Social ties as key knowledge transfer agents between Indonesian and Australian universities : Perspectives from an Indonesian university

As two neighbouring countries, the number of transnational programs between Indonesian and Australian universities is significant. However, little is known about how transnational programs can facilitate knowledge transfer between the partner universities, which is often assumed by the Indonesian universities. Based on a case study regarding a dual degree program between an Indonesian and an Australian university, this paper outlines preliminary findings concerning the role of social ties between the staff of the two partner universities in creating positive inter-university dynamics that is vital for successful knowledge transfer. Using an inter-organisational knowledge transfer theoretical framework, social ties between the staff of the two universities are viewed as an important agent in facilitating knowledge transfer by building trust between the partners, moderating the perception about risk in the partnership, and creating a more equal power relation between the universities. Based on this study, Australian lecturers of Indonesian background and Indonesian lecturers who are alumni of Australian universities are important to initially establish these social ties. While face-to-face contact is still perceived as the ideal means of transferring knowledge and building trust among the Indonesian university staff, those who have stronger social ties with their Australian counterparts tend to use ICT-based communication to acquire knowledge from the Australian university compared to those who have more limited social ties with their Australian counterparts. This paper concludes with some implications for building positive social ties between Indonesian and Australian university staff to strengthen the knowledge transfer process.

Contractual relationships for better stewardship of privatised critical infrastructures

Governments increasingly rely on forms of privatisation to provide critical public infrastructure yet when those infrastructures fail to meet community expectations government bears the political and economic risks, being held accountable by the public as steward for those infrastructures. Reconfiguration of the contractual relationships may achieve better stewardship. Many of the forms of privatization rely on Agency theory prescriptions, conceptualizing organisations and individuals as motivated solely by self-interest. Stewardship theory (Van Slyke 2007) has developed as a complement to Agency theory offering the possibility of contractual relationships which maximize stewardship outcome. Stewardship theory asserts that pro-stewardship factors cause the agent/steward to act in the interests of the principal. This research has interrogated the literature finding that of the pro-stewardship factors, sense of responsibility is pre-eminent and has a significant link to the agent acting as a steward. The research has explored how important it is that the steward feel sense of responsibility and the actions that sense of responsibility. Case studies of privatized core elements of urban water systems infrastructure were explored. Data has been gathered primarily from archival sources and individual interviews of government and private sector executives key to those systems. This paper reports the findings as to the extent of stewardship, how important it is that the steward acts in the interests of the principal, even to the steward’s detriment and the importance of the steward feeling a sense of responsibility. The actions which increase that sense of responsibility will be assembled to position the research to better proceed with the analysis of the data as to these actions.

International pre-service teachers' self-confidence in critical reflective thinking and writing through an intercultural Patches program

This paper describes part of an action research study that was designed to explore the outcomes of an ongoing program in which the participants, a group of domestic and international pre-service teachers and lecturers, worked together in reflective writing workshops. While the primary long-term goal of the program was to develop the intercultural competence and understanding of all of the participants through social activities, the development of social relationships was initiated and supported by involving the participants in weekly writing workshops that focused on shared salient skills of critical reflective thinking and writing. The focus of this paper is upon the outcomes for the international students, a cohort of second year pre-service teachers from Malaysia. Findings indicated that the program was successful in developing the Malaysian pre-service teachers’ self-confidence in perceiving themselves as writers and future teachers of writing, in shifting their focus from writing product to writing process and content, and in increasing the depth of their critical reflective thinking and writing

Critical Factors of Promoting Market Demand of Sustainable Housing in Australia

Strong regulatory pressure on environmental issues and the improved public awareness will continue to influence the market demand for sustainable housing in the coming years. Despite this potential, the voluntary up-take rate of sustainable practices is not as high as expected within the new built housing industry. This is in contrast to the influx of emerging building technologies, new materials and innovative designs as seen in office buildings and exemplar homes built worldwide. One possible reason for this is that key stakeholders such as developers, builders and consumers do not fully understand and appreciate the tangible and mutual benefits of sustainability in their professional and business activities. This situation warrants the study of a multifaceted strategy that integrates the needs of multiple stakeholders. This research investigates multiple factors that affect key stakeholder’s benefits in sustainable housing implementation. Drawing insights from a quantitative study on a questionnaire survey and a qualitative study of in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in the Australian housing industry, 11 critical factors of driving market demand for sustainable housing were unearthed. Their inter-relationships were identified with the aid of Interpretive Structural Modelling. The study concludes with a hierarchical model that amalgamates the strategies for the decision making of key stakeholders.

Critical sustainability factors in industrialised building systems

Purpose – This paper presents findings of a research study aimed at identifying critical sustainability factors for improved implementation of Industrialised Building Systems (IBS). It also highlights the importance of decision support, through the establishment of decision making guidelines, for sustainability deliverables in IBS development. Design/methodology/approach – A broad range of sustainability factors, as perceived by researchers and practitioners, are identified through a comprehensive literature study. A study of the survey and statistical data analysis is conducted to examine the criticality of these sustainability factors in IBS implementation. Findings – 18 sustainability factors are identified as critical to IBS implementation. Their interrelationships and driving forces are explored, which leads to the development of a conceptual model to map these factors for actions or potential solutions. The work provides a sound basis towards a set of decision making guidelines for sustainable IBS implementation. Originality/value – Compared with previous studies that focus on technical or economical aspects, this study extends existing knowledge on construction prefabrication by linking all aspects of sustainability issues with the design process. It also covers industry characteristics of developing countries, as represented by Malaysia’s scenarios.

Bone tissue engineering : reconstruction of critical sized segmental bone defects in the ovine tibia

Well-established therapies for bone defects are restricted to bone grafts which face significant disadvantages (limited availability, donor site morbidity, insufficient integration). Therefore, the objective was to develop an alternative approach investigating the regenerative potential of medical grade polycaprolactone-tricalcium phosphate (mPCL-TCP) and silk-hydroxyapatite (silk-HA) scaffolds. Critical sized ovine tibial defects were created and stabilized. Defects were left untreated, reconstructed with autologous bone grafts (ABG) and mPCL-TCP or silk-HA scaffolds. Animals were observed for 12 weeks. X-ray analysis, torsion testing and quantitative computed tomography (CT) analyses were performed. Radiological analysis confirmed the critical nature of the defects. Full defect bridging occurred in the autograft and partial bridging in the mPCL-TCP group. Only little bone formation was observed with silk-HA scaffolds. Biomechanical testing revealed a higher torsional moment/stiffness (p < 0.05) and CT analysis a significantly higher amount of bone formation for the ABG group when compared to the silk-HA group. No significant difference was determined between the ABG and mPCL-TCP groups. The results of this study suggest that mPCL-TCP scaffolds combined can serve as an alternative to autologous bone grafting in long bone defect regeneration. The combination of mPCL-TCP with osteogenic cells or growth factors represents an attractive means to further enhance bone formation.

The emerging role of private health care provision in China : a critical analysis of the current health system

China continues to face great challenges in meeting the health needs of its large population. The challenges are not just lack of resources, but also how to use existing resources more efficiently, more effectively, and more equitably. Now a major unaddressed challenge facing China is how to reform an inefficient, poorly organized health care delivery system. The objective of this study is to analyze the role of private health care provision in China and discuss the implications of increasing private-sector development for improving health system performance. This study is based on an extensive literature review, the purpose of which was to identify, summarize, and evaluate ideas and information on private health care provision in China. In addition, the study uses secondary data analysis and the results of previous study by the authors to highlight the current situation of private health care provision in one province of China. This study found that government-owned hospitals form the backbone of the health care system and also account for most health care service provision. However, even though the public health care system is constantly trying to adapt to population needs and improve its performance, there are many problems in the system, such as limited access, low efficiency, poor quality, cost inflation, and low patient satisfaction. Currently, private hospitals are relatively rare, and private health care as an important component of the health care system in China has received little policy attention. It is argued that policymakers in China should recognize the role of private health care provision for health system performance, and then define and achieve an appropriate role for private health care provision in helping to respond to the many challenges facing the health system in present-day China.

Teachers' knowledge for social education : perspectives from the middle years of schooling

Social education in Australia is a divisive educational issue. The last decade has been marked by the controversial integrated social studies curriculum, Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) where history, geography and environmental studies were integrated with civics and citizenship. The introduction of a compulsory K-10 Australian Curriculum from 2011, however, marks the return to history and geography and the abandonment of SOSE. Curriculum reform aside, what do teachers think is essential knowledge for middle years social education? The paper reports on a phenomenographical exploration of thirty-one middle school teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge for SOSE. Framed by Shulman’s (1986, 1987) theoretical framework of the knowledge base for teaching, the research identified seven qualitatively different ways of understanding essential knowledge for social education. The study indicates a professional practice-based theorisation of social education that justifies attention to discipline-based knowledge and teacher identity in the middle years.

Novel methods and the maximum likelihood estimation technique for estimating traffic critical gap

Most unsignalised intersection capacity calculation procedures are based on gap acceptance models. Accuracy of critical gap estimation affects accuracy of capacity and delay estimation. Several methods have been published to estimate drivers’ sample mean critical gap, the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) technique regarded as the most accurate. This study assesses three novel methods; Average Central Gap (ACG) method, Strength Weighted Central Gap method (SWCG), and Mode Central Gap method (MCG), against MLE for their fidelity in rendering true sample mean critical gaps. A Monte Carlo event based simulation model was used to draw the maximum rejected gap and accepted gap for each of a sample of 300 drivers across 32 simulation runs. Simulation mean critical gap is varied between 3s and 8s, while offered gap rate is varied between 0.05veh/s and 0.55veh/s. This study affirms that MLE provides a close to perfect fit to simulation mean critical gaps across a broad range of conditions. The MCG method also provides an almost perfect fit and has superior computational simplicity and efficiency to the MLE. The SWCG method performs robustly under high flows; however, poorly under low to moderate flows. Further research is recommended using field traffic data, under a variety of minor stream and major stream flow conditions for a variety of minor stream movement types, to compare critical gap estimates using MLE against MCG. Should the MCG method prove as robust as MLE, serious consideration should be given to its adoption to estimate critical gap parameters in guidelines.

The geostationary orbit : a critical legal geography of space’s most valuable real estate

This chapter attends to the legal and political geographies of one of Earth's most important, valuable, and pressured spaces: the geostationary orbit. Since the first, NASA, satellite entered it in 1964, this small, defined band of Outer Space, 35,786km from the Earth's surface, and only 30km wide, has become a highly charged legal and geopolitical environment, yet it remains a space which is curiously unheard of outside of specialist circles. For the thousands of satellites which now underpin the Earth's communication, media, and data industries and flows, the geostationary orbit is the prime position in Space. The geostationary orbit only has the physical capacity to hold approximately 1500 satellites; in 1997 there were approximately 1000. It is no overstatement to assert that media, communication, and data industries would not be what they are today if it was not for the geostationary orbit. This chapter provides a critical legal geography of the geostationary orbit, charting the topography of the debates and struggles to define and manage this highly-important space. Drawing on key legal documents such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty, the chapter addresses fundamental questions about the legal geography of the orbit, questions which are of growing importance as the orbit’s available satellite spaces diminish and the orbit comes under increasing pressure. Who owns the geostationary orbit? Who, and whose rules, govern what may or may not (literally) take place within it? Who decides which satellites can occupy the orbit? Is the geostationary orbit the sovereign property of the equatorial states it supertends, as these states argued in the 1970s? Or is it a part of the res communis, or common property of humanity, which currently legally characterises Outer Space? As challenges to the existing legal spatiality of the orbit from launch states, companies, and potential launch states, it is particularly critical that the current spatiality of the orbit is understood and considered. One of the busiest areas of Outer Space’s spatiality is international territorial law. Mentions of Space law tend to evoke incredulity and ‘little green men’ jokes, but as Space becomes busier and busier, international Space law is growing in complexity and importance. The chapter draws on two key fields of research: cultural geography, and critical legal geography. The chapter is framed by the cultural geographical concept of ‘spatiality’, a term which signals the multiple and dynamic nature of geographical space. As spatial theorists such as Henri Lefebvre assert, a space is never simply physical; rather, any space is always a jostling composite of material, imagined, and practiced geographies (Lefebvre 1991). The ways in which a culture perceives, represents, and legislates that space are as constitutive of its identity--its spatiality--as the physical topography of the ground itself. The second field in which this chapter is situated—critical legal geography—derives from cultural geography’s focus on the cultural construction of spatiality. In his Law, Space and the Geographies of Power (1994), Nicholas Blomley asserts that analyses of territorial law largely neglect the spatial dimension of their investigations; rather than seeing the law as a force that produces specific kinds of spaces, they tend to position space as a neutral, universally-legible entity which is neatly governed by the equally neutral 'external variable' of territorial law (28). 'In the hegemonic conception of the law,' Pue similarly argues, 'the entire world is transmuted into one vast isotropic surface' (1990: 568) on which law simply acts. But as the emerging field of critical legal geography demonstrates, law is not a neutral organiser of space, but is instead a powerful cultural technology of spatial production. Or as Delaney states, legal debates are “episodes in the social production of space” (2001, p. 494). International territorial law, in other words, makes space, and does not simply govern it. Drawing on these tenets of the field of critical legal geography, as well as on Lefebvrian concept of multipartite spatiality, this chapter does two things. First, it extends the field of critical legal geography into Space, a domain with which the field has yet to substantially engage. Second, it demonstrates that the legal spatiality of the geostationary orbit is both complex and contested, and argues that it is crucial that we understand this dynamic legal space on which the Earth’s communications systems rely.

Health professionals’ perspectives on information provision for patients with brain tumours and their families

A significant number of patients diagnosed with primary brain tumours report unmet information needs. Using concept mapping methodology, this study aimed to identify strategies for improving information provision, and to describe factors that health professionals understood to influence their provision of information to patients with brain tumours and their families. Concept mapping is a mixed methods approach that uses statistical methods to represent participants’ perceived relationships between elements as conceptual maps. These maps, and results of associated data collection and analyses, are used to extract concepts involved in information provision to these patients. Thirty health professionals working across a range of neuro-oncology roles and settings participated in the concept mapping process. Participants rated a care coordinator as the most important strategy for improving brain tumour care, with psychological support as a whole rated as the most important element of care. Five major themes were identified as facilitating information provision: health professionals’ communication skills, style and attitudes; patients’ needs and preferences; perceptions of patients’ need for protection and initiative; rapport and continuity between patients and health professionals; and the nature of the health care system. Overall, health professionals conceptualised information provision as ‘individualised’, dependent on these interconnected personal and environmental factors.

Postpositivist research in education : theorising social structure in critical and institutional ethnography

This chapter charts the theories and methods being adopted in an investigation of the 'micro-politics' of teacher education policy reception at a site of higher education in Queensland from 1980 to 1990. The paper combines insights and methods from critical ethnography with those from the institutional ethnography of feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith to link local policy activity at the institutional site to broader social structures and processes. In this way, enquiry begins with--and takes into account--the experiences of those groups normally excluded from mainstream and even critical policy analysis.

The creative cities discourse : production and/or consumption?

The already considerable debate about what constitutes a 'creative' city becomes ever more critical as the world urbanizes at a rapid pace. In this chapter the author argues that the key tensions in discussions over what makes cities more conducive to and supportive of creativity revolve around perspectives that are either production-centric or consumption-centric. Scholars are increasing prepared to claim priority for the city-region over the nation-state as an economic and cultural agent in the contemporary world, but are they ready to deal with major changes in the nature of cultural production and consumption themselves? A number of examples of new challenges for the creative cities 'discourse' rounds out the chapter.

Intermittent drying of food products : a critical review

Drying is very energy intensive process and consumes about 20-25% of the energy used by food processing industry. The energy efficiency of the process and quality of dried product are two key factors in food drying. Global energy crisis and demand for quality dried food further challenge researchers to explore innovative techniques in food drying to address these issues. Intermittent drying is considered one of the promising solutions for improving energy efficiency and product quality without increasing the capital cost of the drier. Intermittent drying has already received much attention. However, a comprehensive review of recent progresses and overall assessment of energy efficiency and product quality in intermittent drying is lacking. The objective of this article is to discuss, analyze and evaluate the recent advances in intermittent drying research with energy efficiency and product quality as standpoint. Current available modelling techniques for intermittent drying are reviewed and their merits and demerits are analyzed. Moreover, intermittent application of ultrasound, infrared (IR) and microwave in combined drying technology have been reviewed and discussed. In this review article the gaps in the current literature are highlighted, some important future scopes for theoretical and experimental studies are identified and the direction of further research is suggested.

Moments of action provide insight into critical times for advection–diffusion–reaction processes

In 2010 Berezhkovskii and coworkers introduced the concept of local accumulation time (LAT) as a finite measure of the time required for the transient solution of a reaction diffusion equation to effectively reach steady state(Biophys J. 99, L59 (2010); Phys Rev E. 83, 051906 (2011)). Berezhkovskii’s approach is a particular application of the concept of mean action time (MAT) that was introduced previously by McNabb (IMA J Appl Math. 47, 193 (1991)). Here, we generalize these previous results by presenting a framework to calculate the MAT, as well as the higher moments, which we call the moments of action. The second moment is the variance of action time; the third moment is related to the skew of action time, and so on. We consider a general transition from some initial condition to an associated steady state for a one–dimensional linear advection–diffusion–reaction partial differential equation(PDE). Our results indicate that it is possible to solve for the moments of action exactly without requiring the transient solution of the PDE. We present specific examples that highlight potential weaknesses of previous studies that have considered the MAT alone without considering higher moments. Finally, we also provide a meaningful interpretation of the moments of action by presenting simulation results from a discrete random walk model together with some analysis of the particle lifetime distribution. This work shows that the moments of action are identical to the moments of the particle lifetime distribution for certain transitions.