The “inclusion” of students with vision impairments: generational perspectives in Australia

In this paper I draw upon findings of a recent qualitative project conducted in Queensland, Australia in which all actors – the researcher and 5 participants aged 13-17 years — were linked together by our shared experiences of being students with impaired vision (VI) and who were educated in inclusive secondary schools in Australia during the last two decades. The narrative demonstrates the alienating legacy of two everyday routines of schooling, the placement and the daily commute. In the paper I show how referential knowledge acquisition of a trans-identity research alliance can reveal barriers to inclusion that might be ordinarily overlooked. Theoretically I map the research relationship formed between myself and participants using both Foucault’s analysis of how human beings are made subjects (1982) and Bourdieu’s understanding of reflexive interviewing in qualitative research (1998). The empirical contribution of this paper is to demonstrate how special education discourses render subjects more “special” than the sum of their actual impairments, and methodologically to highlight the role of qualitative inquiry in the field of inclusive schooling.

PPFSCADA: Privacy preserving framework for SCADA data publishing

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems control and monitor industrial and critical infrastructure functions, such as electricity, gas, water, waste, railway, and traffic. Recent attacks on SCADA systems highlight the need for stronger SCADA security. Thus, sharing SCADA traffic data has become a vital requirement in SCADA systems to analyze security risks and develop appropriate security solutions. However, inappropriate sharing and usage of SCADA data could threaten the privacy of companies and prevent sharing of data. In this paper, we present a privacy preserving strategy-based permutation technique called PPFSCADA framework, in which data privacy, statistical properties and data mining utilities can be controlled at the same time. In particular, our proposed approach involves: (i) vertically partitioning the original data set to improve the performance of perturbation; (ii) developing a framework to deal with various types of network traffic data including numerical, categorical and hierarchical attributes; (iii) grouping the portioned sets into a number of clusters based on the proposed framework; and (iv) the perturbation process is accomplished by the alteration of the original attribute value by a new value (clusters centroid). The effectiveness of the proposed PPFSCADA framework is shown through several experiments on simulated SCADA, intrusion detection and network traffic data sets. Through experimental analysis, we show that PPFSCADA effectively deals with multivariate traffic attributes, producing compatible results as the original data, and also substantially improving the performance of the five supervised approaches and provides high level of privacy protection. © 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mobile phone app aimed at improving iron intake and bioavailability in premenopausal women: a qualitative evaluation

BACKGROUND: Low iron intake can lead to iron deficiency, which can result in impaired health and iron-deficiency anemia. A mobile phone app, combining successful dietary strategies to increase bioavailable iron with strategies for behavior change, such as goal setting, monitoring, feedback, and resources for knowledge acquisition, was developed with the aim to increase bioavailable iron intake in premenopausal women.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the content, usability, and acceptability of a mobile phone app designed to improve intake of bioavailable dietary iron.

METHODS: Women aged 18-50 years with an Android mobile phone were invited to participate. Over a 2-week period women were asked to interact with the app. Following this period, semistructured focus groups with participants were conducted. Focus groups were audio recorded and analyzed via an inductive open-coding method using the qualitative analysis software NVivo 10. Themes were identified and frequency of code occurrence was calculated.

RESULTS: Four focus groups (n=26) were conducted (age range 19-36 years, mean 24.7, SD 5.2). Two themes about the app's functionality were identified (frequency of occurrence in brackets): interface and design (134) and usability (86). Four themes about the app's components were identified: goal tracker (121), facts (78), photo diary (40), and games (46). A number of suggestions to improve the interface and design of the app were provided and will inform the ongoing development of the app.

CONCLUSIONS: This research indicates that participants are interested in iron and their health and are willing to use an app utilizing behavior change strategies to increase intake of bioavailable iron. The inclusion of information about the link between diet and health, monitoring and tracking of the achievement of dietary goals, and weekly reviews of goals were also seen as valuable components of the app and should be considered in mobile health apps aimed at adult women.

An analysis on the utilisation of health information technology to support clinical operation of chinese medicine

Chinese Medicine (CM) has become increasingly demanding globally. Recent World Health Organisation traditional and complementary medicine strategy of integrating CM to Western Medicine (WM) indicates that it is crucial that CM developments have strong literature, scientific, and evidence-based medical approval and support. To achieve this, there is a need to form a synthesis foundation or platform for future studies. This chapter serves to discover this synthesis that is suitable for CM by discussing the basics of inquiring and Knowledge Management (KM) systems. It suggests that CM should follow a combination of Hegelian and Kantian inquiring systems with the support of Singerian and Leibnizian inquiring systems and KM features. This proposed synthesis is one of the first, if not the first study to apply Churchman's inquiring systems into the context of CM and differentiate them from WM.

Field ‘work’ vs ‘feel’ trip : approaches to out-of-class experiences in geography education

Fieldwork is viewed as integral to geography teaching and acclaimed benefits often include holistic, student-driven learning, where all the senses are engaged and the impacts are more than cognitive. While these benefits are often assumed, in this paper, I argue that geography fieldwork in schools is often teacher-led and focused on the intellectual task of knowledge acquisition and skill development. Based on a qualitative content analysis of examples of fieldwork in a state geography teachers’ journal, I assert that the affective and sensory dimensions, are often used to promote the benefits of fieldwork, but seldom explicitly addressed through fieldwork pedagogy and learning activities in school geography. I contend that this is a missed opportunity for a deeper, more embodied and critical engagement with, and response to, the places visited.

Cost and feasibility of a barrier to halt the spread of invasive cane toads in arid Australia: incorporating expert knowledge into model-based decision-making

1. Active engagement with practitioners is a crucial component of model-based decision-making in conservation management; it can assist with data acquisition, improve models and help narrow the 'knowing-doing' gap.
2. We worked with practitioners of one of the worst invasive species in Australia, the cane toad Rhinella marina, to revise a model that estimates the effectiveness of landscape barriers to contain spread. The original model predicted that the invasion could be contained by managing artificial watering points on pastoral properties, but was initially met with scepticism by practitioners, in part due to a lack of engagement during model development.
3. We held a workshop with practitioners and experts in cane toad biology. Using structured decision-making, we elicited concerns about the original model, revised its structure, updated relevant input data, added an economic component and found the most cost-effective location for a barrier across a range of fixed budgets and management scenarios. We then conducted scenario analyses to test the sensitivity of management decisions to model revisions.
4. We found that toad spread could be contained for all of the scenarios tested. Our modelling suggests a barrier could cost $4·5 M (2015 AUD) over 50 years for the most likely landscape scenario. The incorporation of practitioner knowledge into the model was crucial. As well as improving engagement, when we incorporated practitioner concerns (particularly regarding the effects of irrigation and dwellings on toad spread), we found a different location for the optimal barrier compared to a previously published study (Tingley et al. 2013).
5. Synthesis and applications. Through engagement with practitioners, we turned an academic modelling exercise into a decision-support tool that integrated local information, and considered more realistic scenarios and constraints. Active engagement with practitioners led to productive revisions of a model that estimates the effectiveness of a landscape barrier to contain spread of the invasive cane toad R. marina. Benefits also include greater confidence in model predictions, improving our assessment of the cost and feasibility of containing the spread of toads.

Email and knowledge creation: supporting inquiring systems and enhancing wisdom

The real promise of organizational communication technologies may lie in their potential to facilitate participative discourse between knowledge workers at all levels in distributed locations and time zones. Such discourse enables the exchange of sometimes conflicting viewpoints through which resolution and symbiosis, organizational knowledge can be built. This chapter presents a case study of a Singerian inquiring organization which illustrates how afluid dynamic community of employees can use email to build knowledge, learn, make decisions, and enhance wisdom through a cycle of knowledge combination (divergence) and knowledge qualification (convergence). The chapter offers new theoretical perspectives on the enhancement of wisdom in inquiring organizations and provides practical insights into the use of email for supporting effective knowledge creation in inquiring organizations.

Knowledge transfer in enterprise information technology support using web-based self-service systems

This paper explores Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in the transfer
of after-sales support-oriented knowledge from Information Technology (IT)
support organisations to enterprise customers, using Web-based self-service Systems (WSS). As it appears that best-in-class companies are ahead of the academic work in this area, we approached the topic through an exploratory CSF study of a best-in-class multinational IT services firm and identified 26 CSFs. Key findings from the study indicate that best-in-class IT service organisations may be cognisant of a range of factors relating to supporting customers, but are less aware of what is needed to support their own frontline support agents. Such organisations also lack an understanding of what is needed to provide enterprise support in the later stages of knowledge transfer, where enterprise customers can experience problems attempting to integrate resolutions. The study further showed that many aspects that might be characterised as encompassing socio-technical issues relating to the provision of web-based self-service are still poorly understood.

A logical framework for knowledge sharing in multi-agent systems

The issue of knowledge sharing has been an important topic in multi-agent research. Knowledge sharing leads to that agents analyze, judge and synthesize the told information so as to make agents’ own knowledge. To match these applications, this paper builds a logical framework for knowledge sharing among agents. We develop a multimodal logic for reasoning about both agents’ knowledge and told information. For formalizing the relationship between knowledge and told information, we present a framework of semantics, with respect to which a sound and complete proof theory is given.

'The witness who saw, /He left little doubt' : a comparative consideration of expert testimony in mental disability law cases in common and civil law systems

The question of how courts assess expert evidence - especially when mental disability is an issue - raises the corollary question of whether courts adequately evaluate the content of the expert testimony or whether judicial decision making may be influenced by teleology (cherry picking evidence), pretextuality (accepting experts who distort evidence to achieve socially desirable aims), and/or sanism (allowing prejudicial and stereotyped evidence). Such threats occur despite professional standards in forensic psychology and other mental health disciplines that require ethical expert testimony. The result is expert testimony that, in many instances, is at best incompetent and at worst biased. The paper details threats to competent expert testimony in a comparative law context - in both the common law (involuntary civil commitment laws and risk assessment criminal laws) and, more briefly, civil law. We conclude that teleology, pretextuality, and sanism have an impact upon judicial decision making in both the common law and civil law. Finally, we speculate as to whether the new United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is likely to have any impact on practices in this area. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Management control systems and effectiveness of knowledge sharing

Numerous empirical studies on knowledge management have examined the relative effectiveness of various enablers, such as organizational structure (Bennett and Gabriel, 1999; Gold et aI., 2001), technology (Gold et aI., 2001; O'Dell and Grayson, 1998), culture (DeLong and Fahey, 2000; Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000), managerial system (Nonaka, 1994; Sveiby, 1997) and strategy (Bierly and Chakrabarti, 1996; Holsapple and Joshi, 2001) on knowledge creation and sharing in organizations. Little research has focused on the role of management control systems (MCS) in facilitating knowledge sharing in knowledge-intensive firms (Ditillo, 2004). This study examines how the interactive use of management control systems (MCS) could facilitate the different modes of knowledge sharing among accounting professionals in Malaysia. Based on Nonaka's (1994) knowledge sharing mode, this study found a highly significant relationship between an interactive use of MCS and knowledge sharing to suggest that a more open, less fmancial-oriented and more interactive type of MCS tends to interlink and underpin organizational social process which is the central part of the knowledge sharing process. While professional accountants are generally keen to gain access to knowledge databases to source for possible task solutions, they are generally hesitant to share their tacit knowledge by transforming that knowledge into explicit form. The fmding suggests that there may be cultural-related factors that inhibit sharing of one's tacit knowledge totally and completely.