Exploring the relationship between grandparents and their grandchild who has a disability

This thesis reports on the findings of a study which sought to explore the relationship between grandparents and their grandchild who has a disability. In contrast to previous studies, it presents the grandparents’ perspective on the roles and relationships they maintain within their families and adopts a qualitative approach to identify the meanings, symbols and beliefs grandparents attribute to their experiences. Grandparents have played and continue to play an important role in the lives of many families, contributing both symbolic and instrumental support to their grandchildren. Changing life expectancy for older people has meant that many more grandparents and grandchildren now have the opportunity to participate in meaningful interactions and to develop strong relationships. In the future, this will be true for great grandparents and in some cases great great grandparents as well. This presents a number of challenges to all concerned as family members negotiate the often complex arena of family life in the 21st Century. Realizing that a grandchild has a disability adds another degree of complexity to the negotiation of roles and responsibilities of grandparents within families. By focussing on grandparents experiences when their grandchild has a disability, this research both explores a knowledge gap in the current literature and more practicably, will inform both grandparents and their families as they negotiate these challenges. This research makes a significant contribution to knowledge in this area by exploring grandparents’ views on the differences in the relationship they have with their typically developing grandchildren and their grandchild with a disability; the impact having a grandchild with a disability had had on their grandparent identity and whether it impacted on quality of life. As well as reporting on the aims of the study, the papers presented in this thesis report on the key topics and themes identified in the analysis of the transcribed interviews conducted with 22 grandparents whose grandchild has a disability. Article 1 presents an overview of the literature which informs current knowledge in relation to grandparents, presenting a historical and theoretical perspective. Additionally, it presents previous literature which discusses the roles and styles grandparents adopt thus providing a framework which is later used to examine the roles and styles adopted by the grandparents in the study. Article 2 addresses the emotional responses grandparents in the study experienced as they grandparented a child with a disability. Comparing these emotions to that of a roller coaster ride, ranging from absolute sadness and grief to pride and delight, these findings highlight their unique experiences and will be reassuring for other grandparents who experience similar emotional responses. Article 3 discusses from the grandparents’ perspective, how having a grandchild with a disability has impacted on their family. Whilst reporting on the day to day challenges of competing family commitments and conflict, a number of grandparents in this study also commented that the experience had made them closer as a family and that there had been significant changes in how some individual family members now viewed people with disability. Article 4 explores the impact having a grandchild with a disability may have on the grandparents’ sense of identity and enactment of the grandparent role, utilising Neugarten and Weinstein’s (1964) classic grandparenting styles and Kornhaber’s (1996) concepts of latent and functional grandparent identity as a basis for comparison. It provides important insight into grandparenting identity when a child has a disability, suggesting that the grandparenting experience and role enactment may be universal with only the context and delivery varying. In summary, this thesis confirms the valuable role grandparents play in the lives of grandchildren who have a disability and their families. It identifies a number of implications and makes recommendations for future research and practice.

Shear tests of Litesteel beams with web openings

This paper presents the details of experimental studies on the shear strength of a recently developed, cold-formed steel beam known as LiteSteel Beam (LSB) with web openings. The innovative LSB sections have the beneficial characteristics of torsionally rigid closed rectangular flanges combined with economical fabrication processes from a single strip of high strength steel. They combine the stability of hot-rolled steel sections with the high strength to weight ratio of conventional cold-formed steel sections. The LSB sections are commonly used as flexural members in the building industry. Current practice in flooring systems is to include openings in the web element of floor joists or bearers so that building services can be located within them. Shear behaviour of LSBs with web openings is more complicated while their shear strengths are considerably reduced by the presence of web openings. However, limited research has been undertaken on the shear behaviour and strength of LSBs with web openings. Therefore a detailed experimental study involving 26 shear tests was undertaken to investigate the shear behaviour and strength of different LSB sections. Simply supported test specimens of LSBs with an aspect ratio of 1.5 were loaded at midspan until failure. This paper presents the details of this experimental study and the results. Experimental results showed that the current design rules in cold-formed steel structures design codes (AS/NZS 4600) [1] are very conservative for the shear design of LSBs with web openings. Improved design equations have been proposed for the shear strength of LSBs with web openings based on experimental results from this study.

Sloshing motion of water in a moonpool

This thesis is concerned with the sloshing motion of water in a moonpool. It is a relatively new problem, that is particularly predominant in moonpools with relatively large dimensions. The problem is further complicated by the additional behaviour of vertical oscillation. It is inevitable that large moonpools will be needed as offshore technology advances, therefore making a problem an important one. The research involves two parts, the theoretical and experimental study. The theoretical study consists of idealising the moonpool to a two dimensional system, represented by two surface piercing parallel barriers at a distance 2a apart. The barriers are forced to undergo roll motion which in turn generates waves. These travelling waves are travelling in opposite directions to each other and have the same amplitude and period, and thus can be expressed in terms of a standing wave. This is mathematically achieved by applying the theory of wavemaking, and therefore the wave amplitude at the side wall can be evaluated at near resonant conditions. The experimental study comprises of comparing the results obtained from the tank and moonpool experiments. The rolling motion creates the sloshing waves in both cases, in addition the vertical oscillation in the moonpool is produced by generating waves at one end of the towing tank. Apart from highlighting influencing parameters, the resonant frequencies obtained from these experiments are then compared with the theoretical values. Experiments in demonstrating the effect of increasing damping with the aid of baffles are also conducted. This is an important aspect which is very necessary if operations in launching and retrieving are to be carried out efficiently and safely.

Flagging spaces : exploring representations of ownership on the Australian beach

The Australian beach is a significant element of our national identity. Since the majority of the population lives on the coastlines of the continent, the beach (rather than the Bush) plays an important role to many Australians. Yet the beach can also be a complex setting because of the often complicated concepts of ownership that surround it. ‘Flagging Spaces’ examines the layers of complexity surrounding textual representations of ownership of the beach space. In particular, this paper explores the Indigenous representation on the beach moving through to the role of multiculturalism on the beach space in the wake of the 2005 Cronulla riots, using specific textual examples such as Sacred Cows (Heiss 1996), Australia (dir. Baz Luhrmann 2008), Heaven (dir. Tracey Moffatt 1997), Radiance (dir. Rachel Perkins 1998), Butterfly Song (Jenkins 2005), and Bra Boys (dir. Sonny Abberton 2006).

Stability boundary analysis of the dynamic voltage restorer in weak systems with dynamic loads

In this contribution, a stability analysis for a dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) connected to a weak ac system containing a dynamic load is presented using continuation techniques and bifurcation theory. The system dynamics are explored through the continuation of periodic solutions of the associated dynamic equations. The switching process in the DVR converter is taken into account to trace the stability regions through a suitable mathematical representation of the DVR converter. The stability regions in the Thevenin equivalent plane are computed. In addition, the stability regions in the control gains space, as well as the contour lines for different Floquet multipliers, are computed. Besides, the DVR converter model employed in this contribution avoids the necessity of developing very complicated iterative map approaches as in the conventional bifurcation analysis of converters. The continuation method and the DVR model can take into account dynamics and nonlinear loads and any network topology since the analysis is carried out directly from the state space equations. The bifurcation approach is shown to be both computationally efficient and robust, since it eliminates the need for numerically critical and long-lasting transient simulations.

Comparison of standard image segmentation methods for segmentation of brain tumors from 2D MR images

In the analysis of medical images for computer-aided diagnosis and therapy, segmentation is often required as a preliminary step. Medical image segmentation is a complex and challenging task due to the complex nature of the images. The brain has a particularly complicated structure and its precise segmentation is very important for detecting tumors, edema, and necrotic tissues in order to prescribe appropriate therapy. Magnetic Resonance Imaging is an important diagnostic imaging technique utilized for early detection of abnormal changes in tissues and organs. It possesses good contrast resolution for different tissues and is, thus, preferred over Computerized Tomography for brain study. Therefore, the majority of research in medical image segmentation concerns MR images. As the core juncture of this research a set of MR images have been segmented using standard image segmentation techniques to isolate a brain tumor from the other regions of the brain. Subsequently the resultant images from the different segmentation techniques were compared with each other and analyzed by professional radiologists to find the segmentation technique which is the most accurate. Experimental results show that the Otsu’s thresholding method is the most suitable image segmentation method to segment a brain tumor from a Magnetic Resonance Image.

Check-in processing : simulation of passengers with advanced traits

In order to tackle the growth of air travelers in airports worldwide, it is important to simulate and understand passenger flows to predict future capacity constraints and levels of service. We discuss the ability of agent-based models to understand complicated pedestrian movement in built environments. In this paper we propose advanced passenger traits to enable more detailed modelling of behaviors in terminal buildings, particularly in the departure hall around the check-in facilities. To demonstrate the concepts, we perform a series of passenger agent simulations in a virtual airport terminal. In doing so, we generate a spatial distribution of passengers within the departure hall to ancillary facilities such as cafes, information kiosks and phone booths as well as common check-in facilities, and observe the effects this has on passenger check-in and departure hall dwell times, and facility utilization.

Numerical study of two ill-posed one-phase Stefan problems

We treat two related moving boundary problems. The first is the ill-posed Stefan problem for melting a superheated solid in one Cartesian coordinate. Mathematically, this is the same problem as that for freezing a supercooled liquid, with applications to crystal growth. By applying a front-fixing technique with finite differences, we reproduce existing numerical results in the literature, concentrating on solutions that break down in finite time. This sort of finite-time blow-up is characterised by the speed of the moving boundary becoming unbounded in the blow-up limit. The second problem, which is an extension of the first, is proposed to simulate aspects of a particular two-phase Stefan problem with surface tension. We study this novel moving boundary problem numerically, and provide results that support the hypothesis that it exhibits a similar type of finite-time blow-up as the more complicated two-phase problem. The results are unusual in the sense that it appears the addition of surface tension transforms a well-posed problem into an ill-posed one.

Mortgages and insolvency

With an amalgam of statutory and common law duties, great care has always been required when considering the obligations of either mortgagees or receivers when exercising power of sale. Unfortunately, that position has only become more complicated with the enactment of the Property Law (Mortgagor Protection) Amendment Act 2008 (Qld).

Within and without family in the Icelandic sagas

The Icelandic sagas reflect a deep social interest in the nature of family obligations. Narrative tension and drama often result from carefully plotted increases in competition between families,while considerable space is given over to family biographies and genealogical information. As a result, the saga authors’ conception of the historical seems closely bound to a desire to represent family life. In Gísla saga Súrssonar and Íslendinga saga, the representation of family life extends to the situation of internal family conflicts, when the strict ethical codes underpinning the centrality of family obligations seem to be complicated and perhaps even threatened by characters’ formation of stronger bonds outside the family. The portrayal of internal family conflicts in these two sagas enabled the authors to express complex and often conflicting ethical issues.

Propagation of low power low divergence Gaussian fields in unbiased self-defocusing photorefractive media and their interactions

Many optical networks are limited in speed and processing capability due to the necessity for the optical signal to be converted to an electrical signal and back again. In addition, electronically manipulated interconnects in an otherwise optical network lead to overly complicated systems. Optical spatial solitons are optical beams that propagate without spatial divergence. They are capable of phase dependent interactions, and have therefore been extensively researched as suitable all optical interconnects for over 20 years. However, they require additional external components, initially high voltage power sources were required, several years later, high power background illumination had replaced the high voltage. However, these additional components have always remained as the greatest hurdle in realising the applications of the interactions of spatial optical solitons as all optical interconnects. Recently however, self-focusing was observed in an otherwise self-defocusing photorefractive crystal. This observation raises the possibility of the formation of soliton-like fields in unbiased self-defocusing media, without the need for an applied electrical field or background illumination. This thesis will present an examination of the possibility of the formation of soliton-like low divergence fields in unbiased self-defocusing photorefractive media. The optimal incident beam and photorefractive media parameters for the formation of these fields will be presented, together with an analytical and numerical study of the effect of these parameters. In addition, preliminary examination of the interactions of two of these fields will be presented. In order to complete an analytical examination of the field propagating through the photorefractive medium, the spatial profile of the beam after propagation through the medium was determined. For a low power solution, it was found that an incident Gaussian field maintains its Gaussian profile as it propagates. This allowed the beam at all times to be described by an individual complex beam parameter, while also allowing simple analytical solutions to the appropriate wave equation. An analytical model was developed to describe the effect of the photorefractive medium on the Gaussian beam. Using this model, expressions for the required intensity dependent change in both the real and imaginary components of the refractive index were found. Numerical investigation showed that under certain conditions, a low powered Gaussian field could propagate in self-defocusing photorefractive media with divergence of approximately 0.1 % per metre. An investigation into the parameters of a Ce:BaTiO3 crystal showed that the intensity dependent absorption is wavelength dependent, and can in fact transition to intensity dependent transparency. Thus, with careful wavelength selection, the required intensity dependent change in both the real and imaginary components of the refractive index for the formation of a low divergence Gaussian field are physically realisable. A theoretical model incorporating the dependence of the change in real and imaginary components of the refractive index on propagation distance was developed. Analytical and numerical results from this model are congruent with the results from the previous model, showing low divergence fields with divergence less than 0.003 % over the propagation length of the photorefractive medium. In addition, this approach also confirmed the previously mentioned self-focusing effect of the self-defocusing media, and provided an analogy to a negative index GRIN lens with an intensity dependent focal length. Experimental results supported the findings of the numerical analysis. Two low divergence fields were found to possess the ability to interact in a Ce:BaTiO3 crystal in a soliton-like fashion. The strength of these interactions was found to be dependent on the degree of divergence of the individual beams. This research found that low-divergence fields are possible in unbiased self-defocusing photorefractive media, and that soliton-like interactions between two of these fields are possible. However, in order for these types of fields to be used in future all optical interconnects, the manipulation of these interactions, together with the ability for these fields to guide a second beam at a different wavelength, must be investigated.

Having a yarn about smoking : using action research to develop a 'no smoking' policy within an Aboriginal health organisation

Objectives: This article reports on a culturally appropriate process of development of a smoke-free workplace policy within the peak Aboriginal Controlled Community Health Organisation in Victoria, Australia. Smoking is acknowledged as being responsible for at least 20% of all deaths in Aboriginal communities in Australia, and many Aboriginal health workers smoke. Methods: The smoke-free workplace policy was developed using the iterative, discursive and experience-based methodology of Participatory Action Research, combined with the culturally embedded concept of ‘having a yarn’. Results: Staff members initially identified smoking as a topic to be avoided within workplace discussions. This was due, in part, to grief (everyone had suffered a smoking related bereavement). Further, there was anxiety that discussing smoking would result in culturally difficult conflict. The use of yarning opened up a safe space for discussion and debate,enabling development of a policy that was accepted across the organisation. Conclusions: Within Aboriginal organisations, it is not sufficient to focus on the outcomes of policy development. Rather, due attention must be paid to the process employed in development of policy, particularly when that policy is directly related to an emotionally and communally weighted topic such as smoking.

Stochastic simulation for spatial modelling of dynamic process in a living cell

One of the fundamental motivations underlying computational cell biology is to gain insight into the complicated dynamical processes taking place, for example, on the plasma membrane or in the cytosol of a cell. These processes are often so complicated that purely temporal mathematical models cannot adequately capture the complex chemical kinetics and transport processes of, for example, proteins or vesicles. On the other hand, spatial models such as Monte Carlo approaches can have very large computational overheads. This chapter gives an overview of the state of the art in the development of stochastic simulation techniques for the spatial modelling of dynamic processes in a living cell.

Issues and concerns of microscopic calibration process at different network levels : case study of Pacific Motorway

Calibration process in micro-simulation is an extremely complicated phenomenon. The difficulties are more prevalent if the process encompasses fitting aggregate and disaggregate parameters e.g. travel time and headway. The current practice in calibration is more at aggregate level, for example travel time comparison. Such practices are popular to assess network performance. Though these applications are significant there is another stream of micro-simulated calibration, at disaggregate level. This study will focus on such microcalibration exercise-key to better comprehend motorway traffic risk level, management of variable speed limit (VSL) and ramp metering (RM) techniques. Selected section of Pacific Motorway in Brisbane will be used as a case study. The discussion will primarily incorporate the critical issues encountered during parameter adjustment exercise (e.g. vehicular, driving behaviour) with reference to key traffic performance indicators like speed, lane distribution and headway; at specific motorway points. The endeavour is to highlight the utility and implications of such disaggregate level simulation for improved traffic prediction studies. The aspects of calibrating for points in comparison to that for whole of the network will also be briefly addressed to examine the critical issues such as the suitability of local calibration at global scale. The paper will be of interest to transport professionals in Australia/New Zealand where micro-simulation in particular at point level, is still comparatively a less explored territory in motorway management.

Issues and concerns of microscopic calibration process at different network levels : case study of pacific motorway

Calibration process in micro-simulation is an extremely complicated phenomenon. The difficulties are more prevalent if the process encompasses fitting aggregate and disaggregate parameters e.g. travel time and headway. The current practice in calibration is more at aggregate level, for example travel time comparison. Such practices are popular to assess network performance. Though these applications are significant there is another stream of micro-simulated calibration, at disaggregate level. This study will focus on such micro-calibration exercise-key to better comprehend motorway traffic risk level, management of variable speed limit (VSL) and ramp metering (RM) techniques. Selected section of Pacific Motorway in Brisbane will be used as a case study. The discussion will primarily incorporate the critical issues encountered during parameter adjustment exercise (e.g. vehicular, driving behaviour) with reference to key traffic performance indicators like speed, land distribution and headway; at specific motorway points. The endeavour is to highlight the utility and implications of such disaggregate level simulation for improved traffic prediction studies. The aspects of calibrating for points in comparison to that for whole of the network will also be briefly addressed to examine the critical issues such as the suitability of local calibration at global scale. The paper will be of interest to transport professionals in Australia/New Zealand where micro-simulation in particular at point level, is still comparatively a less explored territory in motorway management.