Spontaneous large volume adipose tissue generation from a vascularized pedicled fat flap inside a chamber space

A novel method of spontaneous generation of new adipose tissue from an existing fat flap is described. A defined volume of fat flap based on the superficial inferior epigastric vascular pedicle in the rat was elevated and inset into a hollow plastic chamber implanted subcutaneously in the groin of the rat. The chamber walls were either perforated or solid and the chambers either contained poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) sponge matrix or not. The contents were analyzed after being in situ for 6 weeks. The total volume of the flap tissue in all groups except the control groups, where the flap was not inserted into the chambers, increased significantly, especially in the perforated chambers (0.08 ± 0.007 mL baseline compared to 1.2 ± 0.08 mL in the intact ones). Volume analysis of individual component tissues within the flaps revealed that the adipocyte volume increased and was at a maximum in the chambers without PLGA, where it expanded from 0.04 ± 0.003 mL at insertion to 0.5 ± 0.08 mL (1250% increase) in the perforated chambers and to 0.16 ± 0.03 mL (400% increase) in the intact chambers. Addition of PLGA scaffolds resulted in less fat growth. Histomorphometric analysis rather than simple hypertrophy documented an increased number of adipocytes. The new tissue was highly vascularized and no fat necrosis or atypical changes were observed.

Connecting people to their resource consumption through real-time data visualisations

Combining human-computer interaction and urban informatics, this design research developed and tested novel interfaces offering users real-time feedback on their paper and energy consumption. Findings from deploying these interfaces in both domestic and office environments in Australia, the UK, and Ireland, will innovate future generations of resource monitoring technologies. The study draws conclusions with implications for government policy, the energy industry, and sustainability researchers.

Bound to the borders: Representing refugees in the Australian space

This project consists of a novel and an exegesis that explore the use of fiction to counter negative hegemonic representations of refugees in Australia. The possibilities of using Australian spaces, including border spaces, to reveal tensions surrounding refugee belonging and to highlight the reconfiguration of border sites in the Australian imaginary, is a particular focus of this work.

The QUT innovation space : a trans-disciplinary learning environment for entrepreneurship education : final report

In the current climate of global economic volatility, there are increasing calls for training in enterprising skills and entrepreneurship to underpin the systemic innovation required for even medium-term business sustainability. The skills long-recognised as the essential for entrepreneurship now appear on the list of employability skills demanded by industry. The QUT Innovation Space (QIS) was an experiment aimed at delivering entrepreneurship education (EE), as an extra-curricular platform across the university, to the undergraduate students of an Australian higher education institute. It was an ambitious project that built on overseas models of EE studied during an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Teaching Fellowship (Collet, 2011) and implemented those approaches across an institute. Such EE approaches have not been attempted in an Australian university. The project tested resonance not only with the student population, from the perspective of what worked and what didn’t work, but also with every level of university operations. Such information is needed to inform the development of EE in the Australian university landscape. The QIS comprised a physical co-working space, virtual sites (web, Twitter and Facebook) and a network of entrepreneurial mentors, colleagues, and students. All facets of the QIS enabled connection between like-minded individuals that underpins the momentum needed for a project of this nature. The QIS became an innovation community within QUT. This report serves two purposes. First, as an account of the QIS project and its evolution, the report serves to identify the student demand for skills and training as well as barriers and facilitators of the activities that promote EE in an Australian university context. Second, the report serves as a how-to manual, in the tradition of many tomes on EE, outlining the QIS activities that worked as well as those that failed. The activities represent one measure of QIS outcomes and are described herein to facilitate implementation in other institutes. The QIS initially aimed to adopt an incubation model for training in EE. The ‘learning by doing’ model for new venture creation is a highly successful and high profile training approach commonly found in overseas contexts. However, the greatest demand of the QUT student population was not for incubation and progression of a developed entrepreneurial intent, but rather for training that instilled enterprising skills in the individual. These two scenarios require different training approaches (Fayolle and Gailly, 2008). The activities of the QIS evolved to meet that student demand. In addressing enterprising skills, the QIS developed the antecedents of entrepreneurialism (i.e., entrepreneurial attitudes, motivation and behaviours) including high-level skills around risk-taking, effective communication, opportunity recognition and action-orientation. In focusing on the would-be entrepreneur and not on the (initial) idea per se, the QIS also fostered entrepreneurial outcomes that would never have gained entry to the rigid stage-gated incubation model proposed for the original QIS framework. Important lessons learned from the project for development of an innovation community include the need to: 1. Evaluate the context of the type of EE program to be delivered and the student demand for the skills training (as noted above). 2. Create a community that builds on three dimensions: a physical space, a virtual environment and a network of mentors and partners. 3. Supplement the community with external partnerships that aid in delivery of skills training materials. 4. Ensure discovery of the community through the use of external IT services to deliver advertising and networking outlets. 5. Manage unrealistic student expectations of billion dollar products. 6. Continuously renew and rebuild simple activities to maintain student engagement. 7. Accommodate the non-university end-user group within the community. 8. Recognise and address the skills bottlenecks that serve as barriers to concept progression; in this case, externally provided IT and programming skills. 9. Use available on-line and published resources rather than engage in constructing project-specific resources that quickly become obsolete. 10. Avoid perceptions of faculty ownership and operate in an increasingly competitive environment. 11. Recognise that the continuum between creativity/innovation and entrepreneurship is complex, non-linear and requires different training regimes during the different phases of the pipeline. One small entity, such as the QIS, cannot address them all. The QIS successfully designed, implemented and delivered activities that included events, workshops, seminars and services to QUT students in the extra-curricular space. That the QIS project can be considered successful derives directly from the outcomes. First, the QIS project changed the lives of emerging QUT student entrepreneurs. Also, the QIS activities developed enterprising skills in students who did not necessarily have a business proposition, at the time. Second, successful outcomes of the QIS project are evidenced as the embedding of most, perhaps all, of the QIS activities in a new Chancellery-sponsored initiative: the Leadership Development and Innovation Program hosted by QUT Student Support Services. During the course of the QIS project, the Brisbane-based innovation ecosystem underwent substantial change. From a dearth of opportunities for the entrepreneurially inclined, there is now a plethora of entities that cater for a diversity of innovation-related activities. While the QIS evolved with the landscape, the demand endpoint of the QIS activities still highlights a gap in the local and national innovation ecosystems. The freedom to experiment and to fail is not catered for by the many new entities seeking to build viable businesses on the back of the innovation push. The onus of teaching the enterprising skills, which are the employability skills now demanded by industry, remains the domain of the higher education sector.

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.

The role of active locomotion in space perception

It has been shown that active control of locomotion increases accuracy and precision of nonvisual space perception, but psychological mechanisms of this enhancement are poorly understood. The present study explored a hypothesis that active control of locomotion enhances space perception by facilitating crossmodal interaction between visual and nonvisual spatial information. In an experiment, blindfolded participants walked along a linear path under one of the following two conditions: (1) They walked by themselves following a guide rope; and (2) they were led by an experimenter. Subsequently, they indicated the walked distance by tossing a beanbag to the origin of locomotion. The former condition gave participants greater control of their locomotion, and thus represented a more active walking condition. In addition, before each trial, half the participants viewed the room in which they performed the distance perception task. The other half remained blindfolded throughout the experiment. Results showed that although the room was devoid of any particular cues for walked distances, visual knowledge of the surroundings improved the precision of nonvisual distance perception. Importantly, however, the benefit of preview was observed only when participants walked more actively. This indicates that active control of locomotion allowed participants to better utilize their visual memory of the environment for perceiving nonvisually encoded distance, suggesting that active control of locomotion served as a catalyst for integrating visual and nonvisual information to derive spatial representations of higher quality.

Authenticating Multicast Streams in Lossy Channels Using Threshold Techniques

We first classify the state-of-the-art stream authentication problem in the multicast environment and group them into Signing and MAC approaches. A new approach for authenticating digital streams using Threshold Techniques is introduced. The new approach main advantages are in tolerating packet loss, up to a threshold number, and having a minimum space overhead. It is most suitable for multicast applications running over lossy, unreliable communication channels while, in same time, are pertain the security requirements. We use linear equations based on Lagrange polynomial interpolation and Combinatorial Design methods.

SCRAMSPACE : Radical-Farming Scramjet for access to space

Scramjet-based launch systems offer considerable promise for safe, reliable and economical access to space. A general Scramjets introduction is first provided, followed by the specifics of Australian Scramjet Research and the recent progress in inlet-injection radical-farming scramjets as part of the SCRAMSPACE program. Through both flight and ground tests, leveraging Australias world leadership in scramjet R&D, the SCRAMSPACE project is designed to answer key scientific and technological questions and build an industry-ready talent pool for a future Australian space industry. An extensive descriptions of all phases of the development of the SCRAMSPACE I scramjet-powered free-flight experiment are described in these lecture notes.

Microplasma-chemical synthesis and tunable real-time plasmonic responses of alloyed Aux Ag1−x nanoparticles

Tunable synthesis of bimetallic AuxAg1-x alloyed nanoparticles and in situ monitoring of their plasmonic responses is presented. This is a new conceptual approach based on green and energy efficient, reactive, and highly-non-equilibrium microplasma chemistry.

Real-time monitoring of nucleation-growth cycle of carbon nanoparticles in acetylene plasmas

Quantum cascade laserabsorption spectroscopy was used to measure the absolute concentration of acetylene in situ during the nanoparticle growth in Ar + C2H2 RF plasmas. It is demonstrated that the nanoparticle growth exhibits a periodical behavior, with the growth cycle period strongly dependent on the initial acetylene concentration in the chamber. Being 300 s at 7.5% of acetylene in the gas mixture, the growth cycle period decreases with the acetylene concentration increasing; the growth eventually disappears when the acetylene concentration exceeds 32%. During the nanoparticle growth, the acetylene concentration is small and does not exceed 4.2% at radio frequency (RF) power of 4 W, and 0.5% at RF power of 20 W. An injection of a single acetylene pulse into the discharge also results in the nanoparticlenucleation and growth. The absorption spectroscopy technique was found to be very effective for the time-resolved measurement of the hydrocarbon content in nanoparticle-generatingplasmas.

Nonlinear geometric and material computational technique : higher-order element with refined plastic hinge approach

This paper addresses of the advanced computational technique of steel structures for both simulation capacities simultaneously; specifically, they are the higher-order element formulation with element load effect (geometric nonlinearities) as well as the refined plastic hinge method (material nonlinearities). This advanced computational technique can capture the real behaviour of a whole second-order inelastic structure, which in turn ensures the structural safety and adequacy of the structure. Therefore, the emphasis of this paper is to advocate that the advanced computational technique can replace the traditional empirical design approach. In the meantime, the practitioner should be educated how to make use of the advanced computational technique on the second-order inelastic design of a structure, as this approach is the future structural engineering design. It means the future engineer should understand the computational technique clearly; realize the behaviour of a structure with respect to the numerical analysis thoroughly; justify the numerical result correctly; especially the fool-proof ultimate finite element is yet to come, of which is competent in modelling behaviour, user-friendly in numerical modelling and versatile for all structural forms and various materials. Hence the high-quality engineer is required, who can confidently manipulate the advanced computational technique for the design of a complex structure but not vice versa.

Art spaces, public space, and the link to community development

Recent literature credits community art spaces with both enhancing social interaction and engagement and generating economic revitalization. This article argues that the ability of art spaces to realize these outcomes is linked to their role as public spaces and that their community development potential can be expanded with greater attention to this role. An analysis of the public space characteristics is useful because it encourages consideration of sometimes overlooked issues, particularly the effect of the physical environment on outcomes related to community development. I examine the relationship between public space and community development at various types of art spaces including artist cooperatives, ethnic-specific art spaces, and city-sponsored art centers in central city and suburban locations. This study shows that through their programming and other activities, art spaces serve various public space roles related to community development. However, the ability of many to perform as public spaces is hindered by facility design issues and poor physical connections in their surrounding area. This article concludes with proposals for enhancing the community development role of the art spaces through their function as public spaces.

Pedestrian dynamics in real and simulated world

The paper examines the knowledge of pedestrian movements, both in real scenarios, and from more recent years, in the virtual 4 simulation realm. Aiming to verify whether it is possible to learn from the study of virtual environments how people will behave in real 5 environments, it is vital to understand what is already known about behavior in real environments. Besides the walking interaction among 6 pedestrians, the interaction between pedestrians and the built environment in which they are walking also have greatest relevance. Force-based 7 models were compared with the other three major microscopic models of pedestrian simulation to demonstrate a more realistic and capable 8 heuristic approach is needed for the study of the dynamics of pedestrians.

Indigenous epistemology : creating an international Indigenous higher education space in the wake of the western “university of excellence”

Interest in the participation of Indigenous peoples in higher education has, in recent times, gained momentum with an increasing number of advocates challenging the global history of culturally inept policies and practices imposed within the western higher education system. To address the challenges being presented by Indigenous communities and other groups (often relegated under the banner of disadvantaged or equity) Western Universities are promoting a shift toward inclusive policies and practices. Frustrated with the offerings of the Western Higher Education system, a global movement of Indigenous academics, Elders and knowledge holders are developing strategies to meet the educational needs of their own communities, in order to find a way forward. The mobilization of Elders and Indigenous academics has resulted in the development of a global higher education network which is proving to be a significant force in changing the position of Indigenous participation in higher education. The World Indigenous Network Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) has presented a significant challenge to those barriers within the western higher education system that has historically demonstrated an inability to develop culturally inclusive practices within their institutions. This paper examines the development of a world Indigenous higher education movement and its contribution to the history of the “university” within the context of western higher education institutions. Outlined in this examination will be a synopsis of the development of the “University of Excellence” and the creation of an international Indigenous space within higher education.

Exploring Bodies in Time and Space

While the body, time and space are fundamental to human experience, comparatively little attention has been given to the connections between them. Here scholars from a wide range of disciplines explore important themes of embodied life in time and space across cultures, activities and bodymind states. Motivated by a common desire to deepen and extend our comprehension of these phenomena and the connections and conversations between them, this book emerged from intense inter-disciplinary dialogue during the 1st Global Conferences on Time, Space and the Body and Body Horror. A plenitude of theoretical approaches and media are deployed to investigate assumptions and pose problems, to creatively deconstruct and reconstruct the terms through which experience is rendered meaningful, pleasurable, and functional. These investigations, pursued through various research methods in fields of the arts, social and psychological sciences and humanities, invite readers into a genuinely pluralistic conversation around the most basic and profound aspects of being.