Applications for advice from courts by insolvency practitioners

This article examines the nature of the powers of insolvency practitioners in applying for advice from the courts. It examines first the policy justification for granting these unusual rights to insolvency practitioners having regard to the nature of the work undertaken in the modern insolvency context. Second, the notion that subtle differences exist in relation to seeking advice from the courts in different types of administrations is explored. The question then as to whether it is appropriate that such differences exist, given that the policy basis of an insolvency practitioner seeking advice in different administrations does not appear to be different, is considered. Conclusions are drawn in favour of a consistent approach across all types of administration and suggestions are made for the legislation to be altered to provide a single set of provisions around this issue.

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.

The Bayesian conditional independence model for measurement error: applications in ecology

The measurement error model is a well established statistical method for regression problems in medical sciences, although rarely used in ecological studies. While the situations in which it is appropriate may be less common in ecology, there are instances in which there may be benefits in its use for prediction and estimation of parameters of interest. We have chosen to explore this topic using a conditional independence model in a Bayesian framework using a Gibbs sampler, as this gives a great deal of flexibility, allowing us to analyse a number of different models without losing generality. Using simulations and two examples, we show how the conditional independence model can be used in ecology, and when it is appropriate.

Improving visual noise insensitivity in small vocabulary audio visual speech recognition applications

Visual noise insensitivity is important to audio visual speech recognition (AVSR). Visual noise can take on a number of forms such as varying frame rate, occlusion, lighting or speaker variabilities. The use of a high dimensional secondary classifier on the word likelihood scores from both the audio and video modalities is investigated for the purposes of adaptive fusion. Preliminary results are presented demonstrating performance above the catastrophic fusion boundary for our confidence measure irrespective of the type of visual noise presented to it. Our experiments were restricted to small vocabulary applications.

An experimental research investigation into disused flat rail wagons as bridges with applications for low volume rural roads in Australia

An experimental laboratory investigation was carried out to assess the structural adequacy of a disused PHO Class Flat Bottom Rail Wagon (FRW) for a single lane low volume road bridge application as per the design provisions of the Australian Bridge Design Standard AS 5100(2004). The investigation also encompassed a review into the risk associated with the pre-existing damage in wagons incurred during their service life on rail. The main objective of the laboratory testing of the FRW was to physically measure its performance under the same applied traffic loading it would be required to resist as a road bridge deck. In order to achieve this a full width (5.2m) single lane, single span (approximately 10m), simply supported bridge would be required to be constructed and tested in a structural laboratory. However, the available clear spacing between the columns of the loading portal frame encountered within the laboratory was insufficient to accommodate the 5.2m wide bridge deck excluding clearance normally considered necessary in structural testing. Therefore, only half of the full scale bridge deck (single FRW of width 2.6m) was able to be accommodated and tested; with the continuity of the bridge deck in the lateral direction applied as boundary constraints along the full length of the FRW at six selected locations. This represents a novel approach not yet reported in the literature for bridge deck testing to the best of the knowledge of the author. The test was carried out under two loadings provided in AS 5100 (2004) – one stationary W80 wheel load and the second a moving axle load M1600. As the bridge investigated in the study is a single lane single span low volume road bridge, the risk of pre-existing damage and the expected high cycle fatigue failure potential was assessed as being minimal and hence the bridge deck was not tested structurally for fatigue/ fracture. The high axle load requirements have instead been focussed upon the investigation into the serviceability and ultimate limit state requirements. The testing regime adopted however involved extensive recording of strains and deflections at several critical locations of the FRW. Three locations of W80 point load and two locations of the M1600 Axle load were considered for the serviceability testing; the FRW was also tested under the ultimate load dictated by the M1600. The outcomes of the experimental investigation have demonstrated that the FRW is structurally adequate to resist the prescribed traffic loadings outlaid in AS 5100 (2004). As the loading was directly applied on to the FRW, the laboratory testing is assessed as being significantly conservative. The FRW bridge deck in the field would only resist the load transferred by the running platform, where, depending on the design, composite action might exist – thereby the share of the loading which needs to be resisted by the FRW would be smaller than the system tested in the lab. On this basis, a demonstration bridge is under construction at the time of writing this thesis and future research will involve field testing in order to assess its performance.

An ecological footprint for an early learning centre : identifying opportunities for early childhood sustainability education through interdisciplinary research

In this study, engineers and educators worked together to adapt and apply the ecological footprint (EF) methodology to an early learning centre in Brisbane, Australia. Results were analysed to determine how environmental impact can be reduced at the study site and more generally across early childhood settings. It was found that food, transport and energy consumption had the largest impact on the centre’s overall footprint. In transport and energy, early childhood centres can reduce their impact through infrastructure and cultural change, in association with changed curriculum strategies. Building design, the type of energy purchased and appliance usage can all be modified to reduce the energy footprint. The transport footprint can be reduced through more families using active and public transport, which can be encouraged by providing information, support and facilities and appropriate siting of new centres. Introducing the concept of ecological footprint in early childhood education may be an effective way to educate children, staff and parents on the links between the food they eat, land usage and environmental impact. This study responds directly to the call in this journal for research focused on early childhood education and for more to be made of interdisciplinary research opportunities.

Particulate texture image analysis with applications

Texture analysis and textural cues have been applied for image classification, segmentation and pattern recognition. Dominant texture descriptors include directionality, coarseness, line-likeness etc. In this dissertation a class of textures known as particulate textures are defined, which are predominantly coarse or blob-like. The set of features that characterise particulate textures are different from those that characterise classical textures. These features are micro-texture, macro-texture, size, shape and compaction. Classical texture analysis techniques do not adequately capture particulate texture features. This gap is identified and new methods for analysing particulate textures are proposed. The levels of complexity in particulate textures are also presented ranging from the simplest images where blob-like particles are easily isolated from their back- ground to the more complex images where the particles and the background are not easily separable or the particles are occluded. Simple particulate images can be analysed for particle shapes and sizes. Complex particulate texture images, on the other hand, often permit only the estimation of particle dimensions. Real life applications of particulate textures are reviewed, including applications to sedimentology, granulometry and road surface texture analysis. A new framework for computation of particulate shape is proposed. A granulometric approach for particle size estimation based on edge detection is developed which can be adapted to the gray level of the images by varying its parameters. This study binds visual texture analysis and road surface macrotexture in a theoretical framework, thus making it possible to apply monocular imaging techniques to road surface texture analysis. Results from the application of the developed algorithm to road surface macro-texture, are compared with results based on Fourier spectra, the auto- correlation function and wavelet decomposition, indicating the superior performance of the proposed technique. The influence of image acquisition conditions such as illumination and camera angle on the results was systematically analysed. Experimental data was collected from over 5km of road in Brisbane and the estimated coarseness along the road was compared with laser profilometer measurements. Coefficient of determination R2 exceeding 0.9 was obtained when correlating the proposed imaging technique with the state of the art Sensor Measured Texture Depth (SMTD) obtained using laser profilometers.

Graphene-like nano-sheets for surface acoustic wave gas sensor applications

The gas sensing properties of graphene-like nano-sheets deposited on 36° YX lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducers are reported. The thin graphene-like nano-sheets were produced via the reduction of graphite oxide which was deposited on SAW interdigitated transducers (IDTs). Their sensing performance was assessed towards hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO) in a synthetic air carrier gas at room temperature (25 °C) and 40 °C. Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that the deposited graphite oxide (GO) was not completely reduced creating small, graphitic nanocrystals ∼2.7 nm in size. © 2008 Elsevier B.V.

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) degradation of poly(olefin sulfone)s : towards applications as EUV photoresists

Poly(olefin sulfone)s, formed by the reaction of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and an olefin, are known to be highly susceptible to degradation by radiation and thus have been identified as candidate materials for chain scission-based extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) resist materials. In order to investigate this further, the synthesis and characterisation of two poly(olefin sulfone)s namely poly(1-pentene sulfone) (PPS) and poly(2-methyl-1-pentene sulfone) (PMPS), was achieved and the two materials were evaluated for possible chain scission EUVL resist applications. It was found that both materials possess high sensitivities to EUV photons; however; the rates of outgassing were extremely high. The only observed degradation products were found to be SO2 and the respective olefin suggesting that depolymerisation takes place under irradiation in a vacuum environment. In addition to depolymerisation, a concurrent conversion of SO2 moieties to a sulfide phase was observed using XPS.

New variational Bayesian approaches for statistical data mining : with applications to profiling and differentiating habitual consumption behaviour of customers in the wireless telecommunication industry

This thesis investigates profiling and differentiating customers through the use of statistical data mining techniques. The business application of our work centres on examining individuals’ seldomly studied yet critical consumption behaviour over an extensive time period within the context of the wireless telecommunication industry; consumption behaviour (as oppose to purchasing behaviour) is behaviour that has been performed so frequently that it become habitual and involves minimal intentions or decision making. Key variables investigated are the activity initialised timestamp and cell tower location as well as the activity type and usage quantity (e.g., voice call with duration in seconds); and the research focuses are on customers’ spatial and temporal usage behaviour. The main methodological emphasis is on the development of clustering models based on Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) which are fitted with the use of the recently developed variational Bayesian (VB) method. VB is an efficient deterministic alternative to the popular but computationally demandingMarkov chainMonte Carlo (MCMC) methods. The standard VBGMMalgorithm is extended by allowing component splitting such that it is robust to initial parameter choices and can automatically and efficiently determine the number of components. The new algorithm we propose allows more effective modelling of individuals’ highly heterogeneous and spiky spatial usage behaviour, or more generally human mobility patterns; the term spiky describes data patterns with large areas of low probability mixed with small areas of high probability. Customers are then characterised and segmented based on the fitted GMM which corresponds to how each of them uses the products/services spatially in their daily lives; this is essentially their likely lifestyle and occupational traits. Other significant research contributions include fitting GMMs using VB to circular data i.e., the temporal usage behaviour, and developing clustering algorithms suitable for high dimensional data based on the use of VB-GMM.