Engaging in collaborative R&D : an international case study of cross-sector collaboration

This paper examines cross-sector engagement by drawing on a case study of a successful R&D project which involved an Australian Cooperative Research Centre (with CSIRO as a partner), and the eyecare products company Ciba Vision. This project resulted in the market launch of an extended wear contact lens, a break-through product. The engagement process moved through two phases. In an initiation phase, partner reputation and the potential for complementary resources were important in the partnering decision. In an engagement phase, the partners built a relationship and focused on the tasks to be completed. In doing so, they made a number of credible commitments to the venture (most notably to jointly assign project intellectual property between the public and private sector partners), developed a trusting relationship, adopted a disciplined and effective project management approach, learned the capability for cross-sector collaboration management, and put much effort into fostering communication to facilitate team building and the task focus. The management approach taken lead to a positive experience of the project among the partners, and this was positively associated with tangible project outcomes. Such collaborations may persist across projects, but in a disengagement phase negotiations on the conditions of exit may be required. It is concluded that to build a successful cross-sector collaboration requires interpersonal engagement within and across the organizations involved.

Pre- and posttrip factors influencing the visitor experience at a battlefield commemorative event : Gallipoli, a case study

Battlefield tourism is a major component of national and international tourism. This article sets out to provide a holistic understanding of the preevent factors influencing attendance at an event commemorating a famous World War I battle and to follow the cycle through to gain an understanding of what postevent factors influence event satisfaction and how this translates into recommending behavior. The Anzac Day commemorative event at Gallipoli, Turkey, provides the backdrop for this study. A two-step process was used to gather information from Australians partaking in the Gallipoli commemorations in 2007. A preevent questionnaire was distributed to a convenience sample of respondents while they were in transit from Istanbul to Gallipoli for the commemoration. In total, 482 preevent questionnaires were obtained. Step two of this process saw an exit questionnaire administered to a convenience sample of participants on the return journey to Istanbul, resulting in 331 completed postevent questionnaires. The pre- and postevent datasets were separately analyzed using factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) where appropriate. The findings highlight the role of various event attributes, most prominently the ceremonial and experiential aspects of the Anzac Day commemorations, in encouraging visitor satisfaction and further flow-on effects for recommending behavior.

Layered dynamic probabilistic networks for spatio-temporal modelling

In applications such as tracking and surveillance in large spatial environments, there is a need for representing dynamic and noisy data and at the same time dealing with them at different levels of detail. In the spatial domain, there has been work dealing with these two issues separately, however, there is no existing common framework for dealing with both of them. In this paper, we propose a new representation framework called the Layered Dynamic Probabilistic Network (LDPN), a special type of Dynamic Probabilistic Network (DPN), capable of handling uncertainty and representing spatial data at various levels of detail. The framework is thus particularly suited to applications in wide-area environments which are characterised by large region size, complex spatial layout and multiple sensors/cameras. For example, a building has three levels: entry/exit to the building, entry/exit between rooms and moving within rooms. To avoid the problem of a relatively large state space associated with a large spatial environment, the LDPN explicitly encodes the hierarchy of connected spatial locations, making it scalable to the size of the environment being modelled. There are three main advantages of the LDPN. First, the reduction in state space makes it suitable for dealing with wide area surveillance involving multiple sensors. Second, it offers a hierarchy of intervals for indexing temporal data. Lastly, the explicit representation of intermediate sub-goals allows for the extension of the framework to easily represent group interactions by allowing coupling between sub-goal layers of different individuals or objects. We describe an adaptation of the likelihood sampling inference scheme for the LDPN, and illustrate its use in a hypothetical surveillance scenario.

Social reader : following social networks in the wilds of the blogosphere

The social interactions manifest in blogs by the network of comments left by owners and readers are an under-used resource, both for blog pundits and industry. We present a web-based feed reader that renders these relationships with a graph representation, and enables exploration by displaying people and blogs who are proximate to a user's network. Social Reader is an example of Casual Information Visualization, and aims to help the user understand and explore blog-based social networks in a daily, real-life setting. A six week study of the software involving 20 users confirmed the usefulness of the novel visual display, via a quantitative analysis of use logs, and an exit survey.

Detecting deviations from known paths and speeds in a surveillance situation

This paper presents techniques for analysing human behaviour via video surveillance. In known scenes under surveillance, common paths of movement between entry and exit points are obtained and classified. These are used, together with a priori velocity data, to serve as a model of normal traffic flow in the scene. Surveillance sequences are then processed to extract and track the movement of people in the scene, which is compared with the models to enable detection of abnormal movement

Who chose this restaurant anyway? The effect of responsibility for choice, guarantees and failure stability on customer complaining

Customers often behave in the context of a group, with different behavior occurring in this context to that which transpires in an individual context. However, customer complaining behavior (CCB), including voice, negative word of mouth, in addition to that transmitted electronically, and exit, in a group setting has not been studied previously. A service failure during a group celebration at a restaurant and the pattern of CCB that ensues is examined. This is based on customers’ level of responsibility in restaurant selection on behalf of the group, the presence of an unconditional service guarantee, and the perceived stability of the failure. Findings suggest that customers are more inclined to exit when they have participated to a greater degree in choice and that the presence of an unconditional guarantee interacts with participation to influence negative word of mouth intentions. Perceived failure stability had the greatest influence on CCB.

Social reader: towards browsing the social web

We describe Social Reader, a feed-reader-plus-social-network aggregator that mines comments from social media in order to display a user’s relational neighborhood as a navigable social network. Social Reader’s network visualization enhances mutual awareness of blogger communities, facilitates their exploration and growth with a fully dragn- drop interface, and provides novel ways to filter and summarize people, groups, blogs and comments. We discuss the architecture behind the reader, highlight tasks it adds to the workflow of a typical reader, and assess their cost. We also explore the potential of mood-based features in social media applications. Mood is particularly relevant to social media, reflecting the personal nature of the medium. We explore two prototype mood-based features: colour coding the mood of recent posts according to a valence/arousal map, and a mood-based abstract of recent activity using image media. A six week study of the software involving 20 users confirmed the usefulness of the novel visual display, via a quantitative analysis of use logs, and an exit survey.

Lipid rafts and HIV-1 : from viral entry to assembly of progeny virions

Background: Lipid rafts are currently an intensely investigated topic of cell biology. In addition to a demonstrated role in signal transduction of the host cell, lipid rafts serve as entry and exit sites for microbial pathogens and toxins, such as FimH-expressing enterobacteria, influenza virus, measles virus and cholera toxin. Furthermore, caveolae, a specialised form of lipid raft, are required for the conversion of the non-pathogenic prion protein to the pathogenic scrapie isoform.

Objectives: A number of reports have shown, directly or indirectly, that lipid rafts are important at various stages of the human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) replication cycle. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the role of membrane-associated lipid rafts in cell biology, and to evaluate how HIV-1 has hijacked this cellular component to support HIV-1 replication. Special sections are devoted to discussing the role of lipid rafts in (1) the entry of HIV-1, (2) signal transduction regulation in HIV-1-infected cells, (3) the trafficking of HIV-1 proteins via lipid rafts during HIV-1 assembly; and a further section discusses the role of cholesterol in mature HIV-1.

Summary: Like a number of other pathogens, HIV-1 has evolved to rely on the host cell lipid rafts to support its propagation during multiple stages of the HIV-1 replication cycle. This review has highlighted the importance of lipid rafts in HIV-1 replication.

Fuzzy simulation of pedestrian walking path considering local environmental stimuli

Pedestrian steering activity is a perception-based decision making process that involves interaction with the surrounding environment and insight into environmental stimuli. There are many stimuli within the environment that influence pedestrian wayfinding behaviour during walking activities. However, compelling factors such as individual physical and psychological characteristics and trip intention cause the behaviour become a very fuzzy concept. In this paper pedestrian steering behaviour is modelled using a fuzzy logic approach. The objective of this research is to simulate pedestrian walking paths in indoor public environments during normal and non-panic situations. The proposed algorithm introduces a fuzzy logic framework to predict the impact of perceived attractive and repulsive stimuli, within the pedestrian's field of view, on movement direction. Environmental stimuli are quantified using the social force method. The algorithm is implemented in a simulated area of an office corridor consist of a printer and exit door. Stochastic simulation using the proposed fuzzy algorithm generated realistic walking trajectories, contour map of dynamic change of environmental effects in each step of movement and high flow areas in the corridor.

A new child protection strategy for Aboriginal communities in Western Australia

Despite numerous government inquiries and reforms, child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities is a well-documented, ongoing problem. Established in Western Australia in 2009, Operation RESET is a multi-agency proactive community engagement initiative designed to improve the ability of communities and supporting agencies to detect, respond to and prevent child sexual abuse through the implementation of community engagement, capacity building and educational strategies. This comment describes the three core principles of Operation RESET: tackling child sexual abuse requires a collaborative, proactive approach between government and communities; the underlying causes and context of child sexual abuse must be recognised; and children's overall safety and wellbeing must be enhanced through integrated services that strengthen and empower families and communities. It also enumerates the seven phases of the operation's implementation, from identifying target communities to deploying an exit strategy. The comment ends by addressing the importance of empirical evaluation.

‘Else-where’ : essays in art, architecture, and cultural production 2002-2011

“Else-where”: Essays in Art, Architecture, and Cultural Production 2002–2011 is a synoptic survey of the representational values given to art, architecture, and cultural production at the closing of the twentieth century and the opening of the twenty-first. Written primarily as a critique of what is suppressed in architecture and what is disclosed in art, the essays are informed by the passage out of post-structuralism and its disciplinary analogues toward the Real (denoted over the course of the studies as the “Real-Irreal,” or “Else-where”). The essays collected in “Else-where” cross various disciplines (inclusive of landscape architecture, architecture, and visual art) to develop a nuanced critique of a renascent formal regard and elective exit from nihilism in art and architecture that is also an invocation of the highest coordinates given to the arts – that is, formal ontology as speculative intelligence itself, or the return of the universal as utopian thought “here-and-now.”

The Role of TAFE as an Equity Pathway to Social Inclusion, Employment, and to University : a submission from The Deakin University Social Work/Gordon TAFE Community Services Work, Geelong Based Project Team

Executive Summary

The Deakin University Social Work/Gordon TAFE Community Services Work Geelong Based Project Team (the Project Team) was assisted by Higher Education Partnership and Participation funding made available through Deakin University Participation and Partnerships Program (DUPPP) to carry out research and project work in 2012/13.

In the following submission to the House of Representatives Inquiry into the role of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) system and its operation, this Project Team seeks to establish a case for:

1. Funding to enable TAFE to continue as:

a) an equity pathway to social inclusion, employment, and to university, particularly in regional areas.
b) an integral complement to the University education sector to deliver on the ambitious objectives of the Federal Government’s widening participation agenda, as a mechanism to deliver the skills, knowledge and workforce needed now, and in the future, in the Australian economy.
2. Increased resources for separate and joint sector development
a) Publicly funded TAFEs need funding to be restored and increased to enable them to maintain the high quality education they provide and to maintain their successful work in supporting communities, regions and disadvantaged individuals to gain skills, training and employment.
b) Universities need increased funding to increase staffing levels and therefore free up teaching staff to spend the necessary time to develop relationships with and provide support to students. This is important for the achieving the goals of the widening participation agenda of increasing access without increasing attrition at the same time.
c) TAFEs and Universities need funding to do the work required to further develop and formalise diploma-degree pathways so that disadvantaged individuals can exit into employment at the diploma level or be supported in an efficient and seamless way to undertake further study.
3. Active use of localised and nuanced partnership approaches by education institutions. This includes:
• Cross teaching by TAFEs and Universities in courses that can be articulated, such as professional practice diplomas and degrees
• Programs negotiated and designed according to the needs of students in each location. TAFEs and Universities need resources in order to do this work
• Focus on regional centres where there is a particular opportunity for government to make an impact on TAFE pathways to employment and/or further education
• Workforce development in regional areas due to new industries is a particular area of need
4. Recognise and capitalise on the complementary and symbiotic nature of each sector’s skills, strengths and capacities.
The submission responds to the second, third and fifth points of the Terms of Reference of the Inquiry and is based on the research work carried out by the Project Team in 2012/13.

We provide evidence of Gordon TAFE in Geelong working as an equity mechanism in the particular case of the welfare/ community services diploma to social work degree pathway. The project team considers that there is a strong case for additional resourcing of TAFE to enable it to continue what it does well. TAFE is the key training and education sectorthe ‘education and social hub’that can successfully attract, retain, and graduate people who may not otherwise access education due to one or more combinations of:

1. having a low SES current or past background;
2. living in regional areas;
3. receiving interrupted primary and secondary education;
4. having disabilities;
5. being sole parents;
6. being from refugee backgrounds;
7. having English as an additional language/culture;
8. retrenchment from employment in dying industries;
9. short, medium and long term unemployment;
10. past and/or current caring roles;
11. marriage/relationship breakdowns;
12. domestic violence;
13. gender, class, age, race/ethnicity and dis/ability discriminations; and
14. socialised expectations and fears.

The recommendations in this submission are based on research findings about important similarities and differences between Gordon TAFE welfare and Deakin University social work students in Geelong, and their respective institutional organisations and contexts. The two institutions employ a repertoire of diverse administrative, teaching, learning and support approaches to meet different mission goals, requirements and needs.

Would you like some gender with that leadership?

The recent toppling of Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, continues to raise questions about women and leadership. Gillard was regarded as smart, capable and resilient. However, a string of bad decisions and broken promises had the public and politicians questioning her capacity to lead. In her final exit speech before Kevin Rudd took her place, Gillard responded to the “gender wars” discourse that had come to represent her leadership, saying that “the reaction to being the first female PM”—in other words, gender—did not explain everything nor did it explain nothing.

Mixing layer oscillations for a submerged horizontal wall-jet

Measurements of the horizontal velocity component were made for a horizontal wall-jet emanating from a submerged sluice gate forming one side of a large flow compartment. The existence of large-scale vortex structures was quantified by spectral analysis of the velocity measurements taken at various distances from the floor of the flow compartment, for different measurement stations from the jet exit. Close to the jet exit, the spectra of the velocity measurements within the potential core exhibit multiple peaks. Further downstream, the spectra are more defined and peak at the same frequency, irrespective of whether the measurements were made within the potential core or the mixing layer. The spectral peak corresponds to the passage frequency of large-scale vortex structures. Downstream of the potential core, the peak frequencies of the velocity spectra increase as the measurement location was moved towards the floor of the flow compartment. The increase in peak frequencies is attributed to fluctuations associated with the wall boundary layer. Predictions of the mixing layer instabilities were made using linear stability analysis. The predictions are in good agreement with the observed vortex shedding frequencies in the mixing layer

Early career teacher attrition: new thoughts on an intractable problem

Early career exit from teaching has reached epidemic proportions and appears intractable. Previous attempts to find solutions are yet to make much of an inroad. The aim of the research was to discover what nine beginning teachers required to remain in the classroom, by adopting a phenomenological approach. The authors identified participants’ common experiences through semi-structured interviews and unprompted written narratives. Data were examined for trustworthiness by reference to the literature. Key words from the narratives were synonyms, or broadly synonymous with, optimism, arrested development or disillusionment. The process of leaving involved entry, characterised by optimism; early experiences, characterised by arrested development; pre-exit, characterised by disillusionment; and exit.