Vulnerable and invisible : depictions of trafficking victims in public awareness campaigns

Public concern about the crime of human trafficking has dramatically risen over the last two decades. . This concern and panic has both spawned and been fuelled by an array of public awareness campaigns that aim to educate the public about this crime. Campaigns such as the Blue Blindfold Campaign in the UK, the UN-driven Blue Heart Campaign, and the worldwide Body Shop campaign have contributed to the public’s awareness and, to an extent, understanding of the phenomenon of human trafficking. This research explores these and other government and non-government campaigns aimed at raising public awareness of human trafficking. It questions the rationale, call to action and impact of these efforts, and analyses the depiction of trafficking victims in these campaigns. In particular, this research argues that some of these campaigns perpetuate an understanding of a hierarchy of victimisation of trafficking. A public focus on sex trafficking often results in the conflation of prostitution and trafficking, and renders invisible the male and female victims of trafficking for other forms of labour.

Safety culture research in the construction sector : interlocked projects in safety competency and safety effectiveness indicators

Safety culture is a concept that has long been accepted in high risk industries such as aviation, nuclear industries and mining, however, considerable research is now being undertaken within the construction sector, with varying levels of success. The current paper discusses three recent interlocked projects that have had some success in the Australian construction industry. The first project examined the development and implementation of a safety competency framework targeted at safety critical positions across first tier construction organisations. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, the project: developed a matrix of safety critical positions (n=11) and safety managements tasks (SMTs; n=39); mapped the process steps for their acquisition and ongoing development; detailed the knowledge, skills and behaviours required for all SMTs; and outlined organisational cultural outcomes that could be anticipated in a successful implementation of the framework. The second project extended research on safety competency and leadership to develop behavioural guidelines for leaders to drive safety culture change down to second tier companies. This was designed to assist smaller construction companies to customise their own competency framework and develop implementation guidelines that match their aspirations and resources. The third interlocked project explored the use of safety effectiveness indicators (SEIs) as an industry-relevant assessment tool for reducing risk on construction sites. With direct linkages to safety competencies and safety management tasks, the SEIs are the next step towards an integrated safety cultural approach to safety and extend the concept of positive performance indicators (PPIs) by providing a valid, reliable, and user friendly measurement platform. Taken together, the results of the interlocked projects suggest that safety culture research has many potential benefits for the construction industry, particularly when research is conducted in partnership with industry stakeholders. Suggestions are made for future research, including further application and testing of the safety competency framework and aligning SEIs across construction projects of varying size, location and design.

Performance testing of road bridge deck containing flat rail wagons

A road bridge containing disused flatbed rail wagons as the primary deck superstructure was performance tested in a low volume, high axle load traffic road in Queensland, Australia; some key results are presented in this paper. A fully laden truck of total weight 28.88 % of the serviceability design load prescribed in the Australian bridge code was used; its wheel positions were accurately captured using a high speed camera and synchronised with the real‐time deflections and strains measured at the critical members of the flat rail wagons. The strains remained well below the yield and narrated the existence of composite action between the reinforced concrete slab pavement and the wagon deck. A three dimensional grillage model was developed and calibrated using the test data, which established the structural adequacy of the rail wagons and the positive contribution of the reinforced concrete slab pavement to resist high axle traffic loads on a single lane bridge in the low volume roads network.

A Delphi study on the critical sustainability criteria and indicators for Australian road infrastructure projects

With increasing media exposure and evidence of environmental impacts, it is increasingly recognized that incorporating sustainability principles in construction works is both crucial and beneficial. However a recent survey reveals that among stakeholders of infrastructure projects such as roads, there is no common understanding on what constitutes sustainability in real-life projects. Sustainability has been interpreted widely and differently and as a result, sustainability outcomes are not tangible at the project level or often neglected. Under such conditions, policies and strategies on sustainability remain largely ideological and cannot be sufficiently reflected in the actual project delivery. The major difficulty of this sustainability pursuit lies in the lack of consensus among the experts on sustainability criteria and indicators. To move ahead, these criteria and indicators are to be agreed upon. This paper reviews the sustainable infrastructure development, its criteria and indicators, focusing on road infrastructure context. It goes on to introduce a Delphi study, an integral part of a QUT research, aimed at identifying critical sustainability criteria and indicators for Australian road infrastructure projects. It paves the way for further identification of solutions for each critical indicator at a subsequent stage. The criteria, indicators and solutions will be encapsulated into a decision making framework for the enhancement of sustainability deliverables. By doing so, the research will promote more integrated thinking of and consistent approaches to the sustainability agenda in road and highway infrastructure projects in Australia.

Phenomenography : “Follow the yellow brick road!”

Imagine that is you holding the glass, and the separate larger picture of the glass to the left, is how much wine is inside the glass you are holding. Now, first of all, no tricks, truthfully answer the following question...

Understanding user experience of mobile video : framework, measurement, and optimization

Since users have become the focus of product/service design in last decade, the term User eXperience (UX) has been frequently used in the field of Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). Research on UX facilitates a better understanding of the various aspects of the user’s interaction with the product or service. Mobile video, as a new and promising service and research field, has attracted great attention. Due to the significance of UX in the success of mobile video (Jordan, 2002), many researchers have centered on this area, examining users’ expectations, motivations, requirements, and usage context. As a result, many influencing factors have been explored (Buchinger, Kriglstein, Brandt & Hlavacs, 2011; Buchinger, Kriglstein & Hlavacs, 2009). However, a general framework for specific mobile video service is lacking for structuring such a great number of factors. To measure user experience of multimedia services such as mobile video, quality of experience (QoE) has recently become a prominent concept. In contrast to the traditionally used concept quality of service (QoS), QoE not only involves objectively measuring the delivered service but also takes into account user’s needs and desires when using the service, emphasizing the user’s overall acceptability on the service. Many QoE metrics are able to estimate the user perceived quality or acceptability of mobile video, but may be not enough accurate for the overall UX prediction due to the complexity of UX. Only a few frameworks of QoE have addressed more aspects of UX for mobile multimedia applications but need be transformed into practical measures. The challenge of optimizing UX remains adaptations to the resource constrains (e.g., network conditions, mobile device capabilities, and heterogeneous usage contexts) as well as meeting complicated user requirements (e.g., usage purposes and personal preferences). In this chapter, we investigate the existing important UX frameworks, compare their similarities and discuss some important features that fit in the mobile video service. Based on the previous research, we propose a simple UX framework for mobile video application by mapping a variety of influencing factors of UX upon a typical mobile video delivery system. Each component and its factors are explored with comprehensive literature reviews. The proposed framework may benefit in user-centred design of mobile video through taking a complete consideration of UX influences and in improvement of mobile videoservice quality by adjusting the values of certain factors to produce a positive user experience. It may also facilitate relative research in the way of locating important issues to study, clarifying research scopes, and setting up proper study procedures. We then review a great deal of research on UX measurement, including QoE metrics and QoE frameworks of mobile multimedia. Finally, we discuss how to achieve an optimal quality of user experience by focusing on the issues of various aspects of UX of mobile video. In the conclusion, we suggest some open issues for future study.

What do we currently know about designing and evaluating road safety advertising?

Overview: What we currently know - content design and evaluation The direct role (persuasive effects) of advertising Review of some key findings within a conceptual framework of the persuasive process Definitional inconsistencies, methodological limitations, & gaps in existing knowledge Suggested issues/directions for future advertising research

Has increasing the age for child passengers to wear child restraints improved the extent to which they are used? Results from an Australian focus group and survey study.

Acknowledgement that many children in Australia travel in restraints that do not offer them the best protection has led to recent changes in legislation such that the type of restraint for children under 7 years is now specified. This paper reports the results of two studies (observational; focus group/ survey) carried out in the state of Queensland to evaluate the effectiveness of these changes to the legislation. Observations suggested that almost all of the children estimated as aged 0-12 years were restrained (95%). Analysis of the type of restraint used for target-aged children (0-6 year olds) suggests that the proportion using an age-appropriate restraint has increased by an estimated 7% since enactment of the legislation. However, around 1 in 4 children estimated as aged under 7 years were using restraints too large for good fit. Results from the survey and focus group suggested parents were supportive of the changes in legislation. Non-Indigenous parents agreed that the changes had been necessary, were effective at getting children into the right restraints, were easy to understand as well as making it clear what restraint to use with children. Moreover, they did not see the legislation as too complicated or too hard to comply with. Indigenous parents who participated in a focus group also regarded the legislation as improving children’s safety. However, they identified the cost of restraints as an important barrier to compliance. In summary, the legislation appears to have had a positive effect on compliance levels and on raising parental awareness of the need to restrain children child-specific restraints for longer. However, it would seem that an important minority of parents transition their children into larger restraints too early for optimal protection. Intervention efforts should aim to better inform these parents about appropriate ages for transition, especially from forward facing childseats. This could potentially be through use of other important transitions that occur at the same age, such as starting school. The small proportion of parents who do not restrain their children at all are also an important community sector to target. Finally, obtaining restraints presents a significant barrier to compliance for parents on limited incomes and interventions are needed to address this.

Beyond difference : reconfiguring education for the user-led age

In recent years, various observers have pointed to the shifting paradigms of cultural and societal participation and economic production in developed nations. These changes are facilitated (although, importantly, not solely driven) by the emergence of new, participatory technologies of information access, knowledge exchange, and content production, many of whom are associated with Internet and new media technologies. In an online context, such technologies are now frequently described as social software, social media, or Web2.0, but their impact is no longer confined to cyberspace as an environment that is somehow different and separate from ‘real life’: user-led content and knowledge production is increasingly impacting on media, economy, law, social practices, and democracy itself.

Bariatric patients and the use of mobile hoists : user experiences from three hospitals in South Australia

Nursing personnel are consistently identified as one of the occupational groups most at risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. During the moving and handling of bariatric patients, the weight of the patient combined with atypical body mass contributes to a significant risk of injury to the care provider and patient. This is further compounded by the shape, mobility and co-operation of the patient. The aim of this study was determine user experiences and design requirements for mobile hoists with bariatric patients. Structured interviews were conducted with six experienced injury management staff from the Manual Task Services department of three hospitals in Adelaide, South Australia. All staff had experience in patient handling, the use of patient handling equipment and the provision of patient handling training. A series of open-ended questions were structured around five main themes: 1) patient factors; 2) building/vehicle space and design; 3) equipment and furniture; 4) communication; and 5) staff issues. Questions focussed on the use of mobile hoists for lifting and transferring bariatric patients. Interviews were supplemented with a walk-through of the hospital to view the types of mobile hoists used, and the location and storage of equipment. Across the three hospitals there were differing classification systems to define bariatric patients. Ensuring patient dignity, respect and privacy were viewed as important in the management and rehabilitation of bariatric patients. Storage and space constraints were considered factors restricting the use of mobile floor hoists, with ceiling hoists being the preferred method for patient transfers. When using mobile floor hoists, the forces required to push, pull and manoeuvre, as well as sudden unstable movements of the hoist were considered important risks factors giving rise to a risk of injury to the care provider. Record keeping and purchasing policies appeared to inhibit the effective use of patient handling equipment. The moving and handling of bariatric patients presents complex and challenging issues. A co-ordinated and collaborative approach for moving and handling bariatric patients is needed across the range of care providers. Designers must consider both user and patient requirements.

Young, inexperienced and on the road : do novice drivers comply with road rules?

The graduated driver licensing (GDL) program in Queensland, Australia, was considerably enhanced in July 2007. This paper explores the compliance of young Learner and Provisional (intermediate) drivers with current GDL requirements and general road rules. Unsupervised driving, Learner logbook accuracy, and experiences of punishment avoidance were explored, along with speeding as a Provisional driver. Participants (609 females; M = 17.43 years) self-reported sociodemographic characteristics, driving behaviours and licensing experiences as Learners. A subset of participants (238 females, 105 males) completed another survey six months later exploring their Provisional behaviours and experiences. While the majority of the participants reported compliance with both the GDL requirements and general road rules such as stopping at red lights on their Learner licence; a considerable proportion reported speeding. Furthermore, they reported becoming less compliant during the Provisional phase, particularly with speed limits. Self-reported speeding was predicted by younger age at licensure, being in a relationship, driving unsupervised, submitting inaccurate Learner logbooks, and speeding as a Learner. Enforcement and education countermeasures should focus upon curtailing noncompliance, targeting speeding in particular. Novice drivers should be encouraged to comply with all road rules, including speed limits, and safe driving behaviours should be developed and reinforced during the Learner and early Provisional periods. Novice drivers have been found to model their parents’ driving, and parents are pivotal in regulating novice driving. It is vital young novice drivers and parents alike are encouraged to comply with all road rules, including GDL requirements.

Source characterisation of road dust based on chemical and mineralogical composition

Road dust contain potentially toxic pollutants originating from a range of anthropogenic sources common to urban land uses and soil inputs from surrounding areas. The research study analysed the mineralogy and morphology of dust samples from road surfaces from different land uses and background soil samples to characterise the relative source contributions to road dust. The road dust consist primarily of soil derived minerals (60%) with quartz averaging 40-50% and remainder being clay forming minerals of albite, microcline, chlorite and muscovite originating from surrounding soils. About 2% was organic matter primarily originating from plant matter. Potentially toxic pollutants represented about 30% of the build-up. These pollutants consist of brake and tire wear, combustion emissions and fly ash from asphalt. Heavy metals such as Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni, Cr and Cd primarily originate from vehicular traffic while Fe, Al and Mn primarily originate from surrounding soils. The research study confirmed the significant contribution of vehicular traffic to dust deposited on urban road surfaces.

Perceptions of visibility and conspicuity of biomotion clothing configurations for road workers at road work sites

Aims: This study determined whether the visibility benefits of positioning retroreflective strips in biological motion configurations were evident at real world road worker sites. Methods: 20 visually normal drivers (M=40.3 years) participated in this study that was conducted at two road work sites (one suburban and one freeway) on two separate nights. At each site, four road workers walked in place wearing one of four different clothing options: a) standard road worker night vest, b) standard night vest plus retroreflective strips on thighs, c) standard night vest plus retroreflective strips on ankles and knees, d) standard night vest plus retroreflective strips on eight moveable joints (full biomotion). Participants seated in stationary vehicles at three different distances (80m, 160m, 240m) rated the relative conspicuity of the four road workers using a series of a standardized visibility and ranking scales. Results: Adding retroreflective strips in the full biomotion configuration to the standard night vest significantly (p<0.001) enhanced perceptions of road worker visibility compared to the standard vest alone, or in combination with thigh retroreflective markings. These visibility benefits were evident at all distances and at both sites. Retroreflective markings at the ankles and knees also provided visibility benefits compared to the standard vest, however, the full biomotion configuration was significantly better than all of the other configurations. Conclusions: These data provide the first evidence that the benefits of biomotion retroreflective markings that have been previously demonstrated under laboratory and closed- and open-road conditions are also evident at real work sites.

An object oriented road asset information model

Preservation and enhancement of transportation infrastructure is critical to continuous economic development in Australia. Of particular importance are the road assets infrastructure, due to their high costs of setting up and their social and economic impact on the national economy. Continuous availability of road assets, however, is contingent upon their effective design, condition monitoring, maintenance, and renovation and upgrading. However, in order to achieve this data exchange, integration, and interoperability is required across municipal boundaries. On the other hand, there are no agreed reference frameworks that consistently describe road infrastructure assets. As a consequence, specifications and technical solutions being chosen to manage road assets do not provide adequate detail and quality of information to support asset lifecycle management processes and decisions taken are based on perception not reality. This paper presents a road asset information model, which works as reference framework to, link other kinds of information with asset information; integrate different data suppliers; and provide a foundation for service driven integrated information framework for community infrastructure and asset management.

An integrated approach for precise road reconstruction from aerial imagery and LiDAR data

Accurate and detailed road models play an important role in a number of geospatial applications, such as infrastructure planning, traffic monitoring, and driver assistance systems. In this thesis, an integrated approach for the automatic extraction of precise road features from high resolution aerial images and LiDAR point clouds is presented. A framework of road information modeling has been proposed, for rural and urban scenarios respectively, and an integrated system has been developed to deal with road feature extraction using image and LiDAR analysis. For road extraction in rural regions, a hierarchical image analysis is first performed to maximize the exploitation of road characteristics in different resolutions. The rough locations and directions of roads are provided by the road centerlines detected in low resolution images, both of which can be further employed to facilitate the road information generation in high resolution images. The histogram thresholding method is then chosen to classify road details in high resolution images, where color space transformation is used for data preparation. After the road surface detection, anisotropic Gaussian and Gabor filters are employed to enhance road pavement markings while constraining other ground objects, such as vegetation and houses. Afterwards, pavement markings are obtained from the filtered image using the Otsu's clustering method. The final road model is generated by superimposing the lane markings on the road surfaces, where the digital terrain model (DTM) produced by LiDAR data can also be combined to obtain the 3D road model. As the extraction of roads in urban areas is greatly affected by buildings, shadows, vehicles, and parking lots, we combine high resolution aerial images and dense LiDAR data to fully exploit the precise spectral and horizontal spatial resolution of aerial images and the accurate vertical information provided by airborne LiDAR. Objectoriented image analysis methods are employed to process the feature classiffcation and road detection in aerial images. In this process, we first utilize an adaptive mean shift (MS) segmentation algorithm to segment the original images into meaningful object-oriented clusters. Then the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm is further applied on the MS segmented image to extract road objects. Road surface detected in LiDAR intensity images is taken as a mask to remove the effects of shadows and trees. In addition, normalized DSM (nDSM) obtained from LiDAR is employed to filter out other above-ground objects, such as buildings and vehicles. The proposed road extraction approaches are tested using rural and urban datasets respectively. The rural road extraction method is performed using pan-sharpened aerial images of the Bruce Highway, Gympie, Queensland. The road extraction algorithm for urban regions is tested using the datasets of Bundaberg, which combine aerial imagery and LiDAR data. Quantitative evaluation of the extracted road information for both datasets has been carried out. The experiments and the evaluation results using Gympie datasets show that more than 96% of the road surfaces and over 90% of the lane markings are accurately reconstructed, and the false alarm rates for road surfaces and lane markings are below 3% and 2% respectively. For the urban test sites of Bundaberg, more than 93% of the road surface is correctly reconstructed, and the mis-detection rate is below 10%.