Improved design rules for cold-formed steel columns

Current design rules for determining the member strength of cold-formed steel columns are based on the effective length of the member and a single column capacity curve for both pin-ended and fixed-ended columns. This research has reviewed the use of AS/NZS 4600 design rules for their accuracy in determining the member compression capacities of slender cold-formed steel columns using detailed numerical studies. It has shown that AS/NZS 4600 design rules accurately predicted the capacities of pinned and fixed ended columns undergoing flexural buckling. However, for fixed ended columns undergoing flexural-torsional buckling, it was found that current AS/NZS 4600 design rules did not include the beneficial effect of warping fixity. Therefore AS/NZS 4600 design rules were found to be excessively conservative and hence uneconomical in predicting the failure loads obtained from tests and finite element analyses of fixed-ended lipped channel columns. Based on this finding, suitable recommendations have been made to modify the current AS/NZS 4600 design rules to more accurately reflect the results obtained from the numerical and experimental studies conducted in this research. This paper presents the details of this research on cold-formed steel columns and the results.

Improved design rules for fixed ended cold-formed steel columns subject to flexural-torsional buckling

This paper has presented the details of an investigation into the flexural and flexuraltorsional buckling behaviour of cold-formed structural steel columns with pinned and fixed ends. Current design rules for the member capacities of cold-formed steel columns are based on the same non-dimensional strength curve for both fixed and pinned-ended columns. This research has reviewed the accuracy of the current design rules in AS/NZS 4600 and the North American Specification in determining the member capacities of cold-formed steel columns using the results from detailed finite element analyses and an experimental study of lipped channel columns. It was found that the current Australian and American design rules accurately predicted the member capacities of pin ended lipped channel columns undergoing flexural and flexural torsional buckling. However, for fixed ended columns with warping fixity undergoing flexural-torsional buckling, it was found that the current design rules significantly underestimated the column capacities as they disregard the beneficial effect of warping fixity. This paper has therefore proposed improved design rules and verified their accuracy using finite element analysis and test results of cold-formed lipped channel columns made of three cross-sections and five different steel grades and thicknesses.

Improved shear design rules for lipped channel beams with web openings

Cold-formed steel Lipped Channel Beams (LCB) with web openings are commonly used as floor joists and bearers in building structures. The shear behaviour of these beams is more complicated and their shear capacities are considerably reduced by the presence of web openings. However, limited research has been undertaken on the shear behaviour and strength of LCBs with web openings. Hence a detailed numerical study was undertaken to investigate the shear behaviour and strength of LCBs with web openings. Finite element models of simply supported LCBs under a mid-span load with aspect ratios of 1.0 and 1.5 were developed and validated by comparing their results with test results. They were then used in a detailed parametric study to investigate the effects of various influential parameters. Experimental and numerical results showed that the current design rules in cold-formed steel structures design codes are very conservative. Improved design equations were therefore proposed for the shear strength of LCBs with web openings based on both experimental and numerical results. This paper presents the details of finite element modelling of LCBs with web openings, validation of finite element models, and the development of improved shear design rules. The proposed shear design rules in this paper can be considered for inclusion in the future versions of cold-formed steel design codes.

Offers to settle - by the rules

In Balnaves v Smith [2012] QSC 408 Byrne SJA concluded that an offer to settle could be an “offer to settle” under Chapter 9 Part 5 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld) (UCPR) despite the inclusion of non-monetary terms. His Honour took a different approach to that taken by Moynihan SJA in Taske v Occupational & Medical Innovations Ltd [2007] QSC 147.

Proposed REDD+ project for the Sundarbans : legal and institutional issues

Sundarbans, a Ramsar and World Heritage site, is the largest single block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world covering parts of Bangladesh and India. Natural mangroves were very common along the entire coast of Bangladesh. However, all other natural mangrove forests, including the Chakaria Sundarbans with 21,000 hectares of mangrove, have been cleared for shrimp cultivation. Against this backdrop, the Forest Department of Bangladesh has developed project design documents for a project called ‘Collaborative REDD+ Improved Forest Management (IFM) Sundarbans Project’ (CRISP) to save the only remaining natural mangrove forest of the country. This project, involving conservation of 412,000 ha of natural mangrove forests, is expected to generate, over a 30-year period, a total emissions reduction of about 6.4 million tons of CO2. However, the successful implementation of this project involves a number of critical legal and institutional issues. It may involve complex legal issues such as forest ownership, forest use rights, rights of local people and carbon rights. It may also involve institutional reforms. Ensuring good governance of the proposed project is very vital considering the failure of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded and Bangladesh Forest Department managed ‘Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project’. Considering this previous experience, this paper suggests that a comprehensive legal and institutional review and reform is needed for the successful implementation of the proposed CRISP project. This paper argues that without ensuring local people’s rights and their participation, no project can be successful in the Sundarbans. Moreover, corruption of local and international officials may be a serious hurdle in the successful implementation of the project.

Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments : are the rules appropriate?

The recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments is an aspect of private international law, and concerns situations where a successful party to litigation seeks to rely on a judgment obtained in one court, in a court in another jurisdiction. The most common example where the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments may arise is where a party who has obtained a favourable judgment in one state or country may seek to recognise and enforce the judgment in another state or country. This occurs because there is no sufficient asset in the state or country where the judgment was rendered to satisfy that judgment. As technological advancements in communications over vast geographical distances have improved exponentially in recent years, there has been an increase in cross-border transactions, as well as litigation arising from these transactions. As a result, the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments is of increasing importance, since a party who has obtained a judgment in cross-border litigation may wish to recognise and enforce the judgment in another state or country, where the defendant’s assets may be located without having to re-litigate substantive issues that have already been resolved in another court. The purpose of the study is to examine whether the current state of laws for the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Australia, the United States and the European Community are in line with modern-commercial needs. The study is conducted by weighing two competing objectives between the notion of finality of litigation, which encourages courts to recognise and enforce judgments foreign to them, on the one hand, and the adequacy of protection to safeguard the recognition and enforcement proceedings, so that there would be no injustice or unfairness if a foreign judgment is recognised and enforced, on the other. The findings of the study are as follows. In both Australia and the United States, there is a different approach concerning the recognition and enforcement of judgments rendered by courts interstate or in a foreign country. In order to maintain a single and integrated nation, there are constitutional and legislative requirements authorising courts to give conclusive effects to interstate judgments. In contrast, if the recognition and enforcement actions involve judgments rendered by a foreign country’s court, an Australian or a United States court will not recognise and enforce the foreign judgment unless the judgment has satisfied a number of requirements and does not fall under any of the exceptions to justify its non-recognition and non-enforcement. In the European Community, the Brussels I Regulation which governs the recognition and enforcement of judgments among European Union Member States has created a scheme, whereby there is only a minimal requirement that needs to be satisfied for the purposes of recognition and enforcement. Moreover, a judgment that is rendered by a Member State and based on any of the jurisdictional bases set forth in the Brussels I Regulation is entitled to be recognised and enforced in another Member State without further review of its underlying jurisdictional basis. However, there are concerns as to the adequacy of protection available under the Brussels I Regulation to safeguard the judgment-enforcing Member States, as well as those against whom recognition or enforcement is sought. This dissertation concludes by making two recommendations aimed at improving the means by which foreign judgments are recognised and enforced in the selected jurisdictions. The first is for the law in both Australia and the United States to undergo reform, including: adopting the real and substantial connection test as the new jurisdictional basis for the purposes of recognition and enforcement; liberalising the existing defences to safeguard the application of the real and substantial connection test; extending the application of the Foreign Judgments Act 1991 (Cth) in Australia to include at least its important trading partners; and implementing a federal statutory scheme in the United States to govern the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. The second recommendation is to introduce a convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. The convention will be a convention double, which provides uniform standards for the rules of jurisdiction a court in a contracting state must exercise when rendering a judgment and a set of provisions for the recognition and enforcement of resulting judgments.

The institutional limits to, and possibility of, understanding young people diagnosed with 'mental disorders', within inclusive teacher-student relationships

A persistent pattern of exclusion of young people with ‘mental disorders’ from school systems, despite the best intentions of schools and teachers, has prompted a call for a more reflexive understanding of their behaviours. This thesis, by describing how institutionally recognised ways of understanding can result in otherwise avoidable moral collisions and exclusion, produces new insights into the nature and processes of understanding required to promote inclusion. These insights were produced through an intensive qualitative examination of a violent classroom episode, identifying key points in the interaction that could make the difference between misrecognition and recognition, turning exclusion into inclusion.

Institutional perspectives on operationalising climate adaptation through planning

Adaptation to climate change is an imperative and an institutional challenge. This paper argues that the operationalisation of climate adaptation is a crucial element of a comprehensive response to the impacts of climate change on human settlements, including major cities and metropolitan areas. In this instance, the operationalisation of climate adaptation refers to climate adaptation becoming institutionally codified and implemented through planning policies and objectives, making it a central tenet of planning governance. This paper has three key purposes. First, it develops conceptual understandings of climate adaptation as an institutional challenge. Second, it identifies the intersection of this problem with planning and examines how planning regimes, as institutions, can better manage stress created by climate change impacts in human settlements. Third, it reports empirical findings focused on how the metro-regional planning regime in Southeast Queensland (SEQ), Australia, has institutionally responded to the challenge of operationalising climate adaptation. Drawing on key social scientific theories of institutionalism, it is argued that the success or failure of the SEQ planning regime's response to the imperative of climate adaptation is contingent on its ability to undergo institutional change. It is further argued that a capacity for institutional change is heavily conditioned by the influence of internal and external pathways and barriers to change, which facilitate or hinder change processes. The paper concludes that the SEQ metro-regional planning regime has undergone some institutional change but has not yet undergone change sufficient to fully operationalise climate adaptation as a central tenet of planning governance in the region.

Responding to a transformative stressor : climate change and the institutional governance of Australian cities

This paper understands climate change as a transformative stressor that will prompt responses from institutional governance frameworks in Australian cities. A transformative stressor is characterised as a chronic large-scale phenomenon which triggers a process of institutional change whereby institutions seek to reorientate their activities to better manage the social, economic and environmental impacts created by the transformative dynamic. It is posited that institutional change will be required as Australian metropolitan institutional governance frameworks seek to manage climate change effects in urban environments. It is argued that improved operationalisation of adaptation is required as part of a comprehensive urban response to the transformative stresses climate change and its effects are predicted to create in Australian cities. The operationalisation of adaptation refers to adaptation becoming incorporated, codified and implemented as a central principle of metro-regional planning governance. This paper has three key purposes. First, it examines theoretical and conceptual understandings of the role of transformative stressors in compelling institutional change within urban settings. Second, it establishes a conceptual approach that understands climate change as a transformative stressor requiring institutional change within the metropolitan planning frameworks of Australia's cities. Third, it offers early results and conclusions from an empirical investigation into the current prospects for operationalisation of climate adaptation in planning programs within Southeast Queensland (SEQ) via changes to institutional governance. A significant emerging conclusion is that early climate stresses appear not to be leading to episodic institutional change in the metropolitan planning frameworks of SEQ.

Operationalising climate adaptation through institutional change : conceptual and empirical insights

Adaptation is increasingly understood as a necessary response in respect of climate change impacts on urban settlements. Australia is heavily urbanised and climate change is likely to impact severely on its urban environments. Accordingly, climate adaptation must become a key component of urban management. This paper is part of a wider project and reports early insights into the problem of how adaptation may be institutionally operationalised within a planning regime. In this instance, the operationalisation of adaptation refers to adaptation becoming incorporated, codified and implemented as a central principle of planning governance. This paper has three key purposes: first, to set out a conceptual approach to climate adaptation as an institutional challenge; second, to identify the intersection of this problem with planning; third, to report on an on-going empirical investigation in Southeast Queensland (SEQ). Informed by key social scientific theories of institutionalism, this paper develops a conceptual framework that understands the metro-regional planning system of SEQ as an institutional regime capable of undergoing a process of change to respond to the adaptation imperative. It is posited that the success or failure of the SEQ regime’s response to the adaptation imperative is contingent on its ability to undergo institutional change. A capacity for change in this regard is understood to be subject to the influence of various internal and external barriers and pathways that promote or hinder processes of institutional change. Specific attention is paid to the role of ‘storylines’ in facilitating or blocking institutional change.

A Critical Perspective of the Indonesian Institutional Framework for PPP Toll Roads

The development of toll roads in Indonesia started around 1978. Initially, the management and development of toll roads sat directly under the Government of Indonesia (GoI) being undertaken through PT JasaMarga, a state owned enterprise specifically established to provide toll roads. Due to the slow growth and low capability of toll roads to fulfil infrastructure needs in the first ten years of operation (only 2.688kms/year), GoI changed its strategy in 1989 to one of using private sector participation for roads delivery through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. In this latter period, PT JasaMarga had two roles, both as regulator on behalf of the private sector as well as being the operator. However, from 1989 to 2004 the growth rate of toll roads actually decreased further to 2.300kms/year. Facing this challenge of low growth rate of toll roads, in 2004GoI changed the toll road management system and the role of regulator was returned to the Government through the establishment of the Toll Road Regulatory Agency (BPJT). GoI also amended the institutional framework to strengthen the toll road management system. Despite the introduction of this new institutional framework, the growth of toll roads still showed insignificant change. This problem in toll road development has generated an urgent need for research into this issue. The aim of the research is to understand the performance of the new institutional framework in enhancing PPP procured toll road development. The methodology of the research was to undertake a questionnaire survey distributed to private sector respondents involved in toll road development. The results of this study show that there are several problems inherent in the institutional framework, but the most significant problem comes from the uncertainty of the function of the strategic executive body in the land expropriation process.

Patellar tendon ultrasonography in asymptomatic active athletes reveals hypoechoic regions : a study of 320 tendons

OBJECTIVE: To compare patellar tendon sonographic findings in active, currently asymptomatic, elite athletes with those in nonathletic controls. DESIGN: Cross-sectional cohort study with convenience control sample. SETTING: The Victorian Institute of Sport Tendon Study Group, an institutional elite athlete study group in Australia. PATIENTS AND PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred elite male and female athletes from the sports of basketball, cricket, netball, and Australian rules football. Forty athletes who had current symptoms of jumper's knee were excluded from analysis, leaving 320 subject tendons in athletes who were currently asymptomatic. Twenty-seven nonathletic individuals served as controls. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Sonographic patellar tendon appearance. We measured the dimensions of subject tendons and noted the presence or absence of hypoechoic regions and tendon calcification. Dimensions of hypoechoic regions were measured, and approximate cross-sectional areas were calculated. Chi-squared analysis was used to test the prevalence of hypoechoic regions in subjects and controls and men and women. RESULTS: In currently asymptomatic subjects, hypoechoic regions were more prevalent in athlete tendons (22%) than in controls (4%), in male subject tendons (30%) than in female subjects (14%), and in basketball players (32%) than in other athletes (9%) (all p < 0.01). Bilateral tendon abnormalities were equally prevalent in men and women but more prevalent in basketball players (15%) than in other athletes (3%) (p < 0.05). Sonographic hypoechoic regions were present in 35 of 250 (14%) patellar tendons in athletes who had never had anterior knee pain. CONCLUSIONS: Patellar tendon sonographic hypoechoic areas were present in asymptomatic patellar tendons of a proportion of elite athletes but rarely present in controls. This has implications for clinicians managing athletes with anterior knee pain.

Career implications of multi-layered institutional settings

Project work has grown significantly in volume and recognition in recent decades as projects have ‘become a common form of work organization in all sectors of the economy’ (Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006: 841). This increase in project-based work is just one of the many changes that have been affecting the nature of work, the employment relationship and the associated conceptualization and experience of careers (Baruch, 2004b; Söderlund & Bredin, 2006). A career can be defined as a process of development along a path of work experience and roles in one or more organizations (Baruch & Rosenstein, 1992), and careers involving project-based work take place within multi layered institutional settings. Projects are generally undertaken by small temporary organizations (Ekstedt, Lundin, Söderholm & Wirdenius, 1999; Pettigrew, 2003; Söderlund, 2012) which in turn may form part of larger, permanent entities; involve people drawn from a number of disciplines and organizations; or be formed as partnerships, joint ventures or strategic alliances between two or more organizations (Scott, 2007).

It takes more than good intentions : institutional and attitudinal impediments to engaging young people in participatory planning

While participatory processes have become an important part of planning, young people are a particularly vulnerable group in terms of potential marginalisation and exclusion from effective participation. Including the views of young people in participatory planning is not simply a matter of bringing them into existing processes. Instead, participatory processes must find ways to integrate and accommodate their needs and ways of expressing their views. Without these adjustments young people may simply move from being kept outside the planning process to a situation where, although they are formally included, their claims are not taken seriously and they are not treated with equal respect. In this paper we reflect on the success of a community advisory committee, formed to consider water planning issues, in integrating the views of young people into their deliberations. Using Iris Marion Young’s (1995) ideas of communicative democracy we highlight the challenges and opportunities presented by this participatory approach, as articulated by both the young people involved and the adult participants. We specifically consider how the elements of greeting, rhetoric and narrative were reflected in the committee process. We argue that both planners and adult participants need to ensure that participatory processes allow for the equal engagement of all participants and place equal value on their contributions. Our research shows that this involves both an institutional and attitudinal commitment to include the views of young people. The institutional commitment requires young people to be included in processes and for their involvement to be supported. However, the attitudinal commitment it is equally important and requires that adult participants be prepared not only to accept the views of younger participants but to actively encourage and support their full participation.

The cultural impact of institutional remix : the formalisation of textual reappropriation within the ABC

In 2009, Mark Deuze proposed an updated approach to media studies to incorporate ‘media life’, a concept he suggests addresses the invisibleness of ubiquitous media. Media life provides a useful lens for researchers to understand the human condition in media and not with media. At a similar time, public service media (PSM) strategies have aligned audience participation with the so‐called Reithian trinity which suggest the PSB should inform, educate and entertain while performing its core values of public service broadcasting (Enli 2008). Remix within the PSM institution relies on audience participation, employing ‘the people formerly known as the audience’ (Rosen 2006) as cultural artifact producers, and draws on their experience from within the media. Remix as a practice then enables us to examine the shift of the core PSM values by understanding how audience participation, informed by a human condition mobilised from our existence of being in media and not merely with media. However, remix within PSM challenges the once elitist construction of meaning models with an egalitarian approach towards socially reappropriated texts, questioning its affect on the cultural landscape. This paper draws on three years of ethnographic data from within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), exploring the remix culture of ABC Pool. ABC Pool operates under a Creative Commons licensing regime to enable remix practice under the auspices of the ABC. ABC Pool users provide a useful group of remix practitioners to examine as they had access to a vast ABC archival collection and were invited to remix those cultural artefacts, often adding cultural and fiscal value. This paper maintains a focus on the audience participation within PSM through remix culture by applying media dependency theory to remix as cultural practice and calls to expand and update the societal representation within the ABC.