User participation in the categorisation of the State Library of Queensland digital image collections: characteristics, motivations and experiences

In 2010, the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) donated their out-of-copyright Queensland images to Wikimedia Commons. One direct effect of publishing the collections at Wikimedia Commons is the ability of general audiences to participate and help the library in processing the images in the collection. This paper will discuss a project that explored user participation in the categorisation of the State Library of Queensland digital image collections. The outcomes of this project can be used to gain a better understanding of user participation that lead to improving access to library digital collections. Two techniques for data collection were used: documents analysis and interview. Document analysis was performed on the Wikimedia Commons monthly reports. Meanwhile, interview was used as the main data collection technique in this research. The data collected from document analysis was used to help the researchers to devise appropriate questions for interviews. The interviews were undertaken with participants who were divided into two groups: SLQ staff members and Wikimedians (users who participate in Wikimedia). The two sets of data collected from participants were analysed independently and compared. This method was useful for the researchers to understand the differences between the experiences of categorisation from both the librarians’ and the users’ perspectives. This paper will provide a discussion on the preliminary findings that have emerged from each group participant. This research provides preliminary information about the extent of user participation in the categorisation of SLQ collections in Wikimedia Commons that can be used by SLQ and other interested libraries in describing their digital content by their categorisations to improve user access to the collection in the future.

The relationship between drivers’ perceptions toward police speed enforcement and self-reported speeding behaviour

Exceeding the speed limit and driving too fast for the conditions are regularly cited as significant contributing factors in traffic crashes, particularly fatal and serious injury crashes. Despite an extensive body of research highlighting the relationship between increased vehicle speeds and crash risk and severity, speeding remains a pervasive behaviour on Australian roads. The development of effective countermeasures designed to reduce the prevalence of speeding behaviour requires that this behaviour is well understood. The primary aim of this program of research was to develop a better understanding of the influence of drivers’ perceptions and attitudes toward police speed enforcement on speeding behaviour. Study 1 employed focus group discussions with 39 licensed drivers to explore the influence of perceptions relating to specific characteristics of speed enforcement policies and practices on drivers’ attitudes towards speed enforcement. Three primary factors were identified as being most influential: site selection; visibility; and automaticity (i.e., whether the enforcement approach is automated/camera-based or manually operated). Perceptions regarding these enforcement characteristics were found to influence attitudes regarding the perceived legitimacy and transparency of speed enforcement. Moreover, misperceptions regarding speed enforcement policies and practices appeared to also have a substantial impact on attitudes toward speed enforcement, typically in a negative direction. These findings have important implications for road safety given that prior research has suggested that the effectiveness of speed enforcement approaches may be reduced if efforts are perceived by drivers as being illegitimate, such that they do little to encourage voluntary compliance. Study 1 also examined the impact of speed enforcement approaches varying in the degree of visibility and automaticity on self-reported willingness to comply with speed limits. These discussions suggested that all of the examined speed enforcement approaches (see Section 1.5 for more details) generally showed potential to reduce vehicle speeds and encourage compliance with posted speed limits. Nonetheless, participant responses suggested a greater willingness to comply with approaches operated in a highly visible manner, irrespective of the corresponding level of automaticity of the approach. While less visible approaches were typically associated with poorer rates of driver acceptance (e.g., perceived as “sneaky” and “unfair”), participants reported that such approaches would likely encourage long-term and network-wide impacts on their own speeding behaviour, as a function of the increased unpredictability of operations and increased direct (specific deterrence) and vicarious (general deterrence) experiences with punishment. Participants in Study 1 suggested that automated approaches, particularly when operated in a highly visible manner, do little to encourage compliance with speed limits except in the immediate vicinity of the enforcement location. While speed cameras have been criticised on such grounds in the past, such approaches can still have substantial road safety benefits if implemented in high-risk settings. Moreover, site-learning effects associated with automated approaches can also be argued to be a beneficial by-product of enforcement, such that behavioural modifications are achieved even in the absence of actual enforcement. Conversely, manually operated approaches were reported to be associated with more network-wide impacts on behaviour. In addition, the reported acceptance of such methods was high, due to the increased swiftness of punishment, ability for additional illegal driving behaviours to be policed and the salutary influence associated with increased face-to-face contact with authority. Study 2 involved a quantitative survey conducted with 718 licensed Queensland drivers from metropolitan and regional areas. The survey sought to further examine the influence of the visibility and automaticity of operations on self-reported likelihood and duration of compliance. Overall, the results from Study 2 corroborated those of Study 1. All examined approaches were again found to encourage compliance with speed limits, such that all approaches could be considered to be “effective”. Nonetheless, significantly greater self-reported likelihood and duration of compliance was associated with visibly operated approaches, irrespective of the corresponding automaticity of the approach. In addition, the impact of automaticity was influenced by visibility; such that significantly greater self-reported likelihood of compliance was associated with manually operated approaches, but only when they are operated in a less visible fashion. Conversely, manually operated approaches were associated with significantly greater durations of self-reported compliance, but only when they are operated in a highly visible manner. Taken together, the findings from Studies 1 and 2 suggest that enforcement efforts, irrespective of their visibility or automaticity, generally encourage compliance with speed limits. However, the duration of these effects on behaviour upon removal of the enforcement efforts remains questionable and represents an area where current speed enforcement practices could possibly be improved. Overall, it appears that identifying the optimal mix of enforcement operations, implementing them at a sufficient intensity and increasing the unpredictability of enforcement efforts (e.g., greater use of less visible approaches, random scheduling) are critical elements of success. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were also performed in Study 2 to investigate the punishment-related and attitudinal constructs that influence self-reported frequency of speeding behaviour. The research was based on the theoretical framework of expanded deterrence theory, augmented with three particular attitudinal constructs. Specifically, previous research examining the influence of attitudes on speeding behaviour has typically focussed on attitudes toward speeding behaviour in general only. This research sought to more comprehensively explore the influence of attitudes by also individually measuring and analysing attitudes toward speed enforcement and attitudes toward the appropriateness of speed limits on speeding behaviour. Consistent with previous research, a number of classical and expanded deterrence theory variables were found to significantly predict self-reported frequency of speeding behaviour. Significantly greater speeding behaviour was typically reported by those participants who perceived punishment associated with speeding to be less certain, who reported more frequent use of punishment avoidance strategies and who reported greater direct experiences with punishment. A number of interesting differences in the significant predictors among males and females, as well as younger and older drivers, were reported. Specifically, classical deterrence theory variables appeared most influential on the speeding behaviour of males and younger drivers, while expanded deterrence theory constructs appeared more influential for females. These findings have important implications for the development and implementation of speeding countermeasures. Of the attitudinal factors, significantly greater self-reported frequency of speeding behaviour was reported among participants who held more favourable attitudes toward speeding and who perceived speed limits to be set inappropriately low. Disappointingly, attitudes toward speed enforcement were found to have little influence on reported speeding behaviour, over and above the other deterrence theory and attitudinal constructs. Indeed, the relationship between attitudes toward speed enforcement and self-reported speeding behaviour was completely accounted for by attitudes toward speeding. Nonetheless, the complexity of attitudes toward speed enforcement are not yet fully understood and future research should more comprehensively explore the measurement of this construct. Finally, given the wealth of evidence (both in general and emerging from this program of research) highlighting the association between punishment avoidance and speeding behaviour, Study 2 also sought to investigate the factors that influence the self-reported propensity to use punishment avoidance strategies. A standard multiple regression analysis was conducted for exploratory purposes only. The results revealed that punishment-related and attitudinal factors significantly predicted approximately one fifth of the variance in the dependent variable. The perceived ability to avoid punishment, vicarious punishment experience, vicarious punishment avoidance and attitudes toward speeding were all significant predictors. Future research should examine these relationships more thoroughly and identify additional influential factors. In summary, the current program of research has a number of implications for road safety and speed enforcement policy and practice decision-making. The research highlights a number of potential avenues for the improvement of public education regarding enforcement efforts and provides a number of insights into punishment avoidance behaviours. In addition, the research adds strength to the argument that enforcement approaches should not only demonstrate effectiveness in achieving key road safety objectives, such as reduced vehicle speeds and associated crashes, but also strive to be transparent and legitimate, such that voluntary compliance is encouraged. A number of potential strategies are discussed (e.g., point-to-point speed cameras, intelligent speed adaptation. The correct mix and intensity of enforcement approaches appears critical for achieving optimum effectiveness from enforcement efforts, as well as enhancements in the unpredictability of operations and swiftness of punishment. Achievement of these goals should increase both the general and specific deterrent effects associated with enforcement through an increased perceived risk of detection and a more balanced exposure to punishment and punishment avoidance experiences.

Experiences with implementing common mathematical operations using field programmable gate arrays

Many computationally intensive scientific applications involve repetitive floating point operations other than addition and multiplication which may present a significant performance bottleneck due to the relatively large latency or low throughput involved in executing such arithmetic primitives on commod- ity processors. A promising alternative is to execute such primitives on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) hardware acting as an application-specific custom co-processor in a high performance reconfig- urable computing platform. The use of FPGAs can provide advantages such as fine-grain parallelism but issues relating to code development in a hardware description language and efficient data transfer to and from the FPGA chip can present significant application development challenges. In this paper, we discuss our practical experiences in developing a selection of floating point hardware designs to be implemented using FPGAs. Our designs include some basic mathemati cal library functions which can be implemented for user defined precisions suitable for novel applications requiring non-standard floating point represen- tation. We discuss the details of our designs along with results from performance and accuracy analysis tests.

The effectiveness of supervisory boards : an exploratory study of challenges in Dutch boardrooms

Triggered by highly publicized corporate scandals, changing societal expectations and the collapse of financial markets, the roles of boards of directors have changed significantly in safeguarding the interest of shareholders and other stakeholders. Yet relatively little is known about contemporary challenges non-executive directors face and whether their boards are well-equipped for their new tasks. Based on self-assessment reports by supervisory boards, a survey and interviews with supervisory board members, this paper investigates the challenges non-executive directors face in the Netherlands, particularly after a decade of corporate governance reform. Non-executive directors’ inadequate role in scrutinizing executive directors’ performance, information asymmetries and dysfunctional working relationships between executive and non-executive directors are among the greatest challenges indicated by non-executive directors on Dutch supervisory boards. The paper discusses several implications for scholars and practitioners and provides a unique insight in boardroom dynamics (word count: 138).

Coming to belong : a narrative analysis of international students’ experiences in an Australian university

This thesis reports on an interview study with 17 international students about their experiences of coming to belong in an Australian university. All used English as an additional language (EAL). The students’ narratives of ‘coming to belong’ are conceptualised through the theory of Bourdieu, in particular the concepts of field, capital, habitus and legitimation; and the methodological premises of critical realism’s layered ontology. The literature review argues that access to and accrual of a range of capital is critical to successful adaptation to a new educational system. This, and processes of legitimation by others in the fields, affects the senses of belonging for students of various linguistic backgrounds, of different countries of origin, studying from primary to higher education in diverse parts of the world. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and email dialogues at three points during the students’ first year of study in Australia. The analysis shows how the students’ empirical experiences were ordered in terms of narrative structure—orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution and coda—and highlight the emotions generated by the sequence of events. The findings show that EAL international students sought new field positions through legitimation in multiple senses across (sub-)fields. They also show that academic, social and linguistic legitimacy granted by others produced a spectrum of belonging: in the centre, at the margin, and/or to meaningful intercultural encounters. This study makes a contribution to the growing literature around the experience of international students in higher education, and to empirical literature using Bourdieu to understand educational relations.

Exploiting SNOMED CT concepts and relationships for clinical information retrieval : Australian e-Health Research Centre and Queensland University of Technology at the TREC 2012 Medical Track

The Australian e-Health Research Centre and Queensland University of Technology recently participated in the TREC 2012 Medical Records Track. This paper reports on our methods, results and experience using an approach that exploits the concept and inter-concept relationships defined in the SNOMED CT medical ontology. Our concept-based approach is intended to overcome specific challenges in searching medical records, namely vocabulary mismatch and granularity mismatch. Queries and documents are transformed from their term-based originals into medical concepts as defined by the SNOMED CT ontology, this is done to tackle vocabulary mismatch. In addition, we make use of the SNOMED CT parent-child `is-a' relationships between concepts to weight documents that contained concept subsumed by the query concepts; this is done to tackle the problem of granularity mismatch. Finally, we experiment with other SNOMED CT relationships besides the is-a relationship to weight concepts related to query concepts. Results show our concept-based approach performed significantly above the median in all four performance metrics. Further improvements are achieved by the incorporation of weighting subsumed concepts, overall leading to improvement above the median of 28% infAP, 10% infNDCG, 12% R-prec and 7% Prec@10. The incorporation of other relations besides is-a demonstrated mixed results, more research is required to determined which SNOMED CT relationships are best employed when weighting related concepts.

Relationships between appetite and quality of life in hemodialysis patients

The aim of this paper was to investigate the association between appetite and Kidney-Disease Specific Quality of Life in maintenance hemodialysis patients. Quality of Life (QoL) was measured using the Kidney Disease Quality Of Life survey. Appetite was measured using self-reported categories and a visual analog scale. Other nutritional parameters included Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PGSGA), dietary intake, body mass index and biochemical markers C-Reactive Protein and albumin. Even in this well nourished sample (n=62) of hemodialysis patients, PGSGA score (r=-0.629), subjective hunger sensations (r=0.420) and body mass index (r=-0.409) were all significantly associated with the Physical Health Domain of QoL. As self-reported appetite declined, QoL was significantly lower in nine domains which were mostly in the SF36 component and covered social functioning and physical domains. Appetite and other nutritional parameters were not as strongly associated with the Mental Health domain and Kidney Disease Component Summary Domains. Nutritional parameters, especially PGSGA score and appetite, appear to be important components of the physical health domain of QoL. As even small reductions in nutritional status were associated with significantly lower QoL scores, monitoring appetite and nutritional status is an important component of care for hemodialysis patients.

The family participation in child care project

Working with families has long been a fundamental tenet of quality child care services. While there is broad agreement that family participation in child care offers multiple benefits to all concerned, many educators continue to identify this as one of the more challenging aspects of their work. There are a number of perceived barriers to participation, including time constraints, different needs and expectations and the lack of confidence and capacity to support genuine participation. What is interesting, and often overlooked, is that these are shared issues and relate to both educators and parents. Recognising the importance and challenge of family participation in child care, the Brisbane South Professional Support Network PSN), a network facilitated by the Health and Community Services Workforce Council is leading a collaborative research project to build educator knowledge and capacity to promote and support relationship building, meaningful dialogue and genuine partnerships in child care. This article reports on findings from the first phase of this study, identifying parent views and experiences of partnership and articipation in child care services. Findings highlight preferred methods of information sharing and seeking, identify barriers to communication and participation and provide insight into parent expectations of partnerships with educators.

Creating Queensland, creative communities partnership - major Brisbane festival & Australia Council for the Arts

In March 2010, Brisbane Festival commissioned a Research Team, led by Dr Bree Hadley and Dr Sandra Gattenhof, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, to conduct an evaluation of the Creating Queensland program, a new Creative Communities partnership between Brisbane Festival and the Australia Council for the Arts. This Final Report reviews and reports on the effectiveness of the program gathered during three phases throughout 2010: Phase 1, in which the research team analysed Brisbane Festival’s pre-existing data on the Creating Queensland events in 2009; Phase 2, in which the research team designed a new suite of instruments to gather data from producers, producing partners, artists and attendees involved in the Creating Queensland events in 2010; and Phase 3, in which the research team used content analysis of the narratives emerging in the data to establish how Brisbane Festival has adopted processes, activities or engagement protocols to operate as catalysts that produce experiences with specific impacts on individuals and communities. The Final Report finds that the Creating Queensland events concentrate on developing specific experiences for those involved – usually associated with storytelling, showcasing, and the valorisation or re-valorisation of neglected or forgotten cultural forms – in order to give communities a voice. It finds that the events prioritise accessibility – usually associated with allowing specific local communities or local artists to present material that is meaningful to them – and inclusivity – usually associated with using connections with producing partners (such as the Multicultural Development Association) to bring more and more people into the program. It finds that the events have a capacity-building effect, which allows local communities to increase their capacity to launch their own ideas, initiatives or events, allows individuals to increase their employability, or allows communities and individuals to increase their visibility within mainstream cultural practices and infrastructure. The Final Report further finds that Brisbane Festival has, throughout its years of commitment to community programming, developed specific techniques to enable events in the Creating Queensland program to have these effects, that these can be tracked, and, as a result, deployed or redeployed both by Brisbane Festival and other community arts organisations in the development of effective community arts programs. The data demonstrates that Creating Queensland is, by and large, having the desired effect on communities – people are actually participating, presenting work, and increasing their personal, professional and social skills in various ways, and this is valued by all stakeholders. The data also demonstrates that, as would be expected with any community arts program – particularly programs of this size and complexity – there are areas in which Creating Queensland is functioning exceptionally well and areas in which continuous improvement processes should be continued. Areas of excellence relate to Brisbane Festival’s longstanding commitment to community arts, and active community participation in the arts, as well as its ability to create well-known and loved programs that use effective techniques to have a positive impact on communities. Areas for improvement relate to Brisbane Festival’s potential to benefit from the following: clarifying relationships between community participants and professionals; increasing mentoring relationships between these groups; consolidating the discourses it uses to describe event aims across strategic, production, and publicity documents across the years; and re-considering the number of small events inside the larger Creating Queensland program.

Relationships and sexual health promotion project for QUT international students

International students may experience a variety of sexual health problems which include unplanned pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases. These are often because of limited knowledge of sexual health matters and lack of sexual health education and/or access to health services in their home country. A study was undertaken to identify the concerns of international students and how to provide culturally appropriate promotion of sexual health for international students at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The project included consultations with stakeholders, interviews with key informants, an online survey and focus group discussions with international students. The project found that sexual health is a concern for international students, particularly in developing relationships and when becoming sexually active in Australia, and there is a perceived lack of access to health services and insufficient knowledge on sexual health matters. Preferred methods of dissemination of sexual health information included use of student mentors, web-based online resources, brochures and confidential on-line advice.

Efficient safety information retrieval on construction sites : a preliminary methodology

IT-supported field data management benefits on-site construction management by improving accessibility to the information and promoting efficient communication between project team members. However, most of on-site safety inspections still heavily rely on subjective judgment and manual reporting processes and thus observers’ experiences often determine the quality of risk identification and control. This study aims to develop a methodology to efficiently retrieve safety-related information so that the safety inspectors can easily access to the relevant site safety information for safer decision making. The proposed methodology consists of three stages: (1) development of a comprehensive safety database which contains information of risk factors, accident types, impact of accidents and safety regulations; (2) identification of relationships among different risk factors based on statistical analysis methods; and (3) user-specified information retrieval using data mining techniques for safety management. This paper presents an overall methodology and preliminary results of the first stage research conducted with 101 accident investigation reports.

The experiences of novices in an enhanced graduated driver licensing program in Queensland, Australia

- Young novice drivers - The Queensland graduated driver licensing (GDL) context - Pre-July 2007 (‘Original-GDL’) - Post-July 2007 (‘Enhanced-GDL’) - Experiences of Learners in Queensland’s enhanced-GDL program - Pre-/post-July 2007 comparison - Post-July 2007 only - Implications - Strengths and limitations

Stakeholder service delivery expectations of military facilities management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of service of a South East Asian country's military facilities management organisation. Design/methodology/approach – An interview survey and questionnaire survey were used to obtain a description and summary of stakeholders’ expectations and the extent to which they were being satisfied by the services provided. Findings – The method provides a useful means of identifying and prioritising varying expectations between stakeholder groups and of indicating any mismatch in expectations in the management of military facilities. Social implications – The development and use of a method to test and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the management of military facilities helps in providing better value for money. Originality/value – In addition to re-affirming Parasuraman's overall dimensions of service expectation, the empirical summary of the stakeholders’ expectations obtained in this way is of practical value for the service provider in developing a strategy for expectation management. For the case studied, it is also apparent that although the current processes in service delivery are well understood by all involved stakeholders, there is a need for further improvement with regards to their expectation levels. It is also one of the very few reported studies on the management of military facilities.

Patient expectations, outcomes and satisfaction : related, relevant or redundant?

Abstract Study design: A prospective investigation of patients undergoing lumbar spine surgery. Objective: Is there a correlation between patient’s expectations before lumbar surgery, postoperative outcomes and satisfaction levels? Methods: A prospective study of 145 patients undergoing primary, single-level surgery for degenerative lumbar conditions was conducted. Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), back visual analogue scale (VAS) and leg VAS were assessed pre-operatively and at 6 weeks and 6 months post-surgery. Patients’ expectations were measured pre-operatively by asking them to score the level of pain and disability that would be least acceptable for them to undergo surgery and be satisfied. Satisfaction was assessed six weeks post-operatively with a Likert scale. Differences in patient expectations between actual and expected improvements were quantified. Results: Most patients had a clinically relevant improvement, but only about half achieved their expectation. Satisfaction did not correlate with pre-operative pain or disability, or with patient expectation of improvement. Instead, satisfaction correlated with positive outcomes. Conclusions Patient expectations have little bearing on final outcome and satisfaction.

Identities and transformational experiences for quantitative problem solving : gender comparisons of first-year university science students

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) areas in university settings; however this may be the result of attitude rather than aptitude. There is widespread agreement that quantitative problem-solving is essential for graduate competence and preparedness in science and other STEM subjects. The research question addresses the identities and transformative experiences (experiential, perception, & motivation) of both male and female university science students in quantitative problem solving. This study used surveys to investigate first-year university students’ (231 females and 198 males) perceptions of their quantitative problem solving. Stata (statistical analysis package version 11) analysed gender differences in quantitative problem solving using descriptive and inferential statistics. Males perceived themselves with a higher mathematics identity than females. Results showed that there was statistical significance (p<0.05) between the genders on 21 of the 30 survey items associated with transformative experiences. Males appeared to have a willingness to be involved in quantitative problem solving outside their science coursework requirements. Positive attitudes towards STEM-type subjects may need to be nurtured in females before arriving in the university setting (e.g., high school or earlier). Females also need equitable STEM education opportunities such as conversations or activities outside school with family and friends to develop more positive attitudes in these fields.