A requirements and capability discussion : UAS for SAR and law enforcement

This presentation explores the requirements and capabilities of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for applications in Law Enforcement and Search and Rescue.

Conference report: Lights, Camera, Action : Spotlight on Tourism in the New Millennium. 31st Annual Travel and Tourism Research Association Conference.

The 31st TTRA conference was held in California’s San Fernando Valley, home of Hollywood and Burbank’s movie and television studios. The twin themes of Hollywood and the new Millennium promised and delivered “something old, yet something new”. The meeting offered a historical summary, not only of the year in review but also of many features of travel research since the first literature in the field appeared in the 1970s. Also, the millennium theme set the scene for some stimulating and forward thinking discussions. The Hollywood location offered an opportunity to ponder on the value of the movie-induced tourism for Los Angeles, at a time when Hollywood Boulevard was in the midst of a much needed redevelopment programme. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce speaker Oscar Arslanian acknowledged that the face of the famous district had become tired, and that its ability to continue to attract visitors in the future lay in redeveloping its past heritage. In line with the Hollywood theme a feature of the conference was a series of six special sessions with “Stars of Travel Research”. These sessions featured: Clare Gunn, Stanley Plog, Charles Gouldner, John Hunt, Brent Ritchie, Geoffrey Crouch, Peter Williams, Douglas Frechtling, Turgut Var, Robert Christie-Mill, and John Crotts. Delegates were indeed privileged to hear from many of the pioneers of tourism research. Clare Gunn, Charles Goeldner, Turgut Var and Stanley Plog, for example, traced the history of different aspects of the tourism literature, and in line with the millennium theme, offered some thought provoking discussion on the future challenges facing tourism. These included; the commodotisation of airlines and destinations, airport and traffic congestion, environment sustainability responsibility and the looming burst of the baby-boomer bubble. Included in the conference proceedings are four papers presented by five of the “Stars”. Brent Ritchie and Geoffrey Crouch discuss the critical success factors for destinations, Clare Gunn shares his concerns about tourism being a smokestack industry, Doug Frechtling provides forecasts of outbound travel from 20 countries, and Charles Gouldner, who has attended all 31 TTRA conferences, reflects on the changes that have taken place in tourism research over 35 years...

China media research : the trans-disciplinary challenge

This paper addresses the permeability of the field of China media research, its openness to new ideas; it argues that we need to adopt a wide angle view on research opportunities. Expansion of China’s media during the past decade has opened up possibilities for broadening of the field. The discussion first identifies boundary tensions as the field responds to transdisciplinary knowledge; in the second part the paper addresses challenges faced by Chinese researchers or visiting scholars in ‘Western’ media environments. Finally the paper addresses what a wide angle perspective might include.

How do the learning outcomes of students compare in units with different levels of practical work? A comparative study about the relation between Problem-­Based Learning and assessment approaches

The literature supporting the notion that active, student-centered learning is superior to passive, teacher-centered instruction is encyclopedic (Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Bruning, Schraw, & Ronning, 1999; Haile, 1997a, 1997b, 1998; Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1999). Previous action research demonstrated that introducing a learning activity in class improved the learning outcomes of students (Mejias, 2010). People acquire knowledge and skills through practice and reflection, not by watching and listening to others telling them how to do something. In this context, this project aims to find more insights about the level of interactivity in the curriculum a class should have and its alignment with assessment so the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) are achieved. In this project, interactivity is implemented in the form of problem- based learning (PBL). I present the argument that a more continuous formative feedback when implemented with the correct amount of PBL stimulates student engagement bringing enormous benefits to student learning. Different levels of practical work (PBL) were implemented together with two different assessment approaches in two subjects. The outcomes were measured using qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate the levels of student engagement and satisfaction in the terms of ILOs.

FPGA implementation of an evolutionary algorithm for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle on-board path planning

In this paper, a hardware-based path planning architecture for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) adaptation is proposed. The architecture aims to provide UAVs with higher autonomy using an application specific evolutionary algorithm (EA) implemented entirely on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip. The physical attributes of an FPGA chip, being compact in size and low in power consumption, compliments it to be an ideal platform for UAV applications. The design, which is implemented entirely in hardware, consists of EA modules, population storage resources, and three-dimensional terrain information necessary to the path planning process, subject to constraints accounted for separately via UAV, environment and mission profiles. The architecture has been successfully synthesised for a target Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA platform with 32% logic slices utilisation. Results obtained from case studies for a small UAV helicopter with environment derived from LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data verify the effectiveness of the proposed FPGA-based path planner, and demonstrate convergence at rates above the typical 10 Hz update frequency of an autopilot system.

The introduction of an interactive teaching and learning activity (TLA) in class and its relationship to students’ learning-outcomes

In the university education arena, it is becoming apparent that traditional methods of conducting classes are not the most effective ways to achieve desired learning outcomes. The traditional class/method involves the instructor verbalizing information for passive, note-taking students who are assumed to be empty receptacles waiting to be filled with knowledge. This method is limited in its effectiveness, as the flow of information is usually only in one direction. Furthermore, “It has been demonstrated that students in many cases can recite and apply formulas in numerical problems, but the actual meaning and understanding of the concept behind the formula is not acquired (Crouch & Mazur)”. It is apparent that memorization is the main technique present in this approach. A more effective method of teaching involves increasing the students’ level of activity during, and hence their involvement in the learning process. This technique stimulates self- learning and assists in keeping these students’ levels of concentration more uniform. In this work, I am therefore interested in studying the influence of a particular TLA on students’ learning-outcomes. I want to foster high-level understanding and critical thinking skills using active learning (Silberman, 1996) techniques. The TLA in question aims to promote self-study by students and to expose them to a situation where their learning-outcomes can be tested. The motivation behind this activity is based on studies which suggest that some sensory modalities are more effective than others. Using various instruments for data collection and by means of a thorough analysis I present evidence of the effectiveness of this action research project which aims to improve my own teaching practices, with the ultimate goal of enhancing student’s learning.

QIPC low speed run-overs of young children research project final report

This final report outlines the research conducted by the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q) for the research project (title above). This report provides an outline of the project methodology, literature review, three stages of research results (including the focus group discussions, review of organisational records, documentation and initiatives, and analysis of previous CARRS-Q occupational road safety self-report surveys), and recommendations for intervention strategy and initiatives development and implementation.

National climate change adaptation research plan : freshwater biodiversity

Climate change will alter the basic physical and chemical environment underpinning all life. Species will be affected differentially by these alterations, resulting in changes to the structure and composition of present-day freshwater ecological communities, with the potential to change the ways in which these ecosystems function and the services they provide.

‘Show Me Your Wiki and I’ll Show you Mine’: Using Online Interactive Media to Improve Academic Writing and Research in a Public Health Under-Graduate Cohort

The number of Internet users in Australia has been steadily increasing, with over 10.9 million people currently subscribed to an internet provider (ABS, 2011). Over the past year, the most avid users of the Internet were 15 – 24 year olds, with approximately 95% accessing the internet on a regular basis (ABS, Social Trends, 2011). While the internet has been described as fundamental to higher education students, social and leisure internet tools are also increasingly being used by these students to generate and maintain their social and professional networks and interactions (Duffy & Bruns 2006). Rapid technological advancements have enabled greater and faster access to information for learning and education (Hemmi et al, 2009; Glassman and Kang, 2011). As such, we sought to integrate interactive, online social media into the assessment profile of a Public Health undergraduate cohort at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The aim of this exercise was to engage students to both develop and showcase their research on a range of complex, contemporary health issues within the online forum of Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/) for review and critique by their peers. We applied Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) to analyse the interactive processes from which students developed deeper and more sustained learning, and via which their overall academic writing standards were raised. This paper outlines the assessment task, and the students’ feedback on their learning outcomes in relation to the Attentional, Retentional, Motor Reproduction, and Motivational Processes outlined by Bandura in SLT. We conceptualise the findings in a theoretical model, and discuss the implications for this approach within the broader tertiary environment.

Children as experts in their lives : child inclusive research [Editorial Introduction]

The focus of this special volume of CSI on research with and by children reflects a major paradigm shift in child research - a shift from a focus on the child as object of to a focus on the child as subject (and actor) in research (see Mason and Hood 2010). In his lead article in the first issue of this journal (2008), Asher Ben-Arieh highlighted the way in which the child indicators movement reflects this paradigm shift, outlining the way in which new directions in measuring and monitoring child well-being were leading to new roles for children in this process. He noted the importance of including children’s own perspectives on their well-being and argued that ‘incorporating children’s subjective perceptions is both a pre-requisite and a consequence of the changes historically in the measuring and monitoring of child well-being’ (p.13). This special issue again takes up this agenda of the child as subject in research...

Status of current research on the implication of climate change on built environment

The cycling interaction between climate change and building performance is of dynamic nature and both are essentially the cause and the effect of each other. On one hand, buildings contribute significantly to the global warming process. On the other hand, climate change is also expected to impact on many aspects of building performance. In this paper, the status of current research on the implication of climate change on built environment is reviewed. It is found that although the present research has covered broad areas of research, they are generally only limited to the qualitative analyses. It is also highlighted that although it is widely realized that reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector is very important, the adoption of complementary adaptation strategy to prepare the building for a range of climate change scenarios is also necessary. Due to the lack of holistic approach to generate future hourly weather data, various approaches have been used to generate different key weather variables. This ad hoc situation has seriously hindered the application of building simulation technique to the climate change impact study, in particular, to provide quantitative information for policy and design development.

Collaborative academic/practitioner research in project management : theory and models

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide of a review of the theory and models underlying project management (PM) research degrees that encourage reflective learning. Design/methodology/approach – Review of the literature and reflection on the practice of being actively involved in conducting and supervising academic research and disseminating academic output. The paper argues the case for the potential usefulness of reflective academic research to PM practitioners. It also highlights theoretical drivers of and barriers to reflective academic research by PM practitioners. Findings – A reflective learning approach to research can drive practical results though it requires a great deal of commitment and support by both academic and industry partners. Practical implications – This paper suggests how PM practitioners can engage in academic research that has practical outcomes and how to be more effective at disseminating these research outcomes. Originality/value – Advanced academic degrees, in particular those completed by PM practitioners, can validate a valuable source of innovative ideas and approaches that should be more quickly absorbed into the PM profession’s sources of knowledge. The value of this paper is to critically review and facilitate a reduced adaptation time for implementation of useful reflective academic research to industry.

Collaborative academic/practitioner research in project management : examples and applications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a cost-benefit interpretation of academic-practitioner research by describing and analysing several recent relevant examples of academic-practitioner research with a focus on doctoral theses carried out at universities and business schools in clusters of research centred in North America, Australia and Europe. Design/methodology/approach – Using case study examples, a value proposition framework for undertaking collaborative research for higher degree level study is developed and presented. Findings – Value proposition benefits from this level of collaborative research can be summarised as enhancing competencies at the individual and organisational level as well as providing participating universities with high-quality candidates/students and opportunities for industry engagement. The project management (PM) professional bodies can also extend PM knowledge but they need to be prepared to provide active support. Practical implications – A model for better defining the value proposition of collaborative research from a range of stakeholder perspectives is offered that can be adapted for researchers and industry research sponsors. Originality/value – Few papers offer a value proposition framework for explaining collaborative research benefits. This paper addresses that need.