The Sustainable Farm Families Project : changing attittudes to health

Introduction: Farm health and safety has historically focussed on strategies such as injury prevention, safety audits and fulfilling legislative responsibilities. However, farmer injuries mask deeper health issues including higher rates of cancer, suicides, cardiovascular disease and stress. The relationship between occupational health and safety and farm family health has not been fully investigated. The Sustainable Farm Families (SFF) project attempts to make this connection in order to address premature death, morbidity and injury on Australian farms. The SFF project illustrates how increasing health literacy through education and physical assessment can lead to improved health and knowledge outcomes for farm families.

Methods: The SFF project focuses on the human resource in the triple bottom line and is working with farmers, families, industry and universities to collaboratively assess and promote improvement in the health and wellbeing of farm families. Based on a model of extension that engages farm families as active learners where they commit to healthy living and safe working practices, the SFF project is proving to be an effective model for engaging communities in learning and change. Health education and information is delivered to farm men and women aged 18 to 75 years using a workshop format. Pre- and post-knowledge surveys, annual physical assessments and focus group discussions form the methodological context for the research over a three-year intervention.

Results: This article discusses the progress of the research outlining the design of the SFF project, the delivery and extension processes used to engage 321 farm families from within a broadacre and dairy-farming family sample. The article presents key learnings on intersectoral collaboration, engaging farmers and families in health, and the future for this project extending into agricultural industries across the nation. Key results reveal that health issues do exist in farming families and are often underreported by family members. Health indicators were at a level where referral and intervention was required in over 60% of men and 70% of women in both broad acre and dairy industries. Farm men and women verbalised health concerns relating to access, support and control mechanisms of the health system. Participants also revealed how they put into practice their new knowledge and how this has influenced their health.

Conclusions: The key learning is that farm men and women who are at high risk of premature morbidity and mortality will participate in health education and assessment programs based on industry collaboration with high levels of individual participation. This program provides evidence that farmers will engage with health professionals if programs are presented to them in personally engaging and relevant ways. The SFF program is a definite tool for interventional health promotion that supports attitudinal change to health and farming practices.

Institutional Complexity and Technology Transfer: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

This Doctoral Thesis unfolds into a collection of three distinct papers that share an interest in institutional theory and technology transfer. Taking into account that organizations are increasingly exposed to a multiplicity of demands and pressures, we aim to analyze what renders this situation of institutional complexity more or less difficult to manage for organizations, and what makes organizations more or less successful in responding to it. The three studies offer a novel contribution both theoretically and empirically. In particular, the first paper “The dimensions of organizational fields for understanding institutional complexity: A theoretical framework” is a theoretical contribution that tries to better understand the relationship between institutional complexity and fields by providing a framework. The second article “Beyond institutional complexity: The case of different organizational successes in confronting multiple institutional logics” is an empirical study which aims to explore the strategies that allow organizations facing multiple logics to respond more successfully to them. The third work “ How external support may mitigate the barriers to university-industry collaboration” is oriented towards practitioners and presents a case study about technology transfer in Italy.

Hierarchical Forest Management Planning: A Bilevel Wood Supply Modelling Approach

Le processus de planification forestière hiérarchique présentement en place sur les terres publiques risque d’échouer à deux niveaux. Au niveau supérieur, le processus en place ne fournit pas une preuve suffisante de la durabilité du niveau de récolte actuel. À un niveau inférieur, le processus en place n’appuie pas la réalisation du plein potentiel de création de valeur de la ressource forestière, contraignant parfois inutilement la planification à court terme de la récolte. Ces échecs sont attribuables à certaines hypothèses implicites au modèle d’optimisation de la possibilité forestière, ce qui pourrait expliquer pourquoi ce problème n’est pas bien documenté dans la littérature. Nous utilisons la théorie de l’agence pour modéliser le processus de planification forestière hiérarchique sur les terres publiques. Nous développons un cadre de simulation itératif en deux étapes pour estimer l’effet à long terme de l’interaction entre l’État et le consommateur de fibre, nous permettant ainsi d’établir certaines conditions pouvant mener à des ruptures de stock. Nous proposons ensuite une formulation améliorée du modèle d’optimisation de la possibilité forestière. La formulation classique du modèle d’optimisation de la possibilité forestière (c.-à-d., maximisation du rendement soutenu en fibre) ne considère pas que le consommateur de fibre industriel souhaite maximiser son profit, mais suppose plutôt la consommation totale de l’offre de fibre à chaque période, peu importe le potentiel de création de valeur de celle-ci. Nous étendons la formulation classique du modèle d’optimisation de la possibilité forestière afin de permettre l’anticipation du comportement du consommateur de fibre, augmentant ainsi la probabilité que l’offre de fibre soit entièrement consommée, rétablissant ainsi la validité de l’hypothèse de consommation totale de l’offre de fibre implicite au modèle d’optimisation. Nous modélisons la relation principal-agent entre le gouvernement et l’industrie à l’aide d’une formulation biniveau du modèle optimisation, où le niveau supérieur représente le processus de détermination de la possibilité forestière (responsabilité du gouvernement), et le niveau inférieur représente le processus de consommation de la fibre (responsabilité de l’industrie). Nous montrons que la formulation biniveau peux atténuer le risque de ruptures de stock, améliorant ainsi la crédibilité du processus de planification forestière hiérarchique. Ensemble, le modèle biniveau d’optimisation de la possibilité forestière et la méthodologie que nous avons développée pour résoudre celui-ci à l’optimalité, représentent une alternative aux méthodes actuellement utilisées. Notre modèle biniveau et le cadre de simulation itérative représentent un pas vers l’avant en matière de technologie de planification forestière axée sur la création de valeur. L’intégration explicite d’objectifs et de contraintes industrielles au processus de planification forestière, dès la détermination de la possibilité forestière, devrait favoriser une collaboration accrue entre les instances gouvernementales et industrielles, permettant ainsi d’exploiter le plein potentiel de création de valeur de la ressource forestière.

InfoScout: An interactive, entity centric, person search tool.

Individuals living in highly networked societies publish a large amount of personal, and potentially sensitive, information online. Web investigators can exploit such information for a variety of purposes, such as in background vetting and fraud detection. However, such investigations require a large number of expensive man hours and human effort. This paper describes InfoScout, a search tool which is intended to reduce the time it takes to identify and gather subject centric information on the Web. InfoScout collects relevance feedback information from the investigator in order to rerank search results, allowing the intended information to be discovered more quickly. Users may still direct their search as they see fit, issuing ad-hoc queries and filtering existing results by keywords. Design choices are informed by prior work and industry collaboration.

Learning through collaboration and co-production in the Singapore film industry : opportunities for development

Co-production and strategic partnerships may generate valuable learning opportunities for firms to access to the knowledge and expertise of their partners. Such sharing and transfer of knowledge has become an increasingly common way for organising corporate finance and resources. However, not all collaborations result in a net positive experience for both partners. It can be a zero-sum game in which the partner learning the fastest dominates the relationship. In some cases, failure to gain access to partner knowledge results in unequal benefits accruing from such alliances. By examining the Singapore film industry from a learning perspective and taking into account particular forms of alliances, the study contributes to our understanding of the potential benefit and challenges of coproduction as a strategy for development.

Adopting building information modeling (BIM) as collaboration platform in the design industry

This paper discusses the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project aimed at developing a technological, operational and strategic analysis of adopting BIM in AEC/FM (Architecture-Engineering-Construction/Facility Management) industry as a collaboration tool. Outcomes of the project will provide specifications and guidelines as well as establish industry standards for implementing BIM in practice. This research primarily focuses on BIM model servers as a collaboration platform, and hence the guidelines are aimed at enhancing collaboration capabilities. This paper reports on the findings from: (1) a critical review of latest BIM literature and commercial applications, and (2) workshops with focus groups on changing work-practice, role of technology, current perception and expectations of BIM. Layout for case studies being undertaken is presented. These findings provide a base to develop comprehensive software specifications and national guidelines for BIM with particular emphasis on BIM model servers as collaboration platforms.

Media education, collaboration and industry : a case study of what a group of year 10 and 11 students value in a community of practice

This case study incorporated an analysis of a group of young people as media producers and placed young people’s perspectives of their media education learning at the core of the analysis. Communities of practice social learning theory provided an effective conceptual framework for investigating the nature of the participants’ involvement in a secondary school and creative industry partnership. The analysis of the data in this study indicated that the participants valued their learning by imagining, actively participating and belonging to a media education community of practice. By enabling young people to work directly with creative industries this school and industry partnership provided students with what they saw as valuable first-hand experience of professional expertise, that contributed to students’ understanding of their own and others’ identities.

Industry-government collaboration : Queensland's IT&T Strategy and the Information Industries Board

This paper presents a field study of the Queensland Information Technology and Telecommunications Industry Strategy (QITIS), and of the Information Industries Board (IIB), a joint industry-state government body established in 1992 to oversee the implementation of that strategy for the development of the IT&T Industry in Queensland. The aim of the study was to analyse differing stakeholder perspectives on the strategy and on its implementation by the IIB. The study forms part of a longer-term review which aims to develop methodologies for the selection of appropriate strategies for the IT&T Industry, and for the evaluation of outcomes of strategy.

The ceiling to coproduction in university-industry research collaboration

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into government attempts at bridging the divide between theory and practice through university-industry research collaboration modelled under engaged scholarship. The findings are based on data sourced from interviews with 47 academic and industry project leaders from 23 large scale research projects. The paper demonstrates a ceiling to the coproduction of knowledge arising from the preconceived beliefs of both academics and industry partners regarding project roles and responsibilities. The findings show that coproduction was constrained by academic partners assuming control over much of the research activities and industry partners failing to confront or challenge academic decision-making because both academics and industry partners placed a higher value on academic knowledge compared with applied or practical knowledge. It is argued the theory of engaged scholarship, and consequent initiatives to encourage engaged scholarship, fail to account for the superior status of academic knowledge.

Staff and students views on industry-university collaboration in engineering

The university-learning environment in engineering is not sufficient for students to become engineers. The practical role of engineering is working on real world problems in an industry environment. Industry-university collaboration seems to be actively increasing in the development of engineering education in various parts of the globe. The close relationship between industry and university is a vital component of engineering pedagogy in Australia. This research paper is focuses on analyzing staff and students views on industry-university collaboration in engineering. The staff and students are playing vital role in industry-university collaboration. It is always worth analyzing staff and students’ views about their experience on industry-university collaboration. This research inclined to conduct a paper based survey with a cohort of students in second year undergraduate engineering course and also conduct face-to-face interview with staff members in the School of Engineering at Deakin University.