An exploration of the maturity model concept as a vehicle for higher education institutions to assess their capability to address student engagement : a work in progress

Gaining a competitive edge in the area of the engagement, success and retention of commencing students is a significant issue in higher education, made more so currently because of the considerable and increasing pressure on teaching and learning from the new standards framework and performance funding. This paper introduces the concept of maturity models (MMs) and their application to assessing the capability of higher education institutions (HEIs) to address student engagement, success and retention (SESR). A concise description of the features of maturity models is presented with reference to an SESR-MM currently being developed. The SESR-MM is proposed as a viable instrument for assisting HEIs in the management and improvement of their SESR activities.

Young people, citizenship and public space : a work in progress on issues and consequences

Tensions frequently occur when children and young people seek to make use of a multitude of public spaces (Loader 1996; White 1999).In Australia over a number of years, various strategies have been adopted by local councils, police and other stakeholders such as business groups, to respond to such tensions and disputes. However, rarely are children and young people involved in meaningful ways in the design and control of public space that reflects their needs and aspirations (White 1999; Freeman and Riordan 2002). This paper argues for a broader conceptualisation of the rights of citizenhip to include rights to use public space by children and young people.

Indigenous legal education at UNSW: A work in progress

Since the 1970s Australian law schools have provided alternative entry routes and, since the 1980s, pre-law programs and bridging programs. On-going support, once Indigenous students reach university law schools, has been an issue that has not been formally or appropriately addressed in most university law schools. In this way Indigenous students’ chances of entry are disguised as chances of success. Thus once Indigenous students start their law school studies, they are often expected to perform on a level playing field – their success or failure then depends on ‘gifts, merits or skills’ which are culturally appropriate for law school. This attitude fails to recognise the privilege which allows the development of such gifts, merits or skills...

Combinatorial Design of Secure Lightweight Data Dispersal Schemes (Work in Progress)

Dispersing a data object into a set of data shares is an elemental stage in distributed communication and storage systems. In comparison to data replication, data dispersal with redundancy saves space and bandwidth. Moreover, dispersing a data object to distinct communication links or storage sites limits adversarial access to whole data and tolerates loss of a part of data shares. Existing data dispersal schemes have been proposed mostly based on various mathematical transformations on the data which induce high computation overhead. This paper presents a novel data dispersal scheme where each part of a data object is replicated, without encoding, into a subset of data shares according to combinatorial design theory. Particularly, data parts are mapped to points and data shares are mapped to lines of a projective plane. Data parts are then distributed to data shares using the point and line incidence relations in the plane so that certain subsets of data shares collectively possess all data parts. The presented scheme incorporates combinatorial design theory with inseparability transformation to achieve secure data dispersal at reduced computation, communication and storage costs. Rigorous formal analysis and experimental study demonstrate significant cost-benefits of the presented scheme in comparison to existing methods.

A Combinatorial Construct for Keyless Message Dispersal (Work in Progress)

We propose a keyless and lightweight message transformation scheme based on the combinatorial design theory for the confidentiality of a message transmitted in multiple parts through a network with multiple independent paths, or for data stored in multiple parts by a set of independent storage services such as the cloud providers. Our combinatorial scheme disperses a message into v output parts so that (k-1) or less parts do not reveal any information about any message part, and the message can only be recovered by the party who possesses all v output parts. Combinatorial scheme generates an xor transformation structure to disperse the message into v output parts. Inversion is done by applying the same xor transformation structure on output parts. The structure is generated using generalized quadrangles from design theory which represents symmetric point and line incidence relations in a projective plane. We randomize our solution by adding a random salt value and dispersing it together with the message. We show that a passive adversary with capability of accessing (k-1) communication links or storage services has no advantage so that the scheme is indistinguishable under adaptive chosen ciphertext attack (IND-CCA2).

Vitrification of Yunnan Yellow Cattle oocytes: work in progress

The objective of this study was to provide a simple cryopreservation method for oocytes from Yunnan Yellow Cattle and facilitate preservation efforts in this native Chinese breed, which is threatened by agricultural modernization. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were collected from slaughterhouse ovaries and matured in vitro for 22-24 h, then selected for cryopreservation. Vitrification in open pulled straws (OPS) or in microdrops on a cooled metal surface (solid surface vitrification, SSV) was compared. The OPS vitrification solution consisted of 20% ethylene glycol (EG) and 20% DMSO. The SSV solution was a mixture of 35% EG, 5% polyvinyl-pyrrolidon (PVP) and 0.4 M trehalose. Vitrified and warmed oocytes were either fertilized in vitro or parthenogenetically activated. The rates of cleavage and development to blastocysts of fertilized oocytes following OPS versus SSV were not statistically different (38.3 and 12.5% versus 35.8 and 6.0%, respectively). The corresponding rates of parthenogenetic development to blastocysts were also not different (8.2 versus 3.5%, respectively). Development to blastocysts of non-vitrified controls following fertilization was significantly higher than that of the vitrified oocytes (22.6%, P < 0.05). These results demonstrate for the first time, that although both OPS and SSV procedures reduced embryonic development, Yunnan Yellow Cattle oocytes are capable of developing to blastocysts following cryopreservation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

'Work in Progress' : una aproximación al proceso de la composición musical, a través del análisis de dos obras originales.

Se representa la concepción avanzada del sistema dodecafónico, desde la creación y análisis de dos obras originales: 'Caballo de flor en el país del sur' y 'Reloj abandonado de las horas', del propio autor de la investigación Imanol Bageneta Messeguer. Para ello se relacionan las estrucutras de la lógica de conjuntos con dos dimensiones musicales, la escala cromática y las operaciones de combinatoria ordinal realizadas entre los sonidos. A partir de aquí se repasan las distinas aplicaciones de la teoría de conjuntos en el ámbito del análisis, para asegurar un producto que exprese una propuesta sonora perfectamente comprensible. La organización del trabajo se divide en cuatro partes, tres apartados de carácter teórico y una reflexión personal sobre los usos de la creación, bajo la forma de un ensayo estético: 'Modelos matemáticos'; 'Propuesta psicoperceptiva'; 'Análisis aplicado a dos obras compuestas por el doctorando' y 'Ensayo: una estética de la tardo-modernidad'. En la primera parte de la investigación se consideran conceptos relativos a la idea de semántica musical, y se valoran las conexiones existentes entre las estrucutras gramaticales del lenguaje y los sistemas musicales. También se discute sobre los tópicos relevantes a la disciplina (tipos de espacio matemático musical y colecciones de sonidos ordenados y no-ordenados), así como las herramientas de la lógica de conjuntos. A continuación, se centra en la medición matemática de similitud entre conjuntos numéricos, incidiendo en la combinatoria hexacordal y las estrategias compartidas entre los indicadores de altura y de orden. Para terminar esta primera parte, se basa en un modelo de estrucutruas combinatorias caracterizado por el tratamiento de series que saturan todos los intervalos, los 'All Interval Sets'. En la segunda parte del trabajo, se revisan contenidos relacionados con la discriminación y memoria musical de secuencias interválicas y la revisión sucesiva de las obras presentadas, realizadas desde un mismo material (el complejo serial de Mallalieu). Dentro del legado de la tradición musical, la posibilidad de expresar nuevos recursos de energía estética e intelectual es un objetivo de difícil resolución. La programación de cualquier temporada de conciertos nos muestra el equilibrio histórico de los mensajes que se suceden, sesgados mayoritariamente hacia un repertorio consolidado. Intentando invertir esa tendencia, la nueva musicología, al igual que otros movimientos intelectuales, pretende una revitalización de su discurso. Su propósito no es capturar los rasgos de una antigua devoción, sino imaginar el rol de lo sonoro en la sociedad y cultura contemporáneas .