Discussion of : constructing summary statistics for approximate Bayesian computation: semi-automatic approximate Bayesian computation

This is a discussion of the journal article: "Construcing summary statistics for approximate Bayesian computation: semi-automatic approximate Bayesian computation". The article and discussion have appeared in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology).

Bridging the gap in school achievement through the arts : summary report

Educational Transformations Pty Ltd was commissioned by The Song Room (TSR) to conduct a study of the impact of TSR programs in government schools in relatively disadvantaged communities in New South Wales (NSW) on indicators of student performance that have been identified in previous research as related to potential engagement in juvenile crime. Students in Grades 5 and 6 were the subjects of study. TSR is a not-for-profit organisation in receipt of grants from public and private sources that conducts free programs in the performing arts in schools where these are not currently offered. These programs are conducted by mutual agreement between TSR and participating schools. Across Australia, approximately 200 schools and 40,000 students are engaged for a minimum of six months each year. Students typically participate for approximately one hour per week in each class. Instruction is provided by a Teaching Artist (TA), contracted to TSR and working in partnership with the classroom teacher at the school of placement. TSR received a three-year grant from the Macquarie Group Foundation to investigate the efficacy of its interventions in improving social and education outcomes for children in a range of high need target group areas participating in its program...

Public sector project delay : the Malaysian perspective and the way forward

Construction delay has been a protracted problem for the Malaysian construction industry. Recent report showed that 80% of public sector projects are behind schedule. This underachieving time performance has led to many problems including public complaints, loss of reputation and revenue for the government and a slump in the industry’s GDP contribution. Research in the area of project delay has mushroomed worldwide with attempts to place mitigation plans, but delay remains a global phenomenon. There is now an urgent need for revolutionizing construction practices and past research, backed up with few successful cases suggests that Supply Chain Management (SCM) could prove beneficial to reduce or eliminate delays in construction. SCM which originated from the automotive manufacturing industry promotes a more collaborative approach to construction management and has recently gained attention of the construction industry. However every country, including Malaysia, would certainly have disparities of their own compared to others being it from the cultural point of view, nature of problems, locality or improvements needed. Therefore, this paper will present part of a Ph.D. research which aims at illustrating the Malaysian construction industry experts’ perception of the Malaysian public sector project delay, provide insight into these dilemmas, highlights the problems with current practices, its effects and the improvements needed. Subsequently, this paper would propose ratification to the problems using SCM. A semi-structured interview has been conducted to practitioners with at least 20 years’ experience in the industry. The findings showed that Malaysia may be unique compared to other countries and that by considering a number of additional factors, SCM could prove beneficial to increase efficiency of the Malaysian public sector projects.

Productive and inclusive? How documentation concealed racialising practices in a diversity project

This article examines how documentation concealed racialising practices in a diversity project that was seen to be productive and inclusive. Documentation examples are taken from a doctoral study about embedding Indigenous perspectives in early childhood education curricula in two Australian urban childcare centres. In place of reporting examples of ‘good’ early childhood education practice, the study labelled racialising practices in educators’ work. The primary aim was to understand how racialising practices are mobilised in professional practices, including documentation, even when educators’ work is seen to be high quality. Extracts from two communal journals that captured an action research process around embedding practices are examined to show how racism and whiteness were concealed within the documentation. This enables understanding about how documentation can provide evidence to stakeholders that diversity work in mainstream childcare centres is productive and inclusive, despite disparity between what is recorded and what occurs in practice.

Reflections from early career graduates of the exceptional teachers for disadvantaged schools project

This paper aims to explore the experiences of newly qualified teachers and their supervising principals who work in schools situated in various high-poverty areas of Queensland, Australia. It is informed by data collected in the context of an Australian teacher education program, Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools (ETDS). Now in its third year, this program was designed to prepare highly skilled pre-service teachers to work in schools that have large numbers of students from disadvantaged or low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. Addressing the oft-stated need to prepare high-quality teachers for low SES schools, high-achieving undergraduate education students were invited to participate in two years of specialised curriculum to prepare them for the schools that need them the most, which are also the schools that are often difficult to staff. Pre-service teachers in this program do all their teaching practicum placements in challenging or complex schools. In 2011, some of this cohort did their practicum teaching in schools with large numbers of Indigenous students and several went on to teach in remote communities after graduation. These graduates and the leaders of the schools they work in are the primary informants for this paper.

Defence industry projects : investigating the impact of major project manager attributes on stakeholder relationships and project success

This thesis identifies attributes, skills and behaviours that major project managers require for stakeholder relationships competence and project success within a major project environment. It develops valid and reliable measures of internal and external stakeholder relationships competence, tests a complex conceptual model and explores the effectiveness of the QUT Executive Masters of Complex Project Management and Strategic Procurement in developing major project managers' stakeholder relationships competence. Implications of this thesis are for government and industry in identifying factors associated with major project success, as this will lead to better major project outcomes potentially resulting in time and monetary savings of years and billions of dollars.

Interactions between organizational culture, trustworthiness, and mechanisms for inter-project knowledge sharing

This research used a multiple-case study approach to empirically investigate the complex relationship between factors influencing inter-project knowledge sharing—trustworthiness, organizational culture, and knowledge-sharing mechanisms. Adopting a competing values framework, we found evidence of patterns existing between the type of culture, on the project management unit level, and project managers’ perceptions of valuing trustworthy behaviors and the way they share knowledge, on the individual level. We also found evidence for mutually reinforcing the effect of trust and clan culture, which shape tacit knowledge-sharing behaviors.

Working in partnership to develop engineering capability in energy efficiency

Energy efficiency is a complex topic to integrate into higher education curricula, with limited success internationally or in Australia. This paper discusses one of the successful initiatives within the Energy Efficiency Training Program, which was jointly managed and implemented by the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage and Department of Education and Communities. The state government initiative aimed to increase the knowledge and skills of the New South Wales workforce, help business to identify and implement energy efficiency projects, and provide professional development for the training providers. Key sectors targeted included property, construction, manufacturing and services. The Program was externally evaluated over the three years 2011 to 2013 and a range of insights were gained through these facilitated reflective opportunities, confirming and building upon literature on the topic to date. This paper presents lessons learned from the engineering part of the program (‘the project’), spanning government agencies, academic institutions, and academia. The paper begins with a contextual summary, followed by a synthesis of key learnings and implications for future training initiatives. It is intended that sharing these lessons will contribute to literature in the field, and assist other organisations in Australia and overseas planning similar initiatives.

State of Energy Efficiency Education in Australian Technical & Further Education (TAFE) : A Report to the Australian Government Skills for the Carbon Challenge Initiative, The Natural Edge Project (TNEP), Queensland University of Technology

The Australian Government’s Skills for the Carbon Challenge (SCC) initiative aims to accelerate industry and the education sectors response to climate change. As part of the SCC initiative, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRTE) provided funding to investigate the state of energy efficiency education in engineering-related Australian Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Programs. The following document reports on the outcomes of a multi-stage consultation project that engaged with participants from over 80% of TAFE institutions across Australia with the aim of supporting and enhancing future critical skills development in this area. Specifically, this report presents the findings of a national survey, based on a series of TAFE educator focus groups, conducted in May 2013 aimed at understanding the experiences and insights of Australian TAFE educators teaching engineering-related courses. Responses were received from 224 TAFE Educators across 50 of the 61 TAFE institutions in Australia (82% response rate).

Australian screen content in education research project

Researchers from Queensland University of Technology have teamed up with the Australian Research Council (ARC), Screen Australia, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) to investigate the use of Australian screen content in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Over the next three years (2014-2016), researchers and investigators will undertake a national survey of schools and universities, and will conduct in-depth interviews with hundreds of industry representatives, teachers, principals, librarians and students. Furthermore, new approaches to developing screen content and curricula will be trialled. The project aims to develop a comprehensive picture of why, how, how much and where Australian screen content is used in education.

Teaching Teachers for the Future : an Australian government national project

This paper describes the Teaching Teachers of the Future (TTF) Project – a national project funded ($8.8mil AUD) by the Australian Government. The project was aimed at building the capacity of student teachers to use technology to improve student learning outcomes. It discusses the aims and objectives of the project, its genesis in a changing educational and political landscape, the use of TPACK as a theoretical scaffold, and briefly reports on the operations of the various components and part-ners. Further, it discusses the research opportunities afforded by the project includ-ing a national survey of all PSTs in Australia gauging their TPACK confidence and the use of the Most Significant Change (MSC) methodology. Finally the paper dis-cusses the outcomes of the project and its future.

The re-introduction project

The Re-introduction Project began with an art-science research residency in 2012, funded through the Australian 'Synapse' art-science residency program. It was developed in partnership with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Australia's largest private conservation agency and their South-East regional scientist Matt Hayward and conducted through a series of seven high intensity field-trips to AWC’s remote properties in VIC, NSW and SA. These trips coincided with key times at which the AWC’s mobile scientific teams were undertaking intensive scientific activities. The program coincided with specific events that senior scientist collaborator Dr Matt Hayward led in 2012 at Mallee Regions (Yookamurra, Scotia and Buckaringa), Lake Eyre Basin (Kalamurina) and Sydney (North Head). The initial outcome of the project was the work Pitfall (An Opportunistic Survey) - a new media installation created in light, media, object, text and sound presented near the AWC headquarters at Mildura in far NW Victoria. Pitfall built upon ideas and cross disciplinary processes developed during this residency/collaboration with Australian Wildlife Conservancy inspired by working with their ecological scientists during pitfall-trap survey events used to survey small mammals and invertebrates. ‘Pitfall’ was designed in response to a playful survey that I asked the AWC scientists to engage with around ideas of avoiding ecological pitfalls into the future. This continually-evolving artwork was built from multiple screens, a tabletop landscape mapped with projections, fibre optics, 3D spatial sound and infrared night imagery.

Research roadmap summary - Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS)

Changes in the construction sector are creating opportunities in research to maximise the benefits of those changes and to continue the exciting developments in improved people skills, new processes and developing technologies. Many research centres around the world are investigating aspects of the current changes to drive their particular expertise forward. However, the CIB Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS) priority research theme takes a higher-level view of the changes and then focuses down on a prioritised set of research targets. These targets have been investigated, re-focussed and validated over a period of four years through many workshops, conferences and meetings by a wide ranging group of representatives from approximately 90 industry and research organisations. The outcomes of such research, once put into practice should be significantly shortened timespans from conception of need to occupation of new or revised structures. As time is money, the owners will get their investments into productive use sooner, which means a shorter payback time. In addition, there will inevitably be a reduction in construction costs as productivity increases. The improvements in reliable delivery and improved quality currently being seen in relatively simplistic use of Building information Modelling (BIM) (compared to full IDDS) will inevitably continue its on-going trajectory of improvement. We should also consider the wider economic contribution to society that will stem from such improvements and, finally, and by no means unimportantly, the reliable modelling and delivery of sustainability at both the building and estate/ area scale will significantly improve carbon footprints and other sustainable outcomes. Whilst there are huge opportunities for early adopters, the primary risk will be the expansion of the gap between those working in this way and those who are not so advanced or who even refuse to progress . The opportunities to address the significant and widely varying wastes within the structure of the construction sector and within and across projects are huge and timely and industry is encouraged to become involved.

Theory based production and project management

This paper gives an overview of an ongoing project endeavouring to advance theory-based production and project management, and the rationale for this approach is briefly justified. The status of the theoretical foundation of production management, project management and allied disciplines is discussed, with emphasis on metaphysical grounding of theories, as well as the nature of the heuristic solution method commonly used in these disciplines. Then, on-going work related to different aspects of production and project management is reviewed from both theoretical and practical orientation. Next, information systems agile project management is explored with a view to its re-use in generic project management. In production management, the consequences and implementation of a new, wider theoretical basis are analyzed. The theoretical implications and negative symptoms of the peculiarities of the construction industry for supply chains and supply chain management in construction are observed. Theoretical paths for improvements of inter-organisational relationships in construction which are fundamental for improvement of construction supply chains are described. To conclude, the observations made in this paper vis-à-vis production, project and supply chain management are related again to the theoretical basis of this paper, and finally directions for theory development and future research are given and discussed.

The IKBALS project: multi-modal reasoning in legal knowledge based systems

In attempting to build intelligent litigation support tools, we have moved beyond first generation, production rule legal expert systems. Our work integrates rule based and case based reasoning with intelligent information retrieval. When using the case based reasoning methodology, or in our case the specialisation of case based retrieval, we need to be aware of how to retrieve relevant experience. Our research, in the legal domain, specifies an approach to the retrieval problem which relies heavily on an extended object oriented/rule based system architecture that is supplemented with causal background information. We use a distributed agent architecture to help support the reasoning process of lawyers. Our approach to integrating rule based reasoning, case based reasoning and case based retrieval is contrasted to the CABARET and PROLEXS architectures which rely on a centralised blackboard architecture. We discuss in detail how our various cooperating agents interact, and provide examples of the system at work. The IKBALS system uses a specialised induction algorithm to induce rules from cases. These rules are then used as indices during the case based retrieval process. Because we aim to build legal support tools which can be modified to suit various domains rather than single purpose legal expert systems, we focus on principles behind developing legal knowledge based systems. The original domain chosen was theAccident Compensation Act 1989 (Victoria, Australia), which relates to the provision of benefits for employees injured at work. For various reasons, which are indicated in the paper, we changed our domain to that ofCredit Act 1984 (Victoria, Australia). This Act regulates the provision of loans by financial institutions. The rule based part of our system which provides advice on the Credit Act has been commercially developed in conjunction with a legal firm. We indicate how this work has lead to the development of a methodology for constructing rule based legal knowledge based systems. We explain the process of integrating this existing commercial rule based system with the case base reasoning and retrieval architecture.