Specification & design of safety technologies for complex socio-technical systems : low-cost level crossings case study

The introduction of safety technologies into complex socio-technical systems requires an integrated and holistic approach to HF and engineering, considering the effects of failures not only within system boundaries, but also at the interfaces with other systems and humans. Level crossing warning devices are examples of such systems where technically safe states within the system boundary can influence road user performance, giving rise to other hazards that degrade safety of the system. Chris will discuss the challenges that have been encountered to date in developing a safety argument in support of low-cost level crossing warning devices. The design and failure modes of level crossing warning devices are known to have a significant influence on road user performance; however, quantifying this effect is one of the ongoing challenges in determining appropriate reliability and availability targets for low-cost level crossing warning devices.

Acticoat™ : A cost-effective and evidence-based dressing strategy [Letter to the Editor]

We thank Dr. Burd et al. for taking an interest in our paper [1]. The retrospective cohort study was performed and published for two reasons. Firstly, we wished to compare and contrast the use of Acticoat™ and Silvazine™, and secondly we wished to demonstrate how one's practice can be dramatically altered by a change in dressing used. We found that Acticoat™ was safe and easy to use, caused less trauma to patients, required less frequent dressing changes and enabled treatment to be conducted on an outpatient, rather than an inpatient basis. During the period of Acticoat™ treatment we also saw a dramatic reduction in grafting requirements and also in the need for long-term scar management. Burd et al. correctly state that silver-based dressings are now more widely available, however many burn centres in the world continue to use silver sulphadiazine with daily baths. We therefore feel that a comparison is very relevant and useful. Prospective, randomised clinical trials of a range of silver-based dressings would indeed be useful, and hopefully Dr. Burd and colleagues will take up their own suggestion and perform these studies...

The Use of Ecological Design to Achieve Sustainable Development in Queensland, Australia

This series of technical papers arose out of the action by a private entrepreneur to initiate a process beyond mere regulatory compliance in order to achieve best environmental practice at proposed large new visitor gateways to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Because of the complexity of issues involved at such urbanized downstream sites, the range of topics covered is wide – though still only those considered at this juncture to be of management priority. Included on this platform is one introductory paper reviewing the history of environmental management in the field in Queensland, and three papers which seek to appreciate the main techniques by which government contributes to the solutions viz. through the national park, threatened species list, and environmental impact assessment. The history paper was designed to allow the present series to be considered in broad context as well as performance to date. The work emphasizes that much of the fertile land that must be sustained nowadays lies in the province of the private sector, and that the initiative to create any new cost-effective paradigm in ecologically-sustainable practices lies mostly in their hands. In all instances, this strategic approach to large-scale property planning is through ecological design – using field case studies around the immediate biophysical catchment of the development, with attendant focus on the associated legal catchment (the actual development site) and the social catchment (the effective land managers). The first of these has given rise to a document termed a Regional Landscape Strategy, its implementation planned in concert with an Environmental Impact Assessment of the site and with a Strategic Regional Initiative (still being tested in the field) for community engagement. The first document takes into account the aspirations of government as expressed in its broad-scale regional plans.

Development of an integrated GIS and land use planning course : impacts of hybrid instructional methods

This study reports an action research undertaken at Queensland University of Technology. It evaluates the effectiveness of the integration of GIS within the substantive domains of an existing land use planning course in 2011. Using student performance, learning experience survey, and questionnaire survey data, it also evaluates the impacts of incorporating hybrid instructional methods (e.g., in-class and online instructional videos) in 2012 and 2013. Results show that: students (re)iterated the importance of GIS in the course justifying the integration; the hybrid methods significantly increased student performance; and unlike replacement, the videos are more suitable as a complement to in-class activity.

The environmental enigma : why do producers professing stewardship continue to practice poor natural resource management?

Despite a wide acceptance that primary producers in Australia subscribe to a stewardship ethic, land and water degradation remains an ongoing problem. Recent calculations suggest that the economic cost of Australia's environmental degradation is amounting to more than $A3.5 billion a year with an estimated cost of managing (not overcoming) problems of salinity, acidification, soil erosion totalling $A60 billion over the next decade. This paper argues that stewardship itself is an unsatisfactory concept when looking to landholders to respond to environmental problems, for rarely does the attitude of stewardship translate into behaviours of improving natural resource management practices on private land. Whilst there is some acceptance of the environmental problem among primary producers, a number of external constraints may also impede the uptake of conservation-orientated practices. In light of the prevailing accounts of poor adoption of sustainable practices a number of policy options are reviewed in this paper, including formal regional partnerships, regulatory frameworks and market-based measures. It is concluded that the contentious nature of some of these new opportunities for change will mean that any moves aimed at reversing environmental degradation in Australia will be slow.

The Implications of Activity Based Funding for Emergency Departments : A Comprehensive Literature Review

Executive Summary Emergency Departments (EDs) locally, nationally and internationally are becoming increasingly busy. Within this context, it can be challenging to deliver a health service that is safe, of high quality and cost-effective. Whilst various models are described within the literature that aim to measure ED ‘work’ or ‘activity’, they are often not linked to a measure of costs to provide such activity. It is important for hospital and ED managers to understand and apply this link so that optimal staffing and financial resourcing can be justifiably sought. This research is timely given that Australia has moved towards a national Activity Based Funding (ABF) model for ED activity. ABF is believed to increase transparency of care and fairness (i.e. equal work receives equal pay). ABF involves a person-, performance- or activity-based payment system, and thus a move away from historical “block payment” models that do not incentivise efficiency and quality. The aim of the Statewide Workforce and Activity-Based Funding Modelling Project in Queensland Emergency Departments (SWAMPED) is to identify and describe best practice Emergency Department (ED) workforce models within the current context of ED funding that operates under an ABF model. The study is comprised of five distinct phases. This monograph (Phase 1) comprises a systematic review of the literature that was completed in June 2013. The remaining phases include a detailed survey of Queensland hospital EDs’ resource levels, activity and operational models of care, development of new resource models, development of a user-friendly modelling interface for ED mangers, and production of a final report that identifies policy implications. The anticipated deliverable outcome of this research is the development of an ABF based Emergency Workforce Modelling Tool that will enable ED managers to profile both their workforce and operational models of care. Additionally, the tool will assist with the ability to more accurately inform adequate staffing numbers required in the future, inform planning of expected expenditures and be used for standardisation and benchmarking across similar EDs. Summary of the Findings Within the remit of this review of the literature, the main findings include: 1. EDs are becoming busier and more congested Rising demand, barriers to ED throughput and transitions of care all contribute to ED congestion. In addition requests by organisational managers and the community require continued broadening of the scope of services required of the ED and further increases in demand. As the population live longer with more lifestyle diseases their propensity to require ED care continues to grow. 2. Various models of care within EDs exist Models often vary to account for site specific characteritics to suit staffing profile, ED geographical location (e.g. metropolitan or rural site), and patient demographic profile (e.g. paediatrics, older persons, ethnicity). Existing and new models implemented within EDs often depend on the target outcome requiring change. Generally this is focussed on addressing issues at the input, throughput or output areas of the ED. Even with models targeting similar demographic or illness, the structure and process elements underpinning the model can vary, which can impact on outcomes and variance to the patient and carer experience between and within EDs. Major models of care to manage throughput inefficiencies include: A. Workforce Models of Care focus on the appropriate level of staffing for a given workload to provide prompt, timely and clinically effective patient care within an emergency care setting. The studies reviewed suggest that the early involvement of senior medical decision maker and/or specialised nursing roles such as Emergency Nurse Practitioners and Clinical Initiatives Nurse, primary contact or extended scope Allied Health Practitioners can facilitate patient flow and improve key indicators such as length of stay and reducing the number of those who did not wait to be seen amongst others. B. Operational Models of Care within EDs focus on mechanisms for streaming (e.g. fast-tracking) or otherwise grouping patient care based on acuity and complexity to assist with minimising any throughput inefficiencies. While studies support the positive impact of these models in general, it appears that they are most effective when they are adequately resourced. 3. Various methods of measuring ED activity exist Measuring ED activity requires careful consideration of models of care and staffing profile. Measuring activity requires the ability to account for factors including: patient census, acuity, LOS, intensity of intervention, department skill-mix plus an adjustment for non-patient care time. 4. Gaps in the literature Continued ED growth calls for new and innovative care delivery models that are safe, clinically effective and cost effective. New roles and stand-alone service delivery models are often evaluated in isolation without considering the global and economic impact on staffing profiles. Whilst various models of accounting for and measuring health care activity exist, costing studies and cost effectiveness studies are lacking for EDs making accurate and reliable assessments of care models difficult. There is a necessity to further understand, refine and account for measures of ED complexity that define a workload upon which resources and appropriate staffing determinations can be made into the future. There is also a need for continued monitoring and comprehensive evaluation of newly implemented workforce modelling tools. This research acknowledges those gaps and aims to: • Undertake a comprehensive and integrated whole of department workforce profiling exercise relative to resources in the context of ABF. • Inform workforce requirements based on traditional quantitative markers (e.g. volume and acuity) combined with qualitative elements of ED models of care; • Develop a comprehensive and validated workforce calculation tool that can be used to better inform or at least guide workforce requirements in a more transparent manner.

Defining expected cost for the air conditioning to avoid a price spike of electricity market under DSR model

This work presents a demand side response model (DSR) which assists small electricity consumers, through an aggregator, exposed to the market price to proactively mitigate price and peak impact on the electrical system. The proposed model allows consumers to manage air-conditioning when as a function of possible price spikes. The main contribution of this research is to demonstrate how consumers can minimise the total expected cost by optimising air-conditioning to account for occurrences of a price spike in the electricity market. This model investigates how pre-cooling method can be used to minimise energy costs when there is a substantial risk of an electricity price spike. The model was tested with Queensland electricity market data from the Australian Energy Market Operator and Brisbane temperature data from the Bureau of Statistics during hot days on weekdays in the period 2011 to 2012.

Loss reduction experiences in electric power distribution companies of Iran

The experiences of the loss reduction projects in electric power distribution companies (EPDCs) of Iran are presented. The loss reduction methods, which are proposed individually by 14 EPDCs, corresponding energy saving (ES), Investment costs (IC), and loss rate reductions are provided. In order to illustrate the effectiveness and performance of the loss reduction methods, three parameters are proposed as energy saving per investment costs (ESIC), energy saving per quantity (ESPQ), and investment costs per quantity (ICPQ). The overall ESIC of 14 EPDC as well as individual average and standard deviation of the EISC for each method is presented and compared. In addition, the average and standard deviation of the ESPQs and ICPQs for the loss reduction methods, individually, are provided and investigated. These parameters are useful for EPDCs that intend to reduce the electric losses in distribution networks as a benchmark and as a background in the planning purposes.

Real-time image classification for adaptive mission planning using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Real-time image analysis and classification onboard robotic marine vehicles, such as AUVs, is a key step in the realisation of adaptive mission planning for large-scale habitat mapping in previously unexplored environments. This paper describes a novel technique to train, process, and classify images collected onboard an AUV used in relatively shallow waters with poor visibility and non-uniform lighting. The approach utilises Förstner feature detectors and Laws texture energy masks for image characterisation, and a bag of words approach for feature recognition. To improve classification performance we propose a usefulness gain to learn the importance of each histogram component for each class. Experimental results illustrate the performance of the system in characterisation of a variety of marine habitats and its ability to operate onboard an AUV's main processor suitable for real-time mission planning.

Working knowledge for collaborative water planning in Australia’s Wet Tropics region

Cooperation between multiple environmental decision-makers and activities is necessary to address the impacts of diffuse sources of agricultural pollution on the water quality entering Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Water planning efforts requires available knowledge to inform this co-operative water program implementation and reform. This paper uses knowledge sharing, translation and feedback features of collaboration as a way to assess knowledge work practices during key phases of the water planning process. This enabled a systematic review of knowledge work practices in partnership with collaborative water planning groups established to inform water quality program investment decisions in the GBR’s Wet Tropics region. This research builds on the growing academic and policy interest in the conditions required to enable different types of knowledge to be successfully used for policy-making by focusing on when, how and why knowledge work to meet these conditions is required.

Psychosocial and communication variables involved in mediating the individual experience of older adults following a severe weather event

The recent floods in south-east Queensland have focused policy, academic and community attention on the challenges associated with severe weather events (SWE), specifically pre-disaster preparation, disaster-response and post-disaster community resilience. Financially, the cost of SWE was $9 billion in the 2011 Australian Federal Budget (Swan 2011); psychologically and emotionally, the impact on individual mental health and community wellbeing is also significant but more difficult to quantify. However, recent estimates suggest that as many as one in five will subsequently experience major emotional distress (Bonanno et al. 2010). With climate change predicted to increase the frequency and intensity of a wide range of SWE in Australia (Garnaut 2011; The Climate Institute 2011), there is an urgent and critical need to ensure that the unique psychological and social needs of more vulnerable community members - such as older residents - are better understood and integrated into disaster preparedness and response policy, planning and protocols. Navigating the complex dynamics of SWE can be particularly challenging for older adults and their disaster experience is frequently magnified by a wide array of cumulative and interactive stressors, which intertwine to make them uniquely vulnerable to significant short and long-term adverse effects. This current article provides a brief introduction to the current literature in this area and highlights a gap in the research relating to communication tools during and after severe weather events.

Remote sensing and core data needed to support planning and policy decision making

A variety of sustainable development research efforts and related activities are attempting to reconcile the issues of conserving our natural resources without limiting economic motivation while also improving our social equity and quality of life. Land use/land cover change, occurring on a global scale, is an aggregate of local land use decisions and profoundly impacts our environment. It is therefore the local decision making process that should be the eventual target of many of the ongoing data collection and research efforts which strive toward supporting a sustainable future. Satellite imagery data is a primary source of data upon which to build a core data set for use by researchers in analyzing this global change. A process is necessary to link global change research, utilizing satellite imagery, to the local land use decision making process. One example of this is the NASA-sponsored Regional Data Center (RDC) prototype. The RDC approach is an attempt to integrate science and technology at the community level. The anticipated result of this complex interaction between research and the decision making communities will be realized in the form of long-term benefits to the public.

Analysis of temporary traffic control cost items in transportation construction bidding process

Temporary Traffic Control Plans (TCP’s), which provide construction phasing to maintain traffic during construction operations, are integral component of highway construction project design. Using the initial design, designers develop estimated quantities for the required TCP devices that become the basis for bids submitted by highway contractors. However, actual as-built quantities are often significantly different from the engineer’s original estimate. The total cost of TCP phasing on highway construction projects amounts to 6–10% of the total construction cost. Variations between engineer estimated quantities and final quantities contribute to reduced cost control, increased chances of cost related litigations, and bid rankings and selection. Statistical analyses of over 2000 highway construction projects were performed to determine the sources of variation, which later were used as the basis of development for an automated-hybrid prediction model that uses multiple regressions and heuristic rules to provide accurate TCP quantities and costs. The predictive accuracy of the model developed was demonstrated through several case studies.

Predicting freeway pavement construction cost using a back-propagation neural network : a case study in Henan, China

The objective of this research was to develop a model to estimate future freeway pavement construction costs in Henan Province, China. A comprehensive set of factors contributing to the cost of freeway pavement construction were included in the model formulation. These factors comprehensively reflect the characteristics of region and topography and altitude variation, the cost of labour, material, and equipment, and time-related variables such as index numbers of labour prices, material prices and equipment prices. An Artificial Neural Network model using the Back-Propagation learning algorithm was developed to estimate the cost of freeway pavement construction. A total of 88 valid freeway cases were obtained from freeway construction projects let by the Henan Transportation Department during the period 1994−2007. Data from a random selection of 81 freeway cases were used to train the Neural Network model and the remaining data were used to test the performance of the Neural Network model. The tested model was used to predict freeway pavement construction costs in 2010 based on predictions of input values. In addition, this paper provides a suggested correction for the prediction of the value for the future freeway pavement construction costs. Since the change in future freeway pavement construction cost is affected by many factors, the predictions obtained by the proposed method, and therefore the model, will need to be tested once actual data are obtained.

Managing cost implications for highway infrastructure sustainability

Highway construction works have significant bearings on all aspects of sustainability. With the increasing level of public awareness and government regulatory measures, the construction industry is experiencing a cultural shift to recognise, embrace and pursue sustainability. Stakeholders are now keen to identify sustainable alternatives and the financial implications of including them on a lifecycle basis. They need tools that can aid the evaluation of investment options. To date, however, there have not been many financial assessments on the sustainability aspects of highway projects. This is because the existing life-cycle costing analysis (LCCA) models tend to focus on economic issues alone and are not able to deal with sustainability factors. This paper provides insights into the current practice of life-cycle cost analysis, and the identification and quantification of sustainability-related cost components in highway projects through literature review, questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews. The results can serve as a platform for highway project stakeholders to develop practical tools to evaluate highway investment decisions and reach an optimum balance between financial viability and sustainability deliverables.