Disposable maps : ad hoc location sharing

The gathering of people in everyday life is intertwined with travelling to negotiated locations. As a result, mobile phones are often used to rearrange meetings when one or more participants are late or cannot make it on time. Our research is based on the hypothesis that the provision of location data can enhance the experience of people who are meeting each other in different locations. This paper presents work-in-progress on a novel approach to share one’s location data in real-time which is visualised on a web-based map in a privacy conscious way. Disposable Maps allows users to select contacts from their phone’s address book who then receive up-to-date location data. The utilisation of peer-to-peer notifications and the application of unique URLs for location storage and presentation enable location sharing whilst ensuring users’ location privacy. In contrast to other location sharing services like Google Latitude, Disposable Maps enables ad hoc location sharing to actively selected location receivers for a fixed period of time in a specific given situation. We present first insights from an initial application user test and show future work on the approach of disposable information allocation.

Public awareness of ‘green’ residential property – an empirical survey based on data from New Zealand and Germany

Over the last few years more stringent environmental laws (e.g. the German “Energie¬ein-sparverordnung ENEV” - Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) and soaring energy prices has increased the need for the real estate industry to react and participate in overall energy reduction through efficient house construction and design, as well as upgrading the existing housing stock to be more energy efficient. Therefore the Property Economics Group at Queensland University of Technology in Australia and Nuertingen-Geislingen University in Germany are carrying out research in relation to sustainable housing construction and public awareness of “green” residential property. Part of this research is to gain an understanding of the level of knowledge and importance of these issues to the house buyer and to determine the importance of sustainable housing to the general public. The paper compares data from two different empirical studies; one of studies analyzes the situation in New Zealand, the other is focused on Germany.

Which way up? Reading and drawing maps of the blogosphere

Mapping the physical world, the arrangement of continents and oceans, cities and villages, mountains and deserts, while not without its own contentious aspects, can at least draw upon centuries of previous work in cartography and discovery. To map virtual spaces is another challenge altogether. Are cartographic conventions applicable to depictions of the blogosphere, or the internet in general? Is a more mathematical approach required to even start to make sense of the shape of the blogosphere, to understand the network created by and between blogs? With my research comparing information flows in the Australian and French political blogs, visualising the data obtained is important as it can demonstrate the spread of ideas and topics across blogs. However, how best to depict the flows, links, and the spaces between is still unclear. Is network theory and systems of hubs and nodes more relevant than mass communication theories to the research at hand, influencing the nature of any map produced? Is it even a good idea to try and apply boundaries like ‘Australian’ and ‘French’ to parts of a map that does not reflect international borders or the Mercator projection? While drawing upon some of my work-in-progress, this paper will also evaluate previous maps of the blogosphere and approaches to depicting networks of blogs. As such, the paper will provide a greater awareness of the tools available and the strengths and limitations of mapping methodologies, helping to shape the direction of my research in a field still very much under development.

The statistics of refractive error maps : managing wavefront aberration analysis without Zernike polynomials

The refractive error of a human eye varies across the pupil and therefore may be treated as a random variable. The probability distribution of this random variable provides a means for assessing the main refractive properties of the eye without the necessity of traditional functional representation of wavefront aberrations. To demonstrate this approach, the statistical properties of refractive error maps are investigated. Closed-form expressions are derived for the probability density function (PDF) and its statistical moments for the general case of rotationally-symmetric aberrations. A closed-form expression for a PDF for a general non-rotationally symmetric wavefront aberration is difficult to derive. However, for specific cases, such as astigmatism, a closed-form expression of the PDF can be obtained. Further, interpretation of the distribution of the refractive error map as well as its moments is provided for a range of wavefront aberrations measured in real eyes. These are evaluated using a kernel density and sample moments estimators. It is concluded that the refractive error domain allows non-functional analysis of wavefront aberrations based on simple statistics in the form of its sample moments. Clinicians may find this approach to wavefront analysis easier to interpret due to the clinical familiarity and intuitive appeal of refractive error maps.

Describing ocular aberrations with wavefront vergence maps

A common optometric problem is to specify the eye’s ocular aberrations in terms of Zernike coefficients and to reduce that specification to a prescription for the optimum sphero-cylindrical correcting lens. The typical approach is first to reconstruct wavefront phase errors from measurements of wavefront slopes obtained by a wavefront aberrometer. This paper applies a new method to this clinical problem that does not require wavefront reconstruction. Instead, we base our analysis of axial wavefront vergence as inferred directly from wavefront slopes. The result is a wavefront vergence map that is similar to the axial power maps in corneal topography and hence has a potential to be favoured by clinicians. We use our new set of orthogonal Zernike slope polynomials to systematically analyse details of the vergence map analogous to Zernike analysis of wavefront maps. The result is a vector of slope coefficients that describe fundamental aberration components. Three different methods for reducing slope coefficients to a spherocylindrical prescription in power vector forms are compared and contrasted. When the original wavefront contains only second order aberrations, the vergence map is a function of meridian only and the power vectors from all three methods are identical. The differences in the methods begin to appear as we include higher order aberrations, in which case the wavefront vergence map is more complicated. Finally, we discuss the advantages and limitations of vergence map representation of ocular aberrations.

Investigating the patterns and determinants of life satisfaction in Germany following reunification

This paper investigates the patterns and determinants of life satisfaction in Germany following reunification. We implement a new fixed-effect estimator for ordinal life satisfaction in the German Socio-Economic Panel and find negative effects on life satisfaction from being recently fired, losing a spouse through either death or separation, and time spent in hospital, while we find strong positive effects from income and marriage. Using a new causal decomposition technique, we find that East Germans experienced a continued improvement in life satisfaction to which increased household incomes contributed around 12 percent. Most of the improvement is explained by better average circumstances, such as greater political freedom. For West Germans, we find little change in average life satisfaction over this period.

An examination of communication across cultures in news media and at informal/personal levels : with concentration on relations among two South East Asian countries and Australia and those two countries and Germany

In the age of globalisation dominated by mass communication, the flow of information contributes to a big extent to the worldviews of its "global citizens". From this point of view the mass media can be seen as one of the most salient sources of cross-cultural communication. This study investigates mass communication across cultures, focusing on South East Asia (Malaysia and Singapore), Australia and Germany. The centre of attention is the Western media coverage of South East Asia and vice versa. In this context a content analysis of newspapers of the three regions has been conducted. In addition, working practices and conditions of Western foreign correspondents in South East Asia have been examined. Apart from the investigation of inter-cultural media coverage, another focus of attention will be the examination of two levels of communication: The business level, concentrating on issues like e.g. the Asian business etiquette; and the private level, looking into the transition to a different culture from the perspective of Australian and German expatriates. Apart from investigating mass communication across cultures and to provide a written analysis of the findings, a series of radio documentaries in English and in German has been produced. They cover the following issues: Foreign correspondents in South East Asia, the expatriate-lifestyle of Australians and Germans in South East Asia, business etiquette in Asia, student exchange Germany-Asia, image and prejudices East-West and Tourism.

Basin analysis and economic geology of the Northern Mount Isa Basin

The Mount Isa Basin is a new concept used to describe the area of Palaeo- to Mesoproterozoic rocks south of the Murphy Inlier and inappropriately described presently as the Mount Isa Inlier. The new basin concept presented in this thesis allows for the characterisation of basin-wide structural deformation, correlation of mineralisation with particular lithostratigraphic and seismic stratigraphic packages, and the recognition of areas with petroleum exploration potential. The northern depositional margin of the Mount Isa Basin is the metamorphic, intrusive and volcanic complex here referred to as the Murphy Inlier (not the "Murphy Tectonic Ridge"). The eastern, southern and western boundaries of the basin are obscured by younger basins (Carpentaria, Eromanga and Georgina Basins). The Murphy Inlier rocks comprise the seismic basement to the Mount Isa Basin sequence. Evidence for the continuity of the Mount Isa Basin with the McArthur Basin to the northwest and the Willyama Block (Basin) at Broken Hill to the south is presented. These areas combined with several other areas of similar age are believed to have comprised the Carpentarian Superbasin (new term). The application of seismic exploration within Authority to Prospect (ATP) 423P at the northern margin of the basin was critical to the recognition and definition of the Mount Isa Basin. The Mount Isa Basin is structurally analogous to the Palaeozoic Arkoma Basin of Illinois and Arkansas in southern USA but, as with all basins it contains unique characteristics, a function of its individual development history. The Mount Isa Basin evolved in a manner similar to many well described, Phanerozoic plate tectonic driven basins. A full Wilson Cycle is recognised and a plate tectonic model proposed. The northern Mount Isa Basin is defined as the Proterozoic basin area northwest of the Mount Gordon Fault. Deposition in the northern Mount Isa Basin began with a rift sequence of volcaniclastic sediments followed by a passive margin drift phase comprising mostly carbonate rocks. Following the rift and drift phases, major north-south compression produced east-west thrusting in the south of the basin inverting the older sequences. This compression produced an asymmetric epi- or intra-cratonic clastic dominated peripheral foreland basin provenanced in the south and thinning markedly to a stable platform area (the Murphy Inlier) in the north. The fmal major deformation comprised east-west compression producing north-south aligned faults that are particularly prominent at Mount Isa. Potential field studies of the northern Mount Isa Basin, principally using magnetic data (and to a lesser extent gravity data, satellite images and aerial photographs) exhibit remarkable correlation with the reflection seismic data. The potential field data contributed significantly to the unravelling of the northern Mount Isa Basin architecture and deformation. Structurally, the Mount Isa Basin consists of three distinct regions. From the north to the south they are the Bowthorn Block, the Riversleigh Fold Zone and the Cloncurry Orogen (new names). The Bowthom Block, which is located between the Elizabeth Creek Thrust Zone and the Murphy Inlier, consists of an asymmetric wedge of volcanic, carbonate and clastic rocks. It ranges from over 10 000 m stratigraphic thickness in the south to less than 2000 min the north. The Bowthorn Block is relatively undeformed: however, it contains a series of reverse faults trending east-west that are interpreted from seismic data to be down-to-the-north normal faults that have been reactivated as thrusts. The Riversleigh Fold Zone is a folded and faulted region south of the Bowthorn Block, comprising much of the area formerly referred to as the Lawn Hill Platform. The Cloncurry Orogen consists of the area and sequences equivalent to the former Mount Isa Orogen. The name Cloncurry Orogen clearly distinguishes this area from the wider concept of the Mount Isa Basin. The South Nicholson Group and its probable correlatives, the Pilpah Sandstone and Quamby Conglomerate, comprise a later phase of now largely eroded deposits within the Mount Isa Basin. The name South Nicholson Basin is now outmoded as this terminology only applied to the South Nicholson Group unlike the original broader definition in Brown et al. (1968). Cored slimhole stratigraphic and mineral wells drilled by Amoco, Esso, Elf Aquitaine and Carpentaria Exploration prior to 1986, penetrated much of the stratigraphy and intersected both minor oil and gas shows plus excellent potential source rocks. The raw data were reinterpreted and augmented with seismic stratigraphy and source rock data from resampled mineral and petroleum stratigraphic exploration wells for this study. Since 1986, Comalco Aluminium Limited, as operator of a joint venture with Monument Resources Australia Limited and Bridge Oil Limited, recorded approximately 1000 km of reflection seismic data within the basin and drilled one conventional stratigraphic petroleum well, Beamesbrook-1. This work was the first reflection seismic and first conventional petroleum test of the northern Mount Isa Basin. When incorporated into the newly developed foreland basin and maturity models, a grass roots petroleum exploration play was recognised and this led to the present thesis. The Mount Isa Basin was seen to contain excellent source rocks coupled with potential reservoirs and all of the other essential aspects of a conventional petroleum exploration play. This play, although high risk, was commensurate with the enormous and totally untested petroleum potential of the basin. The basin was assessed for hydrocarbons in 1992 with three conventional exploration wells, Desert Creek-1, Argyle Creek-1 and Egilabria-1. These wells also tested and confrrmed the proposed basin model. No commercially viable oil or gas was encountered although evidence of its former existence was found. In addition to the petroleum exploration, indeed as a consequence of it, the association of the extensive base metal and other mineralisation in the Mount Isa Basin with hydrocarbons could not be overlooked. A comprehensive analysis of the available data suggests a link between the migration and possible generation or destruction of hydrocarbons and metal bearing fluids. Consequently, base metal exploration based on hydrocarbon exploration concepts is probably. the most effective technique in such basins. The metal-hydrocarbon-sedimentary basin-plate tectonic association (analogous to Phanerozoic models) is a compelling outcome of this work on the Palaeo- to Mesoproterozoic Mount lsa Basin. Petroleum within the Bowthom Block was apparently destroyed by hot brines that produced many ore deposits elsewhere in the basin.

Integration of a road traffic noise model (ASJ) and traffic simulation (AVENUE) for a built-up area

A road traffic noise prediction model (ASJ MODEL-1998) has been integrated with a road traffic simulator (AVENUE) to produce the Dynamic areawide Road traffic NoisE simulator-DRONE. This traffic-noise-GIS based integrated tool is upgraded to predict noise levels in built-up areas. The integration of traffic simulation with a noise model provides dynamic access to traffic flow characteristics and hence automated and detailed predictions of traffic noise. The prediction is not only on the spatial scale but also on temporal scale. The linkage with GIS gives a visual representation to noise pollution in the form of dynamic areawide traffic noise contour maps. The application of DRONE on a real world built-up area is also presented.