Subjective wellbeing as an affective-cognitive construct

The affective content of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) was investigated in two separate studies. Study 1 involved a representative sample of 478 participants from across Australia aged between 18 and 72 years. This study tested the circumplex model of affect and then determined the minimum set of affects that explain variance in SWB. The model was supported, with most affects congregated around the valence axis. Overall, 64% of the variance in SWB was explained by six Core Affects, indicating that SWB is a highly affective construct. Study 2 tested the relative strength of Core Affect (content, happy and excited), in three separate models of SWB incorporating cognition (seven discrepancies)
and all five factors of personality. Using a sample of 854 participants aged been 18 – 86 years, structural equation modeling was used to compare an affective-cognitive driven model of SWB, with a personality driven model of SWB and a discrepancy driven model of SWB. The results provide support for an affective-cognitive model which explained 90 percent of the variance in SWB. All models confirm that the relationship between SWB, Core Affect and Discrepancies is far stronger than the relationship between personality and SWB. It is proposed that Core Affect and Discrepancies comprise the essence of SWB. Moreover, Core Affect is the driving force behind individual set-point levels in SWB homeostasis.

Personality, behavioural and affective characteristics of hazardous drinkers

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of appetitive and aversive motivation on hazardous drinking behaviour by drawing on Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST). A between-groups design examined differences between hazardous drinkers and matched controls on self-report and behavioural appetitive and aversive motivation. The relationship between motivational processes and changes in affective states following behavioural task performance was also examined. Data from 27 hazardous drinkers (M = 21.88 years, SD = 3.29) and 27 gender and age matched controls (M = 21.85 years, SD = 4.08) were utilised. The Card Arranging Reward Responsivity Objective Test (CARROT) assessed behavioural appetitive motivation and the computerised Q-TASK provided an index of behavioural aversive motivation. Self-report appetitive and aversive motivation was measured using the Sensitivity to Punishment and Reward Questionnaire (SPSRQ). Brief scales tapping state positive and negative affect were also administered. Hazardous drinkers were significantly higher than controls on self-report but not behavioural measures of appetitive motivation. Results also indicated that hazardous drinkers reported significantly higher levels of negative affect. These data suggest that hazardous drinkers are characterised by high trait appetitive motivation and state negative affect. It was suggested that RST may provide a useful framework for understanding both the appetitive and aversive motivational processes involved in drinking behaviour.

Analytical communication networks model for enterprise grid computing

This paper addresses the problem of performance analysis based on the communication modeling of large-scale heterogeneous distributed systems, with an emphasis on enterprise Grid computing systems. The study of communication layers is important, as the overall performance of a distributed system often critically hinges on the effectiveness of this part. We propose an analytical model that is based on probabilistic analysis and queuing networks. The proposed model considers the processor as well as network heterogeneity of the enterprise Grid system. The model is validated through comprehensive simulations, which demonstrate that the proposed model exhibits a good degree of accuracy for various system sizes, and under different working conditions.

Pervasive computing at tableside : a wireless web-based ordering system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a wireless web-based ordering system called iMenu in the restaurant industry. Design/methodology/approach – By using wireless devices such as personal digital assistants and WebPads, this system realizes the paradigm of pervasive computing at tableside. Detailed system requirements, design, implementation and evaluation of iMenu are presented.

Findings – The evaluation of iMenu shows it explicitly increases productivity of restaurant staff. It also has other desirable features such as integration, interoperation and scalability. Compared to traditional restaurant ordering process, by using this system customers get faster and better services, restaurant staff cooperate more efficiently with less working mistakes, and enterprise owners thus receive more business profits.

Originality/value – While many researchers have explored using wireless web-based information systems in different industries, this paper presents a system that employs wireless multi-tiered web-based architecture to build pervasive computing systems. Instead of discussing theoretical issues on pervasive computing, we focus on practical issues of developing a real system, such as choosing of web-based architecture, design of input methods in small screens, and response time in wireless web-based systems.

Optimal multicast tree routing for cluster computing in hypercube interconnection networks

Cluster computation has been used in the applications that demand performance, reliability, and availability, such as cluster server groups, large-scale scientific computations, distributed databases, distributed media-on-demand servers and search engines etc. In those applications, multicast can play the vital roles for the information dissemination among groups of servers and users. This paper proposes a set of novel efficient fault-tolerant multicast routing algorithms on hypercube interconnection of cluster computers using multicast shared tree approach. We present some new algorithms for selecting an optimal core (root) and constructing the shared tree so as to minimize the average delay for multicast messages. Simulation results indicate that our algorithms are efficient in the senses of short end-to-end average delay, load balance and less resource utilizations over hypercube cluster interconnection networks.

A new approach for efficiently achieving high availability in mobile computing

Recent advances m hardware technologies such as portable
computers and wireless communication networks have led to the emergence of mobile computing systems. Thus, availability and accessibility of the data and services become important issues of mobile computing systems. In this paper, we present a data replication and management scheme tailored for such environments In the proposed scheme data is replicated synchronously over stationary sites while for the mobile network, data is replicated asynchronously based on commonly visited sites for each user. The proposed scheme is compared with other techniques and is shown to require less communication cost for an operation as well as provide higher degree of data availability.

Ontology learning from text: a soft computing paradigm

Text-based information accounts for more than 80% of today’s Web content. They consist of Web pages written in different natural languages. As the semantic Web aims at turning the current Web into a machine-understandable knowledge repository, availability of multilingual ontology thus becomes an issue at the core of a multilingual semantic Web. However, multilingual ontology is too complex and resource intensive to be constructed manually. In this paper, we propose a three-layer model built on top of a soft computing framework to automatically acquire a multilingual ontology from domain specific parallel texts. The objective is to enable semantic smart information access regardless of language over the Semantic Web.

Analytical performance modeling of the enterprise grid computing

This paper addresses the problem of performance modeling of large-scale heterogeneous distributed systems with emphases on enterprise grid computing systems. To this end, we present an analytical model that can be employed to explore the effectiveness of different design approaches so that one can have an intelligent choice during design and evaluation a cost-effective large-scale heterogeneous distributed computing system. The model is validated through comprehensive simulation.

Dynamic reconfiguration of multi-agent systems based on autonomy oriented computing

Dynamic reconfiguration has been listed as one of the key challenges in support of agent adaptation to environments, which has attracted much attention of researchers world wide. To tackle this tough problem, an agent-based dynamic reconfiguration model (ADRM) is proposed from the autonomy-oriented computing (AOC) point of view. The ERA (environment-reactive rules-agents) algorithm used in AOC is improved to support the organization formation behavior, which is essential in dynamic reconfiguration. To test the efficiency of this model and the effectiveness of different reactive behaviors, the performance of this model was investigated under different selection probabilities.

Analytical interconnection networks model for multi-cluster computing systems

This paper addresses the problem of interconnection networks performance modeling of large-scale distributed systems with emphases on multi-cluster computing systems. The study of interconnection networks is important because the overall performance of a distributed system is often critically hinged on the effectiveness of its interconnection network. We present an analytical model that considers stochastic quantities as well as processor heterogeneity of the target system. The model is validated through comprehensive simulation, which demonstrates that the proposed model exhibits a good degree of accuracy for various system sizes and under different operating conditions.

Analysis of multi-cluster computing systems with processor heterogeneity

This paper addresses the problem of performance modeling of heterogeneous multi-cluster computing systems. We present an analytical model that can be employed to explore the effectiveness of different design approaches so that one can have an intelligent choice during design and evaluation of a cost effective large-scale heterogeneous distributed computing system. The proposed model considers stochastic quantities as well as processor heterogeneity of the target system. The analysis is based on a parametric fat-tree network, the m-port n-tree, and a deterministic routing algorithm. The correctness of the proposed model is validated through comprehensive simulation of different types of clusters.

Gender and IT : ongoing challenges for computing and information technology education in Australian secondary education

# 1. Introduction. Exploring the gender and IT problem and possible ways forward /​ Julianne Lynch
# 2. The imagined curriculum: who studies Computing and Information Technology subjects at the senior secondary level? /​ Margaret Vickers and My Trinh Ha
# 3. A question of attention: challenges for researching the under representation of girls in Computing and Information Technology subjects /​ Leonie Rowan
# 4. The nature and purpose of Computing and Information Technology subjects in the senior secondary school curriculum in New South Wales /​ Toni Downes
# 5. The social construction of Computing and Information Technology subject subculture /​ Catherine Harris
# 6. Boy nerds, girl nerds: constituting and negotiating Computing and Information Technology and peer groups as gendered subjects in schooling /​ Kerry Robinson and Cristyn Davies
# 7. CIT teachers' cultures in a globalising world /​ Carol Reid and Jose van der Akker
# 8. Perceptions of changing pedagogies in Computing and Information Technology /​ Susanne Gannon