Open access and scholarly books : Australian perspectives

This three-hour workshop tackles the crucial question of whether globally coordinated, market based approaches to funding open access monographs can support the unique needs of Australian research communities. The workshop takes place in the context of the release in August 2013 of the Book Industry Collaborative Council (BICC) report and especially the recommendations included in the chapter on scholarly book publishing in the humanities and social sciences. This workshop, with expert speakers from the BICC Committee and from across the scholarly publishing industry, will discuss the policy issues most likely to ensure that Australian scholarly communities and audiences are best served in an era of digital technology and globalisation. Australia must think globally and support developments that enhance the accessibility of publicly-funded research. Speakers will outline recent developments in scholarly monograph publishing including new Open Access initiatives and developments. Knowledge Unlatched, is one example of an attempt to create an internationally coordinated, market-based route to open access for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) monographs. Knowledge Unlatched, a not-for-profit London-based company is piloting a global library consortium approach to funding open access monographs and released its pilot program in early October with 28 titles from 13 publishers. The workshop invites discussion and debate from librarians, publishers, researchers and research funders on the role of international coordination and markets in securing a more open future for Australian HASS scholarship.

A nation’s role in addressing base erosion and profit shifting : balancing sovereignty with international collaboration and coordination

The notion of sovereignty is central to any international tax issue. While a nation is free to design its tax laws as it sees fit and raise revenue in accordance with the needs of its citizens, it is not possible to undertake such a task in isolation. In a world of cross-border investments and business transactions, all tax regimes impact on one another. Tax interactions between sovereign states cannot be avoided. Ultimately, the interactions mean that a nation must decide whether to engage in both collaboration and coordination with other nations and supranational bodies alike or maintain an individualised stance in relation to its tax policy. Whatever the decision, there is arguably an exercise in national sovereignty in some form. In the context of an international tax regime, whether that regime is interpreted broadly as meaning international norms generally adopted by nations around the world or domestic regimes legislating for cross-border transactions, rhetoric around national fiscal sovereignty takes on many different forms. At one end of the spectrum it is relied upon by financial secrecy jurisdictions (tax havens) as a defence to their position on the basis that ‘other’ nations cannot interfere with the fiscal sovereignty of a jurisdiction. At the other end of the spectrum, it is argued that profit shifting and international tax avoidance if not stopped is, in and of itself, a threat to a nation’s fiscal sovereignty on the basis that it threatens the ability to tax and raise the revenue needed. This paper considers a modern conceptualisation of sovereignty along with its role within international tax coordination and collaboration to argue that a move towards a more unified approach to addressing international base erosion and profit shifting may be the ultimate exercise of national fiscal sovereignty. By using the current transfer pricing regime as a case study, this paper posits that it is not merely enough to have international agreement on allocation rules to be applied, but that the ultimate exercise of national sovereignty is political agreement with other states to ensure that it is governments which determine the allocational basis of worldwide profits to be taxed. In doing so, it is demonstrated that the arm’s length pricing requirement of the current transfer pricing regime, rather than providing governments with the ability to determine the location of profits, is providing multinational entities with the ultimate power to determine that location. If left unchecked, this will eventually erode a nation’s ability to capture the required tax revenue and, as a consequence, may be deemed a failure by nation states to exercise their fiscal sovereignty.

Managing a portfolio of corporate venture units : challenges in achieving within-unit focus and between-unit coordination

Principal Topic: There is increasing recognition that the organizational configurations of corporate venture units should depend on the types of ventures the unit seeks to develop (Burgelman, 1984; Hill and Birkinshaw, 2008). Distinction have been made between internal and external as well as exploitative versus explorative ventures (Hill and Birkinshaw, 2008; Narayan et al., 2009; Schildt et al., 2005). Assuming that firms do not want to limit themselves to a single type of venture, but rather employ a portfolio of ventures, the logical consequence is that firms should employ multiple corporate venture units. Each venture unit tailor-made for the type of venture it seeks to develop. Surprisingly, there is limited attention in the literature for the challenges of managing multiple corporate venture units in a single firm. Maintaining multiple venture units within one firm provides easier access to funding for new ideas (Hamel, 1999). It allows for freedom and flexibility to tie the organizational systems (Rice et al., 2000), autonomy (Hill and Rothaermel, 2003), and involvement of management (Day, 1994; Wadwha and Kotha, 2006) to the requirements of the individual ventures. Yet, the strategic objectives of a venture may change when uncertainty around the venture is resolved (Burgelman, 1984). For example, firms may decide to spin-in external ventures (Chesbrough, 2002) or spun-out ventures that prove strategically unimportant (Burgelman, 1984). This suggests that ventures might need to be transferred between venture units, e.g. from a more internally-driven corporate venture division to a corporate venture capital unit. Several studies suggested that ventures require different managerial skills across their phase of development (Desouza et al., 2007; O'Connor and Ayers, 2005; Kazanjian and Drazin, 1990; Westerman et al., 2006). To facilitate effective transfer between venture units and manage the overall venturing process, it is important that firms set up and manage integrative linkages. Integrative linkages provide synergies and coordination between differentiated units (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). Prior findings pointed to the important role of senior management (Westerman et al., 2006; Gilbert, 2006) and a shared organizational vision (Burgers et al., 2009) to coordinate venture units with mainstream businesses. We will draw on these literatures to investigate the key question of how to integratively manage multiple venture units. ---------- Methodology/Key Propositions: In order to seek an answer to the research question, we employ a case study approach that provides unique insights into how firms can break up their venturing process. We selected three Fortune 500 companies that employ multiple venturing units, IBM, Royal Dutch/ Shell and Nokia, and investigated and compared their approaches. It was important that the case companies somewhat differed in the type of venture units they employed as well as the way they integrate and coordinate their venture units. The data are based on extensive interviews and a variety of internal and external company documents to triangulate our findings (Eisenhardt, 1989). The key proposition of the article is that firms can best manage their multiple venture units through an ambidextrous design of loosely coupled units. This provides venture units with sufficient flexibility to employ organizational configurations that best support the type of venture they seek to develop, as well as provides sufficient integration to facilitate smooth transfer of ventures between venture units. Based on the case findings, we develop a generic framework for a new way of managing the venturing process through multiple corporate venture units. ---------- Results and Implications: One of our main findings is that these firms tend to organize their venture units according to phases in the venture development process. That is, they tend to have venture units aimed at incubation of venture ideas as well as units aimed more at the commercialization of ventures into a new business unit for the firm or a start-up. The companies in our case studies tended to coordinate venture units through integrative management skills or a coordinative venture unit that spanned multiple phases. We believe this paper makes two significant contributions. First, we extend prior venturing literature by addressing how firms manage a portfolio of venture units, each achieving different strategic objectives. Second, our framework provides recommendations on how firms should manage such an approach towards venturing. This helps to increase the likelihood of success of their venturing programs.

Scheduling coordination through negotiation between train service providers in an open railway access market

A schedule coordination problem involving two train services provided by different operators is modeled as an optimization of revenue intake. The coordination is achieved through the adjustment of commencement times of the train services by negotiation. The problem is subject to constraints regarding to passenger demands and idle costs of rolling-stocks from both operators. This paper models the operators as software agents having the flexibility to incorporate one of the two (and potentially more) proposed negotiation strategies. Empirical results show that agents employing different combination of strategies have significant impact on the quality of solution and negotiation time.

International students in Australian universities : gap between student expectations and realities

Australian Universities are very successful in attracting large number of international students. A large proportion of University revenue comes from the full fee paying international students. However, there have been many reports that international students face numerous problems when they arrive in Australia. The common management practice is to provide support staff services to deal with the orientation and welfare of international students. Such service units act as intermediaries between the students and the teaching and learning community of the university. However, the actual experience of international students may be difficult for support staff, counsellors, advisers and academic staff to anticipate. There is little information on the actual experience of students relative to their expectations. This study aimed at securing a deeper understanding of the contextually relevant issues facing by international students in Australian universities in order to develop management strategies aimed at improved teaching and learning outcomes for international students. Using a highly reliable survey questionnaire, a questionnaire survey was conducted among the international students at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. About 180 engineering students responded in the survey resulting in a response rate of 81%. Results indicate that international students face many difficulties including understanding colloquial language, Australian accent, cost of tuition, feelin isolation, safety, security, health services, accommodation and part time jobs. They also face difficulty in coping with learning methods in Australia, particularly in research report writing. However, they are happy with their lecturers and find them very helpful. Many of the students lacked the information regarding various community groups, recreational and sports facilities in Australia before arriving. Findings of the study show that there is a significant gap between the expectation of the students before coming to Australia and actual experience they experience here. Importantly, there is a lack of coordination between international students, international student services (ISS) and university management and as a consequence there have been little improvement in conditions. There is no direct link between student experience and University management. Many important suggestions arisen from this study and most important suggestion is that the student information system should be integrated with the University enterprise resource planning (ERP) to reduce the huge gap between international student expectation and actual experiences.

Implementation of an embedded sensor network for the coordination of Slocum gliders for coastal monitoring and observation

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are revolutionizing oceanography through their versatility, autonomy and endurance. However, they are still an underutilized technology. For coastal operations, the ability to track a certain feature is of interest to ocean scientists. Adaptive and predictive path planning requires frequent communication with significant data transfer. Currently, most AUVs rely on satellite phones as their primary communication. This communication protocol is expensive and slow. To reduce communication costs and provide adequate data transfer rates, we present a hardware modification along with a software system that provides an alternative robust disruption- tolerant communications framework enabling cost-effective glider operation in coastal regions. The framework is specifically designed to address multi-sensor deployments. We provide a system overview and present testing and coverage data for the network. Additionally, we include an application of ocean-model driven trajectory design, which can benefit from the use of this network and communication system. Simulation and implementation results are presented for single and multiple vehicle deployments. The presented combination of infrastructure, software development and deployment experience brings us closer to the goal of providing a reliable and cost-effective data transfer framework to enable real-time, optimal trajectory design, based on ocean model predictions, to gather in situ measurements of interesting and evolving ocean features and phenomena.

Enhancing security and continuity management at international airports

Operators of busy contemporary airports have to balance tensions between the timely flow of passengers, flight operations, the conduct of commercial business activities and the effective application of security processes. In addition to specific onsite issues airport operators liaise with a range of organisations which set and enforce aviation-related policies and regulations as well as border security agencies responsible for customs, quarantine and immigration, in addition to first response security services. The challenging demands of coordinating and planning in such complex socio-technical contexts place considerable pressure on airport management to facilitate coordination of what are often conflicting goals and expectations among groups that have standing in respect to safe and secure air travel. What are, as yet, significantly unexplored issues in large airports are options for the optimal coordination of efforts from the range of public and private sector participants active in airport security and crisis management. A further aspect of this issue is how airport management systems operate when there is a transition from business-as-usual into an emergency/crisis situation and then, on recovery, back to ‘normal’ functioning. Business Continuity Planning (BCP), incorporating sub-plans for emergency response, continuation of output and recovery of degraded operating capacity, would fit such a context. The implementation of BCP practices in such a significant high security setting offers considerable potential benefit yet entails considerable challenges. This paper presents early results of a 4 year nationally funded industry-based research project examining the merger of Business Continuity Planning and Transport Security Planning as a means of generating capability for improved security and reliability and, ultimately, enhanced resilience in major airports. The project is part of a larger research program on the Design of Secure Airports that includes most of the gazetted ‘first response’ international airports in Australia, key Aviation industry groups and all aviation-related border and security regulators as collaborative partners. The paper examines a number of initial themes in the research, including: ? Approaches to integrating Business Continuity & Aviation Security Planning within airport operations; ? Assessment of gaps in management protocols and operational capacities for identifying and responding to crises within and across critical aviation infrastructure; ? Identification of convergent and divergent approaches to crisis management used across Austral-Asia and their alignment to planned and possible infrastructure evolution.

A New DER coordination in LV network based on the concept of distributed control

Given the paradigm of smart grid as the promising backbone for future network, this paper uses this paradigm to propose a new coordination approach for LV network based on distributed control algorithm. This approach divides the LV network into hierarchical communities where each community is controlled by a control agent. Different level of communication has been proposed for this structure to control the network in different operation modes.

Robots move : bootstrapping the development of object representations using sensorimotor coordination

This paper is concerned with the unsupervised learning of object representations by fusing visual and motor information. The problem is posed for a mobile robot that develops its representations as it incrementally gathers data. The scenario is problematic as the robot only has limited information at each time step with which it must generate and update its representations. Object representations are refined as multiple instances of sensory data are presented; however, it is uncertain whether two data instances are synonymous with the same object. This process can easily diverge from stability. The premise of the presented work is that a robot's motor information instigates successful generation of visual representations. An understanding of self-motion enables a prediction to be made before performing an action, resulting in a stronger belief of data association. The system is implemented as a data-driven partially observable semi-Markov decision process. Object representations are formed as the process's hidden states and are coordinated with motor commands through state transitions. Experiments show the prediction process is essential in enabling the unsupervised learning method to converge to a solution - improving precision and recall over using sensory data alone.

Coordination of UAV path planning in 2D and 3D in environmental/bio sensing applications

This paper is concerned with the optimal path planning and initialization interval of one or two UAVs in presence of a constant wind. The method compares previous literature results on synchronization of UAVs along convex curves, path planning and sampling in 2D and extends it to 3D. This method can be applied to observe gas/particle emissions inside a control volume during sampling loops. The flight pattern is composed of two phases: a start-up interval and a sampling interval which is represented by a semi-circular path. The methods were tested in four complex model test cases in 2D and 3D as well as one simulated real world scenario in 2D and one in 3D.

Coordination polymeric structures in the sodium salt of 4-chloro-3-nitrobenzoic acid and the sodium and potassium salts of 4-nitroanthranilic acid

The structures of the hydrated sodium salts of 4-chloro-3-nitrobenzoic acid {poly[aqua(μ4-4-chloro-3-nitrobenzoato)sodium(I)], [Na(C7H3ClNO4)(H2O)]n, (I)} and 2-amino-4-nitrobenzoic acid {poly[μ-aqua-aqua(μ3-2-amino-4-nitrobenzoato)sodium(I)], [Na(C7H5N2O4)(H2O)2]n, (II)}, and the hydrated potassium salt of 2-amino-4-nitrobenzoic acid {poly[μ-aqua-aqua(μ5-2-amino-4-nitrobenzoato)potassium(I)], [K(C7H5N2O4)(H2O)]n, (III)} have been determined and their complex polymeric structures described. All three structures are stabilized by intra- and intermolecular hydrogen bonding and strong π–π ring interactions. In the structure of (I), the distorted trigonal bipyrimidal NaO5 coordination polyhedron comprises a monodentate water molecule and four bridging carboxylate O-atom donors, generating a two-dimensional polymeric structure lying parallel to (001). Intra-layer hydrogen-bonding associations and strong inter-ring π–π interactions are present. Structure (II) has a distorted octahedral NaO6 stereochemistry, with four bridging O-atom donors, two from a single carboxylate group and two from a single nitro group and three from the two water molecules, one of which is bridging. Na centres are linked through centrosymmetric four-membered duplex water bridges and through 18-membered duplex head-to-tail ligand bridges. Similar centrosymmetric bridges are found in the structure of (III), and in both (II) and (III) strong inter-ring π–π interactions are found. A two-dimensional layered structure lying parallel to (010) is generated in (II), whereas in (III) the structure is three-dimensional. With (III), the irregular KO7 coordination polyhedron comprises a doubly bridging water molecule, a single bidentate bridging carboxylate O-atom donor and three bridging O-atom donors from the two nitro groups. A three-dimensional structure is generated. These coordination polymer structures are among the few examples of metal complexes of any type with either 4-chloro-3-nitrobenzoic acid or 4-nitroanthranilic acid.

Crystal structures of the potassium and rubidium salts of (3,5-dichlorophenoxy)acetic acid: Two isotypic coordination polymers

The two-dimensional coordination polymeric structures of the hydrated potassium and rubidium salts of (3,5-dichlorophenoxy)acetic acid, (3,5-D) namely, poly[mu-aqua-bis[mu3-2-(3,5-dichlorophenoxy)acetato]potassium, [K2(C8H5Cl2O3)2 (H2O)]n (I) and poly[mu-aqua-bis[mu3-2-(3,5-dichlorophenoxy)acetato]dirubidium] [Rb2(C8H5Cl2O3)2 (H2O)]n (II), respectively have been determined and are described. The two compounds are isotypic and the polymer is based on centrosymmetric dinuclear bridged complex units. The irregular six-coordination about the metal centres comprises a bridging water molecule lying on a twofold rotation axis, the phenoxy O-atom donor and and a triple bridging carboxylate O-atom of the oxoacetate side chain of the 3,5-D ligand in a bidentate chelate mode, the second carboxy O-donor, also bridging. The K-O and Rb-O bond-length ranges are 2.7238(15)--2.9459(14) and 2.832(2)--3.050(2) \%A respectively and the K...K and Rb...Rb separations in the dinuclear unit are 4.0214(7) and 4.1289(6) \%A, respectively. Within the two-dimensional layers which lie parallel to (100), the coordinated water molecule forms an O---H...O hydrogen bond to the single bridging carboxylate O atom.

A multi-hierarchical strategy for on-ramp coordination

Ramp metering (RM) is an access control for motorways, in which a traffic signal is placed at on-ramps to regulate the rate of vehicles entering the motorway and thus to preserve the motorway capacity. In general, RM algorithms fall into two categories by their effective scope: local control and coordinated control. Local control algorithm determines the metering rate based on the traffic condition on adjacent motorway mainline and the on-ramp. Conversely, coordinated RM strategies make use of measurements from the entire motorway network to operate individual ramp signals for optimal performance at the network level. This study proposes a multi-hierarchical strategy for on-ramp coordination. The strategy is structured in two layers. At the higher layer, a centralised, predictive controller plans the coordination control within a long update interval based on the location of high-risk breakdown flow. At the lower layer, reactive controllers determine the metering rates of those ramps involved in the ramp coordination with a short update interval. This strategy is modelled and applied to the northbound model of the Pacific Motorway in a micro-simulation platform (AIMSUN). The simulation results show that the proposed strategy effectively delays the onset of congestion and reduces total congestion with better managed on-ramp queues.