Investigation into the transport, behaviour and deposition of combustion aerosols from transport sources

The deterioration of air quality is a significant issue in large and growing cities. This work investigates particulate emissions from transport, the largest source of air pollution in cities today. Emitters such as busy roads and diesel trains are investigated, with specific reference to the evolution of particles over time and distance. Diesel trains are investigated as an alternative to road traffic in investigating evolutionary processes. Higher emissions and solitary sources mean that the emitted plume can be observed over time in a single location. These results represent the first investigation of the evolution of fine and ultrafine aerosol particles from this type of source. Aerosols near a busy road are investigated, with the result that a dependence of total number concentration on distance from the road is shown to be related to the fragmentation of nanoparticle clusters. Local meteorological conditions are also monitored and humidity is shown to vary with distance from the road in a nonmonotonic way. Particles from a busy road were also examined using a scanning electron microscope, with the intention of understanding the make up of the emitted aerosol plume. It was determined that due to significant surface behaviour post-deposition, this method of analysis could not directly classify airborne pollutants. Some interesting results were obtained however, particularly in terms of composite particles and the analysis of deposited patterns. This thesis introduces new work in terms of the analysis of diesel train particulate emissions, as well as adding further evidence towards the fragmentation process of aerosol evolution in both background concentrations and emitted aerosol plumes.

Incentivising private health insurance through the income tax regime : Capitalising on behavioural models

The Australian income tax regime is generally regarded as a mechanism by which the Federal Government raises revenue, with much of the revenue raised used to support public spending programs. A prime example of this type of spending program is health care. However, a government may also decide that the private sector should provide a greater share of the nation's health care. To achieve such a policy it can bring about change through positive regulation, or it can use the taxation regime, via tax expenditures, not to raise revenue but to steer or influence individuals in its desired direction. When used for this purpose, tax expenditures steer taxpayers towards or away from certain behaviour by either imposing costs on, or providing benefits to them. Within the context of the health sector, the Australian Federal Government deploys social steering via the tax system, with the Medicare Levy Surcharge and the 30 percent Private Health Insurance Rebate intended to steer taxpayer behaviour towards the Government’s policy goal of increasing the amount of health provision through the private sector. These steering mechanisms are complemented by the ‘Lifetime Health Cover Initiative’. This article, through the lens of behavioural economics, considers the ways in which these assorted mechanisms might have been expected to operate and whether they encourage individuals to purchase private health insurance.

Alternative primary sources for studying Australian television history : an annotated list of online private collections

It is possible to write many different histories of Australian television, and these different histories draw on different primary sources. The ABC of Drama, for example, draws on the ABC Document Archives (Jacka 1991). Most of the information for Images and Industry: television drama production in Australia is taken from original interviews with television production staff (Moran 1985). Ending the Affair, as well as archival work, draws on ‘over ten years of watching … Australian television current affairs’ (Turner 2005, xiii). Moran’s Guide to Australian TV Series draws exhaustively on extant archives: the ABC Document Archives, material sourced through the ABC Drama department, the Australian Film Commission, the library of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, and the Australian Film Institute (Moran 1993, xi)...

Public-private partnerships : a survey with suggestions for research

The broad aim of this paper is to examine and comment on the development of public private partnerships (ppp) in an international context, concluding with suggestions for further research. The first section offers some working definitions. Section two reflects my attempt to provide a first, broad answer to my initial research question, what is the prevalence of such partnerships, taking a historical perspective. Section three focuses on the questions of what are the expectations of government and business in regard to ppp and what is their prevalence in more recent times. The final section highlights some of the findings of this initial research survey and suggests types of research questions that could be addressed....

Sustainable urban transport : smart technology initiatives in Singapore

Achieving sustainability is one of the major goals of many urban transportation systems. Over the years, many innovative policies have been attempted to achieve an efficient, safe, and sustainable transport system. Those policies often require smart technologies to assist implementation process and enhance effectiveness. This paper discusses how sustainability can be promoted by embedding smart technologies in a modern transportation system. In particular, this paper studies the transport system of Singapore to address how this system is addressing sustainability through the use of smart technologies. Various technological initiatives in managing traffic flow, monitoring and enforcement, sharing real-time information, and managing revenues are discussed in light of their potentiality in addressing sustainability issues. The Singapore experience provides a useful reference for the cities intending to develop and promote a sustainable transport system.

Private equity bidders : barbarians or best friends

The deal value of private equity merger and takeover activity has achieved unprecedented growth in the last couple of years, in Australia and globally. Private equity deals are not a new feature of the market; however, such deals have been subject to increased academic, professional and policy interest. This study examines the particular features of 15 major deals involving listed company "targets" and provides evidence – based on a comparison with a benchmark sample – to demonstrate the role that private equity plays in the market for corporate control. The objective of this study was to assess the friendliness of private equity bids. Based on the indicia compiled, lower bid premiums, the presence of break fees and the intention to retain senior management are compellingly different for private equity bids than for the comparative sample of bids. Using these several characteristics of "friendliness", the authors show that private equity deals are generally friendly in nature, consistent with industry rhetoric, but perhaps inconsistent with the popular belief that private equity bidders are the "barbarians at the gate".

Outsourcing and cutting choice in private hospital menus – does it impact on patient foodservice satisfaction?

Patient satisfaction with foodservices is multidimensional. It is well recognised that food and other aspects of foodservice delivery are important elements of patients overall perception of the hospital experience. This study aimed to determine whether menu changes in 2008 at an acute private hospital, considered negative by the dietetic staff, would affect patient satisfaction with the foodservice. Changes to the menu, secondary to the refurbishment of the foodservice facilities decreased the number of choices at breakfast from six to four, and altered the dessert menu to include a larger proportion of commercially produced products. The Acute Care Hospital Foodservice Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (ACHFPSQ) was utilised to assess patient satisfaction with the menu changes, as it has proven accuracy and reliability in measuring patient satisfaction. Results of the survey (n=306) were compared to data with previous ACHFPSQ surveys conducted annually since 2003. Data analysed included overall foodservice satisfaction and four dimensions of foodservice satisfaction: food quality, meal service quality, staff/service issues and the physical environment. Satisfaction targets were set at 4 (scale 1–5) for each foodservice dimension. Analysis showed that despite changes to the menu, overall foodservice satisfaction rated high, with a score of 4.3. Eighty-six percent of patients rated the foodservice as either ‘very good’ or ‘good’. The four foodservice dimensions were rated highly (4.2–4.8). Findings were consistent with previous survey results, demonstrating a high level of patient satisfaction across all dimensions of the foodservice, despite changes to the menu. The annual ACHFPSQ was of value to this practice question.

Road safety in Singapore

Singapore is a highly developed country that has a well connected island-wide road transport system including a network of expressways. The road standards of Singapore are generally good and road safety level is very high by international standards. This chapter discusses road safety status in Singapore and highlights the practices that have been undertaken to enhance the road safety. Statistics show that road traffic fatalities were decreasing over the years, albeit an increasing trend for total crashes. Motorcyclists and pedestrians were two vulnerable road user groups and shared significant proportions respectively about 49% and 28% of total road traffic deaths. In particular, young riders and pedestrians had a higher crash potential. To enhance safety of those vulnerable road users, Singapore has taken several initiatives including infrastructure improvements like paving better skid-resistant materials at crash-prone sites, providing more rain shelters for motorcyclists, and installation of reflective signs and markings near school zones; safety campaigns and awareness programs like ride safe programme, the road courtesy campaign, and the anti-drink drive campaign. While Land Transport Authority (LTA) looks into road safety through engineering solutions and road infrastructure developments, the Traffic Police of Singapore is responsible for law enforcements and regulations. A number of non-government organizations, private companies, and university research groups are also continuously working with the Traffic Police to study, promote, and educate the general public on road safety matters.

Effect Of changes in sodium intake on cell transport parameters

Changing sodium intake from 70-200 mmol/day elevates blood pressure in normotensive volunteers by 6/4 mmHg. Older people, people with reduced renal function on a low sodium diet and people with a family history of hypertension are more likely to show this effect. The rise in blood pressure was associated with a fall in plasma volume suggesting that plasma volume changes do not initiate hypertension. In normotensive individuals the most common abnormality in membrane sodium transport induced by an extra sodium load was an increased permeability of the red cell to sodium. Some normotensive individuals also had an increase in the level of a plasma inhibitor that inhibited Na-K ATPase. These individuals also appeared to have a rise in blood pressure. Sodium intake and blood pressure are related. The relationship differs in different people and is probably controlled by the genetically inherited capacity of systems involved in membrane sodium transport.

Influence of medium range transport of particles from nucleation burst on particle number concentration within the urban airshed

An elevated particle number concentration (PNC) observed during nucleation events could play a significant contribution to the total particle load and therefore to the air pollution in the urban environments. Therefore, a field measurement study of PNC was commenced to investigate the temporal and spatial variations of PNC within the urban airshed of Brisbane, Australia. PNC was monitored at urban (QUT), roadside (WOO) and semi-urban (ROC) areas around the Brisbane region during 2009. During the morning traffic peak period, the highest relative fraction of PNC reached about 5% at QUT and WOO on weekdays. PNC peaks were observed around noon, which correlated with the highest solar radiation levels at all three stations, thus suggesting that high PNC levels were likely to be associated with new particle formation caused by photochemical reactions. Wind rose plots showed relatively higher PNC for the NE direction, which was associated with industrial pollution, accounting for 12%, 9% and 14% of overall PNC at QUT, WOO and ROC, respectively. Although there was no significant correlation between PNC at each station, the variation of PNC was well correlated among three stations during regional nucleation events. In addition, PNC at ROC was significantly influenced by upwind urban pollution during the nucleation burst events, with the average enrichment factor of 15.4. This study provides an insight into the influence of regional nucleation events on PNC in the Brisbane region and it the first study to quantify the effect of urban pollution on semi-urban PNC through the nucleation events. © 2012 Author(s).

An implicit RBF meshless method for a fractal mobile/immobile transport model

Fractional differential equation is used to describe a fractal model of mobile/immobile transport with a power law memory function. This equation is the limiting equation that governs continuous time random walks with heavy tailed random waiting times. In this paper, we firstly propose a finite difference method to discretize the time variable and obtain a semi-discrete scheme. Then we discuss its stability and convergence. Secondly we consider a meshless method based on radial basis functions (RBF) to discretize the space variable. By contrast to conventional FDM and FEM, the meshless method is demonstrated to have distinct advantages: calculations can be performed independent of a mesh, it is more accurate and it can be used to solve complex problems. Finally the convergence order is verified from a numerical example is presented to describe the fractal model of mobile/immobile transport process with different problem domains. The numerical results indicate that the present meshless approach is very effective for modeling and simulating of fractional differential equations, and it has good potential in development of a robust simulation tool for problems in engineering and science that are governed by various types of fractional differential equations.

Fully private revocable predicate encryption

We introduce the concept of Revocable Predicate Encryption (RPE), which extends current predicate encryption setting with revocation support: private keys can be used to decrypt an RPE ciphertext only if they match the decryption policy (defined via attributes encoded into the ciphertext and predicates associated with private keys) and were not revoked by the time the ciphertext was created. We formalize the notion of attribute hiding in the presence of revocation and propose an RPE scheme, called AH-RPE, which achieves attribute-hiding under the Decision Linear assumption in the standard model. We then present a stronger privacy notion, termed full hiding, which further cares about privacy of revoked users. We propose another RPE scheme, called FH-RPE, that adopts the Subset Cover Framework and offers full hiding under the Decision Linear assumption in the standard model. The scheme offers very flexible privacy-preserving access control to encrypted data and can be used in sender-local revocation scenarios.