The private problem with public service: Rural teachers in educational markets

Staffing rural and remote schools is an important policy issue for the public good. This paper examines the private issues it also poses for teachers with families working in these communities, as they seek to reconcile careers with educational choices for children. The paper first considers historical responses to staffing rural and remote schools in Australia, and the emergence of neoliberal policy encouraging marketisation of the education sector. We report on interviews about considerations motivating household mobility with 11 teachers across regional, rural and remote communities in Queensland. Like other middle-class parents, these teachers prioritised their children’s educational opportunities over career opportunities. The analysis demonstrates how teachers in rural and remote communities constitute a special group of educational consumers with insider knowledge and unique dilemmas around school choice. Their heightened anxieties around school choice under neoliberal policy are shown to contribute to the public issue of staffing rural and remote schools.

A framework for identification of similarities between multiple algorithms

This thesis in software engineering presents a novel automated framework to identify similar operations utilized by multiple algorithms for solving related computing problems. It provides a new effective solution to perform multi-application based algorithm analysis, employing fundamentally light-weight static analysis techniques compared to the state-of-art approaches. Significant performance improvements are achieved across the objective algorithms through enhancing the efficiency of the identified similar operations, targeting discrete application domains.

The O-specific polysaccharide structure and gene cluster of serotype O:12 of the Yersinia pseudotuberculosis complex, and the identification of a novel L-quinovose biosynthesis gene

A major virulence factor for Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is lipopolysaccharide, including O-polysaccharide (OPS). Currently, the OPS based serotyping scheme for Y. pseudotuberculosis includes 21 known O-serotypes, with genetic and structural data available for 17 of them. The completion of the OPS structures and genetics of this species will enable the visualization of relationships between O-serotypes and allow for analysis of the evolutionary processes within the species that give rise to new serotypes. Here we present the OPS structure and gene cluster of serotype O:12, thus adding one more to the set of completed serotypes, and show that this serotype is present in both Y. pseudotuberculosis and the newly identified Y. similis species. The O:12 structure is shown to include two rare sugars: 4-C[(R)-1-hydroxyethyl]-3,6-dideoxy-d-xylo-hexose (d-yersiniose) and 6-deoxy-l-glucopyranose (l-quinovose). We have identified a novel putative guanine diphosphate (GDP)-l-fucose 4-epimerase gene and propose a pathway for the synthesis of GDP-l-quinovose, which extends the known GDP-l-fucose pathway.

Improving the identification of fatigue-related crashes in the Australian Capital Territory

It has been well established nationally and internationally that fatigue-related driving is an important contributory factor in fatal and serious injury crashes. The purpose of this report was to survey a large, representative sample of residents living in both the NSW and ACT to ask about their experience of fatigue and their involvement in fatigue-related crashes and incidents. This will provide valuable data about the number and characteristics of fatigue-related crashes and incidents of ACT residents. Specifically this study assessed the prevalence of incidents of fatigue-related driving for residents of NSW and the ACT, the characteristics surrounding the incident, if the report would fit within the NSW, QLD, or ATSB proxy definition or if it would fall outside of the proxy definition...

Cross-border malaria: a major obstacle for malaria elimination

Movement of malaria across international borders poses a major obstacle to achieving malaria elimination in the 34 countries that have committed to this goal. In border areas, malaria prevalence is often higher than in other areas due to lower access to health services, treatment-seeking behaviour of marginalised populations that typically inhabit border areas, difficulties in deploying prevention programs to hard-to-reach communities, often in difficult terrain, and constant movement of people across porous national boundaries. Malaria elimination in border areas will be challenging, and key to addressing the challenges is strengthening of surveillance activities for rapid identification of any importation or reintroduction of malaria. This could involve taking advantage of technological advances, such as spatial decision support systems, which can be deployed to assist program managers to carry out preventive and reactive measures, and mobile phone technology, which can be used to capture the movement of people in the border areas and likely sources of malaria importation. Additionally, joint collaboration in the prevention and control of cross-border malaria by neighbouring countries, and reinforcement of early diagnosis and prompt treatment are ways forward in addressing the problem of cross-border malaria.

A new approach to the cloud-based heterogeneous MapReduce placement problem

Guaranteeing Quality of Service (QoS) with minimum computation cost is the most important objective of cloud-based MapReduce computations. Minimizing the total computation cost of cloud-based MapReduce computations is done through MapReduce placement optimization. MapReduce placement optimization approaches can be classified into two categories: homogeneous MapReduce placement optimization and heterogeneous MapReduce placement optimization. It is generally believed that heterogeneous MapReduce placement optimization is more effective than homogeneous MapReduce placement optimization in reducing the total running cost of cloud-based MapReduce computations. This paper proposes a new approach to the heterogeneous MapReduce placement optimization problem. In this new approach, the heterogeneous MapReduce placement optimization problem is transformed into a constrained combinatorial optimization problem and is solved by an innovative constructive algorithm. Experimental results show that the running cost of the cloud-based MapReduce computation platform using this new approach is 24:3%-44:0% lower than that using the most popular homogeneous MapReduce placement approach, and 2:0%-36:2% lower than that using the heterogeneous MapReduce placement approach not considering the spare resources from the existing MapReduce computations. The experimental results have also demonstrated the good scalability of this new approach.

Ageing Australian unions and the ‘youth problem’

Trade union membership, both in aggregate numbers and in density, has declined in the majority of advanced economies globally over recent decades (Blanchflower, 2007). In Australia, the decline in the 1990s was somewhat more precipitate than in most countries (Peetz, 1998). As discussed in Chapter 1, reasons for the decline are multifactorial, including a more hostile environment to unionism created by employers and the state, difficulties ·with workplace union organisation, and structural change in the economy (Bryson and Gomez, 2005; Bryson et a!., 2011; Ebbinghaus et al., 2011; Payne, 1989; Waddington and Kerr, 2002; Waddington and Whitson, 1997). Our purpose in this chapter is to look beyond aggregate Australian union density data, to examine how age relates to membership decline, and how different age groups, particularly younger workers, are located in the story of union decline. The practical implications of this research are that understanding how unions relate to workers of different age groups, and to workers of different genders amongst those age groups, may lead to improved recruitment and better union organisation.

Microscopy for the detection, identification and quantification of malaria parasites on stained thick and thin blood films in research settings

Summary This manual was developed to guide a move towards common standards for undertaking and reporting research microscopy for malaria parasite detection, identification and quantification. It contains procedures based on agreed quality assurance standards for research malaria microscopy defined at a consultation of: TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases; the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN), United Kingdom; the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), Switzerland; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA; the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and later expanded to include Amref Health Africa (Kenya); the Eijkman-Oxford Clinical Research Unit (EOCRU), Indonesia; Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (IPC); Institut de recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Senegal; the Global Good and Intellectual Ventures Laboratory (GG-IVL), USA; the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Thailand; Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, and the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), Thailand. These collaborating institutions commit to adhering to these standards in published research studies. It is hoped that they will form a solid basis for the wider adoption of standardized reference microscopy protocols for malaria research.

Identification of a BRCA1-mRNA splicing complex required for efficient DNA repair and maintenance of genomic stability

Mutations within BRCA1 predispose carriers to a high risk of breast and ovarian cancers. BRCA1 functions to maintain genomic stability through the assembly of multiple protein complexes involved in DNA repair, cell-cycle arrest, and transcriptional regulation. Here, we report the identification of a DNA damage-induced BRCA1 protein complex containing BCLAF1 and other key components of the mRNA-splicing machinery. In response to DNA damage, this complex regulates pre-mRNA splicing of a number of genes involved in DNA damage signaling and repair, thereby promoting the stability of these transcripts/proteins. Further, we show that abrogation of this complex results in sensitivity to DNA damage, defective DNA repair, and genomic instability. Interestingly, mutations in a number of proteins found within this complex have been identified in numerous cancer types. These data suggest that regulation of splicing by the BRCA1-mRNA splicing complex plays an important role in the cellular response to DNA damage.

Modal parameters identification of heavy-haul railway RC bridges: Experience acquired

Traditionally, it is not easy to carry out tests to identify modal parameters from existing railway bridges because of the testing conditions and complicated nature of civil structures. A six year (2007-2012) research program was conducted to monitor a group of 25 railway bridges. One of the tasks was to devise guidelines for identifying their modal parameters. This paper presents the experience acquired from such identification. The modal analysis of four representative bridges of this group is reported, which include B5, B15, B20 and B58A, crossing the Carajás railway in northern Brazil using three different excitations sources: drop weight, free vibration after train passage, and ambient conditions. To extract the dynamic parameters from the recorded data, Stochastic Subspace Identification and Frequency Domain Decomposition methods were used. Finite-element models were constructed to facilitate the dynamic measurements. The results show good agreement between the measured and computed natural frequencies and mode shapes. The findings provide some guidelines on methods of excitation, record length of time, methods of modal analysis including the use of projected channel and harmonic detection, helping researchers and maintenance teams obtain good dynamic characteristics from measurement data.

A survey: Particle Swarm Optimization based algorithms to solve premature convergence problem

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a biologically inspired computational search and optimization method based on the social behaviors of birds flocking or fish schooling. Although, PSO is represented in solving many well-known numerical test problems, but it suffers from the premature convergence. A number of basic variations have been developed due to solve the premature convergence problem and improve quality of solution founded by the PSO. This study presents a comprehensive survey of the various PSO-based algorithms. As part of this survey, the authors have included a classification of the approaches and they have identify the main features of each proposal. In the last part of the study, some of the topics within this field that are considered as promising areas of future research are listed.

Identification of common variants associated with human hippocampal and intracranial volumes

Identifying genetic variants influencing human brain structures may reveal new biological mechanisms underlying cognition and neuropsychiatric illness. The volume of the hippocampus is a biomarker of incipient Alzheimer's disease and is reduced in schizophrenia, major depression and mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Whereas many brain imaging phenotypes are highly heritable, identifying and replicating genetic influences has been difficult, as small effects and the high costs of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have led to underpowered studies. Here we report genome-wide association meta-analyses and replication for mean bilateral hippocampal, total brain and intracranial volumes from a large multinational consortium. The intergenic variant rs7294919 was associated with hippocampal volume (12q24.22; N = 21,151; P = 6.70 × 10 -16) and the expression levels of the positional candidate gene TESC in brain tissue. Additionally, rs10784502, located within HMGA2, was associated with intracranial volume (12q14.3; N = 15,782; P = 1.12 × 10 -12). We also identified a suggestive association with total brain volume at rs10494373 within DDR2 (1q23.3; N = 6,500; P = 5.81 × 10 -7).

High-throughput approach for the identification of anilinium-based ionic liquids that are suitable for electropolymerisation

We report the synthesis of new protic ionic liquids (PILs) based on aniline derivatives and the use of high-throughput (HT) techniques to screen possible candidates. In this work, a simple HT method was applied to rapidly screen different aniline derivatives against different acids in order to identify possible combinations that produce PILs. This was followed by repeating the HT process with Chemspeed robotic synthesis platform for more accurate results. One of the successful combinations were then chosen to be synthesised on full scale for further analysis. The new PILs are of interest to the fields of ionic liquids, energy storage and especially, conducting polymers as they serve as solvents, electrolytes and monomers in the same time for possible electropolymerisation (i.e. a self-contained polymer precursor).

A robust optimization approach for index tracking problem

Index tracking is an investment approach where the primary objective is to keep portfolio return as close as possible to a target index without purchasing all index components. The main purpose is to minimize the tracking error between the returns of the selected portfolio and a benchmark. In this paper, quadratic as well as linear models are presented for minimizing the tracking error. The uncertainty is considered in the input data using a tractable robust framework that controls the level of conservatism while maintaining linearity. The linearity of the proposed robust optimization models allows a simple implementation of an ordinary optimization software package to find the optimal robust solution. The proposed model of this paper employs Morgan Stanley Capital International Index as the target index and the results are reported for six national indices including Japan, the USA, the UK, Germany, Switzerland and France. The performance of the proposed models is evaluated using several financial criteria e.g. information ratio, market ratio, Sharpe ratio and Treynor ratio. The preliminary results demonstrate that the proposed model lowers the amount of tracking error while raising values of portfolio performance measures.

Mandatory Reporting Laws and the Identification of Severe Child Abuse and Neglect

This book provides the first comprehensive international coverage of key issues in mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect. The book draws on a collection of the foremost scholars in the field, as well as clinicians and practice-based experts, to explore the nature, history, impact and justifiability of mandatory reporting laws, their optimal form, legal and conceptual issues, and practical issues and challenges for reporters, professional educators and governments. Key issues in non-Western nations are also explored briefly to assess the potential of socio-legal responses sex trafficking, forced child labour and child marriage. The book is of particular value to policy makers, educators and opinion leaders in government departments dealing with children, and to professionals and organisations who work with children. It is also intended to be a key authority for researchers and teachers in the fields of medicine, nursing, social work, education, law, psychology, health and allied health fields.