An overview of methods for simulating and evaluating pipeline corrosion

Steel pipelines, buried under the soil and protected by the combination of protective coatings and cathodic protection (CP), are used for oil and gas transportation. These pipelines are one of the critical infrastructures for energy transportation and therefore became lifelines of modern society. The deterioration of the external surfaces of transmission pipelines is a serious problem and is caused mainly by coating and/or CP failure leading to the loss of integrity of pipelines. To avoid such damage, there is a need of techniques which are able to locate active corrosion sites, monitor corrosion, and evaluate corrosion damage. Fundamental understanding of such processes occurring on coated pipelines (with various types of defects in coatings as well as pipe) in complex soil environment is necessary for the development of such techniques. Numerous laboratory techniques, i.e., electrochemical impedance spectroscopy based, polarisation measurements based, mathematical simulations, direct observation etc. have been used to develop fundamental understanding, simulate and evaluate corrosion occurring in oil and gas pipelines under various operating conditions. Given the complex nature of the pipeline corrosion, application of these laboratory techniques in field measurements as well as in understanding the corrosion mechanisms is lacking. This paper presents an overview of investigations, based on electrochemical techniques, for simulation and evaluation of pipeline corrosion in laboratory.

Constructive activism in the dark web: cryptomarkets and illicit drugs in the digital ‘demimonde’

This paper explores activism enacted through Silk Road, a nowdefunct cryptomarket where illicit drugs were sold in the darkweb. Drawing on a digital ethnography of Silk Road, we developthe notion of constructive activism to extend the lexicon ofconcepts available to discuss forms of online activism. Monitoringof the cryptomarket took place between June 2011 and its closurein October 2013. Just before and after the closure of themarketplace we conducted anonymous online interviews with 17people who reported buying drugs on Silk Road (1.0). Theseinterviews were conducted synchronously and interactivelythrough encrypted instant messaging. Participants discussedharnessing and developing the technological tools needed toaccess Silk Road and engage within the Silk Road community. Forparticipants Silk Road was not just a market for trading drugs: itfacilitated a shared experience of personal freedom within alibertarian philosophical framework, where open discussionsabout stigmatized behaviours were encouraged and supported.Tensions between public activism against drug prohibition andthe need to hide one’s identity as a drug user from public scrutinywere partially resolved through community actions thatinternalized these politics, rather than engaging in forms of onlineactivism that are intended to have real-world political effects.Most aptly described through van de Sande’s (2015) concept ofprefigurative politics, they sought to transform their values intobuilt environments that were designed to socially engineer amore permissive digital reality, which we refer to as constructiveactivism.

Street characteristics preferred for transportation walking among older adults: a choice-based conjoint analysis with manipulated photographs

BACKGROUND: Knowledge about the relationships between micro-scale environmental factors and older adults' walking for transport is limited and inconsistent. This is probably due to methodological limitations, such as absence of an accurate neighborhood definition, lack of environmental heterogeneity, environmental co-variation, and recall bias. Furthermore, most previous studies are observational in nature. We aimed to address these limitations by investigating the effects of manipulating photographs on micro-scale environmental factors on the appeal of a street for older adults' transportation walking. Secondly, we used latent class analysis to examine whether subgroups could be identified that have different environmental preferences for transportation walking. Thirdly, we investigated whether these subgroups differed in socio-demographic, functional and psychosocial characteristics, current level of walking and environmental perceptions of their own street.

METHODS: Data were collected among 1131 Flemish older adults through an online (n = 940) or an interview version of the questionnaire (n = 191). This questionnaire included a choice-based conjoint exercise with manipulated photographs of a street. These manipulated photographs originated from one panoramic photograph of an existing street that was manipulated on nine environmental attributes. Participants chose which of two presented streets they would prefer to walk for transport.

RESULTS: In the total sample, sidewalk evenness had by far the greatest appeal for transportation walking. The other environmental attributes were less important. Four subgroups that differed in their environmental preferences for transportation walking were identified. In the two largest subgroups (representing 86% of the sample) sidewalk evenness was the most important environmental attribute. In the two smaller subgroups (each comprising 7% of the sample), traffic volume and speed limit were the most important environmental attributes for one, and the presence of vegetation and a bench were the most important environmental attributes for the other. This latter subgroup included a higher percentage of service flat residents than the other subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the provision of even sidewalks should be considered a priority when developing environmental interventions aiming to stimulate older adults' transportation walking. Natural experiments are needed to confirm whether our findings can be translated to real environments and actual transportation walking behavior.

An endangered arboreal specialist, the western ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus occidentalis), shows a greater genetic divergence across a narrow artificial waterway than a major road

The fragmentation of habitats by roads and other artificial linear structures can have a profound effect on the movement of arboreal species due to their strong fidelity to canopies. Here, we used 12 microsatellite DNA loci to investigate the fine-scale spatial genetic structure and the effects of a major road and a narrow artificial waterway on a population of the endangered western ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus occidentalis) in Busselton, Western Australia. Using spatial autocorrelation analysis, we found positive genetic structure in continuous habitat over distances up to 600 m. These patterns are consistent with the sedentary nature of P. occidentalis and highlight their vulnerability to the effects of habitat fragmentation. Pairwise relatedness values and Bayesian cluster analysis also revealed significant genetic divergences across an artificial waterway, suggesting that it was a barrier to gene flow. By contrast, no genetic divergences were detected across the major road. While studies often focus on roads when assessing the effects of artificial linear structures on wildlife, this study provides an example of an often overlooked artificial linear structure other than a road that has a significant impact on wildlife dispersal leading to genetic subdivision.

Spatial model for predicting the presence of cinnamon fungus (Phytophthora cinnamomi) in sclerophyll vegetation communities in south-eastern Australia

The pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi causes extensive 'dieback' of Australian native vegetation. This study investigated the distribution of infection in an area of significant sclerophyll vegetation in Australia. It aimed to determine the relationship of infection to site variables and to develop a predictive model of infection. Site variables recorded at 50 study sites included aspect, slope, altitude, proximity to road and road characteristics, soil profile characteristics and vegetation attributes. Soil and plant tissues were assayed for the presence of the pathogen. A geographical information systyem (GIS) was employed to provide accurate estimations of spatial variables and develop a predictive model for the distribution of P. cinnamomi. The pathogen was isolated from 76% of the study sites. Of the 17 site variables initially investigated during the study a logistic regression model identified only two, elevation and sun-index, as significant in determining the probability of infection. The presence of P. cinnamomi infection was negatively associated with elevation and positively associated with sun-index. The model predicted that up to 74% of the study area (11 875 ha) had a high probability of being affected by P. cinnamomi. However, the present areas of infection were small, providing an opportunity for management to minimize spread into highly susceptible uninvaded areas.

Encountering place : tripping to the point

The Nepean Peninsula, a tiny sliver of land at the end of the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia, has lured humans over eons. Together with the Bellarine Peninsula it forms the gateway to Port Philip Bay at the Heads. It shields the Bay from the tumultuous forces of Bass Strait. Here  generations have been drawn to the seaside, to an inspirational coastal landscape. Today hurtling at 100 km per hour down the Mornington Peninsula Freeway one reaches decision point in less than an hour: the coast road or the inland road? Next looms the junction of the Old Melbourne Road and the Nepean Highway. Another decision: which road will be quicker? Where will the traffic snarl be this time? One is oblivious to the remnant moonah woodland which once covered the land; unaware of the seascape to either side; no longer in tune with the rhythm of the tides. And yet people today still feel that sense of relief and freedom of escape from the metropolis with their first 'sniff of the briny'. Through contemporary accounts and visual material this paper explores the roads that have been travelled to get to the Nepean Peninsula: by land and sea.

Changing journalism for the likely present

Media convergence and newsroom integration have become industry buzzwords as the ideas spread through newsrooms around the world. In November 2007 Fairfax Media in Australia introduced the newsroom of the future model, as its flagship newspapers moved into a purpose-built newsroom in Sydney. News Ltd, the country’s next biggest media group, is also embracing multi-media forms of reporting. What are the implications of this development for journalism? This paper examines changes in the practice of journalism in Australia and around the world. It attempts to answer the question: How does the practice of journalism need to change to prepare not for the future, but for the likely present.

Early in November 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Sun-Herald moved into a new building dubbed the ‘newsroom of the future’ at One Darling Island Road in Sydney’s Darling Harbour precinct. Phil McLean, at the time Fairfax Media’s group executive editor and the man in charge of the move, said three quarters of the entire process involved getting people to ‘think differently’ – that is, to modify their mindset so they could work with multi-media.

The new newsroom symbolised the culmination of a series of major changes at Fairfax. In August 2006 the traditional newspaper company, John Fairfax Ltd, changed its name to Fairfax Media to reflect its multi-platform future. In March 2007 Fairfax launched Australia’s first online-only daily publication in Queensland, brisbanetimes.com.au. In May 2007 Fairfax completed its merger with Rural Press to become the biggest media company in Australasia, with annual revenues of about $2.5 billion and market capitalisation of about $7 billion. Two months later Fairfax got even bigger when it acquired at least one radio station in all Australian capital cities plus television studios when it bought Southern Cross Broadcasting. Fairfax is expected to bid for one of the two digital television licences made available by the changes to media ownership laws promulgated in May 2007.

The aim in moving Fairfax from a print to a multi-platform company was to reach as large an audience as possible. ‘We have a total readership in print of over 4 million per day and online of over 5 million per month’, CEO David Kirk said at the time of the Rural Press merger. ‘Our brand of quality, independent, balanced journalism will serve and support more communities than ever’ (Kirk 2007). A few months earlier chairman Ron Walker had written in the company’s annual report: ‘Fairfax is evolving into a truly digital media company’ (2006: 2). Within five years Fairfax would be a significantly bigger Internet company that distributed its content ‘over more media’, Kirk wrote in the same report (2006: 5).

Kirk developed a three-pronged strategy. The first part of the strategy involved the need to ‘defend and grow our newspaper publishing businesses’ – that is, to consolidate and develop the existing newspapers, whose circulations were holding steady during the week and improving on Saturdays. The second part involved plans to ‘accelerate the revenue and earnings of our digital business’. The third part was ‘to build a digital media company for the twenty-first century’ (Fairfax annual report 2006: 3). In June 2007 Kirk appointed Tim Mannes project leader for the Fairfax Media-Rural Press integration. ‘The purpose of the integration work is to bring the two companies together and build what is truly Australasia’s leading media company’, Mannes wrote in a memo to all staff on 7 June 2007. ‘It’s vital throughout this process that we maintain continuity and momentum and protect the interests and needs of our customers’ (2007: 1).

The business model appears attractive. Kirk said Fairfax’s increased scale and diversity would mean it relied less on classified lineage advertising in major metropolitan newspapers, so it could ‘rapidly develop the best online response to changing media advertising patterns’. In the two years to 2006, online’s contribution to Fairfax’s profits had grown from 1 per cent to 14 per cent with ‘much more to come’. Online’s share of the national advertising pie had grown from 2 per cent in 2002 to 10 per cent in 2006 (Beverley 2007: 6) and had jumped to 14 per cent in 2007. Analysts said they were happy with Fairfax’s move ‘from a newspaper company to a media company’ and banks such as Credit Suisse upgraded their profits forecast (AFR 19 September 2007: 37).

Planning for the move to One Darling Island Road in Sydney’s Darling Harbour started early in 2006. Fairfax CEO David Kirk took personal responsibility. He and chairman Ron Walker visited integrated sites around the world, along with a group of editorial bosses. The favoured site was The Daily Telegraph in London, which embraced convergence from June 2006. CEO Murdoch McLennan hired a consultant from Ifra, Dr Dietmar Schantin, director of the Newsplex, to facilitate the move from mono-media to multi-media at The Telegraph. Schantin said change was less about new technologies and more about altering the established mindset. The focus must be on the audience: ‘The whole idea of audience orientation seems to be quite new for some newspapers. In the past it was more “we know what is good for our readers and so we distribute the content”.’ Newspapers were a service industry whose service was information and news, he said. Newspapers had to learn to ‘serve’ its audience with the things the audience wanted to know, on any appropriate platform. ‘We start from the audience. What they want is a very important point. That does not mean that a newspaper should just do what the audience wants. The newspaper [also] needs to stick
to its core values’ (Luft 2006, Coleman 2007: 5).

Tom Curley, CEO of the world’s biggest newsgathering organisation, Associated Press, gave an important speech to the annual Knight-Bagehot dinner in New York in November 2007. The news industry had come to a fork in the road and needed to take bold steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role for both the economy and democracy, he said. Otherwise the media industry would find itself ‘on an ugly path to obscurity’. He similarly emphasised the need to serve the audience: ‘Our focus must be on becoming the very best at filling people’s 24-hour news needs. That’s a huge shift from the we-know-best, gatekeeper thinking. Sourcing, fact gathering, researching, storytelling, editing [and] packaging aren’t going away’
(Curley 2007).

Kirk appointed a ‘newsroom of the future’ committee from editorial (reporters and photographers), IT and HR. The committee initiated a study tour by editorial executives of leading integrated and converged newsrooms in the UK and the US in April 2007. This became known as the ‘Tier 1’ course and involved the editor and deputy editor of The Age, and the news editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. The Herald’s editor went to the annual conference of the World Association of Newspapers in Cape Town, South Africa in June 2007 because that event featured convergence as one of its main themes (PANPA Bulletin June 2007: 6). The committee designed a two-day awareness course for senior editorial managers, known as ‘Tier 2’, that was run in Sydney in July 2007. The ‘Tier 3’ program for all editorial staff started in August 2007 and this ‘multi-media awareness program’ continued until the end of the year. A ‘Tier 4’ course for about 10 per cent of editorial staff (about 40 journalists), where they learned a range of multi-media skills, was scheduled to start after the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The author facilitated most of the Tier 2 and 3 courses.

The Tier 3 and 4 courses have profound implications for journalism education in Australia because they represent the start of major changes to how journalists work in Australia. The process reflects evolution in newsroom practices around the world. In November 2006 Ifra, the international media research company, asked newspaper executives worldwide about their priorities for 2007. The survey attracted 240 responses from 43 countries and results appeared in January 2007. Integration, editorial convergence and cross-media strategies attracted the most attention. Four in five executives rated it one of their top priorities, and half made it their main priority in terms of allocating ‘significant’ funds (Ifra 2007: 34). Ifra repeated the survey in November 2007 and published the results in January 2008. Expanding web strategies was first on the list for 2008, just ahead of editorial convergence strategies, which topped the list in 2007. Improving video and audio content jumped 14 places, and mobile phone strategies leapt 9 places between 2007 and 2008 to be near the top of the list (Ifra 2008: 8).

Common industry exposure in seemingly unrelated commodities

We propose and document robust evidence of cross-market return, volatility, and volume interactions among futures contracts written seemingly unrelated commodities exposed to a common industry. On the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, we find such evidence in natural rubber (NR), aluminum (AL) and gasoline (GA) futures markets, which are complementary commodities heavily consumed by Japan's automobile industry. Our VAR results indicate that (i) for shorter dynamics, NR and GA volatility both influence AL volatility; GA volume affects NR volatility and volume; the GA market is immune to both NR and AL trading activities; (ii) for longer dynamics, AL volume affects both NR volume and GA volatility; NR volume influences GA volume. These results are robust to lag-specifications, volatility measures and are consistent with full BEKK-GARCH estimates. Further analysis using the silver contract, TOCOM and TOPIX transportation indices, shows that a commodity market factor cannot explain our result. Our results offer insights into how commodity and equity markets relate at an industry level.

Glass/carbon fibre hybrid composite laminates for structural applications in automotive vehicles

Light-weight structure is one of the keys to improve the fuel efficiency and reduce the environmental buden of transport vehicles (automotive and rail). While fibreglass composites have been increasingly used to replace steel in automotive industry, the adoption rate for carbon fibre composites which are much lighter, stronger and stiffere than glass fibre composites, remains low. The main reason is the high cost of carbon fibres. To further reduce vehicle weight without excessive cost increase, one technique is to incorporate carbon fibre reinforcement into glass fibre composites and innovative design by selectively reinforcing along the main load path. Glass/carbon woven fabrics with epoxy resin matrix were utilised for preparing hybrid composite laminates. The in-plane mechanical properties such as tensile and three-point-bending flexural properties were investigated for laminates with different carbon fibre volume and lay-up scheme. It is shown that hybrid composite laminates with 50% carbon fibre reinforcement provide the best flexural properties when the carbon layers are at the exterior, while the alternating carbon/glass lay-up provides the highest compressive strength.

Mobile phone sensing systems : a survey

Mobile phone sensing is an emerging area of interest for researchers as smart phones are becoming the core communication device in people's everyday lives. Sensor enabled mobile phones or smart phones are hovering to be at the center of a next revolution in social networks, green applications, global environmental monitoring, personal and community healthcare, sensor augmented gaming, virtual reality and smart transportation systems. More and more organizations and people are discovering how mobile phones can be used for social impact, including how to use mobile technology for environmental protection, sensing, and to leverage just-in-time information to make our movements and actions more environmentally friendly. In this paper we have described comprehensively all those systems which are using smart phones and mobile phone sensors for humans good will and better human phone interaction.

A qualitative study of environmental factors important for physical activity in rural adults

PURPOSE: Despite increasing evidence that the physical environment impacts on physical activity among urban-dwellers, little attention has been devoted to understanding this relationship in rural populations. Work in this area is further hindered by a lack of environmental measures specifically designed for rural settings. This qualitative study aimed to explore the salience of urban physical activity environment constructs among rural adults. METHODS: In 2011, 49 rural men and women from three distinct areas (coastal, animal-based farming, forestry/plant-based farming) of rural Tasmania, Australia, were purposively recruited to participate in semi-structured interviews. Interviews explored features of the built and social environment commonly examined in studies of urban adults, including functional characteristics (eg, lighting, footpaths, roads/verges), road and personal safety, availability and accessibility of places to be active, destinations, and aesthetics. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using a content-thematic approach using QSR NVivo software. FINDINGS: While some urban environmental constructs were salient to these rural adults, such as availability of and accessibility to places to be active, some constructs were operationalised differently, such as road safety (where large trucks and winding roads rather than traffic density was of concern), or were not considered relevant (eg, personal safety related to crime, availability of walkable destinations, aesthetics). CONCLUSIONS: The measurement of the physical environment in rural populations may require reconsideration and/or modification to ensure salience and appropriate quantification of associations with physical activity in future studies.

Exploring cultures of belonging in Darwin, Australia

This paper argues that the use of visual methods such as participatory video is crucial to co-producing sensory and embodied knowledges of belonging in Australian cities. These knowledges of belonging that focus on affectivity and passion have the potential to expand the worlds that racialised bodies of colour inhabit, but contemporary urban research shows an overwhelming focus on ‘talk’. This paper therefore takes the risk by engaging in a research process that is experimental, flexible and adaptive to explore diverse sensory cultures of belonging through a focus on Darwin, a small north Australian city. This is a city with a polyethnic history where Indigenous-migrant-settler race relations are recognised as more complex in comparison to large south Australian cities. The paper draws on participatory videos of two eventsin suburban Darwin - a Vigil on the side of the road opposite Airport
Lodge, an asylum seeker detention centre, and an afternoon walk along Casuarina beach where Aboriginals who live ‘rough’ camp. Using short video clips, long-term residents, migrant newcomers and asylum seekers (on bridging visas) compose an expressive narrative of the road and beach in Darwin, as places where refrains of welcome expand worlds that racialised bodies of colour inhabit. Using digital technologies the flow and juxtaposition of video clips of these events provides the possibility to craft sensory and embodied knowledges of belonging in a north
Australian city with a history of assimilationist and racially discriminatory policies.