and is continuously gaining the interest of industry, enterprises, and academia. For ES, KM can provide support across the entire lifecycle, from selection and implementation to use. In addition, it is also recognised that an ontology is an appropriate methodology to accomplish a common consensus of communication, as well as to support a diversity of KM activities, such as knowledge repository, retrieval, sharing, and dissemination. This paper examines the role of ontology-based KM for ES (OKES) and investigates the possible integration of ontology-based KM and ES. The authors develop a taxonomy as a framework for understanding OKES research. In order to achieve the objective of this study, a systematic review of existing research was conducted. Based on a theoretical framework of the ES lifecycle, KM, KM for ES, ontology, and ontology-based KM, guided by the framework of study, a taxonomy for OKES is established.

Middle school social sciences : exploring teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge

This study examines teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge in the humanities and social sciences, commonly referred to as "social education", in the middle years of schooling. Social education has long been a highly contested area of the curriculum in Australia. In Queensland, social education comprises the integrated learning area of Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE). However, the new Australian Curriculum marks a return to discipline-based study of history and geography. This phenomenographic study addresses a perceived lack of understanding in the current research literature in Australia of the nature of middle school teachers’ professional knowledge for teaching the social sciences. Teachers are conceptualised in this study as curriculum makers in the classroom and, as such, their conceptions of essential knowledge are significant. Shulman’s (1986, 1987) theory of teachers’ knowledge forms the theoretical foundation of the study, which is contextualised in Federal and State education policies and the literature on the middle phase of schooling. Transcripts of interviews conducted with a group of thirty-one Queensland middle school teachers of SOSE were subjected to phenomenographic analysis, revealing seven qualitatively different categories of description. Essential aspects of knowledge for social education emerging from the study were: (1) discipline-based knowledge; (2) curriculum knowledge; (3) knowledge derived from teaching experience; (4) knowledge of middle years learners; (5) knowledge of integration; (6) knowledge of current affairs; and (7) knowledge invested in teacher identity. The three dimensions of variation that linked and differentiated the categories were: (1) content; (2) inquiry learning; and (3) teacher autonomy. These findings are presented as an outcome space where the categories are grouped as knowledge of the learning area, knowledge of contexts and knowledge of self as teacher. The results of the study suggest that social education teachers’ identity and knowledge of self are critical aspects of their knowledge as curriculum makers. The results illustrate that the professional and personal domains intersect, extending Shulman’s (1986, 1987) original theorisation of teachers’ knowledge into the personal arena. Further, middle years teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge reveal a practice-based theorisation of knowledge for social education that fits the goals of middle schooling. The research concludes that attention to teacher identity in teacher education and in-service professional development has considerable potential to grow teachers’ knowledge in the social sciences and enhance their capacity for school-based curriculum leadership.

Unsupervised multi-label text classification using a world knowledge ontology

The development of text classification techniques has been largely promoted in the past decade due to the increasing availability and widespread use of digital documents. Usually, the performance of text classification relies on the quality of categories and the accuracy of classifiers learned from samples. When training samples are unavailable or categories are unqualified, text classification performance would be degraded. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised multi-label text classification method to classify documents using a large set of categories stored in a world ontology. The approach has been promisingly evaluated by compared with typical text classification methods, using a real-world document collection and based on the ground truth encoded by human experts.

Unusual scene detection using distributed behaviour model and sparse representation

The ability to detect unusual events in surviellance footage as they happen is a highly desireable feature for a surveillance system. However, this problem remains challenging in crowded scenes due to occlusions and the clustering of people. In this paper, we propose using the Distributed Behavior Model (DBM), which has been widely used in computer graphics, for video event detection. Our approach does not rely on object tracking, and is robust to camera movements. We use sparse coding for classification, and test our approach on various datasets. Our proposed approach outperforms a state-of-the-art work which uses the social force model and Latent Dirichlet Allocation.

Project manager competencies in a knowledge-based society

The construction phase of building projects is often a crucial influencing factor in success or failure of projects. Project managers are believed to play a significant role in firms’ success and competitiveness. Therefore, it is important for firms to better understand the demands of managing projects and the competencies that project managers require for more effective project delivery. In a survey of building project managers in the state of Queensland, Australia, it was found that management and information management system are the top ranking competencies required by effective project managers. Furthermore, a significant number of respondents identified the site manager, construction manager and client’s representative as the three individuals whose close and regular contacts with project managers have the greatest influence on the project managers’ performance. Based on these findings, an intra-project workgroups model is proposed to help project managers facilitate more effective management of people and information on building projects.

Hospital outpatient responses to potential driving impairment due to prescribed medications

Driving and using prescription medicines that have the potential to impair driving is an emerging research area. To date it is characterised by a limited (although growing) number of studies and methodological complexities that make generalisations about impairment due to medications difficult. Consistent evidence has been found for the impairing effects of hypnotics, sedative antidepressants and antihistamines, and narcotic analgesics, although it has been estimated that as many as nine medication classes have the potential to impair driving (Alvarez & del Rio, 2000; Walsh, de Gier, Christopherson, & Verstraete, 2004). There is also evidence for increased negative effects related to concomitant use of other medications and alcohol (Movig et al., 2004; Pringle, Ahern, Heller, Gold, & Brown, 2005). Statistics on the high levels of Australian prescription medication use suggest that consumer awareness of driving impairment due to medicines should be examined. One web-based study has found a low level of awareness, knowledge and risk perceptions among Australian drivers about the impairing effects of various medications on driving (Mallick, Johnston, Goren, & Kennedy, 2007). The lack of awareness and knowledge brings into question the effectiveness of the existing countermeasures. In Australia these consist of the use of ancillary warning labels administered under mandatory regulation and professional guidelines, advice to patients, and the use of Consumer Medicines Information (CMI) with medications that are known to cause impairment. The responsibility for the use of the warnings and related counsel to patients primarily lies with the pharmacist when dispensing relevant medication. A review by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) noted that in practice, advice to patients may not occur and that CMI is not always available (TGA, 2002). Researchers have also found that patients' recall of verbal counsel is very low (Houts, Bachrach, Witmer, Tringali, Bucher, & Localio, 1998). With healthcare observed as increasingly being provided in outpatient conditions (Davis et al., 2006; Vingilis & MacDonald, 2000), establishing the effectiveness of the warning labels as a countermeasure is especially important. There have been recent international developments in medication categorisation systems and associated medication warning labels. In 2005, France implemented a four-tier medication categorisation and warning system to improve patients' and health professionals' awareness and knowledge of related road safety issues (AFSSAPS, 2005). This warning system uses a pictogram and indicates the level of potential impairment in relation to driving performance through the use of colour and advice on the recommended behaviour to adopt towards driving. The comparable Australian system does not indicate the severity level of potential effects, and does not provide specific guidelines on the attitude or actions that the individual should adopt towards driving. It is reliant upon the patient to be vigilant in self-monitoring effects, to understand the potential ways in which they may be affected and how serious these effects may be, and to adopt the appropriate protective actions. This thesis investigates the responses of a sample of Australian hospital outpatients who receive appropriate labelling and counselling advice about potential driving impairment due to prescribed medicines. It aims to provide baseline data on the understanding and use of relevant medications by a Queensland public hospital outpatient sample recruited through the hospital pharmacy. It includes an exploration and comparison of the effect of the Australian and French medication warning systems on medication user knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, and explores whether there are areas in which the Australian system may be improved by including any beneficial elements of the French system. A total of 358 outpatients were surveyed, and a follow-up telephone survey was conducted with a subgroup of consenting participants who were taking at least one medication that required an ancillary warning label about driving impairment. A complementary study of 75 French hospital outpatients was also conducted to further investigate the performance of the warnings. Not surprisingly, medication use among the Australian outpatient sample was high. The ancillary warning labels required to appear on medications that can impair driving were prevalent. A subgroup of participants was identified as being potentially at-risk of driving impaired, based on their reported recent use of medications requiring an ancillary warning label and level of driving activity. The sample reported previous behaviour and held future intentions that were consistent with warning label advice and health protective action. Participants did not express a particular need for being advised by a health professional regarding fitness to drive in relation to their medication. However, it was also apparent from the analysis that the participants would be significantly more likely to follow advice from a doctor than a pharmacist. High levels of knowledge in terms of general principles about effects of alcohol, illicit drugs and combinations of substances, and related health and crash risks were revealed. This may reflect a sample specific effect. Emphasis is placed in the professional guidelines for hospital pharmacists that make it essential that advisory labels are applied to medicines where applicable and that warning advice is given to all patients on medication which may affect driving (SHPA, 2006, p. 221). The research program applied selected theoretical constructs from Schwarzer's (1992) Health Action Process Approach, which has extended constructs from existing health theories such as the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) to better account for the intention-behaviour gap often observed when predicting behaviour. This was undertaken to explore the utility of the constructs in understanding and predicting compliance intentions and behaviour with the mandatory medication warning about driving impairment. This investigation revealed that the theoretical constructs related to intention and planning to avoid driving if an effect from the medication was noticed were useful. Not all the theoretical model constructs that had been demonstrated to be significant predictors in previous research on different health behaviours were significant in the present analyses. Positive outcome expectancies from avoiding driving were found to be important influences on forming the intention to avoid driving if an effect due to medication was noticed. In turn, intention was found to be a significant predictor of planning. Other selected theoretical constructs failed to predict compliance with the Australian warning label advice. It is possible that the limited predictive power of a number of constructs including risk perceptions is due to the small sample size obtained at follow up on which the evaluation is based. Alternately, it is possible that the theoretical constructs failed to sufficiently account for issues of particular relevance to the driving situation. The responses of the Australian hospital outpatient sample towards the Australian and French medication warning labels, which differed according to visual characteristics and warning message, were examined. In addition, a complementary study with a sample of French hospital outpatients was undertaken in order to allow general comparisons concerning the performance of the warnings. While a large amount of research exists concerning warning effectiveness, there is little research that has specifically investigated medication warnings relating to driving impairment. General established principles concerning factors that have been demonstrated to enhance warning noticeability and behavioural compliance have been extrapolated and investigated in the present study. The extent to which there is a need for education and improved health messages on this issue was a core issue of investigation in this thesis. Among the Australian sample, the size of the warning label and text, and red colour were the most visually important characteristics. The pictogram used in the French labels was also rated highly, and was salient for a large proportion of the sample. According to the study of French hospital outpatients, the pictogram was perceived to be the most important visual characteristic. Overall, the findings suggest that the Australian approach of using a combination of visual characteristics was important for the majority of the sample but that the use of a pictogram could enhance effects. A high rate of warning recall was found overall and a further important finding was that higher warning label recall was associated with increased number of medication classes taken. These results suggest that increased vigilance and care are associated with the number of medications taken and the associated repetition of the warning message. Significantly higher levels of risk perception were found for the French Level 3 (highest severity) label compared with the comparable mandatory Australian ancillary Label 1 warning. Participants' intentions related to the warning labels indicated that they would be more cautious while taking potentially impairing medication displaying the French Level 3 label compared with the Australian Label 1. These are potentially important findings for the Australian context regarding the current driving impairment warnings about displayed on medication. The findings raise other important implications for the Australian labelling context. An underlying factor may be the differences in the wording of the warning messages that appear on the Australian and French labels. The French label explicitly states "do not drive" while the Australian label states "if affected, do not drive", and the difference in responses may reflect that less severity is perceived where the situation involves the consumer's self-assessment of their impairment. The differences in the assignment of responsibility by the Australian (the consumer assesses and decides) and French (the doctor assesses and decides) approaches for the decision to drive while taking medication raises the core question of who is most able to assess driving impairment due to medication: the consumer, or the health professional? There are pros and cons related to knowledge, expertise and practicalities with either option. However, if the safety of the consumer is the primary aim, then the trend towards stronger risk perceptions and more consistent and cautious behavioural intentions in relation to the French label suggests that this approach may be more beneficial for consumer safety. The observations from the follow-up survey, although based on a small sample size and descriptive in nature, revealed that just over half of the sample recalled seeing a warning label about driving impairment on at least one of their medications. The majority of these respondents reported compliance with the warning advice. However, the results indicated variation in responses concerning alcohol intake and modifying the dose of medication or driving habits so that they could continue to drive, which suggests that the warning advice may not be having the desired impact. The findings of this research have implications for current countermeasures in this area. These have included enhancing the role that prescribing doctors have in providing warnings and advice to patients about the impact that their medication can have on driving, increasing consumer perceptions of the authority of pharmacists on this issue, and the reinforcement of the warning message. More broadly, it is suggested that there would be benefit in a wider dissemination of research-based information on increased crash risk and systematic monitoring and publicity about the representation of medications in crashes resulting in injuries and fatalities. Suggestions for future research concern the continued investigation of the effects of medications and interactions with existing medical conditions and other substances on driving skills, effects of variations in warning label design, individual behaviours and characteristics (particularly among those groups who are dependent upon prescription medication) and validation of consumer self-assessment of impairment.

Knowledge management

This paper describes the background and methodology developed and employed in undertaking research developing a Knowledge Management Strategy for a key construction focused government agency. This paper reviews this methodology and examines a likely Knowledge Management Strategy.

Design of a knowledge base to teach programming

Programming is a subject that many beginning students find difficult. This paper describes a knowledge base designed for the purpose of analyzing programs written in the PHP web development language. The aim is to use this knowledge base in an Intelligent Tutoring System that will provide effective feedback to students. The main focus of this research is that a programming exercise can have many correct solutions. This paper presents an overview of how the proposed knowledge base can be utilized to accept different solutions to a given exercise

Designing the knowledge base for a PHP tutor

Programming is a subject that many beginning students students find difficult. This paper descibes a knowledge base designed for the purpose of analyzing programs written in the PHP web development language. The aim is to use this knowledge base in an Intelligent Tutoring System. The main emphasis is on accepting alternative solutions to a given problem.

Entrepreneurship education in non-business schools : best practice for Australian contexts of knowledge and innovation communities (Final Report)

In the current era of global economic instability, business and industry have already identified a widening gap between graduate skills and employability. An important element of this is the lack of entrepreneurial skills in graduates. This Teaching Fellowship investigated two sides of a story about entrepreneurial skills and their teaching. Senior players in the innovation commercialisation industry, a high profile entrepreneurial sector, were surveyed to gauge their needs and experiences of graduates they employ. International contexts of entrepreneurship education were investigated to explore how their teaching programs impart the skills of entrepreneurship. Such knowledge is an essential for the design of education programs that can deliver the entrepreneurial skills deemed important by industry for future sustainability. Two programs of entrepreneurship education are being implemented at QUT that draw on the best practice exemplars investigated during this Fellowship. The QUT Innovation Space (QIS) focuses on capturing the innovation and creativity of students, staff and others. The QIS is a physical and virtual meeting and networking space; a connected community enhancing the engagement of participants. The Q_Hatchery is still embryonic; but it is intended to be an innovation community that brings together nascent entrepreneurial businesses to collaborate, train and support each other. There is a niche between concept product and business incubator where an experiential learning environment for otherwise isolated ‘garage-at-home’ businesses could improve success rates. The QIS and the Q_Hatchery serve as living research laboratories to trial the concepts emerging from the skills survey. The survey of skills requirements of the innovation commercialisation industry has produced a large and high quality data set still being explored. Work experience as an employability factor has already emerged as an industry requirement that provides employee maturity. Exploratory factor analysis of the skills topics surveyed has led to a process-based conceptual model for teaching and learning higher-order entrepreneurial skills. Two foundational skills domains (Knowledge, Awareness) are proposed as prerequisites which allow individuals with a suite of early stage entrepreneurial and behavioural skills (Pre-leadership) to further leverage their careers into a leadership role in industry with development of skills around higher order elements of entrepreneurship, management in new business ventures and progressing winning technologies to market. The next stage of the analysis is to test the proposed model through structured equation modelling. Another factor that emerged quickly from the survey analysis broadens the generic concept of team skills currently voiced in Australian policy documents discussing the employability agenda. While there was recognition of the role of sharing, creating and using knowledge in a team-based interdisciplinary context, the adoption and adaptation of behaviours and attitudes of other team members of different disciplinary backgrounds (interprofessionalism) featured as an issue. Most undergraduates are taught and undertake teamwork in silos and, thus, seldom experience a true real-world interdisciplinary environment. Enhancing the entrepreneurial capacity of Australian industry is essential for the economic health of the country and can only be achieved by addressing the lack of entrepreneurial skills in graduates from the higher education system. This Fellowship has attempted to address this deficiency by identifying the skills requirements and providing frameworks for their teaching.