Developing academic and intercultural competence : the impact of a Patches program

This symposium focuses on an innovative Patches program that addresses imperatives with respect to the development of intercultural competence. The term, Patches, in this project refers to writing tasks and intercultural activities wherein each task becomes a ‘patch’ that eventually creates a quilt of learning as experienced by 58 second year BEd students from Malaysia and 14 fourth year domestic (Australian) BEd students. We take intercultural competence to mean students “ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on [their] intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes” (Deardorff, 2006). The papers in this symposium provide detailed information about the design of the program, its impact on students’ perceptions of themselves as students, writers, and emerging professionals, and students’ development of intercultural competence.

A comparative study on the mineralogy, chemistry and chronology of the Apollo 16 crystalline impact melt breccias. Part II: Chronology.

The controversy on how to interpret the ages of lunar highland breccias has recently been discussed by James [1]. Are the measured ages testimony of true events in lunar history; do they represent the age of the ancient crustal rocks, mixed ages of unequilibrated matrix-phenocryst relationships, or merely thermal events subsequent to the formational event ? It is certain from analyses of terrestrial impact melt breccias that the melt matrix of whole impact melt sheets is isotopically equilibrated due to the extensive mixing process of the early cratering stage [2,3]. It has been shown that isotopic equilibration takes place between impact melt matrix and target rock clasts therein, with the intensity of isotopic exchange depending on the degree of shock metamorphism, thermal metamorphism and the size of the clasts [4]. Therefore, impact melt breccias - if they are relatively clast-poor and mineralogically well studied - can be considered to be the most reliable source for information on the impact history of the lunar highland.

Impact of organisational cultural factors on knowledge management in construction

Knowledge Management (KM) is a process that focuses on knowledge-related activities to facilitate knowledge creation, capture, transformation and use, with the ultimate aim of leveraging organisations’ intellectual capital to achieve organisational objectives. Organisational culture and climate have been identified as major catalysts to knowledge creation and sharing, and hence are considered important dimensions of KM research. The fragmented and hierarchical nature of the construction industry illustrates its difficulties to operate in a co-ordinated and homogeneous way when dealing with knowledge-related issues such as research and development, training and innovation. The culture and climate of organisations operating within the construction industry are profoundly shaped by the long-established characteristics of the industry, whilst also being influenced by the changes within the sector. Meanwhile, the special project-based structure of construction organisations constitutes additional challenges in facing knowledge production. The study this paper reports on addresses the impact of organisational culture and climate on the intensity of KM activities within construction organisations, with specific focus on the managerial activities that help to manage these challenges and to facilitate KM. A series of semi-structured interviews were undertaken to investigate the KM activities of the contractors operating in Hong Kong. The analysis on the qualitative data revealed that leadership on KM, innovation management, communication management and IT development were key factors that impact positively on the KM activities within the organisations under investigation.

Citation success over time : theory or empirics?

This study investigates the citation patterns of theoretical and empirical papers published in a top economics journal, namely American Economic Review, over a period of almost 30 years, while also exploring the determinants of citation success. The results indicate that empirical papers attract more citation success than theoretical studies. However, the pattern over time is very similar. Moreover, among empirical papers it appears that the cross-country studies are more successful than single country studies focusing on North America data or other regions.

Assessing the Impact of Sensor Accuracy and Sensor Choice on Air Traffic Conflict Risk Estimation using Risk-Ratio Concepts

One of the primary desired capabilities of any future air traffic separation management system is the ability to provide early conflict detection and resolution effectively and efficiently. In this paper, we consider the risk of conflict as a primary measurement to be used for early conflict detection. This paper focuses on developing a novel approach to assess the impact of different measurement uncertainty models on the estimated risk of conflict. The measurement uncertainty model can be used to represent different sensor accuracy and sensor choices. Our study demonstrates the value of modelling measurement uncertainty in the conflict risk estimation problem and presents techniques providing a means of assessing sensor requirements to achieve desired conflict detection performance.

Strategies for gaining and maintaining academic support for the institutional open access repository

The impact of research can be measured by use or citation count. The more widely available that research outputs are; the more likely they are to be used, and the higher the impact. Making the author-manuscript version of research outputs freely available via the institutional repository greatly increases the availability of research outputs and can increase the impact. QUT ePrints, the open access institutional repository of research outputs at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, was established in 2003 and is managed by the QUT Library. The repository now contains over 39,000 records. More than 21,000 of these records have full-text copies attached as result of continuous effort to maintain momentum and encourage academic engagement. The full-text deposit rate has continued to increase over time and, in 2012 (August, at the time of writing), 88% of the records for works published in 2012 provide access to a full-text copy. Achieving success has required a long term approach to collaboration, open access advocacy, repository promotion, support for the deposit process, and ongoing system development. This paper discusses the various approaches adopted by QUT Library, in collaboration with other areas of the University, to achieve success. Approaches include mainstreaming the repository via having it report to the University Research and Innovation Committee; regular provision of deposit rate data to faculties; championing key academic supporters; and holding promotional competitions and events such as during Open Access Week. Support and training is provided via regular deposit workshops with academics and faculty research support groups and via the provision of online self-help information. Recent system developments have included the integration of citation data (from Scopus and Web of Science) and the development of a statistical reporting system which incentivise engagement.

The impact of legislation on divorce : a hazard function approach

The paper examines the impact of the introduction of no-fault divorce legislation in Australia. The approach used is rather novel, a hazard model of the divorce rate is estimated with the role of legislation captured via a time-varying covariate. The paper concludes that contrary to US empirical evidence, no-fault divorce legislation appears to have had a positive impact upon the divorce rate in Australia.

I know, but I don’t care : how awareness of Queensland’s drug driving testing methods impact upon perceptions of deterrence and offending behaviours

An increasing body of research is highlighting the involvement of illicit drugs in many road fatalities. Deterrence theory has been a core conceptual framework underpinning traffic enforcement as well as interventions designed to reduce road fatalities. Essentially the effectiveness of deterrence-based approaches is predicated on perceptions of certainty, severity, and swiftness of apprehension. However, much less is known about how the awareness of legal sanctions can impact upon the effectiveness of deterrence mechanisms and whether promoting such detection methods can increase the deterrent effect. Nevertheless, the implicit assumption is that individuals aware of the legal sanctions will be more deterred. This study seeks to explore how awareness of the testing method impacts upon the effectiveness of deterrence-based interventions and intentions to drug drive again in the future. In total, 161 participants who reported drug driving in the previous six months took part in the current study. The results show that awareness of testing had a small effect upon increasing perceptions of the certainty of apprehension and severity of punishment. However, awareness was not a significant predictor of intentions to drug drive again in the future. Importantly, higher levels of drug use were a significant predictor of intentions to drug drive in the future. Whilst awareness does have a small effect on deterrence variables, the influence of levels of drug use seems to reduce any deterrent effect.

On the impact of the "linguistic turn" on research in information systems

The linguistic turn within philosophy has recently gained increased attention within social sciences. It can be seen as an attempt to investigate traditional philosophical problems by analysing the linguistic expressions used for these investigations. More generally, the phenomenon of language itself must be considered because of its (constitutional) impact on the investigation of phenomena in social sciences. In order to understand the consequences of the linguistic turn, its origins in philosophy are important and will be discussed. Within social sciences the linguistic turn already had significant impact. As an example, we will therefore discuss what directions the linguistic turn enabled for organizational analysis. Information Systems as a discipline must face the consequences of the linguistic turn as well. We will discuss how the linguistic framework introduced impacts the development of knowledge management and that of managerial and organizational support systems. This example shows what different perspectives the linguistic turn can provide for investigations within Information Systems. In addition, we will briefly outline the impact of the linguistic turn with respect to methodologies in Information Systems research.

Spatial variation of particle number concentration in school microscale environments and its impact on exposure assessment

It has not yet been established whether the spatial variation of particle number concentration (PNC) within a microscale environment can have an effect on exposure estimation results. In general, the degree of spatial variation within microscale environments remains unclear, since previous studies have only focused on spatial variation within macroscale environments. The aims of this study were to determine the spatial variation of PNC within microscale school environments, in order to assess the importance of the number of monitoring sites on exposure estimation. Furthermore, this paper aims to identify which parameters have the largest influence on spatial variation, as well as the relationship between those parameters and spatial variation. Air quality measurements were conducted for two consecutive weeks at each of the 25 schools across Brisbane, Australia. PNC was measured at three sites within the grounds of each school, along with the measurement of meteorological and several other air quality parameters. Traffic density was recorded for the busiest road adjacent to the school. Spatial variation at each school was quantified using coefficient of variation (CV). The portion of CV associated with instrument uncertainty was found to be 0.3 and therefore, CV was corrected so that only non-instrument uncertainty was analysed in the data. The median corrected CV (CVc) ranged from 0 to 0.35 across the schools, with 12 schools found to exhibit spatial variation. The study determined the number of required monitoring sites at schools with spatial variability and tested the deviation in exposure estimation arising from using only a single site. Nine schools required two measurement sites and three schools required three sites. Overall, the deviation in exposure estimation from using only one monitoring site was as much as one order of magnitude. The study also tested the association of spatial variation with wind speed/direction and traffic density, using partial correlation coefficients to identify sources of variation and non-parametric function estimation to quantify the level of variability. Traffic density and road to school wind direction were found to have a positive effect on CVc, and therefore, also on spatial variation. Wind speed was found to have a decreasing effect on spatial variation when it exceeded a threshold of 1.5 (m/s), while it had no effect below this threshold. Traffic density had a positive effect on spatial variation and its effect increased until it reached a density of 70 vehicles per five minutes, at which point its effect plateaued and did not increase further as a result of increasing traffic density.

Child mental health after parental separation: The impact of resident/non-resident parenting, parent mental health, conflict and socioeconomics

Children of separated parents tend to have poorer mental health than children of intact families. Explanations to date have tended to focus on resident mothers, neglecting the potential importance of non-resident fathers. Using recent data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, and independent teacher-reports of child mental health, this study 1) compares the mental health of children with resident and non-resident fathers and 2) explores predictors of poor mental health among children with a non-resident father. Children with a non-resident father had poorer mental health than those with a resident father, but this difference was explained fully by exposure to parental conflict, and to a lesser extent by socioeconomic status, parenting, and parent mental health. For children with a non-resident father, the strongest predictors of child mental health were mothers' employment and maternal parenting consistency. Policy implications are discussed.

Investing for impact : Constructing a better built environment

This publication, Investing for Impact, is a key outcome of Project 2.7 Leveraging R&D Investment for the Australian Built Environment. This information will be included in a more comprehensive book being prepared for publication in 2014 (Taylor and Francis). It draws together research findings and case studies from CIB Task Group 85 members from across the globe, highlighting their diversity and similarities. The evaluation of international case studies on the role and impact of R&D on national development has allowed us to demonstrate examples from different sectors of the built environment of R&D investment models that provide return on investment and other benefits for companies, governments and the general community.

The impact of construction organisations’ learning capabilities on collaborative projects

Dynamic capability theory asserts that the learning capabilities of construction organisations influence the degree to which value-for-money (VfM) is achieved on collaborative projects. However, there has been little study conducted to verify this relationship. The evidence is particularly limited within the empirical context of infrastructure delivery in Australia. Primarily drawing on the theoretical perspectives of the resource-based view of the firm (e.g. Barney 1991), dynamic capabilities (e.g. Helfat et al. 2007), absorptive capacity (e.g. Lane et al. 2006) and knowledge management (e.g. Nonaka 1994), this paper conceptualises learning capability as a knowledge-based dynamic capability. Learning capability builds on the micro-foundations of high-order learning routines, which are deliberately developed by construction organisations for managing collaborative projects. Based on this conceptualisation of learning capability, an exploratory case study was conducted. The study investigated the operational and higher-order learning routines adopted by a project alliance team to successfully achieve VfM. The case study demonstrated that the learning routines of the alliance project were developed and modified by the continual joint learning activities of participant organisations. Project-level learning routines were found to significantly influence the development of organisational-level learning routines. In turn, the learning outcomes generated from the alliance project appeared to significantly influence the development of project management routines and contractual arrangements applied by the participant organisations in subsequent collaborative projects. The case study findings imply that the higher-order learning routines that underpin the learning capability of construction organisations have the potential to influence the VfM achieved on both current and future collaborative projects.

Cultural impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia : results from questionnaire

This paper reports the results of a mixed method approach to answer: what are the cultural values that impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia? Cultural theories, dimensions, and models previously identified in the literature, in addition to individual interviews and focus groups, test the current identified uncovered elements of Saudi culture. This paper will firstly, introduce the importance of culture and define the aspects of Saudi culture. It will then describe the method used and present the questionnaire findings. All of the tested hypotheses were found consistent with their predicted outcomes except hypotheses 4 and 8 were partially consistent. It is evidenced that consideration of the impact of the cultural values will mainly contribute to the enhancement of social and organisational aspects of e-society research and practices, by deeply understanding them as of the influntials to e-service implementation.

Cultural impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia : the role of nepotism

This paper reports the results of a mixed method approach to answer: To what extent do cultural values impact on e-service use in Saudi Arabia, and if so how? This paper will firstly, introduce the importance of culture and define the aspects of Saudi culture. It will then describe the method used and present the questionnaire findings related to the role of nepotism. The review of the literature on nepotism indicates there is still much to be studied and learned. The legal aspects of nepotism, in addition to its impact on human resource management appear to be the more reported issues. However, nepotism’s impact on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has not been studied. This research aims to cover this gap by investigating to what extent nepotism, as one of Saudi Arabia’s cultural values, impacts on e-service use in Saudi Arabia. The tested hypothesis was found consistent with its predicted outcome: nepotism is a negative predictor of intention to use e- services in Saudi Arabia. It is evidenced that consideration of the impact of the cultural values will mainly contribute to the enhancement of social and organisational aspects of e-society research and practices, by deeply understanding them as of the influntials to e-service implementation.