Start Smart : QUT’s trial support program for commencing undergraduate students who have not completed year 12 in the past two years

Commencing students in undergraduate degrees who identify as mature age students experience particular issues when faced with enrolment into university as an adult learner (Bird & Morgan, 2003). In line with QUT’s commitment to “supporting all commencing students to adjust successfully to study at QUT by providing a strong transition experience” (QUT, 2008, 6.2.1), the Start Smart trial program was developed and implemented for Semester 1, 2012. The Start Smart trial program consists of an orientation event, wrapped around and supported by existing First Year Experience (FYE) and Retention strategies within QUT, namely the Student Success Program (SSP) and the Peer Programs Strategy (PPS). This report examines the motivations for designing a program as a response to the needs of a cohort that are unique amongst all commencing undergraduate students. Participants will be asked to consider the implications of delivering special and unique orientation events to specific cohorts, and the long term sustainability of such programs within their own university structures.

Smart grid-demand side response model for optimization air conditioning

The growing demand of air-conditioning is one of the largest contributors to Australia’s overall electricity consumption. This has started to create peak load supply problems for some electricity utilities particularly in Queensland. This research aimed to develop consumer demand side response model to assist electricity consumers to mitigate peak demand on the electrical network. The model developed demand side response model to allow consumers to manage and control air conditioning for every period, it is called intelligent control. This research investigates optimal response of end-user toward electricity price for several cases in the near future, such as: no spike, spike and probability spike price cases. The results indicate the potential of the scheme to achieve energy savings, reducing electricity bills (costs) to the consumer and targeting best economic performance for electrical generation distribution and transmission.

Editorial : promoting integrated development for smart and sustainable built environment

Purpose – This purpose of this paper is to introduce the new Smart and Sustainable Built Environment (SASBE) journal to readers by discussing the background and underlying principles of its establishment, the editorial visions, and the range of papers selected in this first issue. It will encourage readers and potential authors to consider the need for integrated approaches to sustainability problems, to take on emerging challenges in the built environment and to join the SASBE journal in finding and promoting optimum solutions. Design/methodology/approach – This paper explores the evolving nature of sustainability, the recent trends of sustainability endeavours in built environment and the current knowledge gaps. The need to bridge these gaps is then discussed in the context of suggested remedies and justifications. This leads to the development of a smart and sustainable built environment as a R&D philosophy for world researchers as part of their interactions with professional bodies and agencies such as CIB, UNEP and iiSBE, and the establishment of the SASBE journal. Findings – Sustainable development in the built environment requires holistic thinking and decision making and innovative solutions that enhance sustainability and result in mutually beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders. A dedicated forum, through the journal of SASBE, is much needed for the exploration, discussion, debate, and promotion of these integrated approaches. Originality/value – Through presenting an overview of the current issues and identifying gaps in the understanding and pursuit of sustainability in the built environment, this paper suggests potential areas for future research and practice as well as possible topics for authors to make new contributions.

Videogame control device impact on the play experience

New types of control devices for videogames have emerged and expanded the demographics of the game playing public, yet little is known about which populations of gamers prefer which style of interaction and why. This paper presents data from a study that seeks to clarify the influence the control interface has on the play experience. Three commercial control devices were categorised using an existing typology, according to how the interface maps physical control inputs with the virtual gameplay actions. The devices were then used in a within-groups experimental design aimed at measuring differences in play experience across 64 participants. Descriptive analysis is undertaken on the performance, play experience and preference results for each device. Potential explanations for these results are discussed, as well as the direction of future work.

Efficacy of oral or intrauterine device-delivered progestin in patients with complex endometrial hyperplasia with atypia or early endometrial adenocarcinoma : a meta-analysis and systematic review of the literature

Objectives: To investigate the efficacy of progestin treatment to achieve pathological complete response (pCR) in patients with complex atypical endometrial hyperplasia (CAH) or early endometrial adenocarcinoma (EC). Methods: A systematic search identified 3245 potentially relevant citations. Studies containing less than ten eligible CAH or EC patients in either oral or intrauterine treatment arm were excluded. Only information from patients receiving six or more months of treatment and not receiving other treatments was included. Weighted proportions of patients achieving pCR were calculated using R software. Results: Twelve studies met the selection criteria. Eleven studies reported treatment of patients with oral (219 patients, 117 with CAH, 102 with grade 1 Stage I EC) and one reported treatment of patients with intrauterine progestin (11 patients with grade 1 Stage IEC). Overall, 74% (95% confidence interval [CI] 65-81%) of patients with CAH and 72% (95% CI 62-80%) of patients with grade 1 Stage I EC achieved a pCR to oral progestin. Disease progression while on oral treatment was reported for 6/219 (2.7%), and relapse after initial complete response for 32/159 (20.1%) patients. The weighted mean pCR rate of patients with grade 1 Stage I EC treated with intrauterine progestin from one prospective pilot study and an unpublished retrospective case series from the Queensland Centre of Gynaecologic Oncology (QCGC) was 68% (95% CI 45- 86%). Conclusions: There is a lack of high quality evidence for the efficacy of progestin in CAH or EC. The available evidence however suggests that treatment with oral or intrauterine progestin is similarly effective. The risk of progression during treatment is small but longer follow-up is required. Evidence from prospective controlled clinical trials is warranted to establish how the efficacy of progestin for the treatment of CAH and EC can be improved further.

Intravascular device-related research : future priority areas for cancer nursing

The majority of cancer nurses have to manage intravascular devices (IVDs) on a daily basis, thus placing nurses in the strongest position to generate and use best available evidence to inform this area of practice and to ensure that patients are receiving the best care available. Our literature clearly reflects that cancer nurses are concerned about complications associated with IVDs (eg, extravasation,1 IVD-related bloodstream infection [IVD-BSI],2,3 and thrombosis4). Although enormous attention is given to this area, a number of nursing practices are not sufficiently based on empirical evidence.5,6 Nurses need to set goals and priorities for future research and investments. Priority areas for future research are suggested here for your consideration.

The smart skies project : enabling technologies for future airspace environments

This paper summarises the achievements of the Smart Skies Project, a three-year, multi-award winning international project that researched, developed and extensively flight tested four enabling aviation technologies: an electrooptical mid-air collision avoidance system, a static obstacle avoidance system, a mobile ground-based air traffic surveillance system, and a global automated airspace separation management system. The project included the development of manned and unmanned flight test aircraft, which were used to characterise the performance of the prototype systems for a range of realistic scenarios under a variety of environmental conditions. In addition to the collection of invaluable flight data, the project achieved world-firsts in the demonstration of future automated collision avoidance and separation management concepts. This paper summarises these outcomes, the overall objectives of the project, the research and the development of the prototype systems, the engineering of the flight test systems, and the results obtained from flight-testing.

Culture counts in making Chinese maths-smart

Chinese Australians consistently outperform their peers in mathematics and according to QUT researcher Michael Mu this is not only because of pushy parents or motivated students.

Smart demand side management of low-voltage distribution networks using multi-objective decision making

A novel intelligent online demand side management system is proposed for peak load management in low-voltage distribution networks. This method uses low-cost controllers with low-bandwidth two-way communication installed in custumers’ premises and at distribution transformers to manage the peak load while maximising customer satisfaction. A multi-objective decision making process is proposed to select the load(s) to be delayed or controlled. The efficacy of the proposed control system is verified by simulation of three different feeder types.

Context-aware device self-configuration using self-organizing maps

Modern mobile computing devices are versatile, but bring the burden of constant settings adjustment according to the current conditions of the environment. While until today, this task has to be accomplished by the human user, the variety of sensors usually deployed in such a handset provides enough data for autonomous self-configuration by a learning, adaptive system. However, this data is not fully available at certain points in time, or can contain false values. Handling potentially incomplete sensor data to detect context changes without a semantic layer represents a scientific challenge which we address with our approach. A novel machine learning technique is presented - the Missing-Values-SOM - which solves this problem by predicting setting adjustments based on context information. Our method is centered around a self-organizing map, extending it to provide a means of handling missing values. We demonstrate the performance of our approach on mobile context snapshots, as well as on classical machine learning datasets.

A prospective window into medical device-related pressure ulcers in intensive care

Objective: To determine the prevalence, severity, location, etiology, treatment, and healing of medical device-related pressure ulcers in intensive care patients for up to 7 days. Design: Prospective repeated measures study. Setting and participants: Patients in 6 intensive care units of 2 major medical centers, one each in Australia and the United States, were screened 1 day per month for 6 months. Those with device-related ulcers were followed daily up to 7 days. Outcome measures: Device-related ulcer prevalence, pain, infection, treatment, healing. Results: 15/483 patients had device-related ulcers and 9/15 with 11 ulcers were followed beyond screening. Their mean age was 60.5 years, most were men, over-weight, and at increased pressure ulcer risk. Endotracheal and nasogastric tubes were the cause of most device-related ulcers. Repositioning was the most frequent treatment. 4/11 ulcers healed within the 7 day observation period. Conclusion: Device-related ulcer prevalence was 3.1%, similar to that reported in the limited literature available, indicating an ongoing problem. Systematic assessment and repositioning of devices are the mainstays of care. We recommend continued prevalence determination and that nurses remain vigilant to prevent device-related ulcers, especially in patients with nasogastric and endotracheal tubes.

Multi-device key management using visual side channels in pervasive computing environments

In the modern connected world, pervasive computing has become reality. Thanks to the ubiquity of mobile computing devices and emerging cloud-based services, the users permanently stay connected to their data. This introduces a slew of new security challenges, including the problem of multi-device key management and single-sign-on architectures. One solution to this problem is the utilization of secure side-channels for authentication, including the visual channel as vicinity proof. However, existing approaches often assume confidentiality of the visual channel, or provide only insufficient means of mitigating a man-in-the-middle attack. In this work, we introduce QR-Auth, a two-step, 2D barcode based authentication scheme for mobile devices which aims specifically at key management and key sharing across devices in a pervasive environment. It requires minimal user interaction and therefore provides better usability than most existing schemes, without compromising its security. We show how our approach fits in existing authorization delegation and one-time-password generation schemes, and that it is resilient to man-in-the-middle attacks.

A simulation framework for smart meter security evaluation

The evolution of classic power grids to smart grids creates chances for most participants in the energy sector. Customers can save money by reducing energy consumption, energy providers can better predict energy demand and environment benefits since lower energy consumption implies lower energy production including a decrease of emissions from plants. But information and communication systems supporting smart grids can also be subject to classical or new network attacks. Attacks can result in serious damage such as harming privacy of customers, creating economical loss and even disturb the power supply/demand balance of large regions and countries. In this paper, we give an overview about the German smart measuring architecture, protocols and security. Afterwards, we present a simulation framework which enables researchers to analyze security aspects of smart measuring scenarios.

Overvoltage prevention in LV smart grid using customer resources coordination

Voltage rise is one of the main factors which limits the capacity of Low Voltage (LV) network to accommodate more Renewable Energy (RE) sources. This paper proposes a robust and effective approach to coordinate customers’ resources and manage voltage rise in residential LV networks. PV is considered as the customer RE source. The suggested coordination approach in this paper includes both localized control strategy, based on local measurement, and distributed control strategy based on consensus algorithm. This approach can completely avoid maximum permissible voltage limit violation. A typical residential LV network is used as the case study where the simulated results are shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.