A unified formalism for landmark based representation of maps and navigation plans

We present a unified formalism for representing maps and using them for constructing plans of navigation for an autonomous agent. The foundation of this work lies in addressing key questions that an agent is confronted with when navigating. That is, besides the main task of how to reach the intended destination from the current position, the agent faces other questions like: where am I? what landmarks can I see? where is my destination relative to me and the landmarks I am seeing? Fundamental to this representation is the use of visual landmarks, which are used as pivotal points in the landscape being described. Further, in the representation of spatial information and navigation there are three different viewpoints: first, the localized representation from the viewpoint of a sighted, mobile agent; second, the static representation seen by the map-maker; and third, the view of an external agent giving directions on the basis of his own experience/knowledge. The major contribution of this map model and the associated navigation method lies in the framework which unifies these three different points of view. This unification enables the agent to make no distinction in terms of following implicit instructions contained in a map and the directions given by external agents.

Evoked emotions : textual analysis within the context of pilgrimage tourism to Gallipoli

This chapter focuses on tourism from Australia to Gallipoli to attend Anzac Day commemorations. The research examines diary excerpts of tourists to Gallipoli using theory on emotions to gain insights into the consumption experience. We describe this tourist experience as a pilgrimage, as it is purposeful and is aimed at reaching a specific destination that has spiritual meaning for the consumer. We found that this tourist experience elicits both positively and negatively valanced emotions. The findings highlight that not all tourism experiences elicit hedonically related emotions; however, the outcome of the experience can be positive. Further research on emotions that explores this paradox between emotions in consumption and emotions in post-consumption will assist to understand the ways in which consumers process their emotions within this context.

Channel estimation of dual-hop MIMO relay system via parallel factor analysis

The optimal source precoding matrix and relay amplifying matrix have been developed in recent works on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay communication systems assuming that the instantaneous channel state information (CSI) is available. However, in practical relay communication systems, the instantaneous CSI is unknown, and therefore, has to be estimated at the destination node. In this paper, we develop a novel channel estimation algorithm for two-hop MIMO relay systems using the parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis. The proposed algorithm provides the destination node with full knowledge of all channel matrices involved in the communication. Compared with existing approaches, the proposed algorithm requires less number of training data blocks, yields smaller channel estimation error, and is applicable for both one-way and two-way MIMO relay systems with single or multiple relay nodes. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the PARAFAC-based channel estimation algorithm.

Solving the median shortest path problem in the planning and design of urban transportation networks using a vector labeling algorithm

This paper proposes an alternative algorithm to solve the median shortest path problem (MSPP) in the planning and design of urban transportation networks. The proposed vector labeling algorithm is based on the labeling of each node in terms of a multiple and conflicting vector of objectives which deletes cyclic, infeasible and extreme-dominated paths in the criteria space imposing cyclic break (CB), path cost constraint (PCC) and access cost parameter (ACP) respectively. The output of the algorithm is a set of Pareto optimal paths (POP) with an objective vector from predetermined origin to destination nodes. Thus, this paper formulates an algorithm to identify a non-inferior solution set of POP based on a non-dominated set of objective vectors that leaves the ultimate decision to decision-makers. A numerical experiment is conducted using an artificial transportation network in order to validate and compare results. Sensitivity analysis has shown that the proposed algorithm is more efficient and advantageous over existing solutions in terms of computing execution time and memory space used.

Creative conservation and Balinese traditional landscape : scenarios for eco city concepts and culturally sensitive tourism development

Bali is internationally recognized as an island possessing a beautiful natural landscape as well as a unique culture. The natural qualities of its mountains, lakes, rivers, rice terrace fields with subak irrigation make Bali an important tourism destination. Cultural Tourism is integral in Bali’s tourism industry providing the basic capital for development1. The social condition of this society that is strongly characterized by religious beliefs, and its nature and ecology also supports this. The conservation and maintenance of this traditional landscape is often forgotten because of government agendas to implement cultural city programs aimed at encouraging tourism development. Despite this, the government is now supporting the program of ‘Bali toward Garden Island’, which aims to sustain the physical and cultural environment of the island towards conservation of its landscape. The implementation of this program includes attention to universal, societal and cultural values as unity indicators, of which the landscape planning of the Balinese characteristics and traditions cannot be separated. Landscape planning is integral in this initiative of character defining the region.

Globalisation is increasingly becoming one of the most important discussions amongst the Balinese people. It has become a national concern about the changes implicating Bali’s environment. Urbanisation, population growth, ribbon development, migration and consumption of energy are important imperatives and necessary evils for growing cities. These imperatives are creating the sprawl of building planning, development information, loss of open spaces, as well as the decline of the identity of cities. Places such as Denpasar City are struggling with increasing population at a rate of 1.94% per year that is causing increase in housing and public facilities demanded by both residents and ex-patriates. Thus land associated with the city has been lost to the rapid development of this cultural landscape.

This paper examines the Balinese traditional landscape and its role in encouraging tourism development that based on the Balinese culture and its ecology. The paper focuses on the planning of city landscape appearance characteristics and seeks to test and adopt the terms ‘creative conservation’ and ‘eco city concept’. By conserving the most important philosophy of the Balinese Tri Hita Karana Concept will better inform all aspects of city development in Bali. This study seeks to offer guidance for the legitimate use of landscape planning especially for city development in Bali.

Can't sleep

A devised, alternative musical set in the future, the play charts the story of a group of scientists, who have been tasked with capturing light in deep space. The play’s premise is bound to a strong ideological question: Life After Death or Light After Death? While religions believe in, but cannot prove, ‘life after death’, science proves that there is ‘light after death’… Lotu then asks, what if light holds consciousness? And what if scientific technique could be developed to capture light and experiment on it? “Can’t Sleep” is a story that will trick you into believing that you have embarked on a journey into the absurd, only to reach the destination of a collective reality. Lotu Theatre was awarded a $15,000 Arts Project Grant from Regional Arts Victoria to create the play and to explore the process of professional artists development through the collaborative process.

Understanding aspirations and expectations of international students in Australian higher education

The aspirations and expectations of the growing international student cohort in Australia are implicitly incorporated into recruitment and internationalization strategies but have received little academic analysis. To address this gap in the literature, this paper develops a conceptual model built upon earlier research by Tim Mazzarol and Geoffrey Soutar, which focuses on the push and pull factors relating to home country and country of destination, respectively, in relation to students’ decisions to seek international study. Focusing predominantly on Chinese and Indian students, we conceptualize, extend and place the push and pull factors within a social psychological framework in relation to students’ aspirations and expectations of international education, indicating factors that can be influenced by higher education (HE) institutions and their programmes, and those which cannot. We then interrogate the model and its applicability in Australian HE through the case study of an Indian international Study Tour conducted in our Australian HE institution in 2009. In the present context of decreased international student enrolments in Australia in 2010, where we seek to better understand our international students, the proposed model provides a basis for identifying international students’ expectations and aspirations and developing prospective international relations.

First choice : early childhood

The report provides recommendations to inform the development of the DEECD First Choice: Early Childhood program through the identification and documentation of early childhood student teachers’ expectations and perceptions of their workforce destination after graduating with a teaching qualification that enables employment in both a primary school and an early childhood education and care setting. The focus is on understanding the reasons impacting on the choices and perceptions of early childhood student teachers as to their employment destination.

Robust channel estimation algorithm for dual-hop MIMO relay channels

In conventional two-phase channel estimation algorithms for dual-hop multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay systems, the relay-destination channel estimated in the first phase is used for the source-relay channel estimation in the second phase. For these algorithms, the mismatch between the estimated and the true relay-destination channel affects the accuracy of the source-relay channel estimation. In this paper, we investigate the impact of such channel state information (CSI) mismatch on the performance of the two-phase channel estimation algorithm. By explicitly taking into account the CSI mismatch, we develop a robust algorithm to estimate the source-relay channel. Numerical examples demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed algorithm. © 2012 IEEE.

Host cell remodelling and protein trafficking

Inside their respective vertebrate hosts, Plasmodium spp spend most of their life residing within hepatocytes and erythrocytes, with large-scale infection of the latter responsible for the clinical symptoms associated with malaria. These parasites extensively remodel these host cells for a variety of purposes relating to both pathogenesis and maintaining growth. Remodelling of the erythrocytic stage has been most intensively studied in P. falciparum and is the subject of this chapter. To help remodel their hosts these parasites export hundreds of proteins into the erythrocytic compartment. This principally alters the architecture of the erythrocyte, rendering the host membrane more permeable to solutes and nutrients, and also increasing the rigidity and adhesiveness of the infected erythrocyte. Moreover, because erythrocytes lack a secretory apparatus, the parasite must also export many additional proteins to help traffic other proteins to their correct destination within the host cell. The functions of some of these exported proteins will be discussed as will recent progress that has been made in unravelling how exported proteins gain access to the host compartment.

Fuzzy logic optimized wireless sensor network routing protocol

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used in health monitoring, tracking and security applications. Such networks transfer data from specific areas to a nominated destination. In the network, each sensor node acts as a routing element for other sensor nodes during the transmission of data. This can increase energy consumption of the sensor node. In this paper, we propose a routing protocol for improving network lifetime and performance. The proposed protocol uses type-2 fuzzy logic to minimize the effects of uncertainty produced by the environmental noise. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol performs better than a recently developed routing protocol in terms of extending network lifetime and saving energy and also reducing data packet lost.

Sexual abuse in 'Disgrace' and 'Cereus Blooms at Night': the case for hope

Abuse is rife in Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo. Sexual violence is in both narratives, part of their richly textured social, emotional and political worlds. Fiction involving various traumas seems bleak, almost hopeless, perhaps weighted by sadness. Yet both these novels, even through depictions of rupturing, disruptive rape, trigger a recognition of possibility and potential among characters and perhaps readers. It is in this open ended potential for betterment of some kind that hope lies. What is the nature of hope and to what extent is it present in these novels? In this paper, I explore the emotion of hope in relation to the notion of becoming as elaborated on by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari particularly in A Thousand Plateaus. They expound on Remy Chauvin‟s term “aparallel evolution” in relation to becoming (Deleuze and Guattari, 11). Deleuze also states that becoming is not a “phenomena of imitation or assimilation”. Rather, it is an encounter, “a double capture” (Deleuze and Parnet 2) between heterogeneous elements. There is no end or destination in becoming; it is constant change. I examine the transformative potential of becoming to elicit signs of hope in these novels. David Lurie, the self-absorbed womaniser and arguably rapist, becomes-dog by the end of Disgrace. How does this contribute to any sense of redemption and consequently hope? And how does hope emanate from the beaten, broken, brutally raped Mala Ramchandin in Cereus Blooms at Night? At heart, this paper is an acknowledgment of the unique relation literature has with life and the enriching insight that it may provide into the expression of hope.

Walkable area within which destinations matter : differences between Australian and Japanese cities

Adults’ walking for transport is important for health benefits and can be associated with availability of destinations such as shops and services within a walking distance of 10 to 15 minutes from home. However, relevant evidence is mostly from Western countries. This study examined associations of destinations with walking for transport in Australian and Japanese cities. Data were collected from Adelaide, Australia (n = 2508), and 4 Japanese cities (n = 1285). Logistic regressions examined associations of self-reported walking for transport with the number of destination types within walk-distance categories. Walking was significantly associated with the number of destination types within a 10-minute walk from home for Australia and with the number of destination types within a 6- to 20-minute walk for Japan. Further research is needed on why walking by residents of Japanese cities can be influenced by more distant local destinations than in Australia to inform physical activity–related environmental and policy initiatives.

Transiting with the environment: an exploration of traveller’s reorientations as creative and collaborative practice

Travellers undertake a process of reorientation and realignment that is particular to each destination. This process intensifies when travelling long distances across borders, cultures and climates, as travellers utilise performative, embodied and creative methods that respond to each new environment. Certain destinations, such as those with unique and extreme natural environments, induce a socio-cultural imaginary that primes travellers for what kind of experience they might have. Large, immersive landscapes and climates congeal with expectations of what each destination requires in order to navigate through it. Common bearings of distance and scale are skewed, as travellers are positioned within areas of vastness. In these moments immersive experiences contrast with daily processes, such as the act of packing a bag, as this heightened sensory awareness exacerbates the subtle material and spatial negotiations. Utilising interviews and photographic documentation of travellers to Iceland and Nepal, this paper develops the proposal that certain destinations intensify our attunement to these moments of reorientation, facilitating situated and creative methods.

As recent developments in the fields of mobilities and tourism draws attention to material interactions during travel, and current ‘new materialism’ movements in theory and practice reveal alternative affective methods of engagement, an exploration of interactions with/in immersive sites is needed in order to evaluate the potential that these kinds of transitions offer everyday experiences of movement. Nigel Thrift’s proposition of Non-Representational Theory provides clarity on the ways in which spatial awareness influences such transitions and environmental experiences. Using his acknowledgement of a more ontologically driven responsiveness to space, this permits a shift away from the presupposed containment of spaces as isolated destinations, toward a relational spatiality that encompasses all actors – including environments – as vital elements in the generative processes of situating our movements.

Creative strategies that afford sensory, aesthetic and embodied performances provide ways to examine these experiences, providing a multitude of possibilities as individual experiences shift towards collective and collaborative performances, as we are immersed within a range of human and non-human actors. This paper explores the transition away from ‘consuming’ environments, and advocates for the need to turn towards a situated collaboration with environments, propelling an awareness of sustainable and creative travel practices. An understanding of affirmative differences is required within travel cultures, rather than expressing transitions as confined within the ‘home’ versus ‘away’ dichotomy that lingers from elite western travel narratives. In order to undertake the many movements required, this paper draws on the theoretical approaches of sustainable nomadism as described by Rosi Braidotti to highlight the linkages of environmental and bodily experiences.

Through multidisciplinary literature, interviews and personal reflections, this paper proposes that certain destinations amplify processes of alignment with the environment, developing affective, embodied and situated experiences that overcome the human/non-human divide.

Ontogenetic development of migration : Lagrangian drift trajectories suggest a new paradigm for sea turtles

Long distance migration occurs in a wide variety of taxa including birds, insects, fishes, mammals and reptiles. Here, we provide evidence for a new paradigm for the determinants of migration destination. As adults, sea turtles show fidelity to their natal nesting areas and then at the end of the breeding season may migrate to distant foraging sites. For a major rookery in the Mediterranean, we simulated hatchling drift by releasing 288 000 numerical particles in an area close to the nesting beaches. We show that the pattern of adult dispersion from the breeding area reflects the extent of passive dispersion that would be experienced by hatchlings. Hence, the prevailing oceanography around nesting areas may be crucial to the selection of foraging sites used by adult sea turtles. This environmental forcing may allow the rapid evolution of new migration destinations if ocean currents alter with climate change.