Enduring documents : improving the forms, improving the outcomes

Most Australian states have introduced legislation to provide for enduring documents for financial, personal and health care decision making in the event of incapacity. Since the introduction of Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPAs) and Advance Health Directives (AHDs) in Queensland in 1998, concerns have continued to be raised by service providers, professionals and individuals about the uptake, understanding and appropriate use of these documents. In response to these concerns, the Department of Justice and Attorney-General (DJAG) convened a Practical Guardianship Initiatives Working Party. This group identified the limited evidence base available to address these concerns. In 2009, a multidisciplinary research team from the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology was awarded $90,000 from the Legal Practitioners Interest on Trust Account Fund to undertake a review of the current EPA and AHD forms. The goal of the research was to gather data on the content and useability of the forms from the perspectives of a range of stakeholders, particularly those completing the EPA and AHD, witnesses of these documents, attorneys appointed under an EPA, and health professionals involved in the completion of an AHD or dealing with it in a clinical context. The researchers also sought to gather information from the perspective of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) individuals as well people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups. Although the focus of the research was on the forms and the extent to which the current design, content and format represents a barrier to uptake, in the course of the research, some broader issues were identified which have an impact on the effectiveness of the EPA and AHD in achieving the goals of planning for financial and personal and health care in advance of losing capacity. The data gathered enabled the researchers to achieve the primary goal of the research: to make recommendations to improve the content and useability of the forms which hopefully will lead to an increased uptake and appropriate use of the forms. However, the researchers thought it was important not to ignore broader policy issues that were identified in the course of the research. These broader issues have been highlighted in this Report, and the researchers have responded to them in a variety of ways. For some issues, the researchers have suggested alterations that could be made to the forms to address the particular concerns. For other issues, the researchers have suggested that Government may need to take specific action such as educating the broader community with some attention to strategies that engage particular groups within communities. Other concerns raised can only be dealt with by legislative reform and, in some of these cases, the researchers have identified issues that Government may wish to consider further. We do note, however, that it is beyond the scope of this Report to recommend changes to the law. This three stage mixed methods project aimed to provide systematic evidence from a broad range of stakeholders in regard to: (i) which groups use and do not use these documents and why, (ii) the contribution of the length/complexity/format/language of the forms as barriers to their completion and/or effective use, and (iii) the issues raised by the current documents for witnesses and attorneys. Understanding and use of EPAs and AHDs were generally explored in separate but parallel processes. A purposive sampling strategy included users of the documents as principals and attorneys, and professionals, witnesses and service providers who assist others to execute or use the forms. The first component of this study built on existing knowledge using a Critical Reference Group and material provided by the DJAG Practical Guardianship Initiatives Working Party. This assisted in the development of the data collection tools for subsequent stages. The second component comprised semi-structured interviews and focus groups with a targeted sample of current users of the forms, potential users, witnesses and other professionals to provide in-depth information on critical issues. Outreach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders and individuals and workers with CALD groups ensured a broad sample of potential users of the two documents. Fifty individual interviews and three focus groups were completed. Most interviews and focus groups focused on perceptions of, and experiences with, either the EPA or the AHD form. In the interviews with Indigenous people and the CALD focus groups, however, respondents provided their perceptions and experiences of both documents. In general, these respondents had not used the forms and were responding to the documents made available in the interview or focus group. In total, seventy-seven individuals were involved in interviews or focus groups. The final component comprised on-line surveys for EPA principals, EPA attorneys, AHD principals, witnesses of EPAs and AHDs and medical practitioners with experience of AHDs as nominated and/or treating doctors. The surveys were developed from the initial component and the qualitative analysis of the interview and focus group data. A total of 116 surveys were returned from major cities and regional Queensland. The survey data was analysed descriptively for patterns and trends. It is important to note that the aim of the survey was to gain insight into issues and concerns relating to the documents and not to make generalisations to the broader population.

A mask-based approach for the geometric calibration of thermal-infrared cameras

Accurate and efficient thermal-infrared (IR) camera calibration is important for advancing computer vision research within the thermal modality. This paper presents an approach for geometrically calibrating individual and multiple cameras in both the thermal and visible modalities. The proposed technique can be used to correct for lens distortion and to simultaneously reference both visible and thermal-IR cameras to a single coordinate frame. The most popular existing approach for the geometric calibration of thermal cameras uses a printed chessboard heated by a flood lamp and is comparatively inaccurate and difficult to execute. Additionally, software toolkits provided for calibration either are unsuitable for this task or require substantial manual intervention. A new geometric mask with high thermal contrast and not requiring a flood lamp is presented as an alternative calibration pattern. Calibration points on the pattern are then accurately located using a clustering-based algorithm which utilizes the maximally stable extremal region detector. This algorithm is integrated into an automatic end-to-end system for calibrating single or multiple cameras. The evaluation shows that using the proposed mask achieves a mean reprojection error up to 78% lower than that using a heated chessboard. The effectiveness of the approach is further demonstrated by using it to calibrate two multiple-camera multiple-modality setups. Source code and binaries for the developed software are provided on the project Web site.

'The war of Canudos: a Euclidean interpretation.' [Guerra de Canudos: uma leitura euclidiana]

The publication of the book The interior, in 1902, would change the course of thinking about the War of Canudos, who for many years, had been known simply as' the history of Euclid. President Getulio Vargas became interested in the backwoods bloodbath after reading the book avenger-Euclidean. Liked the work he visited the place of occurrence of war promising enjoy the river poured-Barris with the construction of the weir Cocorobo. Euclides da Cunha lived and produced his work in a time of great change in thought, politics and technology. Despite having worked in the press throughout his life, was best known as an engineer, for having exercised the office during the reconstruction of the bridge, in Sao Jose do Rio Pardo. This article aims to illuminate the event of war in light of the Euclidean work. We will examine the trajectory of Euclides da Cunha in journalism. Your learning process to execute the office newsreader and war correspondent, the newspaper O Estado de S. Paul, as well as their reports and work-monument the hinterlands. Resumo: A publicação da obra Os sertões, em 1902, mudaria os rumos do pensamento sobre a Guerra de Canudos, que, por muitos anos, ficara conhecida, simplesmente, como ‘história de Euclides’. O presidente Getúlio Vargas interessou-se pela hecatombe sertaneja após ter lido o livro-vingador euclidiano. Gostou tanto da obra que visitou o lugar de acontecimento da guerra prometendo aproveitar as águas do rio Vaza-Barris com a construção do açude de Cocorobó. Euclides da Cunha viveu e produziu a sua obra em um momento de grandes transformações no pensamento, na política e na tecnologia. Apesar de ter atuado na imprensa ao longo de toda a sua vida, ficou mais conhecido como engenheiro, por ter exercido o ofício, durante a reconstrução da ponte, em São José do Rio Pardo. O presente artigo visa iluminar o acontecimento da guerra à luz da obra euclidiana. Examinaremos a trajetória de Euclides da Cunha no jornalismo. O seu processo de aprendizagem para exercer o ofício de noticiarista e correspondente de guerra, pelo jornal O Estado de S. Paulo, bem como, as suas reportagens e obra-monumento Os sertões.

A context sensitive model for querying linked scientific data

This thesis provides a query model suitable for context sensitive access to a wide range of distributed linked datasets which are available to scientists using the Internet. The model is designed based on scientific research standards which require scientists to provide replicable methods in their publications. Although there are query models available that provide limited replicability, they do not contextualise the process whereby different scientists select dataset locations based on their trust and physical location. In different contexts, scientists need to perform different data cleaning actions, independent of the overall query, and the model was designed to accommodate this function. The query model was implemented as a prototype web application and its features were verified through its use as the engine behind a major scientific data access site, Bio2RDF.org. The prototype showed that it was possible to have context sensitive behaviour for each of the three mirrors of Bio2RDF.org using a single set of configuration settings. The prototype provided executable query provenance that could be attached to scientific publications to fulfil replicability requirements. The model was designed to make it simple to independently interpret and execute the query provenance documents using context specific profiles, without modifying the original provenance documents. Experiments using the prototype as the data access tool in workflow management systems confirmed that the design of the model made it possible to replicate results in different contexts with minimal additions, and no deletions, to query provenance documents.

Experiences with implementing common mathematical operations using field programmable gate arrays

Many computationally intensive scientific applications involve repetitive floating point operations other than addition and multiplication which may present a significant performance bottleneck due to the relatively large latency or low throughput involved in executing such arithmetic primitives on commod- ity processors. A promising alternative is to execute such primitives on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) hardware acting as an application-specific custom co-processor in a high performance reconfig- urable computing platform. The use of FPGAs can provide advantages such as fine-grain parallelism but issues relating to code development in a hardware description language and efficient data transfer to and from the FPGA chip can present significant application development challenges. In this paper, we discuss our practical experiences in developing a selection of floating point hardware designs to be implemented using FPGAs. Our designs include some basic mathemati cal library functions which can be implemented for user defined precisions suitable for novel applications requiring non-standard floating point represen- tation. We discuss the details of our designs along with results from performance and accuracy analysis tests.

Supporting risk-informed decisions during business process execution

This paper proposes a technique that supports process participants in making risk-informed decisions, with the aim to reduce the process risks. Risk reduction involves decreasing the likelihood and severity of a process fault from occurring. Given a process exposed to risks, e.g. a financial process exposed to a risk of reputation loss, we enact this process and whenever a process participant needs to provide input to the process, e.g. by selecting the next task to execute or by filling out a form, we prompt the participant with the expected risk that a given fault will occur given the particular input. These risks are predicted by traversing decision trees generated from the logs of past process executions and considering process data, involved resources, task durations and contextual information like task frequencies. The approach has been implemented in the YAWL system and its effectiveness evaluated. The results show that the process instances executed in the tests complete with substantially fewer faults and with lower fault severities, when taking into account the recommendations provided by our technique.

Smartphone malware evolution revisited : Android next target?

Smartphones started being targets for malware in June 2004 while malware count increased steadily until the introduction of a mandatory application signing mechanism for Symbian OS in 2006. From this point on, only few news could be read on this topic. Even despite of new emerging smartphone platforms, e.g. android and iPhone, malware writers seemed to lose interest in writing malware for smartphones giving users an unappropriate feeling of safety. In this paper, we revisit smartphone malware evolution for completing the appearance list until end of 2008. For contributing to smartphone malware research, we continue this list by adding descriptions on possible techniques for creating the first malware(s) for Android platform. Our approach involves usage of undocumented Android functions enabling us to execute native Linux application even on retail Android devices. This can be exploited to create malicious Linux applications and daemons using various methods to attack a device. In this manner, we also show that it is possible to bypass the Android permission system by using native Linux applications.

Deficiencies of scope statements in ITLET standardization

To execute good design one not only needs to know what to do and how to do it, but also why it should be done. For a standardization expert the rationale of a standardization project may be found in the proposal for a new work item or terms of reference, but rarely in the scope statement. However, it is also commonplace that the rationale of the project is not clearly stated in any of these parts. If the rationale is not surfaced in the early phases of a project, it is left to the design, sense-making and negotiation cycles of the design process to orient the project towards a goal. This paper explores how scope statements are used to position standardization projects in the IT for Learning, Education and Training (ITLET) domain, and how scope and rationale are understood in recent projects in European and international standardization. Based on two case-studies the paper suggests some actions for further research and improvement of the process.

Groundwater visualisation system (GVS) : a software framework for integrated display and interrogation of conceptual hydrogeological models, data and time-series animation

Management of groundwater systems requires realistic conceptual hydrogeological models as a framework for numerical simulation modelling, but also for system understanding and communicating this to stakeholders and the broader community. To help overcome these challenges we developed GVS (Groundwater Visualisation System), a stand-alone desktop software package that uses interactive 3D visualisation and animation techniques. The goal was a user-friendly groundwater management tool that could support a range of existing real-world and pre-processed data, both surface and subsurface, including geology and various types of temporal hydrological information. GVS allows these data to be integrated into a single conceptual hydrogeological model. In addition, 3D geological models produced externally using other software packages, can readily be imported into GVS models, as can outputs of simulations (e.g. piezometric surfaces) produced by software such as MODFLOW or FEFLOW. Boreholes can be integrated, showing any down-hole data and properties, including screen information, intersected geology, water level data and water chemistry. Animation is used to display spatial and temporal changes, with time-series data such as rainfall, standing water levels and electrical conductivity, displaying dynamic processes. Time and space variations can be presented using a range of contouring and colour mapping techniques, in addition to interactive plots of time-series parameters. Other types of data, for example, demographics and cultural information, can also be readily incorporated. The GVS software can execute on a standard Windows or Linux-based PC with a minimum of 2 GB RAM, and the model output is easy and inexpensive to distribute, by download or via USB/DVD/CD. Example models are described here for three groundwater systems in Queensland, northeastern Australia: two unconfined alluvial groundwater systems with intensive irrigation, the Lockyer Valley and the upper Condamine Valley, and the Surat Basin, a large sedimentary basin of confined artesian aquifers. This latter example required more detail in the hydrostratigraphy, correlation of formations with drillholes and visualisation of simulation piezometric surfaces. Both alluvial system GVS models were developed during drought conditions to support government strategies to implement groundwater management. The Surat Basin model was industry sponsored research, for coal seam gas groundwater management and community information and consultation. The “virtual” groundwater systems in these 3D GVS models can be interactively interrogated by standard functions, plus production of 2D cross-sections, data selection from the 3D scene, rear end database and plot displays. A unique feature is that GVS allows investigation of time-series data across different display modes, both 2D and 3D. GVS has been used successfully as a tool to enhance community/stakeholder understanding and knowledge of groundwater systems and is of value for training and educational purposes. Projects completed confirm that GVS provides a powerful support to management and decision making, and as a tool for interpretation of groundwater system hydrological processes. A highly effective visualisation output is the production of short videos (e.g. 2–5 min) based on sequences of camera ‘fly-throughs’ and screen images. Further work involves developing support for multi-screen displays and touch-screen technologies, distributed rendering, gestural interaction systems. To highlight the visualisation and animation capability of the GVS software, links to related multimedia hosted online sites are included in the references.

YAWL4Industry : reflections on using YAWL for industry projects

The Yet Another Workflow Language (YAWL) language and environment has been used to prototype, verify, execute and analyse business processes in a wide variety of industrial domains, such as telephony, construction, supply chain, insurance services, medical environments, personnel management and the creative arts. These engagements offer the YAWL researcher community a great opportunity to validate our research findings within an industry setting, as well as discovery of possible enhancements from the end user perspective. This paper describes three such industry projects, discusses why YAWL was chosen and how it was used in each, and reacts on the insights gained along the way.

Cyclin A/CDK2 regulates multiple G2 phase pathways

The cell cycle is a carefully choreographed series of phases that when executed successfully will allow the complete replication of the genome and the equal division of the genome and other cellular content into two independent daughter cells. The inability of the cell to execute cell division successfully can result in either checkpoint activation to allow repair and/or apoptosis and/or mutations/errors that may or may not lead to tumourgenesis. Cyclin A/CDK2 is the primary cyclin/CDK regulating G2 phase progression of the cell cycle. Cyclin A/CDK2 activity peaks in G2 phase and its inhibition causes a G2 phase delay that we have termed 'the cyclin A/CDK2 dependent G2 delay'. Understanding the key pathways that are involved in the cyclin A/CDK2 dependent G2 delay has been the primary focus of this study. Characterising the cyclin A/CDK2 dependent G2 delay revealed accumulated levels of the inactive form of the mitotic regulator, cyclin B/CDK1. Surprisingly, there was also increased microtubule nucleation at the centrosomes, and the centrosomes stained for markers of cyclin B/CDK1 activity. Both microtubule nucleation at the centrosomes and phosphoprotein markers were lost with short-term treatment of CDK1/2 inhibition. Cyclin A/CDK2 localised at the centrosomes in late G2 phase after separation of the centrosomes but before the start of prophase. Thus G2 phase cyclin A/CDK2 controls the timing of entry into mitosis by controlling the subsequent activation of cyclin B/CDK1, but also has an unexpected role in coordinating the activation of cyclin B/CDK1 at the centrosome and in the nucleus. In addition to regulating the timing of cyclin B/CDK1 activation and entry into mitosis in the unperturbed cell cycle, cyclin A/CDK2 also was shown to have a role in G2 phase checkpoint recovery. Known G2 phase regulators were investigated to determine whether they had a role in imposing the cyclin A/ CDK2 dependent G2 delay. Examination of the critical G2 checkpoint arrest protein, Chk1, which also has a role during unperturbed G2/M phases revealed the presence of activated Chk1 in G2 phase, in a range of cell lines. Activated Chk1 levels were shown to accumulate in cyclin A/CDK2 depleted/inhibited cells. Further investigations revealed that Chk1, but not Chk2, depletion could reverse the cyclin A/CDK2 dependent G2 delay. It was confirmed that the accumulative activation of Chk1 was not a consequence of DNA damage induced by cyclin A depletion. The potential of cyclin A/CDK2 to regulate Chk1 revealed that the inhibitory phosphorylations, Ser286 and Ser301, were not directly catalysed by cyclin A/CDK2 in G2 phase to regulate mitotic entry. It appeared that the ability of cyclin A/CDK2 to regulate cyclin B/CDK1 activation impacted cyclin B/CDK1s phosphorylation of Chk1 on Ser286 and Ser301, thereby contributing to the delay in G2/M phase progression. Chk1 inhibition/depletion partially abrogated the cyclin A/CDK2 dependent G2 delay, and was less effective in abrogating G2 phase checkpoint suggesting that other cyclin A/CDK2 dependent mechanisms contributed to these roles of cyclin A/CDK2. In an attempt to identify these other contributing factors another G2/M phase regulator known to be regulated by cyclin A/CDK2, Cdh1 and its substrates Plk1 and Claspin were examined. Cdh1 levels were reduced in cyclin A/CDK2 depleted/inhibited cells although this had little effect on Plk1, a known Cdh1 substrate. However, the level of another substrate, Claspin, was increased. Cdh1 depletion mimicked the effect of cyclin A depletion but to a weaker extent and was sufficient at increasing Claspin levels similar to the increase caused by cyclin A depletion. Co-depletion of cyclin A and Claspin blocked the accumulation of activated Chk1 normally seen with cyclin A depletion alone. However Claspin depletion alone did not reduce the cyclin A/CDK2 dependent G2 delay but this is likely to be a result of inhibition of S phase roles of Claspin. Together, these data suggest that cyclin A/CDK2 regulates a number of different mechanisms that contribute to G2/M phase progression. Here it has been demonstrated that in normal G2/M progression and possibly to a lesser extent in G2 phase checkpoint recovery, cyclin A/CDK2 regulates the level of Cdh1 which in turn affects at least one of its substrates, Claspin, and consequently results in the increased level of activated Chk1 observed. However, the involvement of Cdh1 and Claspin alone does not explain the G2 phase delay observed with cyclin A/CDK2 depletion/inhibition. It is likely that other mechanisms, possibly including cyclin A/CDK2 regulation of Wee1 and FoxM1, as reported by others, combine with the mechanism described here to regulate normal G2/M phase progression and G2 phase checkpoint recovery. These findings support the critical role for cyclin A/CDK2 in regulating progression into mitosis and suggest that upstream regulators of cyclin A/CDK2 activation will also be critical controllers of this cell cycle transition. The pathways that work to co-ordinate cell cycle progression are very intricate and deciphering these pathways, required for normal cell cycle progression, is key to understanding tumour development. By understanding cell cycle regulatory pathways it will allow the identification of the pathway/s and their mechanism/s that become affected in tumourgenesis. This will lead to the development of better targeted therapies, inferring better efficacy with fewer side effects than commonly seen with the use of traditional therapies, such as chemotherapy. Furthermore, this has the potential to positively impact the development of personalised medicines and the customisation of healthcare.

Should I stay or should I go? The challenges and opportunities of moving between university systems

The scientific job market has evolved to a truly globalized market. This is epitomized not only by the English language being the de facto scientific language but also by the increasing share of native language journals that are being offered in multiple languages or have or will fully converted to English (such as, for example, the BISE journal in 2015). Similarly, a plethora of exchange programs exists that allow students and academic staff to visit other institutions and exchange knowledge, ideas, and learning opportunities. While student migration across scientific institutions is an established phenomenon (Gribble, 2008) with ample structures, policies, and schemes such as ERASMUS1 in place, academic staff migration between countries is still a challenge, even if exchange programs exist (Enders, 1998). One reason may be that different career paths, varying teaching loads and different evaluation schemes for what constitutes scientific excellence are notable. This also influences the decision of where to start and continue an academic career. While the university systems themselves have been examined previously (Galliers and Whitley, 2007; Lyytinen et al., 2007) and while there is knowledge about career requirements in different university systems (Dennis et al., 2006; Dean et al., 2011; Loos et al., 2013; Recker, 2013), we still do not know much about individual and contextual decisions of academics that either consider or execute a migration between university systems.

Business process model abstraction

In order to execute, study, or improve operating procedures, companies document them as business process models. Often, business process analysts capture every single exception handling or alternative task handling scenario within a model. Such a tendency results in large process specifications. The core process logic becomes hidden in numerous modeling constructs. To fulfill different tasks, companies develop several model variants of the same business process at different abstraction levels. Afterwards, maintenance of such model groups involves a lot of synchronization effort and is erroneous. We propose an abstraction technique that allows generalization of process models. Business process model abstraction assumes a detailed model of a process to be available and derives coarse-grained models from it. The task of abstraction is to tell significant model elements from insignificant ones and to reduce the latter. We propose to learn insignificant process elements from supplementary model information, e.g., task execution time or frequency of task occurrence. Finally, we discuss a mechanism for user control of the model abstraction level – an abstraction slider.

Proposals for future BPM research directions

Business Process Management has substantially matured over the last two decades. The techniques, methods and systems available to scope, model, analyze, implement, execute, monitor and even mine a process have been scientifically researched and can be in most cases deployed in practice. In fact, many of these BPM capabilities are nowadays a commodity. However, an opportunity-rich environment and rapidly emerging digital disruptions require new BPM capabilities. In light of this context, this paper proposes three future research and development directions for BPM academics and professionals. First, Ambidextrous BPM demands the shift of focus from exploitative to explorative BPM. Second, Value-driven BPM postulates a stronger focus on the desired outcomes as opposed to the available BPM methods. Third, Customer Process Management suggests complementing the dominating internal view of BPM with a stronger, design-inspired view on the process experiences of external stakeholders.

Stepping accuracy and visuomotor control among older adults : effect of target contrast and refractive blur

Purpose: Older adults have increased visual impairment, including refractive blur from presbyopic multifocal spectacle corrections, and are less able to extract visual information from the environment to plan and execute appropriate stepping actions; these factors may collectively contribute to their higher risk of falls. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of refractive blur and target visibility on the stepping accuracy and visuomotor stepping strategies of older adults during a precision stepping task. Methods: Ten healthy, visually normal older adults (mean age 69.4 ± 5.2 years) walked up and down a 20 m indoor corridor stepping onto selected high and low-contrast targets while viewing under three visual conditions: best-corrected vision, +2.00 DS and +3.00 DS blur; the order of blur conditions was randomised between participants. Stepping accuracy and gaze behaviours were recorded using an eyetracker and a secondary hand-held camera. Results: Older adults made significantly more stepping errors with increasing levels of blur, particularly exhibiting under-stepping (stepping more posteriorly) onto the targets (p<0.05), while visuomotor stepping strategies did not significantly alter. Stepping errors were also significantly greater for the low compared to the high contrast targets and differences in visuomotor stepping strategies were found, including increased duration of gaze and increased interval between gaze onset and initiation of the leg swing when stepping onto the low contrast targets. Conclusions: These findings highlight that stepping accuracy is reduced for low visibility targets, and for high levels of refractive blur at levels typically present in multifocal spectacle corrections, despite significant changes in some of the visuomotor stepping strategies. These findings highlight the importance of maximising the contrast of objects in the environment, and may help explain why older adults wearing multifocal spectacle corrections exhibit an increased risk of falling.