Binjiang urban centre and transport interchange

This project is the result of a collaborative design process involving QUT School of Design, and AREN Consulting and ZIAD (Zheijiang Provincial Institute of Architectural Design and Research). This major urban initiative explores new standards for multi-function urban centres. The sophisticated integration of transit interchange with retail, commercial and residential functions provides a dramatic mix of social activities. The large site is formed into a raised and terraced urban garden, with the transit centre and retail shopping precinct housed below this landscaped roof. Towering above this ‘hill’ are five building blocks housing the commercial and residential accommodations. These environmentally low-impact buildings are topped with a high-tech greenhouse roof or photovoltaic cells.

Genshanmen Urban Centre and Transport Interchange

This project is the result of a collaborative design process involving QUT School of Design, and AREN Consulting and ZIAD (Zheijiang Provincial Institute of Architectural Design and Research). This project is the submission prepared by the above partnership for an invited international design competition, promoted by Hangzhou City, China. ---------- This major urban design and architecture project is for a large transport oriented development on the new Hangzhou Subway system. The development, covering several city blocks, includes the provision of residential, retail, education, commercial, and transport infrastructure; integrated with rail, bus and ferry systems. ---------- The design strategies are based on the development or artificial land forms; the cutting of new canals, raising of the ground plane, and metaphoric reference to the Yellow Mountains (explored in the detail of the central ‘ridge’ of built form). Further to this, the project explores the integration of sustainable technologies and philosophies with large scale building projects in a subtropical context.

Train schedule coordination at an interchange station through Agent negotiation

In open railway markets, coordinating train schedules at an interchange station requires negotiation between two independent train operating companies to resolve their operational conflicts. This paper models the stakeholders as software agents and proposes an agent negotiation model to study their interaction. Three negotiation strategies have been devised to represent the possible objectives of the stakeholders, and they determine the behavior in proposing offers to the proponent. Empirical simulation results confirm that the use of the proposed negotiation strategies lead to outcomes that are consistent with the objectives of the stakeholders.

The potential of XML technology as an answer to the data interchange problems of the construction industry

The complex supply chain relations of the construction industry, coupled with the substantial amount of information to be shared on a regular basis between the parties involved, make the traditional paper-based data interchange methods inefficient, error prone and expensive. The successful information technology (IT) applications that enable seamless data interchange, such as the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems, have generally failed to be successfully implemented in the construction industry. An alternative emerging technology, Extensible Markup Language (XML), and its applicability to streamline business processes and to improve data interchange methods within the construction industry are analysed, as is the EDI technology to identify the strategic advantages that XML technology provides to overcome the barriers to implementation. In addition, the successful implementation of XML-based automated data interchange platforms for a large organization, and the proposed benefits thereof, are presented as a case study.

The application of the Park & Ride and TOD concepts to develop a new framework that can maximise public transport patronage

With growing concern over the use of the car in our urbanized society, there have emerged a number of lobby groups and professional bodies promoting a return to public transport, walking and cycling, with the urban village as the key driving land use, as a means of making our cities’ transportation systems more sustainable. This research has aimed at developing a framework applicable to the Australian setting that can facilitate increased passenger patronage of rail based urban transport systems from adjacent or associated land uses. The framework specifically tested the application of the Park & Ride and Transit Oriented Development (TOD) concepts and their applicability within the cultural, institutional, political and transit operational characteristics of Australian society. The researcher found that, although the application of the TOD concept had been limited to small pockets of town houses and mixed use developments around stations, the development industry and emerging groups within the community are posed to embrace the concept and bring with it increased rail patronage. The lack of a clear commitment to infrastructure and supporting land uses is a major barrier to the implementation of TODs. The research findings demonstrated significant scope for the size of a TOD to expand to a much greater radius of activity from the public transport interchange, than the commonly quoted 400 to 600 meters, thus incorporating many more residents and potential patrons. The provision of Park & Rides, and associated support facilities like Kiss & Rides, have followed worldwide trends of high patronage demands from the middle and outer car dependent suburbs of our cities. The data collection and analysis gathered by the researcher demonstrated that in many cases Park & Rides should form part of a TOD to ensure ease of access to rail stations by all modes and patron types. The question, however, remains how best to plan the incorporation of a Park & Ride within a TOD and still maintain those features that attract and promote TODs as a living entity.

The design environment

This chapter provides an overview of the Editor, which is the core modeling component of the YAWL system. Specifically, it shows how to specify control-flow, data and resourcing requirements in a YAWL workflow model. Moreover, it describes the error reporting capabilities of the Editor and the features of its interchange format.

Contextualising the teaching and learning of measurement in Torres Strait Islander schools

This paper reports on a mathematics project conducted with six Torres Strait Islander schools and communities by the research team at the YuMi Deadly Centre at QUT. Data collected is from a small focus group of six teachers and two teacher aides. We investigated how measurement is taught and learned by students, their teachers and teacher aides in the community schools. A key focus of the project was that the teaching and learning of measurement be contextualised to the students’ culture, community and home languages. A significant finding from the project was that the teachers had differing levels of knowledge and understanding about how to contextualise measurement to support student learning. For example, an Indigenous teacher identified that mathematics and the environment are relational, that is, they are not discrete and in isolation from one another, rather they mesh together, thus affording the articulation and interchange among and between mathematics and Torres Strait Islander culture.

Research data finder : an institutional metadata repository

QUT’s new metadata repository (data registry), Research Data Finder, has been designed to promote the visibility and discoverability of QUT research datasets. Funded by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS), it will provide a qualitative snapshot of research data outputs created or collected by members of the QUT research community that are available via open or mediated access. As a fully integrated metadata repository Research Data Finder aligns with institutional sources of truth, such as QUT’s research administrative system, ResearchMaster, as well as QUT’s Academic Profiles system to provide high quality data descriptions that increase awareness of, and access to, shareable research data. In addition, the repository and its workflows are designed to foster smoother data management practices, enhance opportunities for collaboration and research, promote cross-disciplinary research and maximize existing research datasets. The metadata schema used in Research Data Finder is the Registry Interchange Format - Collections and Services (RIF-CS), developed by ANDS in 2009. This comprehensive schema is potentially complex for researchers; unlike metadata for publications, which are often made publicly available with the official publication, metadata for datasets are not typically available and need to be created. Research Data Finder uses a hybrid self-deposit and mediated deposit system. In addition to automated ingests from ResearchMaster (research project information) and Academic Profiles system (researcher information), shareable data is identified at a number of key “trigger points” in the research cycle. These include: research grant proposals; ethics applications; Data Management Plans; Liaison Librarian data interviews; and thesis submissions. These ingested records can be supplemented with related metadata including links to related publications, such as those in QUT ePrints. Records deposited in Research Data Finder are harvested by ANDS and made available to a national and international audience via Research Data Australia, ANDS’ discovery service for Australian research data. Researcher and research group metadata records are also harvested by the National Library of Australia (NLA) and these records are then published in Trove (the NLA’s digital information portal). By contributing records to the national infrastructure, QUT data will become more visible. Within Australia and internationally, many funding bodies have already mandated the open access of publications produced from publicly funded research projects, such as those supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC), or the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). QUT will be well placed to respond to the rapidly evolving climate of research data management. This project is supported by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). ANDS is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Program and the Education Investment Fund (EIF) Super Science Initiative.

Parametric and generative methods with building information modelling : connecting BIM with explorative design modelling

Parametric and generative modelling methods are ways in which computer models are made more flexible, and of formalising domain-specific knowledge. At present, no open standard exists for the interchange of parametric and generative information. The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) which are an open standard for interoperability in building information models is presented as the base for an open standard in parametric modelling. The advantage of allowing parametric and generative representations are that the early design process can allow for more iteration and changes can be implemented quicker than with traditional models. This paper begins with a formal definition of what constitutes to be parametric and generative modelling methods and then proceeds to describe an open standard in which the interchange of components could be implemented. As an illustrative example of generative design, Frazer’s ‘Reptiles’ project from 1968 is reinterpreted.

Neoliberal issues in public education

We finished penning this special issue and sending it to press on martin Luther King Jr. Day. We take pause, honoring Martin Luther King's memory and we are dedicating this project to his profound vision as a public intellectual and world activist for whom two of his breakthrough ideas are particularly relevant to this collection. The guest editors, along with the contributors, are reinforcing his messages for the current and future eras that "leadership is the action of ideas to make change, through the agency of individuals" (p. 74) and that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (p. 75) (see Temes 1996).

Publish

Our single-word issue title “publish” no doubt conjures up all sorts of anxieties in most writers and academics. It first rings through the head as a command to produce, to make, to compose—and underlines its necessity. Publish implies an invocation of engagement with its sister noun “public.” It also suggests an interchange and exchange between an audience of readers and the produced texts, leading to something that has been called a “sphere” in its grandiose claims and a “community” in its slightly more modest conceit. To publish is to produce a different form of conversation, one that is abstracted from the oral into the written and then presumably back out into both written and spoken, thereby producing new circuits of interchange and exchange....