The relationship between entertainment producers and higher education providers

Cameron, Verhoeven and Court have noted that many screen producers do not see their tertiary education as being beneficial to their careers. We hypothesise that Universities have traditionally not trained students in producing skills because of the division of labour between Faculties of Art and Faculties of Business; and because their focus on art rather than entertainment has downplayed the importance of producing. This article presents a SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) whole-of-program evaluation of a new cross-Faculty Bachelor of Entertainment Industries at QUT, devoted to providing students with graduate attributes for producing including creative skills (understanding story, the aesthetics of entertainment, etc), business skills (business models, finance, marketing, etc) and legal skills (contracts, copyright, etc). Stakeholder evaluations suggest that entertainment producers are highly supportive of this new course.

Automatic Audio Segmentation Using the Generalized Likelihood Ratio

This paper presents a novel technique for segmenting an audio stream into homogeneous regions according to speaker identities, background noise, music, environmental and channel conditions. Audio segmentation is useful in audio diarization systems, which aim to annotate an input audio stream with information that attributes temporal regions of the audio into their specific sources. The segmentation method introduced in this paper is performed using the Generalized Likelihood Ratio (GLR), computed between two adjacent sliding windows over preprocessed speech. This approach is inspired by the popular segmentation method proposed by the pioneering work of Chen and Gopalakrishnan, using the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) with an expanding search window. This paper will aim to identify and address the shortcomings associated with such an approach. The result obtained by the proposed segmentation strategy is evaluated on the 2002 Rich Transcription (RT-02) Evaluation dataset, and a miss rate of 19.47% and a false alarm rate of 16.94% is achieved at the optimal threshold.

An automated tool for assessing security-critical designs and programs

This paper describes in detail our Security-Critical Program Analyser (SCPA). SCPA is used to assess the security of a given program based on its design or source code with regard to data flow-based metrics. Furthermore, it allows software developers to generate a UML-like class diagram of their program and annotate its confidential classes, methods and attributes. SCPA is also capable of producing Java source code for the generated design of a given program. This source code can then be compiled and the resulting Java bytecode program can be used by the tool to assess the program's overall security based on our security metrics.

Reforming the preparation of future STEM teachers

This paper begins by identifying the key attributes for future STEM teachers. Then based on a review of the literature, a framework for informing reforms to pre-service teacher education programs to facilitate the development of these attributes in future STEM teachers is presented and discussed. This framework consists of a set of three principles together with eight strategies for the operationalization of these principles. During the discussion, the implications for the structure and implementation of future pre-service STEM teacher education programs are explored.

Does 'habitus' count in Chinese Australians' mathematics achievement?

Large-scale international comparative studies and cross-ethnic studies have revealed that Chinese students, whether living in China or overseas, consistently outperform their counterparts in mathematics achievement. These studies tended to explain this result from psychological, educational, or cultural perspectives. However, there is scant sociological investigation addressing Chinese students’ better mathematics achievement. Drawing on Bourdieu’s sociological theory, this study conceptualises Chinese Australians’ “Chineseness” by the notion of ‘habitus’ and considers this “Chineseness” generating but not determinating mechanism that underpins Chinese Australians’ mathematics learning. Two hundred and thirty complete responses from Chinese Australian participants were collected by an online questionnaire. Simple regression model statistically significantly well predicted mathematics achievement by “Chineseness” (F = 141.90, R = .62, t = 11.91, p < .001). Taking account of “Chineseness” as a sociological mechanism for Chinese Australians’ mathematics learning, this study complements psychological and educational impacts on better mathematics achievement of Chinese students revealed by previous studies. This study also challenges the cultural superiority discourse that attributes better mathematics achievement of Chinese students to cultural factors.

Servicescape symbolism

In order to drive sustainable financial profitability, service firms make significant investments in creating service environments that consumers will prefer over the environments of their competitors. To date, servicescape research is over-focused on understanding consumers’ emotional and physiological responses to servicescape attributes, rather than taking a holistic view of how consumers cognitively interpret servicescapes. This thesis argues that consumers will cognitively ascribe symbolic meanings to servicescapes and then evaluate if those meanings are congruent with their sense of Self in order to form a preference for a servicescape. Consequently, this thesis takes a Self Theory approach to servicescape symbolism to address the following broad research question: How do ascribed symbolic meanings influence servicescape preference? Using a three-study, mixed-method approach, this thesis investigates the symbolic meanings consumers ascribe to servicescapes and empirically tests whether the joint effects of congruence between consumer Self and the symbolic meanings ascribed to servicescapes influence consumers’ servicescape preference. First, Study One identifies the symbolic meanings ascribed to salient servicescape attributes using a combination of repertory tests and laddering techniques within 19 semi-structured individual depth interviews. Study Two modifies an existing scale to create a symbolic servicescape meaning scale in order to measure the symbolic meanings ascribed to servicescapes. Finally, Study Three utilises the Self-Congruity Model to empirically examine the joint effects of consumer Self and servicescape on consumers’ preference for servicescapes. Using polynomial regression with response surface analysis, 14 joint effect models demonstrate that both Self-Servicescape incongruity and congruity influence consumers’ preference for servicescapes. Combined, the findings of three studies suggest that the symbolic meanings ascribed to servicescapes and their (in)congruities with consumers’ sense of self can be used to predict consumers’ preferences for servicescapes. These findings have several key theoretical and practical contributions to services marketing.

Mentoring

Research relating to mentoring has burgeoned in the last two decades and as might be expected there is immense variation in the nature and rigour of this research. For some, mentoring seems to be a panacea for many societal problems as the studies have focussed on juvenile crime, teenage pregnancy, academic performance, drug usage, school dropout rates, teacher attributes, parental relationship, heightened self-confidence, general “at risk” children and issues of gender, ethnicity, socio economic status and equity. Rather than a panacea, it would be more accurate to suggest that in specific circumstances mentoring has the potential to be associated with beneficial outcomes.

Exploring a functional approach to attitudinal brand loyalty

What psychological function does brand loyalty serve? Drawing on Katz’s (1960) Functional Theory of Attitudes, we propose that there are four functions (or motivational antecedents) of loyalty: utilitarian, knowledge, value-expressive and ego-defensive. We discuss how each function relates to the three dimensions of loyalty (i.e. emotional, cognitive, and behavioural loyalty). Then this conceptualisation of brand loyalty is explored using four consumer focus groups. These exploratory results demonstrate that the application of a functional approach to brand loyalty yields insights which have not been apparent in previous research. More specifically, this paper notes insights in relation to brand loyalty from a consumer’s perspective, including the notion that the ego-defensive function is an orientation around what others think and feel. This creates the possibilities for future research into brand loyalty via social network analysis, in order to better understand how the thoughts of others affect consumers’ loyalty attributes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A new approach for power system black-start decision-making with vague set theory

Power system restoration after a large area outage involves many factors, and the procedure is usually very complicated. A decision-making support system could then be developed so as to find the optimal black-start strategy. In order to evaluate candidate black-start strategies, some indices, usually both qualitative and quantitative, are employed. However, it may not be possible to directly synthesize these indices, and different extents of interactions may exist among these indices. In the existing black-start decision-making methods, qualitative and quantitative indices cannot be well synthesized, and the interactions among different indices are not taken into account. The vague set, an extended version of the well-developed fuzzy set, could be employed to deal with decision-making problems with interacting attributes. Given this background, the vague set is first employed in this work to represent the indices for facilitating the comparisons among them. Then, a concept of the vague-valued fuzzy measure is presented, and on that basis a mathematical model for black-start decision-making developed. Compared with the existing methods, the proposed method could deal with the interactions among indices and more reasonably represent the fuzzy information. Finally, an actual power system is served for demonstrating the basic features of the developed model and method.

Learning beyond books : strategies for ambient media to improve libraries and collaboration spaces as interfaces for social learning

With the advent of digital media and online information resources, public libraries as physical destinations for information access are being increasingly challenged. As a response, many libraries follow the trend of removing bookshelves in order to provide more floorspace for social interaction and collaboration. Such spaces follow a Commons 2.0 model: they are designed to support collaborative work and social learning. The acquisition of skills and knowledge is facilitated as a result of being surrounded by and interacting with a community of likeminded others. Based on the results of a case study on a Commons 2.0 library space, this paper describes several issues of collaboration and social learning in public library settings. Acknowledging the significance of the architectural characteristics of the physical space, we discuss opportunities for ambient media to better reflect the social attributes of the library as a place; i.e. amplify the sense of other co-present library visitors and provide opportunities for shared encounters and conversations, which would remain invisible otherwise. We present the design of a user check-in system for improving the library as a physical destination for social learning, sharing, and inspiration for and by the community.

Agricultural biodiversity, farm level technical efficiency and conservation benefits : an empirical investigation

The issues involved in agricultural biodiversity are important and interesting areas for the application of economic theory. However, very little theoretical and empirical work has been undertaken to understand the benefits of conserving agricultural biodiversity. Accordingly, the main objectives of this PhD thesis are to: (1) Investigate farmers’ valuation of agricultural biodiversity; (2) Identify factors influencing farmers’ demand for agricultural biodiversity; (3) Examine farmers’ demand for biodiversity rich farming systems; (4) Investigate the relationship between agricultural biodiversity and farm level technical efficiency. This PhD thesis investigates these issues by using primary data in small-scale farms, along with secondary data from Sri Lanka. The overall findings of the thesis can be summarized as follows. Firstly, owing to educational and poverty issues of those being interviewed, some policy makers in developed countries question whether non-market valuation techniques such as Choice Experiment (CE) can be applied to developing countries such as Sri Lanka. The CE study in this thesis indicates that carefully designed and pre-tested nonmarket valuation techniques can be applied in developing countries with a high level of reliability. The CE findings support the priori assumption that small-scale farms and their multiple attributes contribute positively and significantly to the utility of farm families in Sri Lanka. Farmers have strong positive attitudes towards increasing agricultural biodiversity in rural areas. This suggests that these attitudes can be the basis on which appropriate policies can be introduced to improve agricultural biodiversity. Secondly, the thesis identifies the factors which influence farmers’ demand for agricultural biodiversity and farmers’ demands on biodiversity rich farming systems. As such they provide important tools for the implementation of policies designed to avoid the loss agricultural biodiversity which is shown to be a major impediment to agricultural growth and sustainable development in a number of developing countries. The results illustrate that certain key household, market and other characteristics (such as agricultural subsidies, percentage of investment of owned money and farm size) are the major determinants of demand for agricultural biodiversity on small-scale farms. The significant household characteristics that determine crop and livestock diversity include household member participation on the farm, off-farm income, shared labour, market price fluctuations and household wealth. Furthermore, it is shown that all the included market characteristics as well as agricultural subsidies are also important determinants of agricultural biodiversity. Thirdly, it is found that when the efficiency of agricultural production is measured in practice, the role of agricultural biodiversity has rarely been investigated in the literature. The results in the final section of the thesis show that crop diversity, livestock diversity and mix farming system are positively related to farm level technical efficiency. In addition to these variables education level, number of separate plots, agricultural extension service, credit access, membership of farm organization and land ownerships are significant and direct policy relevant variables in the inefficiency model. The results of the study therefore have important policy implications for conserving agricultural biodiversity in Sri Lanka.

The development of a model to measure destination brand performance across travel contexts

The field of destination image has been widely discussed in the destination literature since the early 1970s (see Mayo, 1973). However the extent to which travel context impacts on an individual’s destination image evaluation, and therefore destination choice, has received scant attention (Hu & Ritchie, 1993). This study, utilising expectancy-value theory, sought to elicit salient destination attributes from consumers across two travel contexts: short-break holidays and longer getaways. Using the Repertory Test technique, attributes elicited as being salient for short-break holidays were consistent with those elicited for longer getaways. While this study was limited to Brisbane’s near-home destinations, the results will be of interest to destination marketers and researchers interested in the challenge of positioning a destination in diverse markets.

Avoiding uninformed responses in destination image questionnaires

Since the first destination image studies were published in the early 1970s, the field has become one of the most popular in the tourism literature. While reviews of the destination image literature show no commonly agreed conceptualisation of the construct, researchers have predominantly used structured questionnaires for measurement. There has been criticism that the way some of these scales have been selected means a greater likelihood of attributes being irrelevant to participants. This opens up the risk of stimulating uninformed responses. The issue of uninformed response was first raised as a source of error 60 years ago. However, there has been little, if any, discussion in relation to destination image measurement, studies of which often require participants to provide opinion-driven rather than fact-based responses. This paper reports the trial of a ‘don’t know’ (DK) non-response option for participants in two destination image questionnaires. It is suggested the use of a DK option provides participants with an alternative to i) skipping the question, ii) using the scale midpoint to denote neutrality, or iii) providing an uninformed response. High levels of DK usage by participants can then alert the marketer of the need to improve awareness of destination performance for potential salient attributes.

‘Hot chicks’, ‘better parties’ or academic stuff : perceptions of a regional university campus using Repertory Grid Analysis and Importance-performance Analysis

In the increasingly competitive Australian tertiary education market, a consumer orientation is essential. This is particularly so for small regional campuses competing with larger universities in the state capitals. Campus management need to carefully monitor both the perceptions of prospective students within the catchment area, and the (dis)satisfaction levels of current students. This study reports the results of an exploratory investigation into the perceptions held of a regional campus, using two techniques that have arguably been underutilised in the education marketing literature. Repertory Grid Analysis, a technique developed almost fifty years ago, was used to identify attributes deemed salient to year 12 high school students at the time they were applying for university places. Importance-performance analysis (IPA), developed three decades ago, was then used to identify attributes that were determinant for a new cohort of first year undergraduate students. The paper concludes that group applications of Repertory Grid offer education market researchers a useful means for identifying attributes used by high school students to differentiate universities, and that IPA is a useful technique for guiding promotional decision making. In this case, the two techniques provided a quick, economical and effective snapshot of market perceptions, which can be used as a foundation for the development of an ongoing market research programme.

Developing a framework for work integrated research higher degree studies in an Australian engineering context

The umbrella of Australian research higher degree (RHD) offerings has broadened from the traditional MPhil/PhD programmes to include a range of professional masters and doctoral degrees. This article reports on the experiences of three PhD students, engaged in an informally managed industry partnered research programme, described in this article as the work integrated research higher degree (WIRHD). Their learning process shares the attributes from both the traditional PhD programme and professional doctorates. However, because of the blended nature of the learning contexts, candidates engaged in the WIRHD programme must address a wider range of issues than those following the traditional RHD pathway. An exploratory case study approach was adopted with the view to develop an integrative framework to explain the various contexts that influence the learning experience of WIRHD candidates, as well as a structured approach to guide this contemporary form of industry partnered WIRHD process.