Corporations Act 2001 s 459G : application to set aside statutory demand

The application before the court in Millerview Constructions Pty Ltd v Palmer Plumbing Pty Ltd [2008] QSC 005 raised a significant question regarding the appropriate construction of s 459G of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Act). The decision emphasises the importance of ensuring that any application to set aside a statutory demand must be served in a timely way on the creditor at the creditor’s address for service as stated in the statutory demand, or in strict compliance with another manner authorised by the Act.

Principles on assessment of costs on standard basis – necessary or proper

The judgement in Hennessey Glass and Aluminium Pty Ltd v Watpac Australia Pty Ltd [2007] QDC 57 McGill DCJ provides valuable guidance for practitioners as to whether a range of particular costs items should be permitted on an assessment on the standard basis, and the amounts which should be allowed for such items. The items in issue included counsel’s fees and fees paid to expert witnesses. The decision also examined GST implications for the recovery of legal costs.

Physicochemical characterization of particulate emissions from a compression ignition engine employing two injection technologies and three fuels

Alternative fuels and injection technologies are a necessary component of particulate emission reduction strategies for compression ignition engines. Consequently, this study undertakes a physicochemical characterization of diesel particulate matter (DPM) for engines equipped with alternative injection technologies (direct injection and common rail) and alternative fuels (ultra low sulfur diesel, a 20% biodiesel blend, and a synthetic diesel). Particle physical properties were addressed by measuring particle number size distributions, and particle chemical properties were addressed by measuring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and reactive oxygen species (ROS). Particle volatility was determined by passing the polydisperse size distribution through a thermodenuder set to 300 °C. The results from this study, conducted over a four point test cycle, showed that both fuel type and injection technology have an impact on particle emissions, but injection technology was the more important factor. Significant particle number emission (54%–84%) reductions were achieved at half load operation (1% increase–43% decrease at full load) with the common rail injection system; however, the particles had a significantly higher PAH fraction (by a factor of 2 to 4) and ROS concentrations (by a factor of 6 to 16) both expressed on a test-cycle averaged basis. The results of this study have significant implications for the health effects of DPM emissions from both direct injection and common rail engines utilizing various alternative fuels.

Leadership as dance : a consideration of the applicability of the ‘mother’ of all arts as the basis for establishing connoisseurship

This article follows the lead of several researchers who claim there is an urgent need to utilize insights from the arts, aesthetics and the humanities to expand our understanding of leadership. It endeavours to do this by exploring the metaphor of dance. It begins by critiquing current policy metaphors used in the leadership literature that present a narrow and functional view of leadership. It presents and discusses a conceptual model of leadership as dance that incorporates key dimensions such as context, dance and music and includes Polyani’s concept of connoisseurship. This article identifies some of the tensions that are inherent in both notions of dance and leadership. The final part of the article discusses the implications the model raises for broadening our understanding of leadership and school leadership preparation programmes. Three core implications raised here are (i) making space for alternative metaphors in leadership preparation programmes; (ii) providing opportunities to students of leadership to understand through alternative learning approaches and (iii) providing opportunities for engagement in alternative research agendas.

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.

Navigating in a sea of change : second set of working papers of the higher education policy project

This volume represents teh second collection of working papers and articles by participants in the Higher Education Policy Project (HEPP), a project funded by the Australian Research Council and based in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Queensland. The first volume, 'Higher Education in Transition: Working Papers of the Higher Education Policy Project (Bella, McCollow and Knight, 1993), took the broad theme of "higher education in transition" in order to introduce readers the HEPP and give them some idea of the breadth of the research being pursued by the HEPP research team itself and by the cohort of post-graduate students also associated with the project. Since then, higher education has remained in transition. Stubborn and resurgent questions continue: such as what a university ought to be, what forms of research should be supported in a mass system, and how institutional accountability can be demonstrated. In differing ways and using a variety of research perspectives and methodologies, the contributors to this volume explore these and other questions of relevance to higher education today.

Forecasting success on large projects : developing reliable scales to predict multiple perspectives by multiple stakeholders over multiple time frames

Our aim is to develop a set of leading performance indicators to enable managers of large projects to forecast during project execution how various stakeholders will perceive success months or even years into the operation of the output. Large projects have many stakeholders who have different objectives for the project, its output, and the business objectives they will deliver. The output of a large project may have a lifetime that lasts for years, or even decades, and ultimate impacts that go beyond its immediate operation. How different stakeholders perceive success can change with time, and so the project manager needs leading performance indicators that go beyond the traditional triple constraint to forecast how key stakeholders will perceive success months or even years later. In this article, we develop a model for project success that identifies how project stakeholders might perceive success in the months and years following a project. We identify success or failure factors that will facilitate or mitigate against achievement of those success criteria, and a set of potential leading performance indicators that forecast how stakeholders will perceive success during the life of the project's output. We conducted a scale development study with 152 managers of large projects and identified two project success factor scales and seven stakeholder satisfaction scales that can be used by project managers to predict stakeholder satisfaction on projects and so may be used by the managers of large projects for the basis of project control.

Hydrogen-bonding in the structures of the 1:1 salts of isonipecotamide with a set of four polyfunctional monocyclic heteroaromatic carboxylic acids

The crystal structures of the 1:1 proton-transfer compounds of isonipecotamide (piperidine-4-carboxamide) with the monocyclic heteroaromatic carboxylic acids, isonicotinic acid, picolinic acid, dipicolinic acid and pyrazine-2,3-dicarboxylic acid have been determined at 200 K and their hydrogen-bonding patterns examined. The compounds are respectively anhydrous 4-carbamoylpiperidinium pyridine-4-carboxylate (1), the partial hydrate 4-carbamoylpiperidinium pyridine-2-carboxylate 0.25 water (2), the solvate 4-carbamoylpiperidinium 6-carboxypyridine-2-carboxylate methanol monosolvate (3), and anhydrous 4-carbamoylpiperidinium 3-carboxypyrazine-2-carboxylate (4). In compounds 1 and 3, hydrogen-bonding interactions give two-dimensional sheet structures which feature enlarged cyclic ring systems, while in compounds 2 and 4, three-dimensional structures are found. The previously described cyclic R2/2(8) hydrogen-bonded amide-amide dimer is present in 2 and 3. The hydrogen-bonding in 2 involves the partial-occupancy water molecule while the structure of 4 is based on inter-linked homomolecular hydrogen-bonded cation-cation and anion-anion associated chains comprising head-to-tail interactions. This work further demonstrates the utility of the isonipecotamide cation in the generation of chemically stable hydrogen-bonded systems, particularly with aromatic carboxylate anions, providing crystalline solids.

Probability analysis of machine angle stability with non-gaussian wind power input

The security of power transfer across a given transmission link is typically a steady state assessment. This paper develops tools to assess machine angle stability as affected by a combination of faults and uncertainty of wind power using probability analysis. The paper elaborates on the development of the theoretical assessment tool and demonstrates its efficacy using single machine infinite bus system.

Isolation of microsatellite loci in the Capricorn silvereye, Zosterops lateralis chlorocephalus (Aves: Zosteropidae)

The Capricorn silvereye (Zosterops lateralis chlorocephalus) is ideally suited to investigating the genetic basis of body size evolution. We have isolated and characterized a set of microsatellite markers for this species. Seven out of 11 loci were polymorphic. The number of alleles detected ranged from two to five and observed heterozygosities between 0.12 and 0.67. One locus, ZL49, was found to be sex-linked. This moderate level of diversity is consistent with that expected in an isolated, island population.

Risk-based approach to the management of on-site wastewater treatment facilities

Background On-site wastewater treatment system (OWTS) siting, design and management has traditionally been based on site specific conditions with little regard to the surrounding environment or the cumulative effect of other systems in the environment. The general approach has been to apply the same framework of standards and regulations to all sites equally, regardless of the sensitivity, or lack thereof, to the receiving environment. Consequently, this has led to the continuing poor performance and failure of on-site systems, resulting in environmental and public health consequences. As a result, there is increasing realisation that more scientifically robust evaluations in regard to site assessment and the underlying ground conditions are needed. Risk-based approaches to on-site system siting, design and management are considered the most appropriate means of improvement to the current standards and codes for on-site wastewater treatment systems. The Project Research in relation to this project was undertaken within the Gold Coast City Council region, the major focus being the semi-urban, rural residential and hinterland areas of the city that are not serviced by centralised treatment systems. The Gold Coast has over 15,000 on-site systems in use, with approximately 66% being common septic tank-subsurface dispersal systems. A recent study evaluating the performance of these systems within the Gold Coast area showed approximately 90% were not meeting the specified guidelines for effluent treatment and dispersal. The main focus of this research was to incorporate strong scientific knowledge into an integrated risk assessment process to allow suitable management practices to be set in place to mitigate the inherent risks. To achieve this, research was undertaken focusing on three main aspects involved with the performance and management of OWTS. Firstly, an investigation into the suitability of soil for providing appropriate effluent renovation was conducted. This involved detailed soil investigations, laboratory analysis and the use of multivariate statistical methods for analysing soil information. The outcomes of these investigations were developed into a framework for assessing soil suitability for effluent renovation. This formed the basis for the assessment of OWTS siting and design risks employed in the developed risk framework. Secondly, an assessment of the environmental and public health risks was performed specifically related the release of contaminants from OWTS. This involved detailed groundwater and surface water sampling and analysis to assess the current and potential risks of contamination throughout the Gold Coast region. Additionally, the assessment of public health risk incorporated the use of bacterial source tracking methods to identify the different sources of fecal contamination within monitored regions. Antibiotic resistance pattern analysis was utilised to determine the extent of human faecal contamination, with the outcomes utilised for providing a more indicative public health assessment. Finally, the outcomes of both the soil suitability assessment and ground and surface water monitoring was utilised for the development of the integrated risk framework. The research outcomes achieved through this project enabled the primary research aims and objects to be accomplished. This in turn would enable Gold Coast City Council to provide more appropriate assessment and management guidelines based on robust scientific knowledge which will ultimately ensure that the potential environmental and public health impacts resulting from on-site wastewater treatment is minimised. As part of the implementation of suitable management strategies, a critical point monitoring program (CPM) was formulated. This entailed the identification of the key critical parameters that contribute to the characterised risks at monitored locations within the study area. The CPM will allow more direct procedures to be implemented, targeting the specific hazards at sensitive areas throughout Gold Coast region.

Using advanced traits of passengers to facilitate route-choice decision-making

Research interest in pedestrian behaviour spans the retail industry, emergency services, urban planners and other agencies. Most models to simulate and model pedestrian movement can be distinguished on the basis of geographical scale, from the micro-scale movement of obstacle avoidance, through the meso-scale of individuals planning multi-stop shopping trips, up to the macro-scale of overall flow of masses of people between places. In this paper, route-choice decision-making model is devised for modelling passengers flow in airport terminal. A set of devised advanced traits of passengers is firstly proposed. Advanced traits take into account a passenger’s cognitive preferences and demonstrate underlying motivations of route-choice decisions. Although the activities of passengers are normally regarded as stochastic and sometimes unpredictable, real scenarios of passenger flows are basically feasible to be compared with virtual simulations in terms of tactical route-choice decision-making. Passengers in the model are as intelligent agents who possess a bunch of initial basic traits and are categorized into five distinguish groups in terms of routing preferences. Route choices are consecutively determined by inferring current advanced traits according to the utility matrix.

From rhetoric to practice : issues in teaching and learning touch keyboarding

Touch keyboarding as a vocational skill is disappearing at a time when students and educators across alleducational sectors are expected to use a computer keyboard on a regular basis. there is documentation surrounding the embedding of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within the curricula and yet within the National Training Packages touch keyboarding, previously considered a core component, is now an elective in the Business Services framework. This situation is an odds with current practice overseas where touch keyboarding is a component of primary and secondary curricula. From Rhetoric to Practice explores the current issues and practice in teaching and learning touch keyboarding in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Through structured interview participants detailed current practice of teachers and their students. Further, tertiary students participated in a training program aimed at achquiring touch keyboarding as a skill to enhance their studies. The researcher's background experience of fifteen years teaching touch keyboarding and computer literacty to adults and 30 years in Business Services trade provides a strong basis for this project. The teaching experience is enhanced by industry experience in administration, course coordination in technical, community and tertiary institutions and a strong commitment to the efficient usage of a computer by all. The findings of this project identified coursework expectations requiring all students from kindergarten to tertiary to use a computer keyboard on a weekly basis and that neither teaching nor learning tough keyboarding appears in the primary, secondary and tertiary curricula in New South Wales. Further, teachers recognised tough keyboarding as the prefered style over 'hunt and peck' keyboarding while acknowledging the teaching and learning difficulties of time constraints, the need for qualified touch keyboarding teachers and issues arising when retraining students from existing poor habits. In conclusion, this project recommends that computer keyboarding be defined as a writing tool for education, vocation and life, with early instruction set in primary schooling area and embedding touch keyboarding with the secondary, technical and tertiary areas and finally to draw the attention of educational authorities to the Duty Of Care aspects associated with computer keyboarding in the classroom.