An explorative qualitative analysis of participants' experience of using kava versus placebo in an RCT. (Clinical report)

Many randomised controlled trials (RCT) have been conducted using Piper methysticum (kava), however no qualitative research exploring the experience of taking kava during a clinical trial has previously been reported. ---------- Patients and methods: A qualitative research component (in the form of semi structured and open ended written questions) was incorporated into an RCT to explore the experiences of those participating in a clinical trial of kava. The written questions were provided to participants at weeks 2 and 3 (after randomisation, after each controlled phase). The researcher and participants were blinded as to whether they were taking kava or placebo. Two open ended questions were posed to elucidate their experiences from taking either kava or placebo. Thematic analysis was undertaken and researcher triangulation employed to ensure analytical rigour. Key themes after the kava phases were a reduction in anxiety and stress, and calming or relaxing mental effects. Other themes related to improvement in sleep and in somatic anxiety symptoms. ---------- Results: Kava use did not cause any serious adverse reactions although a few respondents reported nausea or other gastrointestinal side effects. This represents the first documented qualitative investigation of the experience of taking kava during a clinical trial. The primary themes involved anxiolytic and calming effects, with only a minor theme reflecting side effects. Our exploratory qualitative data was consistent with the significant quantitative results revealed in the study and provides additional support to suggest the trial results did not exclude any important positive or negative effects (at least as experienced by the trial participants).

Curbing paper wastage using flavoured feedback

In November 2009 the researcher embarked on a project aimed at reducing the amount of paper used by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) staff in their daily workplace activities. The key goal was to communicate to staff that excessive printing has a tangible and negative effect on their workplace and local environment. The research objective was to better understand what motivates staff towards more ecologically sustainable printing practises, whilst meeting their job’s demands. The current study is built on previous research that found that one interface does not address the needs of all users when creating persuasive Human Computer Interaction (HCI) interventions targeting resource consumption. In response, the current study created and trialled software that communicates individual paper consumption in precise metrics. Based on preliminary research data different metric sets have been defined to address the different motivations and beliefs of user archetypes using descriptive and injunctive normative information.

Petri net modeling of spatial and temporal constraints in track allocation problem at railway stations

The track allocation problem (TAP) at a multi-track, multi-platform mainline railway station is defined by the station track layout and service timetable, which implies combinations of spatial and temporal conflicts. Feasible solutions are available from either traditional planning or advanced intelligent searching methods and their evaluations with respect to operational requirements are essential for the operators. To facilitate thorough analysis, a timed Coloured Petri Nets (CPN) model is presented here to encapsulate the inter-relationships of the spatial and temporal constraints in the TAP.

Contact Lens Practice, 2nd Edition

Thoroughly revised and updated, this popular book provides a comprehensive yet easy to read guide to modern contact lens practice. Beautifully re-designed in a clean, contemporary layout, this second edition presents relevant and up-to-date information in a systematic manner, with a logical flow of subject matter from front to back. This book wonderfully captures the ‘middle ground’ in the contact lens field … somewhere between a dense research-based tome and a basic fitting guide. As such, it is ideally suited for both students and general eye care practitioners who require a practical, accessible and uncluttered account of the contact lens field. Contents Part 1 Introduction Historical perspective. The anterior eye Visual optics Clinical instruments Part 2 Soft contact lenses Soft lens materials Soft lens manufacture Soft lens optics Soft lens measurement Soft lens design and fitting Soft toric lens design and fitting Soft lens care systems Part 3 Rigid contact lenses Rigid lens materials Rigid lens manufacture Rigid lens optics Rigid lens measurement Rigid lens design and fitting Rigid toric lens design and fitting Rigid lens care systems Part 4 Lens replacement modalities Unplanned lens replacement Daily soft lens replacement Planned soft lens replacement Planned rigid lens replacement Part 5 Special lenses and fitting considerations Scleral lenses Tinted lenses Presbyopia Continuous wear Sport Keratoconus High ametropia Paediatric fitting Therapeutic applications Post-refractive Surgery Post-keratoplasty Orthokeratology Diabetes Part 6 Patient examination and management History taking Preliminary examination Patient education Aftercare Complications Digital imaging Compliance Practice management Appendices Index

Quantification of the relationship between Fuser Roller Temperature and Laser Printer Emissions

Recently published studies not only demonstrated that laser printers are often significant sources of ultrafine particles, but they also shed light on particle formation mechanisms. While the role of fuser roller temperature as a factor affecting particle formation rate has been postulated, its impact has never been quantified. To address this gap in knowledge, this study measured emissions from 30 laser printers in chamber using a standardized printing sequence, as well as monitoring fuser roller temperature. Based on a simplified mass balance equation, the average emission rates of particle number, PM2.5 and O3 were calculated. The results showed that: almost all printers were found to be high particle number emitters (i.e. > 1.01×1010 particles/min); colour printing generated more PM2.5 than monochrome printing; and all printers generated significant amounts of O3. Particle number emissions varied significantly during printing and followed the cycle of fuser roller temperature variation, which points to temperature being the strongest factor controlling emissions. For two sub-groups of printers using the same technology (heating lamps), systematic positive correlations, in the form of a power law, were found between average particle number emission rate and average roller temperature. Other factors, such as fuser material and structure, are also thought to play a role, since no such correlation was found for the remaining two sub-groups of printers using heating lamps, or for the printers using heating strips. In addition, O3 and total PM2.5 were not found to be statistically correlated with fuser temperature.

Connecting people and resource consumption in real time

The authors currently engage in two projects to improve human-computer interaction (HCI) designs that can help conserve resources. The projects explore motivation and persuasion strategies relevant to ubiquitous computing systems that bring real-time consumption data into the homes and hands of residents in Brisbane, Australia. The first project seeks to increase understanding among university staff of the tangible and negative effects that excessive printing has on the workplace and local environment. The second project seeks to shift attitudes toward domestic energy conservation through software and hardware that monitor real-time, in situ electricity consumption in homes across Queensland. The insights drawn from these projects will help develop resource consumption user archetypes, providing a framework linking people to differing interface design requirements.

A review on stereolithography and its applications in biomedical engineering

Stereolithography is a solid freeform technique (SFF) that was introduced in the late 1980s. Although many other techniques have been developed since then, stereolithography remains one of the most powerful and versatile of all SFF techniques. It has the highest fabrication accuracy and an increasing number of materials that can be processed is becoming available. In this paper we discuss the characteristic features of the stereolithography technique and compare it to other SFF techniques. The biomedical applications of stereolithography are reviewed, as well as the biodegradable resin materials that have been developed for use with stereolithography. Finally, an overview of the application of stereolithography in preparing porous structures for tissue engineering is given.

Mathematically defined tissue engineering scaffold architectures prepared by stereolithography

The technologies employed for the preparation of conventional tissue engineering scaffolds restrict the materials choice and the extent to which the architecture can be designed. Here we show the versatility of stereolithography with respect to materials and freedom of design. Porous scaffolds are designed with computer software and built with either a poly(d,l-lactide)-based resin or a poly(d,l-lactide-co-ε-caprolactone)-based resin. Characterisation of the scaffolds by micro-computed tomography shows excellent reproduction of the designs. The mechanical properties are evaluated in compression, and show good agreement with finite element predictions. The mechanical properties of scaffolds can be controlled by the combination of material and scaffold pore architecture. The presented technology and materials enable an accurate preparation of tissue engineering scaffolds with a large freedom of design, and properties ranging from rigid and strong to highly flexible and elastic.

A review of rapid prototyping techniques for tissue engineering purposes

Rapid prototyping (RP) is a common name for several techniques, which read in data from computer-aided design (CAD) drawings and manufacture automatically threedimensional objects layer-by-layer according to the virtual design. The utilization of RP in tissue engineering enables the production of three-dimensional scaffolds with complex geometries and very fine structures. Adding micro- and nanometer details into the scaffolds improves the mechanical properties of the scaffold and ensures better cell adhesion to the scaffold surface. Thus, tissue engineering constructs can be customized according to the data acquired from the medical scans to match the each patient’s individual needs. In addition RP enables the control of the scaffold porosity making it possible to fabricate applications with desired structural integrity. Unfortunately, every RP process has its own unique disadvantages in building tissue engineering scaffolds. Hence, the future research should be focused into the development of RP machines designed specifically for fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds, although RP methods already can serve as a link between tissue and engineering.

Life on the edge : housing experiences in three remote Australian indigenous settlements

This analysis of housing experiences and aspirations in three remote Indigenous settlements in Australia (Mimili, Maningrida and Palm Island) reveals extreme liveability problems directly related to the scale and form of housing provision. Based upon field visits to each of the settlements and extensive interviews with residents and local housing and community officers, the paper analyses two aspects of living in such housing conditions at two spatial scales, the layout of the settlement and the design of individual houses. The failings at both scales are shown to be the fault of a dysfunctional housing system that is only recently been addressed.

A navigating rat animat

This paper presents a new rat animat, a rat-sized bio-inspired robot platform currently being developed for embodied cognition and neuroscience research. The rodent animat is 150mm x 80mm x 70mm and has a different drive, visual, proximity, and odometry sensors, x86 PC, and LCD interface. The rat animat has a bio-inspired rodent navigation and mapping system called RatSLAM which demonstrates the capabilities of the platform and framework. A case study is presented of the robot's ability to learn the spatial layout of a figure of eight laboratory environment, including its ability to close physical loops based on visual input and odometry. A firing field plot similar to rodent 'non-conjunctive grid cells' is shown by plotting the activity of an internal network. Having a rodent animat the size of a real rat allows exploration of embodiment issues such as how the robot's sensori-motor systems and cognitive abilities interact. The initial observations concern the limitations of the deisgn as well as its strengths. For example, the visual sensor has a narrower field of view and is located much closer to the ground than for other robots in the lab, which alters the salience of visual cues and the effectiveness of different visual filtering techniques. The small size of the robot relative to corridors and open areas impacts on the possible trajectories of the robot. These perspective and size issues affect the formation and use of the cognitive map, and hence the navigation abilities of the rat animat.

The development of urban river corridors in Malaysia

Malaysian urban river corridors are facing major physical transformations in the 21st century. The effects of rapid development exacerbated by the competition between two key industry sectors, commercial base and tourism development in conjunction with urbanisation and industrialisation, have posted a high demand for the uses of these spaces. The political scenario and lack on consideration of ecological principles in its design solution have sparked stiff environmental and cultural constraint towards its landscape character as well as the ecological system. Therefore, a holistic approach towards improving the landscape design processes is extremely necessary to protect values of these places. Limited research has been carried out and further has created an urgent need to explore better ways to improve the landscape design processes of Malaysian urban river corridor developments that encompass the needs and aspirations of its multi-ethnic society without making any drastic changes to the landscape character of the rivers. This paper provides a brief introduction to address this significant gap and hence serves to contribute to the literature review.

The sun gives without ever receiving

YEAR: 2010 ROLE: Artist FORMAT: Miniature 3D Sculpture produced in resin using 3D printing technologies. WITH: International Touring Show ‘Inside Out’ WHAT: A miniature sculpture that contributes towards my ongoing explorations into how our collective ability to sustain (the future) is as much a cultural problematic as it is an economic or technological one. OVERVIEW: The curatorial brief was for each curated artist was to design a piece in CAD suitable for 3D resin printing - The object should be entirely generated through 3D visualisation and modelling tools and should be machined and shipped within the dimensions of 6cm x 6cm x 6cm. My design for this brief was influenced by recent research I had conducted in Mildura in the Sunraysia irrigated region of NW Victoria. Each name set within the work is an Australian soldier/settler – who, on returning from the ‘Great War’ was duly awarded a ‘block’ in Australia’s new inland irrigated settlements - with the explicit task of clearing it to plant and reap. Through their concerted and well-intentioned efforts, these workers began to profoundly re-shape Australia’s marginal country - inadvertently presaging the bleak future faced today by many of Australia’s inland lands and river systems. Furthermore, through that time's predominant colonial conception of ‘terra nullius’ (this land is unoccupied and therefore free to be claimed) they each played a small but formative part in building the profound cultural divide between land and peoples that still haunts Australia today. THE EXHIBITION: Inside Out is a compelling international touring exhibition featuring forty-six miniature sculptures produced in resin using 3D printing technologies. Developments in virtual computer visualisation and integrated digital technologies are giving contemporary makers new insight and opportunities to create objects and forms which were previously impossible to produce or difficult to envisage. The exhibition is the result of collaboration between the Art Technology Coalition, the University of Technology Sydney and RMIT University in Australia along with De Montfort University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Dartington College of Arts at University College Falmouth in the United Kingdom.

A transport protocol for real-time applications in wireless networked control systems

A Networked Control System (NCS) is a feedback-driven control system wherein the control loops are closed through a real-time network. Control and feedback signals in an NCS are exchanged among the system’s components in the form of information packets via the network. Nowadays, wireless technologies such as IEEE802.11 are being introduced to modern NCSs as they offer better scalability, larger bandwidth and lower costs. However, this type of network is not designed for NCSs because it introduces a large amount of dropped data, and unpredictable and long transmission latencies due to the characteristics of wireless channels, which are not acceptable for real-time control systems. Real-time control is a class of time-critical application which requires lossless data transmission, small and deterministic delays and jitter. For a real-time control system, network-introduced problems may degrade the system’s performance significantly or even cause system instability. It is therefore important to develop solutions to satisfy real-time requirements in terms of delays, jitter and data losses, and guarantee high levels of performance for time-critical communications in Wireless Networked Control Systems (WNCSs). To improve or even guarantee real-time performance in wireless control systems, this thesis presents several network layout strategies and a new transport layer protocol. Firstly, real-time performances in regard to data transmission delays and reliability of IEEE 802.11b-based UDP/IP NCSs are evaluated through simulations. After analysis of the simulation results, some network layout strategies are presented to achieve relatively small and deterministic network-introduced latencies and reduce data loss rates. These are effective in providing better network performance without performance degradation of other services. After the investigation into the layout strategies, the thesis presents a new transport protocol which is more effcient than UDP and TCP for guaranteeing reliable and time-critical communications in WNCSs. From the networking perspective, introducing appropriate communication schemes, modifying existing network protocols and devising new protocols, have been the most effective and popular ways to improve or even guarantee real-time performance to a certain extent. Most previously proposed schemes and protocols were designed for real-time multimedia communication and they are not suitable for real-time control systems. Therefore, devising a new network protocol that is able to satisfy real-time requirements in WNCSs is the main objective of this research project. The Conditional Retransmission Enabled Transport Protocol (CRETP) is a new network protocol presented in this thesis. Retransmitting unacknowledged data packets is effective in compensating for data losses. However, every data packet in realtime control systems has a deadline and data is assumed invalid or even harmful when its deadline expires. CRETP performs data retransmission only in the case that data is still valid, which guarantees data timeliness and saves memory and network resources. A trade-off between delivery reliability, transmission latency and network resources can be achieved by the conditional retransmission mechanism. Evaluation of protocol performance was conducted through extensive simulations. Comparative studies between CRETP, UDP and TCP were also performed. These results showed that CRETP significantly: 1). improved reliability of communication, 2). guaranteed validity of received data, 3). reduced transmission latency to an acceptable value, and 4). made delays relatively deterministic and predictable. Furthermore, CRETP achieved the best overall performance in comparative studies which makes it the most suitable transport protocol among the three for real-time communications in a WNCS.

Machine recognition of hand-drawn circuit diagrams

An application of image processing techniques to recognition of hand-drawn circuit diagrams is presented. The scanned image of a diagram is pre-processed to remove noise and converted to bilevel. Morphological operations are applied to obtain a clean, connected representation using thinned lines. The diagram comprises of nodes, connections and components. Nodes and components are segmented using appropriate thresholds on a spatially varying object pixel density. Connection paths are traced using a pixel-stack. Nodes are classified using syntactic analysis. Components are classified using a combination of invariant moments, scalar pixel-distribution features, and vector relationships between straight lines in polygonal representations. A node recognition accuracy of 82% and a component recognition accuracy of 86% was achieved on a database comprising 107 nodes and 449 components. This recogniser can be used for layout “beautification” or to generate input code for circuit analysis and simulation packages