Vote with your feet : hyperlocal public polling for urban screens

Technological advances have led to an ongoing spread of public displays in urban areas. However, they still mostly show passive content such as commercials and digital signage. Researchers took notice of their potential to spark situated civic discourse in public space and have begun working on interactive public display applications. Attracting people’s attention and providing a low barrier for user participation have been identified as major challenges in their design. This thesis presents Vote With Your Feet, a hyperlocal public polling tool for urban screens allowing users to express their opinions. Similar to vox populi interviews on TV or polls on news websites, the tool is meant to reflect the mindset of the community on topics such as current affairs, cultural identity and local matters. It shows one Yes/No question at a time and enables users to vote by stepping on one of two tangible buttons on the ground. This user interface was introduced to attract people’s attention and to lower participation barriers. Vote With Your Feet was informed by a user-centred design approach that included a focus group, expert interviews and extensive preliminary user studies in the wild. Deployed at a bus stop, Vote With Your Feet was evaluated in a field study over the course of several days. Observations of people and interviews with 30 participants revealed that the novel interaction technology was perceived as inviting and that Vote With Your Feet can spark discussions among co-located people.

Management of over-the-counter insomnia complaints in Australian community pharmacies: A standardized patient study

Objective To evaluate the current management of over-the-counter (OTC) insomnia complaints in Australian community pharmacies using standardized patient methodology. Methods Trained standardized patients visited a sample of 100 randomly selected South East Queensland community pharmacies in June 2011. The standardized patients enacted two OTC insomnia scenarios: a direct product request (DPR) (n = 50) and a symptom-based request (SBR) (n = 50). Results of the interactions were documented immediately after each visit and evaluated using the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia's WHAT STOP GO protocol as a standard comparison. Key findings Of all DPRs, 30% were handled entirely by the pharmacist, 70% of staff enquired about specific symptoms and 28% investigated the cause of insomnia. No staff investigated the frequency of product use. The DPR scenario resulted in a 92% supply of the requested doxylamine product (Restavit). In the SBR scenario, 18% of requests were handled entirely by the pharmacist, 58% of staff enquired about specific symptoms and 44% investigated the cause of insomnia. Staff recommended medicated products (38%), or herbal (78%) or non-drug techniques (18%). Investigation into smoking and alcohol intake was not undertaken in DPR or SBR interactions, while questioning on caffeine intake was undertaken in 2 and 14% of cases respectively. There were no significant differences found in the handling of sleep requests by pharmacists compared to pharmacy assistants. Conclusion The standardized patient methodology was a successful way to assess the community pharmacy counselling provided with OTC sleep requests and suboptimal staff responses were found when compared with recommended practice standards.

Optimising the length of Random Breath Tests : results from the Queensland Community Engagement Trial

Research suggests that the length and quality of police-citizen encounters affect policing outcomes. The Koper Curve, for example, shows that the optimal length for police presence in hot spots is between 14 and 15 minutes, with diminishing returns observed thereafter. Our study, using data from the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET), examines the impact of encounter length on citizen perceptions of police performance. QCET involved a randomised field trial, where 60 random breath test (RBT) traffic stop operations were randomly allocated to an experimental condition involving a procedurally just encounter or a business-as-usual control condition. Our results show that the optimal length of time for procedurally just encounters during RBT traffic stops is just less than 2 minutes. We show, therefore, that it is important to encourage and facilitate positive police–citizen encounters during RBTat traffic stops, while ensuring that the length of these interactions does not pass a point of diminishing returns.

Accused cleric built reputation at small school in Australia

The little Anglican boarding school of St Barnabas, in the mountain town of Ravenshoe, north Queensland, was where Robert Waddington built his reputation as an educationalist. He was headmaster there from 1961-70, but a growing number of former pupils are now coming forward to say they were subjected to sexual and physical abuse by him. Bim Atkinson, 58, said that his ordeal began after he was sent to the school and joined the choir. “I was absolutely petrified of the man,” Mr Atkinson recalls. “After I joined the choir, the abuse started. He would tell me to go to the sickbay, which had a connecting door to his bedroom and then I would end up in his room.”

An improved chemically inducible gene switch that functions in the monocotyledonous plant sugar cane

Chemically inducible gene switches can provide precise control over gene expression, enabling more specific analyses of gene function and expanding the plant biotechnology toolkit beyond traditional constitutive expression systems. The alc gene expression system is one of the most promising chemically inducible gene switches in plants because of its potential in both fundamental research and commercial biotechnology applications. However, there are no published reports demonstrating that this versatile gene switch is functional in transgenic monocotyledonous plants, which include some of the most important agricultural crops. We found that the original alc gene switch was ineffective in the monocotyledonous plant sugar cane, and describe a modified alc system that is functional in this globally significant crop. A promoter consisting of tandem copies of the ethanol receptor inverted repeat binding site, in combination with a minimal promoter sequence, was sufficient to give enhanced sensitivity and significantly higher levels of ethanol inducible gene expression. A longer CaMV 35S minimal promoter than was used in the original alc gene switch also substantially improved ethanol inducibility. Treating the roots with ethanol effectively induced the modified alc system in sugar cane leaves and stem, while an aerial spray was relatively ineffective. The extension of this chemically inducible gene expression system to sugar cane opens the door to new opportunities for basic research and crop biotechnology.

Distributed public-key cryptography from weak secrets

We introduce the notion of distributed password-based public-key cryptography, where a virtual high-entropy private key is implicitly defined as a concatenation of low-entropy passwords held in separate locations. The users can jointly perform private-key operations by exchanging messages over an arbitrary channel, based on their respective passwords, without ever sharing their passwords or reconstituting the key. Focusing on the case of ElGamal encryption as an example, we start by formally defining ideal functionalities for distributed public-key generation and virtual private-key computation in the UC model. We then construct efficient protocols that securely realize them in either the RO model (for efficiency) or the CRS model (for elegance). We conclude by showing that our distributed protocols generalize to a broad class of “discrete-log”-based public-key cryptosystems, which notably includes identity-based encryption. This opens the door to a powerful extension of IBE with a virtual PKG made of a group of people, each one memorizing a small portion of the master key.

Novel sequential methods in dose-finding designs : extensions of the continual reassessment method

Dose-finding trials are a form of clinical data collection process in which the primary objective is to estimate an optimum dose of an investigational new drug when given to a patient. This thesis develops and explores three novel dose-finding design methodologies. All design methodologies presented in this thesis are pragmatic. They use statistical models, incorporate clinicians' prior knowledge efficiently, and prematurely stop a trial for safety or futility reasons. Designing actual dose-finding trials using these methodologies will minimize practical difficulties, improve efficiency of dose estimation, be flexible to stop early and reduce possible patient discomfort or harm.

Critical analysis of spam prevention techniques

E-mail spam has remained a scourge and menacing nuisance for users, internet and network service operators and providers, in spite of the anti-spam techniques available; and spammers are relentlessly circumventing these anti-spam techniques embedded or installed in form of software products on both client and server sides of both fixed and mobile devices to their advantage. This continuous evasion degrades the capabilities of these anti-spam techniques as none of them provides a comprehensive reliable solution to the problem posed by spam and spammers. Major problem for instance arises when these anti-spam techniques misjudge or misclassify legitimate emails as spam (false positive); or fail to deliver or block spam on the SMTP server (false negative); and the spam passes-on to the receiver, and yet this server from where it originates does not notice or even have an auto alert service to indicate that the spam it was designed to prevent has slipped and moved on to the receiver’s SMTP server; and the receiver’s SMTP server still fail to stop the spam from reaching user’s device and with no auto alert mechanism to inform itself of this inability; thus causing a staggering cost in loss of time, effort and finance. This paper takes a comparative literature overview of some of these anti-spam techniques, especially the filtering technological endorsements designed to prevent spam, their merits and demerits to entrench their capability enhancements, as well as evaluative analytical recommendations that will be subject to further research.

Medium and mode : relationships between visual experience and perception in an installation arts practice

Working primarily within the natural landscape, this practice-led research project explored connections between the artist's visual and perceptual experience of a journey or place while simultaneously emphasizing the capacity for digital media to create a perceptual dissonance. By exploring concepts of time, viewpoint, duration of sequences and the manipulation of traditional constructs of stop-frame animation, the practical work created a cognitive awareness of the elements of the journey through optical sensations. The work allowed an opportunity to reflect on the nature of visual experience and its mediation through images. The project recontextualized the selected mediums of still photography, animation and projection within contemporary display modes of multiple screen installations by analysing relationships between the experienced and the perceived. The resulting works added to current discourse on the interstices between still and moving imagery in a digital world.

Optimising offsets and bandwidths in vehicle traffic networks

Bandwidths and offsets are important components in vehicle traffic control strategies. This article proposes new methods for quantifying and selecting them. Bandwidth is the amount of green time available for vehicles to travel through adjacent intersections without the requirement to stop at the second traffic light. The offset is the difference between the starting-time of ``green'' periods at two adjacent intersections, along a given route. The core ideas in this article were developed during the 2013 Maths and Industry Study Group in Brisbane, Australia. Analytical expressions for computing bandwidth, as a function of offset, are developed. An optimisation model, for selecting offsets across an arterial, is proposed. Arterial roads were focussed upon, as bandwidth and offset have a greater impact on these types of road as opposed to a full traffic network. A generic optimisation-simulation approach is also proposed to refine an initial starting solution, according to a specified metric. A metric that reflects the number of stops, and the distance between stops, is proposed to explicitly reduce the dissatisfaction of road users, and to implicitly reduce fuel consumption and emissions. Conceptually the optimisation-simulation approach is superior as it handles real-life complexities and is a global optimisation approach. The models and equations in this article can be used in road planning and traffic control.

Identification of Mendel's white flower character

Background The genetic regulation of flower color has been widely studied, notably as a character used by Mendel and his predecessors in the study of inheritance in pea. Methodology/Principal Findings We used the genome sequence of model legumes, together with their known synteny to the pea genome to identify candidate genes for the A and A2 loci in pea. We then used a combination of genetic mapping, fast neutron mutant analysis, allelic diversity, transcript quantification and transient expression complementation studies to confirm the identity of the candidates. Conclusions/Significance We have identified the pea genes A and A2. A is the factor determining anthocyanin pigmentation in pea that was used by Gregor Mendel 150 years ago in his study of inheritance. The A gene encodes a bHLH transcription factor. The white flowered mutant allele most likely used by Mendel is a simple G to A transition in a splice donor site that leads to a mis-spliced mRNA with a premature stop codon, and we have identified a second rare mutant allele. The A2 gene encodes a WD40 protein that is part of an evolutionarily conserved regulatory complex.

Sleep-related eye symptoms and their potential for identifying driver sleepiness

The majority of individuals appear to have insight into their own sleepiness, but there is some evidence that this does not hold true for all, for example treated patients with obstructive sleep apnoea. Identification of sleep-related symptoms may help drivers determine their sleepiness, eye symptoms in particular show promise. Sixteen participants completed four motorway drives on two separate occasions. Drives were completed during daytime and night-time in both a driving simulator and on the real road. Ten eye symptoms were rated at the end of each drive, and compared with driving performance and subjective and objective sleep metrics recorded during driving. ‘Eye strain’, ‘difficulty focusing’, ‘heavy eyelids’ and ‘difficulty keeping the eyes open’ were identified as the four key sleep-related eye symptoms. Drives resulting in these eye symptoms were more likely to have high subjective sleepiness and more line crossings than drives where similar eye discomfort was not reported. Furthermore, drivers having unintentional line crossings were likely to have ‘heavy eyelids’ and ‘difficulty keeping the eyes open’. Results suggest that drivers struggling to identify sleepiness could be assisted with the advice ‘stop driving if you feel sleepy and/or have heavy eyelids or difficulty keeping your eyes open’.

Host rather than graft origin of Matrigel-induced adipose tissue in the murine tissue-engineering chamber

We have recently shown that Matrigel-filled chambers containing fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) and placed around an epigastric pedicle in the mouse were highly adipogenic. Contact of this construct with pre-existing tissue or a free adipose graft was required. To further investigate the mechanisms underpinning formation of new adipose tissue, we seeded these chambers with human adipose biopsies and human adipose-derived cell populations in severe combined immunodeficient mice and assessed the origin of the resultant adipose tissue after 6 weeks using species-specific probes. The tissues were negative for human-specific vimentin labeling, suggesting that the fat originates from the murine host rather than the human graft. This was supported by the strong presence of mouse-specific Cot-1 deoxyribonucleic acid labeling, and the absence of human Cot-1 labeling in the new fat. Even chambers seeded with FGF2/Matrigel containing cultured human stromal-vascular fraction (SVF) labeled strongly only for human vimentin in cells that did not have a mature adipocyte phenotype; the newly formed fat tissue was negative for human vimentin. These findings indicate that grafts placed in the chamber have an inductive function for neo-adipogenesis, rather than supplying adipocyte-precursor cells to generate the new fat tissue, and preliminary observations implicate the SVF in producing inductive factors. This surprising finding opens the door for refinement of current adipose tissue-engineering approaches.

International hermelin brain tumor symposium on matricellular proteins in normal and cancer cell-matrix interactions

The second of the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center Symposia was held once again at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan on October 24th and 25th, 2003. A public conference was held on the 24th while a closed-door session took place on the 25th. The purpose of these symposia is to bring together experts in a particular field of study with the aim to share information with each other and the public, but then to meet privately to present novel data, hold discussions, and share concepts. While the interaction is intended to benefit all involved, the incentive is the expectation that the shared information will aid researchers at the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center in their quest to identify potential therapeutic targets and explore translational therapeutic strategies for the treatment of patients suffering nervous system tumors...

Are we there yet?

The political and bureaucratic discourse surrounding non-profit sector reform is centred on streamlining the regulatory framework. Phrases such as 'one-stop shop','reducing red tape' and 'duplicative, burdensome and unclear requirements' fill press releases, government reports and discussion papers. In this chapter, I examine quantitative measures of the current regulatory compliance burden facing non-profit organisations in Australia as a benchmark for measuring progress over the coming years. I focus on regulatory compliance estimates for four key stages of non-profit enterprise activity non-profit enterprise start-up and registrations; fundraising;grant paperwork; and regulation proportionate to the size of the non-profit enterprise.