Analysis of the design-construction supply chain in the thermal performance of sub-tropical and tropical housing

Background: In sub-tropical and tropical Queensland, a legacy of poor housing design,minimal building regulations with few compliance measures, an absence of post-construction performance evaluation and various social and market factors has led to a high and growing penetration of, and reliance on, air conditioners to provide thermal comfort for occupants. The pervasive reliance on air conditioners has arguably impacted on building forms, changed cultural expectations of comfort and social practices for achieving comfort, and may have resulted in a loss of skills in designing and constructing high performance building envelopes. Aim: The aim of this paper is to report on initial outcomes of a project that sought to determine how the predicted building thermal performance of twenty-five houses in subtropical and tropical Queensland compared with objective performance measures and comfort performance as perceived by occupants. The purpose of the project was to shed light on the role of various supply chain agents in the realisation of thermal performance outcomes. Methodology: The case study methodology embraced a socio-technical approach incorporating building science and sociology. Building simulation was used to model thermal performance under controlled comfort assumptions and adaptive comfort conditions. Actual indoor climate conditions were measured by temperature and relative humidity sensors placed throughout each house, whilst occupants’ expectations of thermal comfort and their self-reported behaviours were gathered through semi-structured interviews and periodic comfort surveys. Thermal imaging and air infiltration tests, along with building design documents, were analysed to evaluate the influence of various supply chain agents on the actual performance outcomes. Results: The results clearly show that in the housing supply chain – from designer to constructor to occupant – there is limited understanding from each agent of their role in contributing to, or inhibiting, occupants’ comfort.

Error and uncertainty of adult age estimation of the pubic symphysis in an Australian sub-population using computed tomography

After attending this presentation, attendees will gain awareness of: (1) the error and uncertainty associated with the application of the Suchey-Brooks (S-B) method of age estimation of the pubic symphysis to a contemporary Australian population; (2) the implications of sexual dimorphism and bilateral asymmetry of the pubic symphysis through preliminary geometric morphometric assessment; and (3) the value of three-dimensional (3D) autopsy data acquisition for creating forensic anthropological standards. This presentation will impact the forensic science community by demonstrating that, in the absence of demographically sound skeletal collections, post-mortem autopsy data provides an exciting platform for the construction of large contemporary ‘virtual osteological libraries’ for which forensic anthropological research can be conducted on Australian individuals. More specifically, this study assesses the applicability and accuracy of the S-B method to a contemporary adult population in Queensland, Australia, and using a geometric morphometric approach, provides an insight to the age-related degeneration of the pubic symphysis. Despite the prominent use of the Suchey-Brooks (1990) method of age estimation in forensic anthropological practice, it is subject to intrinsic limitations, with reports of differential inter-population error rates between geographical locations1-4. Australian forensic anthropology is constrained by a paucity of population specific standards due to a lack of repositories of documented skeletons. Consequently, in Australian casework proceedings, standards constructed from predominately American reference samples are applied to establish a biological profile. In the global era of terrorism and natural disasters, more specific population standards are required to improve the efficiency of medico-legal death investigation in Queensland. The sample comprises multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT) scans of the pubic symphysis (slice thickness: 0.5mm, overlap: 0.1mm) on 195 individuals of caucasian ethnicity aged 15-70 years. Volume rendering reconstruction of the symphyseal surface was conducted in Amira® (v.4.1) and quantitative analyses in Rapidform® XOS. The sample was divided into ten-year age sub-sets (eg. 15-24) with a final sub-set of 65-70 years. Error with respect to the method’s assigned means were analysed on the basis of bias (directionality of error), inaccuracy (magnitude of error) and percentage correct classification of left and right symphyseal surfaces. Morphometric variables including surface area, circumference, maximum height and width of the symphyseal surface and micro-architectural assessment of cortical and trabecular bone composition were quantified using novel automated engineering software capabilities. The results of this study demonstrated correct age classification utilizing the mean and standard deviations of each phase of the S-B method of 80.02% and 86.18% in Australian males and females, respectively. Application of the S-B method resulted in positive biases and mean inaccuracies of 7.24 (±6.56) years for individuals less than 55 years of age, compared to negative biases and mean inaccuracies of 5.89 (±3.90) years for individuals greater than 55 years of age. Statistically significant differences between chronological and S-B mean age were demonstrated in 83.33% and 50% of the six age subsets in males and females, respectively. Asymmetry of the pubic symphysis was a frequent phenomenon with 53.33% of the Queensland population exhibiting statistically significant (χ2 - p<0.01) differential phase classification of left and right surfaces of the same individual. Directionality was found in bilateral asymmetry, with the right symphyseal faces being slightly older on average and providing more accurate estimates using the S-B method5. Morphometric analysis verified these findings, with the left surface exhibiting significantly greater circumference and surface area than the right (p<0.05). Morphometric analysis demonstrated an increase in maximum height and width of the surface with age, with most significant changes (p<0.05) occurring between the 25-34 and 55-64 year age subsets. These differences may be attributed to hormonal components linked to menopause in females and a reduction in testosterone in males. Micro-architectural analysis demonstrated degradation of cortical composition with age, with differential bone resorption between the medial, ventral and dorsal surfaces of the pubic symphysis. This study recommends that the S-B method be applied with caution in medico-legal death investigations of unknown skeletal remains in Queensland. Age estimation will always be accompanied by error; therefore this study demonstrates the potential for quantitative morphometric modelling of age related changes of the pubic symphysis as a tool for methodological refinement, providing a rigor and robust assessment to remove the subjectivity associated with current pelvic aging methods.

Vehicle-to-vehicle real-time relative positioning using 5.9 GHz DSRC media

Vehicular accidents are one of the deadliest safety hazards and accordingly an immense concern of individuals and governments. Although, a wide range of active autonomous safety systems, such as advanced driving assistance and lane keeping support, are introduced to facilitate safer driving experience, these stand-alone systems have limited capabilities in providing safety. Therefore, cooperative vehicular systems were proposed to fulfill more safety requirements. Most cooperative vehicle-to-vehicle safety applications require relative positioning accuracy of decimeter level with an update rate of at least 10 Hz. These requirements cannot be met via direct navigation or differential positioning techniques. This paper studies a cooperative vehicle platform that aims to facilitate real-time relative positioning (RRP) among adjacent vehicles. The developed system is capable of exchanging both GPS position solutions and raw observations using RTCM-104 format over vehicular dedicated short range communication (DSRC) links. Real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning technique is integrated into the system to enable RRP to be served as an embedded real-time warning system. The 5.9 GHz DSRC technology is adopted as the communication channel among road-side units (RSUs) and on-board units (OBUs) to distribute GPS corrections data received from a nearby reference station via the Internet using cellular technologies, by means of RSUs, as well as to exchange the vehicular real-time GPS raw observation data. Ultimately, each receiving vehicle calculates relative positions of its neighbors to attain a RRP map. A series of real-world data collection experiments was conducted to explore the synergies of both DSRC and positioning systems. The results demonstrate a significant enhancement in precision and availability of relative positioning at mobile vehicles.

Investigation of the [−/A]8 and C1236T genetic variations within the human toll-like receptor 3 gene for association with multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a serious cause of neurological disability among young adults. The clinical course remains difficult to predict, and the pathogenesis of the disease is still modestly understood. Autoimmunity is thought to be a key aspect of the disease, with autoreactive T cells thought to mediate central nervous system (CNS) inflammation to some extent. Toll-like receptors are known to mediate cellular recognition of pathogens by way of patterns of molecular presentation. Toll-like receptor 3 is coded by the gene TLR3 and is recognized as an important factor in virus recognition and is known to be involved in the expression of neuroprotective mediators. We set out to investigate two variations within the TLR3 gene, an 8 bp insertion-deletion \[-/A](8) and a single base-pair variation C1236T, in subjects with MS and matched healthy controls to determine whether significant differences exist in these markers in an Australian population. We used capillary gel electrophoresis and TaqMan genotyping assay techniques to resolve genotypes for each marker, respectively. Our work found no significant difference between frequencies for TLR3 \[-/A](8) by genotype (chi(2)=1.03, p=0.60) or allele (chi(2)=1.09, p=0.30). Similarly, we found no evidence for the association of TLR3 C1236T by genotype (chi(2)=0.35, p=0.84) or allele frequency (chi(2)=0.31, p=0.58). This work reveals no evidence to suggest that these markers are associated with MS in the tested population. Although the role of TLR3 and the wider toll-like receptor family remain significant in neurological and CNS inflammatory disorders, our current work does not support a role for the two tested variants in this gene with regard to MS susceptibility.

Sub-cellular localization of membrane proteins

In eukaryotes, numerous complex sub-cellular structures exist. The majority of these are delineated by membranes. Many proteins are trafficked to these in order to be able to carry out their correct physiological function. Assigning the sub-cellular location of a protein is of paramount importance to biologists in the elucidation of its role and in the refinement of knowledge of cellular processes by tracing certain activities to specific organelles. Membrane proteins are a key set of proteins as these form part of the boundary of the organelles and represent many important functions such as transporters, receptors, and trafficking. They are, however, some of the most challenging proteins to work with due to poor solubility, a wide concentration range within the cell and inaccessibility to many of the tools employed in proteomics studies. This review focuses on membrane proteins with particular emphasis on sub-cellular localization in terms of methodologies that can be used to determine the accurate location of membrane proteins to organelles. We also discuss what is known about the membrane protein cohorts of major organelles.

Improved sub-cellular resolution via simultaneous analysis of organelle proteomics data across varied experimental conditions

Spatial organisation of proteins according to their function plays an important role in the specificity of their molecular interactions. Emerging proteomics methods seek to assign proteins to sub-cellular locations by partial separation of organelles and computational analysis of protein abundance distributions among partially separated fractions. Such methods permit simultaneous analysis of unpurified organelles and promise proteome-wide localisation in scenarios wherein perturbation may prompt dynamic re-distribution. Resolving organelles that display similar behavior during a protocol designed to provide partial enrichment represents a possible shortcoming. We employ the Localisation of Organelle Proteins by Isotope Tagging (LOPIT) organelle proteomics platform to demonstrate that combining information from distinct separations of the same material can improve organelle resolution and assignment of proteins to sub-cellular locations. Two previously published experiments, whose distinct gradients are alone unable to fully resolve six known protein-organelle groupings, are subjected to a rigorous analysis to assess protein-organelle association via a contemporary pattern recognition algorithm. Upon straightforward combination of single-gradient data, we observe significant improvement in protein-organelle association via both a non-linear support vector machine algorithm and partial least-squares discriminant analysis. The outcome yields suggestions for further improvements to present organelle proteomics platforms, and a robust analytical methodology via which to associate proteins with sub-cellular organelles.

Developing sustainable ‘liveable’ buildings, cities and communities for a sub-tropical context : residents’ perspectives

A key challenge for the 21st Century is to make our cities more liveable and foster economically sustainable, environmentally responsible, and socially inclusive communities. Design thinking, particularly a human-centred approach, offers a way to tackle this challenge. Findings from two recent Australian research projects highlight how facilitating sustainable, liveable communities in a humid sub-tropical environment requires an in-depth understanding of people’s perspectives, experiences and practices. Project 1 (‘Research House’) documents the reflections of a family who lived in a ‘test’ sustainable house for two years, outlining their experience and evaluations of universal design and sustainable technologies. The study family was very impressed with the natural lighting, natural ventilation, spaciousness and ease of access, which contributed significantly to their comfort and the liveability of their home. Project 2 (‘Inner-Urban High Density Living’) explored Brisbane residents’ opinions about high-density living, through a survey (n=636), interviews (n=24), site observations (over 300 hours) and environmental monitoring, assessing opinions on the liveability of their individual dwelling, the multi-unit host building and the surrounding neighbourhood. Nine areas, categorised into three general domains, were identified as essential for enhancing high density liveability. In terms of the dwelling, thermal comfort/ventilation, natural light, noise mitigation were important; shared space, good neighbour protocols, and support for environmentally sustainable behaviour were desired in the building/complex; and accessible/sustainable transport, amenities and services, sense of community were considered important in the surrounding neighbourhood. Combined, these findings emphasise the importance and complexity associated with designing liveable building, cities and communities, illustrating how adopting a design thinking, human-centred approach will help create sustainable communities that will meet the needs of current and future generations.

Positioning change management and international human resource management

This concept paper examines the positioning of Change Management (CM) in relation to IHRM, and suggests that the emerging field of CM should be seen as collaborative with HRM in providing for the dynamic needs of organisations in contemporary international conditions of uncertainty and environmental turbulence.

A reference station-based GNSS computing mode to support unified precise point positioning and real-time kinematic services

Currently, the GNSS computing modes are of two classes: network-based data processing and user receiver-based processing. A GNSS reference receiver station essentially contributes raw measurement data in either the RINEX file format or as real-time data streams in the RTCM format. Very little computation is carried out by the reference station. The existing network-based processing modes, regardless of whether they are executed in real-time or post-processed modes, are centralised or sequential. This paper describes a distributed GNSS computing framework that incorporates three GNSS modes: reference station-based, user receiver-based and network-based data processing. Raw data streams from each GNSS reference receiver station are processed in a distributed manner, i.e., either at the station itself or at a hosting data server/processor, to generate station-based solutions, or reference receiver-specific parameters. These may include precise receiver clock, zenith tropospheric delay, differential code biases, ambiguity parameters, ionospheric delays, as well as line-of-sight information such as azimuth and elevation angles. Covariance information for estimated parameters may also be optionally provided. In such a mode the nearby precise point positioning (PPP) or real-time kinematic (RTK) users can directly use the corrections from all or some of the stations for real-time precise positioning via a data server. At the user receiver, PPP and RTK techniques are unified under the same observation models, and the distinction is how the user receiver software deals with corrections from the reference station solutions and the ambiguity estimation in the observation equations. Numerical tests demonstrate good convergence behaviour for differential code bias and ambiguity estimates derived individually with single reference stations. With station-based solutions from three reference stations within distances of 22–103 km the user receiver positioning results, with various schemes, show an accuracy improvement of the proposed station-augmented PPP and ambiguity-fixed PPP solutions with respect to the standard float PPP solutions without station augmentation and ambiguity resolutions. Overall, the proposed reference station-based GNSS computing mode can support PPP and RTK positioning services as a simpler alternative to the existing network-based RTK or regionally augmented PPP systems.

Sub-modelling for the ratchetting failure of insulated rail joints

Insulated rail joints are critical for train safety as they control electrical signalling systems; unfortunately they exhibit excessive ratchetting of the railhead near the endpost insulators. This paper reports a three-dimensional global model of these joints under wheel–rail contact pressure loading and a sub-model examining the ratchetting failures of the railhead. The sub-model employs a non-linear isotropic–kinematic elastic–plastic material model and predicts stress/strain levels in the localised railhead zone adjacent to the endpost which is placed in the air gap between the two rail ends at the insulated rail joint. The equivalent plastic strain plot is utilised to capture the progressive railhead damage adequately. Associated field and laboratory testing results of damage to the railhead material suggest that the simulation results are reasonable.

Revisiting sub-topic retrieval in the ImageCLEF 2009 photo retrieval task

Ranking documents according to the Probability Ranking Principle has been theoretically shown to guarantee optimal retrieval effectiveness in tasks such as ad hoc document retrieval. This ranking strategy assumes independence among document relevance assessments. This assumption, however, often does not hold, for example in the scenarios where redundancy in retrieved documents is of major concern, as it is the case in the sub–topic retrieval task. In this chapter, we propose a new ranking strategy for sub–topic retrieval that builds upon the interdependent document relevance and topic–oriented models. With respect to the topic– oriented model, we investigate both static and dynamic clustering techniques, aiming to group topically similar documents. Evidence from clusters is then combined with information about document dependencies to form a new document ranking. We compare and contrast the proposed method against state–of–the–art approaches, such as Maximal Marginal Relevance, Portfolio Theory for Information Retrieval, and standard cluster–based diversification strategies. The empirical investigation is performed on the ImageCLEF 2009 Photo Retrieval collection, where images are assessed with respect to sub–topics of a more general query topic. The experimental results show that our approaches outperform the state–of–the–art strategies with respect to a number of diversity measures.

Constrained control design for dynamic positioning of marine vehicles with control allocation

In this paper, we address the control design problem of positioning of over-actuated marine vehicles with control allocation. The proposed design is based on a combined position and velocity loops in a multi-variable anti-windup implementation together with a control allocation mapping. The vehicle modelling is considered with appropriate simplifications related to low-speed manoeuvring hydrodynamics and vehicle symmetry. The control design is considered together with a control allocation mapping. We derive analytical tuning rules based on requirements of closed-loop stability and performance. The anti- windup implementation of the controller is obtained by mapping the actuator-force constraint set into a constraint set for the generalized forces. This approach ensures that actuation capacity is not violated by constraining the generalized control forces; thus, the control allocation is simplified since it can be formulated as an unconstrained problem. The mapping can also be modified on-line based on actuator availability to provide actuator-failure accommodation. We provide a proof of the closed-loop stability and illustrate the performance using simulation scenarios for an open-frame underwater vehicle.

Design of an integrated platform for V2X wireless communications and positioning supporting C-ITS safety applications

In this paper, an integrated inter-vehicles wireless communications and positioning system supporting alternate positioning techniques is proposed to meet the requirements of safety applications of Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS). Recent advances have repeatedly demonstrated that road safety problems can be to a large extent addressed via a range of technologies including wireless communications and positioning in vehicular environments. The novel communication stack utilizing a dedicated frequency spectrum (e.g. at 5.9 GHz band), known as Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC), has been particularly designed for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) to support safety applications in highly dynamic environments. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is another essential enabler to support safety on rail and roads. Although current vehicle navigation systems such as single frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers can provide route guidance with 5-10 meters (road-level) position accuracy, positioning systems utilized in C-ITS must provide position solutions with lane-level and even in-lane-level accuracies based on the requirements of safety applications. This article reviews the issues and technical approaches that are involved in designing a vehicular safety communications and positioning architecture; it also provides technological solutions to further improve vehicular safety by integrating the DSRC and GNSS-based positioning technologies.

The role of the market sub-system and the socio-technical sub-system in innovation and firm performance : a dynamic capabilities approach

Organizational learning has been studied as a key factor in firm performance and internationalization. Moving beyond the past emphasis on market learning, we develop a more complete explanation of learning, its relationship to innovation, and their joint effect on early internationalization. We theorize that, driven by the founders’ international vision, early internationalizing firms employ a dual subsystem of dynamic capabilities: a market subsystem consisting of market-focused learning capability and marketing capability, and a socio-technical subsystem comprised of network learning capability and internally focused learning capability. We argue that innovation mediates the proposed relationship between the dynamic capability structure and early internationalization. We conduct case studies to develop the conceptual framework and test it in a field survey of early internationalizing firms from Australia and the United States. Our findings indicate a complex interplay of capabilities driving innovation and early internationalization. We provide theoretical and practical implications and offer insights for future research.

A sub‒domain smoothed Galerkin method for solid mechanics problems

A sub‒domain smoothed Galerkin method is proposed to integrate the advantages of mesh‒free Galerkin method and FEM. Arbitrarily shaped sub‒domains are predefined in problems domain with mesh‒free nodes. In each sub‒domain, based on mesh‒free Galerkin weak formulation, the local discrete equation can be obtained by using the moving Kriging interpolation, which is similar to the discretization of the high‒order finite elements. Strain smoothing technique is subsequently applied to the nodal integration of sub‒domain by dividing the sub‒domain into several smoothing cells. Moreover, condensation of DOF can also be introduced into the local discrete equations to improve the computational efficiency. The global governing equations of present method are obtained on the basis of the scheme of FEM by assembling all local discrete equations of the sub‒domains. The mesh‒free properties of Galerkin method are retained in each sub‒domain. Several 2D elastic problems have been solved on the basis of this newly proposed method to validate its computational performance. These numerical examples proved that the newly proposed sub‒domain smoothed Galerkin method is a robust technique to solve solid mechanics problems based on its characteristics of high computational efficiency, good accuracy, and convergence.