State asset management reform in Indonesia : a wicked problem

Efficient state asset management is crucial for government departments that rely on the operations of their state assets in order to fulfil their public functions, which include public service provision and others. These assets may be expensive, extensive and or, complex, and can have a major impact on the ability of governments to perform its function over extended periods. Various governments around the world have increasingly recognised the importance of an efficient state asset management laws, policies, and practices; exemplified by the surge in state asset management reform. This phenomenon is evident in Indonesia, in particular through the establishment of the Directorate General of State Assets in 2006, who was appointed as the ultimate state asset manager (of Republic of Indonesia) and the proprietor of state asset management reform. The Directorate General of State Assets too has pledged its adherence to good governance principles within its state asset management laws and policies reform. However the degree that good governance principles are conceptualised is unknown, resulting in questions of how and to what extent is good governance principles evident within Indonesia's reformed state asset management laws and policies. This study seeks to understand the level of which good governance principles are conceptualised and understood within reformed state asset management policies in Indonesia (as a case study), and identify the variables that play a role in the implementation of said reform. Although good governance improvements has been a central tenet in Indonesian government agenda, and state asset management reform has propelled in priority due to found neglect and unfavourable audit results; there is ambiguity in regards to the extent that good governance is conceptualised within the reform, how and whether this relationship is understood by state asset managers (i.e government officials), and what (and how) other variables play a supporting and/or impeding role in the reform. Using empirical data involving a sample of four Indonesian regional governments and 70 interviews; discrepancy in which good governance principles are conceptualised, the level it is conceptualised, at which stage of state asset management practice it is conceptualised, and the level it is understood by state asset managers (i.e government officials) was found. Human resource capacity and capability, the notion of 'needing more time', low legality, infancy of reform, and dysfunctional sense of stewardship are identified as specific impeding variables to state asset management reform; whilst decentralisation and regional autonomy regime, political history, and culture play a consistent undercurrent key role in good governance related reforms within Indonesia. This study offers insights to Indonesian policy makers interested in ensuring the conceptualisation and full implementation of good governance in all areas of governing, particularly within state asset management practices. Most importantly, this study identifies an asymmetry in good governance understanding, perspective, and assumptions between policy maker (i.e high level government officials) and policy implementers (i.e low level government officials); to be taken into account for future policy evolvements and/or writing. As such, this study suggests the need for a modified perspective and approach to good governance conceptualisation and implementation strategies, one that acknowledges and incorporates a nation's unique characteristics and no longer denies the double-edged sword of simplified assumptions of governance.

How long does it take for aquifer recharge or aquifer discharge processes to reach steady state?

Groundwater flow models are usually characterized as being either transient flow models or steady state flow models. Given that steady state groundwater flow conditions arise as a long time asymptotic limit of a particular transient response, it is natural for us to seek a finite estimate of the amount of time required for a particular transient flow problem to effectively reach steady state. Here, we introduce the concept of mean action time (MAT) to address a fundamental question: How long does it take for a groundwater recharge process or discharge processes to effectively reach steady state? This concept relies on identifying a cumulative distribution function, $F(t;x)$, which varies from $F(0;x)=0$ to $F(t;x) \to \infty$ as $t\to \infty$, thereby providing us with a measurement of the progress of the system towards steady state. The MAT corresponds to the mean of the associated probability density function $f(t;x) = \dfrac{dF}{dt}$, and we demonstrate that this framework provides useful analytical insight by explicitly showing how the MAT depends on the parameters in the model and the geometry of the problem. Additional theoretical results relating to the variance of $f(t;x)$, known as the variance of action time (VAT), are also presented. To test our theoretical predictions we include measurements from a laboratory–scale experiment describing flow through a homogeneous porous medium. The laboratory data confirms that the theoretical MAT predictions are in good agreement with measurements from the physical model.

The health outcomes and costs of people attending an interdisciplinary chronic disease service in regional Australia : protocol for a longitudinal cohort investigation

Background Rates of chronic disease are escalating around the world. To date health service evaluations have focused on interventions for single chronic diseases. However, evaluations of the effectiveness of new intervention strategies that target single chronic diseases as well as multimorbidity are required, particularly in areas outside major metropolitan centres where access to services, such as specialist care, is difficult and where the retention and recruitment of health professionals affects service provision. Methods This study is a longitudinal investigation with a baseline and three follow-up assessments comparing the health and health costs of people with chronic disease before and after intervention at a chronic disease clinic, in regional Australia. The clinic is led by students under the supervision of health professionals. The study will provide preliminary evidence regarding the effectiveness of the intervention, and evaluate the influence of a range of factors on the health outcomes and costs of the patients attending the clinic. Patients will be evaluated at baseline (intake to the service), and at 3-, 6-, and 12-months after intake to the service. Health will be measured using the SF-36 and health costs will be measured using government and medical record sources. The intervention involves students and health professionals from multiple professions working together to treat patients with programs that include education and exercise therapy programs for back pain, and Healthy Lifestyle programs; as well as individual consultations involving single professions. Discussion Understanding the effect of a range of factors on the health state and health costs of people attending an interdisciplinary clinic will inform health service provision for this clinical group and will determine which factors need to be controlled for in future observational studies. Preliminary evidence regarding changes in health and health costs associated with the intervention will be a platform for future clinical trials of intervention effectiveness. The results will be of interest to teams investigating new chronic disease programs particularly for people with multimorbidity, and in areas outside major metropolitan centres.

Semi-binary based video features for activity representation

Efficient and effective feature detection and representation is an important consideration when processing videos, and a large number of applications such as motion analysis, 3D scene understanding, tracking etc. depend on this. Amongst several feature description methods, local features are becoming increasingly popular for representing videos because of their simplicity and efficiency. While they achieve state-of-the-art performance with low computational complexity, their performance is still too limited for real world applications. Furthermore, rapid increases in the uptake of mobile devices has increased the demand for algorithms that can run with reduced memory and computational requirements. In this paper we propose a semi binary based feature detectordescriptor based on the BRISK detector, which can detect and represent videos with significantly reduced computational requirements, while achieving comparable performance to the state of the art spatio-temporal feature descriptors. First, the BRISK feature detector is applied on a frame by frame basis to detect interest points, then the detected key points are compared against consecutive frames for significant motion. Key points with significant motion are encoded with the BRISK descriptor in the spatial domain and Motion Boundary Histogram in the temporal domain. This descriptor is not only lightweight but also has lower memory requirements because of the binary nature of the BRISK descriptor, allowing the possibility of applications using hand held devices.We evaluate the combination of detectordescriptor performance in the context of action classification with a standard, popular bag-of-features with SVM framework. Experiments are carried out on two popular datasets with varying complexity and we demonstrate comparable performance with other descriptors with reduced computational complexity.

Prevalence of health behaviours in pregnancy at service entry in a Queensland health service district

Objective: Limited prevalence data for unhealthy pregnancy health behaviours make it difficult to prioritise primary prevention efforts for maternal and infant health. This study's objective was to establish the prevalence of cigarette smoking, sufficient fruit and vegetable intake and sufficient physical activity among women accessing antenatal clinics in a Queensland (Australia) health service district. Method: Cross-sectional self-reported smoking status, daily fruit and vegetable intake, weekly physical activity and a range of socio-demographic variables were obtained from women recruited at their initial antenatal clinic visit, over a three-month recruitment phase during 2007. Results: Analyses were based on 262 pregnant women. The study sample was broadly representative of women giving birth in the district and state, with higher representation of women with low levels of education and high income. More than one quarter of women were smoking. Few women met the guidelines for sufficient fruit (9.2%), vegetables (2.7%) or physical activity (32.8%) during pregnancy. Conclusions: There were low levels of adherence to health behaviour recommendations for pregnancy in this sample. Implications: There is a clear need to develop and evaluate effective pregnancy behaviour interventions to improve primary prevention in maternal and infant health. Brief minimal contact interventions that can be delivered through primary care to create a greater primary prevention focus for maternal and infant health would be worth exploring.

Stagnancy in Indonesia’s reformed state asset management policies and practices : a wicked problem?

The policies and regulations governing the practice of state asset management have emerged as an urgent question among many countries worldwide for there is heightened awareness of the complex and crucial role that state assets play in public service provision. Indonesia is an example of such country, introducing a ‘big-bang’ reform in state asset management laws, policies, regulations, and technical guidelines. Indonesia exemplified its enthusiasm in reforming state asset management policies and practices through the establishment of the Directorate General of State Assets in 2006. The Directorate General of State Assets have stressed the new direction that it is taking state asset management laws and policies through the introduction of Republic of Indonesia Law Number 38 Year 2008, which is an amended regulation overruling Republic of Indonesia Law Number 6 Year 2006 on Central/Regional Government State Asset Management. Law number 38/2008 aims to further exemplify good governance principles and puts forward a ‘the highest and best use of assets’ principle in state asset management. The purpose of this study is to explore and analyze specific contributing influences to state asset management practices, answering the question why innovative state asset management policy implementation is stagnant. The methodology of this study is that of qualitative case study approach, utilizing empirical data sample of four Indonesian regional governments. Through a thematic analytical approach this study provides an in-depth analysis of each influencing factors to state asset management reform. Such analysis suggests the potential of an ‘excuse rhetoric’; whereby the influencing factors identified are a smoke-screen, or are myths that public policy makers and implementers believe in, as a means to ex-plain stagnant implementation of innovative state asset management practice. Thus this study offers deeper insights of the intricate web that influences state as-set management innovative policies to state asset management policy makers; to be taken into consideration in future policy writing.

The transformation of bureaucracy? Structural change in the Commonwealth public service 1983-93

Commentators have predicted bureaucratic organisations would undergo substantial change as a result of social and economic pressures. We ask whether reforms to the Australian public service over the 1983–93 period exemplify this process. We use the methods of organisational analysis to characterise the direction of change, basing our assessment on the standard structural variables of complexity, formalisation and centralisation, together with a cultural variable. We find evidence that, overall, departments of state in the APS were becoming less bureaucratic in their structure, culture and internal function in the 1983–93 period. However, the effect was not uniform across departments, or unambiguous — formalisation, for example, increased in some respects and decreased in others. Centralisation increased overall, despite devolution of some decision-making.

Synthesis of orchestrators from service choreographies

Interaction topologies in service-oriented systems are usually classified into two styles: choreographies and orchestrations. In a choreography, services interact in a peer-to-peer manner and no service plays a privileged role. In contrast, interactions in an orchestration occur between one particular service, the orchestrator, and a number of subordinated services. Each of these topologies has its trade-offs. This paper considers the problem of migrating a service-oriented system from a choreography style to an orchestration style. Specifically, the paper presents a tool chain for synthesising orchestrators from choreographies. Choreographies are initially represented as communicating state machines. Based on this representation, an algorithm is presented that synthesises the behaviour of an orchestrator, which is also represented as a state machine. Concurrent regions are then identified in the synthesised state machine to obtain a more compact representation in the form of a Petri net. Finally, it is shown how the resulting Petri nets can be transformed into notations supported by commercial tools, such as the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN).

The feasibility of a community pharmacy delivered in-pharmacy influenza vaccination service

Pharmacist-administered vaccination is a reality in many counties including USA, Canada, UK, Portugal, Ireland and New Zealand. In Australia the role of pharmacist administered vaccination has long been supported by the profession particularly the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and Pharmacy Guild of Australia, however legislation prohibits this practice in each state and territory. In 2013 the only available in-pharmacy vaccination services are those delivered by an immunization nurse, nurse practitioner or general practitioner.

Navigating uncertainty in Australia : fostering informed citizenship through teaching controversial issues with pre-service teachers

Australia is a multicultural immigrant society created by public policy and direct state action over a period of two hundred years. It is now one of the world’s most diverse societies. However, like many nations, Australia faces challenges to managing ‘unauthorized arrivals’ who claim to be refugees. The issue of how to deal with unauthorized arrivals is controversial and highly emotive as it challenges public policy and government capacity to manage the multicultural ‘mix’ of Australia’s population. It also raises questions about border security. Given that it is impossible to discern beforehand who is a ‘proper’ refugee and who is not, claims to refugee status by unauthorised arrivals in Australia need to be tested against international convention criteria devised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). There are no simple solutions to controversial questions such as how and where should unauthorised arrivals, and the children accompanying them, be housed whilst their claims are investigated? Moreover, as this issue continues to prompt division and heated debate in Australian society, teachers new to the profession are often reluctant to explore it in the classroom. However, there are opportunities in national and state curriculum documents for the values dimensions of curriculum inquiries into controversial issues such as this to be addressed. For example, the most recent national statement on the goals for schooling in Australia, the Melbourne Declaration (MCEETYA, 2008), makes clear that Australian students need to be prepared for the challenges of the 21st century and to develop the capacity for innovation and complex problem-solving. The Melbourne Declaration informs the first national curriculum to be implemented in the Australian states and territories, and all other national and state initiatives. Its focus on developing active and informed citizens who can contribute to a socially cohesive society implies a capacity to deal with a range of issues associated with cultural diversity, This chapter explores the ways in which pre-service and early career teachers in one Australian state reflect upon curriculum opportunities to address controversial issues in the social sciences and history classroom. As part of their pre-service education, all the participants in this study completed a final year social science curriculum method unit that embedded a range of controversial issues, including the placement of children in Australian Immigration Detention Centres (IDCs), for investigation. By drawing from interviews and focus groups conducted with different cohorts of pre-service teachers in their final year of university study and beginning years of teaching, this chapter analyses the range of perceptions about how controversial issues can be examined in the secondary classroom as part of fostering informed citizenship. The discussion and analysis of the qualitative data in this study makes no claims for the representativeness of its findings, rather, a range of beginner teacher insights into a complex and important facet of teaching in a period of change and uncertainty is offered.

Recreational needs and service performance expectations

The theoretical contribution of this study lies with its focus on subjective experiencing, that is, the emotional convergence between feeling states, and perceptions of servicescapes and holiday activities. An empirical study models the impact of recreational needs on the perceived importance of destination attributes and intentions to participate in activities. A sample of prospective tourists was asked to indicate how important they considered servicescape elements to be in their general holiday planning. They were also asked to report on their emotional state (orientation) as a proxy for their needs for recreation, and to state their intention and likely involvement with holiday activities. Results suggest that those with high recreational needs (self-reflexive and inward-looking) regard elements of tourism servicescapes as significantly more important than those without (who are outward-looking and energetic), as well as show significant variations in their inclinations to be active and explorative at destinations. Rather, those with higher recreational needs as measured by combinations of lack of energy, self-confidence, and physiological well-being look for creature comfort, coziness, and familiarity, in other words, for things they already know and have experienced before. Subjective experiencing and service performance evaluations are thereby suggested to be influenced by emotional states. These states may also impact tourists' recognition of destination uniqueness as a major component of a destination's competitive advantage that cannot easily be copied. As a consequence, it may be worth reconsidering the role of recreation in tourism service design. Turning an inwardlooking focus bent on recreation to an outward-looking one interested in discovery would enable more tourists to more fully experience the destination before they leave.

An analysis of TLS handshake proxying

Content delivery networks (CDNs) are an essential component of modern website infrastructures: edge servers located closer to users cache content, increasing robustness and capacity while decreasing latency. However, this situation becomes complicated for HTTPS content that is to be delivered using the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol: the edge server must be able to carry out TLS handshakes for the cached domain. Most commercial CDNs require that the domain owner give their certificate's private key to the CDN's edge server or abandon caching of HTTPS content entirely. We examine the security and performance of a recently commercialized delegation technique in which the domain owner retains possession of their private key and splits the TLS state machine geographically with the edge server using a private key proxy service. This allows the domain owner to limit the amount of trust given to the edge server while maintaining the benefits of CDN caching. On the performance front, we find that latency is slightly worse compared to the insecure approach, but still significantly better than the domain owner serving the content directly. On the security front, we enumerate the security goals for TLS handshake proxying and identify a subtle difference between the security of RSA key transport and signed-Diffie--Hellman in TLS handshake proxying; we also discuss timing side channel resistance of the key server and the effect of TLS session resumption.

Dispelling Myths about Doctorates in the Australian Public Service

Many doctoral candidates pursue their studies with the goal of ultimately securing an academic position in a university. There are, however, many other career options for doctoral graduates in non-academic positions, including a career in the public service, either at the state or national level. Public service managers are interested in people who can demonstrate a range of skills and capacities, and most doctoral graduates will have developed a range of these skills.

Exploring the relationships between design & public libraries through the lens of service design

Design is ubiquitous to the life of contemporary societies and key to their progress, but for some, it is an elitist concept. This thesis investigates the role of public libraries contribution to the general public's understanding of 'Design'. This study compared participants views in the context of State Libraries in two cities: Brisbane and Curitiba. Findings revealed that exploring four new aspects in the Development and Deliver Stages of a service design framework for public libraries can be an effective tool to enhance people's access and experiences of Design, and ultimately, it can contribute to the democratization of design.

Exploring the relationships between design and public libraries through the lens of service design

Design is ubiquitous to the life of contemporary societies and key to their progress, but for some, it is an elitist concept. This thesis investigates the role of public libraries contribution to the general public's understanding of "Design". This study compared participants views in the context of State Libraries in two cities: Brisbane and Curitiba. Findings revealed that exploring four new aspects in the Development and Deliver Stages of a service design framework for public libraries can be an effective tool to enhance people"s access and experiences of Design, and ultimately, it can contribute to the democratisation of design.