Commercial developments in airport precincts : lease and valuation issues : preliminary study

Over the past 30 years the nature of airport precincts has changed significantly from purely aviation services to a full range of retail, commercial, industrial and other non aviation uses. Most major airports in Australia are owned and operated by the private sector but are subject to long term head leases to the Federal Government, with subsequent sub leases in place to users of the land. The lease term available for both aviation and non aviation tenants is subject to the head lease term and in a number of Australian airport locations, these head leases are now two-thirds through their initial 50 year lease term and this is raising a number of issues from a valuation and ongoing development perspective. . For our airport precincts to continue to offer levels of infrastructure and services that are comparable or better than many commercial centres in the same location, policy makers need to understand the impact the uncertainty that exists when the current lease term is nearing expiration, especially in relation to the renewed lease term and rental payments. This paper reviews the changes in airport precinct ownership, management and development in Australia and highlights the valuation and rental assessment issues that are currently facing this property sector.

Chronological categorization and decomposition of customer loads

The majority of distribution utilities do not have accurate information on the constituents of their loads. This information is very useful in managing and planning the network, adequately and economically. Customer loads are normally categorized in three main sectors: 1) residential; 2) industrial; and 3) commercial. In this paper, penalized least-squares regression and Euclidean distance methods are developed for this application to identify and quantify the makeup of a feeder load with unknown sectors/subsectors. This process is done on a monthly basis to account for seasonal and other load changes. The error between the actual and estimated load profiles are used as a benchmark of accuracy. This approach has shown to be accurate in identifying customer types in unknown load profiles, and is used in cross-validation of the results and initial assumptions.

Australian learning and teaching council projects in the mathematical sciences : a retrospective

Since 2004, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) and its predecessor, the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, have funded numerous teaching and educational research-based projects in the Mathematical Sciences. In light of the Commonwealth Government’s decision to close the ALTC in 2011, it is appropriate to take account of the ALTCs input into the Mathe- matical Sciences in higher education. Here we present an overview of ALTC projects in the Mathematical Sciences, as well as report on the contributions they have made to the Discipline.

Vertical infrastructure inspection using a quadcopter and shared autonomy control

This paper presents a shared autonomy control scheme for a quadcopter that is suited for inspection of vertical infrastructure — tall man-made structures such as streetlights, electricity poles or the exterior surfaces of buildings. Current approaches to inspection of such structures is slow, expensive, and potentially hazardous. Low-cost aerial platforms with an ability to hover now have sufficient payload and endurance for this kind of task, but require significant human skill to fly. We develop a control architecture that enables synergy between the ground-based operator and the aerial inspection robot. An unskilled operator is assisted by onboard sensing and partial autonomy to safely fly the robot in close proximity to the structure. The operator uses their domain knowledge and problem solving skills to guide the robot in difficult to reach locations to inspect and assess the condition of the infrastructure. The operator commands the robot in a local task coordinate frame with limited degrees of freedom (DOF). For instance: up/down, left/right, toward/away with respect to the infrastructure. We therefore avoid problems of global mapping and navigation while providing an intuitive interface to the operator. We describe algorithms for pole detection, robot velocity estimation with respect to the pole, and position estimation in 3D space as well as the control algorithms and overall system architecture. We present initial results of shared autonomy of a quadrotor with respect to a vertical pole and robot performance is evaluated by comparing with motion capture data.

The moderating effect of knowledge sharing on the relationship between manufacturing activities and business performance

This paper investigates the critical role of knowledge sharing (KS) in leveraging manufacturing activities, namely integrated supplier management (ISM) and new product development (NPD) to improve business performance (BP) within the context of Taiwanese electronic manufacturing companies. The research adopted a sequential mixed method research design, which provided both quantitative empirical evidence as well as qualitative insights, into the moderating effect of KS on the relationships between these two core manufacturing activities and BP. First, a questionnaire survey was administered, which resulted in a sample of 170 managerial and technical professionals providing their opinions on KS, NPD and ISM activities and the BP level within their respective companies. On the basis of the collected data, factor analysis was used to verify the measurement model, followed by correlation analysis to explore factor interrelationships, and finally moderated regression analyses to extract the moderating effects of KS on the relationships of NPD and ISM with BP. Following the quantitative study, six semi-structured interviews were conducted to provide qualitative in-depth insights into the value added from KS practices to the targeted manufacturing activities and the extent of its leveraging power. Results from quantitative statistical analysis indicated that KS, NPD and ISM all have a significant positive impact on BP. Specifically, IT infrastructure and open communication were identified as the two types of KS practices that could facilitate enriched supplier evaluation and selection, empower active employee involvement in the design process, and provide support for product simplification and the modular design process, thereby improving manufacturing performance and strengthening company competitiveness. The interviews authenticated many of the empirical findings, suggesting that in the contemporary manufacturing context KS has become an integral part of many ISM and NPD activities and when embedded properly can lead to an improvement in BP. The paper also highlights a number of useful implications for manufacturing companies seeking to leverage their BP through innovative and sustained KS practices.

Academic wage structure by gender : the roles of peer review, performance, and market forces

We focus on understanding the role of productivity in determining wage structure differences between men and women in academia. The data arise from a pay-equity study carried out in a single Midwestern U.S. university over the 1996–7 academic year. Econometric results confirm that external market forces exert influence over both male and female salary. But peer review ratings play a significant role in male but not female earnings determination, with similar results for objective measures of research, teaching and service.

A hierarchical structural model of assessing innovation and project performance

Research in construction innovation highlights construction industry as having many barriers and resistance to innovations and suggests that it needs champions. A hierarchical structural model is presented, to assess the impact of the role of the project manager (PM) on the levels of innovation and project performance. The model adopts the structural equation modelling technique and uses the survey data collected from PMs and project team members working for general contractors in Singapore. The model fits well to the observed data, accounting for 24%, 37% and 49% of the variance in championing behaviour, the level of innovation and project performance, respectively. The results of this study show the importance of the championing role of PMs in construction innovation. However, in order to increase their effectiveness, such a role should be complemented by their competency and professionalism, tactical use of influence tactics, and decision authority. Moreover, senior management should provide adequate resources and a sustained support to innovation and create a conducive environment or organizational culture that nurtures and facilitates the PM’s role in the construction project as a champion of innovation.

Coping resources, coping strategies and adaptation to organisational change : direct or buffering effects?

This study examined the effects of personal and social resources, coping strategies and appraised stress on employees' levels of anxiety and depression. In relation to the effects of resources and coping strategies, two different models were tested. The main effects model proposes that, irrespective of the level of stress, coping resources and coping strategies have direct effects on well-being. In contrast, the buffering model predicts that the buffering effects of coping resources and strategies are only evident at high levels of stress. One hundred lawyers completed a structured self-administered questionnaire that measured their personal and social resources, use of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies, and appraisals of the stressfulness of the situation. Results revealed generally strong support for the main effects model in the prediction of employee levels of anxiety and depression. Lower levels of anxiety were linked to judgements of lower levels of organizational change, greater self-confidence, greater internality of control beliefs and less use of emotion-focused coping strategies. Lower levels of depression in employees were also linked to judgements of lower levels of organizational change, greater use of resources and less appraised stress. There was only limited support for the buffering effects model. Due to the small size of the sample, the findings need to be explored further in other contexts.

ICT in vocational education and training: a view of information and communication technology in vocational education in New Zealand

This report looks at opportunities in relation to what is either already available or starting to take off in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT focuses on the entire system of information, communication, processes and knowledge within an organisation. It focuses on how technology can be implemented to serve the information and communication needs of people and organisations. An ICT system involves a combination of work practices, information, people and a range of technologies and applications organised to make the business or organisation fully functional and efficient, and to accomplish goals in an organisation. Our focus is on vocational, workbased education in New Zealand. It is not about eLearning, although we briefly touch on the topic. We provide a background on vocational education in New Zealand, cover what we consider to be key trends impacting workbased, vocational education and training (VET), and offer practical suggestions for leveraging better value from ICT initiatives across the main activities of an Industry Training Organisation (ITO). We use a learning value chain approach to demonstrate the main functions ITOs engage in and also use this approach as the basis for developing and prioritising an ICT strategy. Much of what we consider in this report is applicable to the wider tertiary education sector as it relates to life-long learning. We consider ICT as an enabler that: a) connects education businesses (all types including tertiary education institutions) to learners, their career decisions and their learning, and as well, b) enables those same businesses to run more efficiently. We suggest that these two sets of activities are considered as interconnected parts of the same education or training business ICT strategy.

Returning to the roots of culture : a review and re-conceptualisation of safety culture

Despite significant research, there is still little agreement over how to define safety culture or of what it is comprised. Due to this lack of agreement, much of the safety culture research has little more than safety management strategies in common. There is, however, a degree of acceptance of the close relationship between safety culture and organisational culture. Organisational culture can be described using traditional views of culture drawn from the anthropology and cultural psychology literature. However, the safety culture literature rarely ventures beyond organisational culture into discussions of these more traditional concepts of culture. There is a need to discuss how these concepts of culture can be applied to safety culture to provide greater understanding of safety culture and additional means by which to approach safety in the workplace. This review explores how three traditional conceptualisations of culture; the normative, anthropological and pragmatist conceptualisations, can and have been be applied to safety culture. Finally the review proposes a synthesised conceptualisation of safety culture which can be used to provide greater depth and practical applicability of safety culture, by increasing our understanding of the interactions between cultural and contextual variables in a given workplace and the effect they have on safety.

Collaborating to develop research data management services and collections

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Library, like many other academic and research institution libraries in Australia, has been collaborating with a range of academic and service provider partners to develop a range of research data management services and collections. Three main strategies are being employed and an overview of process, infrastructure, usage and benefits is provided of each of these service aspects. The development of processes and infrastructure to facilitate the strategic identification and management of QUT developed datasets has been a major focus. A number of Australian National Data Service (ANDS) sponsored projects - including Seeding the Commons; Metadata Hub / Store; Data Capture and Gold Standard Record Exemplars have / will provide QUT with a data registry system, linkages to storage, processes for identifying and describing datasets, and a degree of academic awareness. QUT supports open access and has established a culture for making its research outputs available via the QUT ePrints institutional repository. Incorporating open access research datasets into the library collections is an equally important aspect of facilitating the adoption of data-centric eresearch methods. Some datasets are available commercially, and the library has collaborated with QUT researchers, in the QUT Business School especially strongly, to identify and procure a rapidly growing range of financial datasets to support research. The library undertakes licensing and uses the Library Resource Allocation to pay for the subscriptions. It is a new area of collection development for with much to be learned. The final strategy discussed is the library acting as “data broker”. QUT Library has been working with researchers to identify these datasets and undertake the licensing, payment and access as a centrally supported service on behalf of researchers.

A comparative study of governmental one-stop portals for public service delivery

The continuing need for governments to radically improve the delivery of public services has led to a new, holistic government reform strategy labeled “Transformational Government” that strongly emphasizes customer-centricity. Attention has turned to online portals as a cost effective front-end to deliver services and engage customers as well as to the corresponding organizational approaches for the back-end to decouple the service interface from the departmental structures. The research presented in this paper makes three contributions: Firstly, a systematic literature review of approaches to the evaluation of online portal models in the public sector is presented. Secondly, the findings of a usability study comparing the online presences of the Queensland Government, the UK Government and the South Australian Government are reported and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches are discussed. And thirdly, the limitations of the usability study in the context of a broader “Transformational Government” approach are identified and service bundling is suggested as an innovative solution to further improve online service delivery.

Aliens, borders and social citizens : Health and community services for trafficked women

Australian policy makers recognise women who are trafficked to Australia (and these are largely for the purposes of sexual exploitation) primarily as victims of crime. The main public mechanism by which the "problem" of trafficked people in Australia is managed is the criminal law. At the same time, however, as a signatory to the UN Protocol on Trafficking and the Declaration of Human Rights, the Australian Government also recognises the rights of women trafficked to Australia to access health and community services in the wake of the health damage and trauma they often incur as a consequence of their experience. Current evidence suggests that trafficked women in Australia face considerable barriers in being able to avail themselves of such a right and of the services that accompany it. This paper explores the tensions posed by Australian policy and service approaches to trafficked women in light of the concept of social citizenship and the ways in which it is mediated in the Australian context by national border protection policy.

Digital social signal processing - theorectical underpinning and research agenda

Organizations make increasingly use of social media in order to compete for customer awareness and improve the quality of their goods and services. Multiple techniques of social media analysis are already in use. Nevertheless, theoretical underpinnings and a sound research agenda are still unavailable in this field at the present time. In order to contribute to setting up such an agenda, we introduce digital social signal processing (DSSP) as a new research stream in IS that requires multi-facetted investigations. Our DSSP concept is founded upon a set of four sequential activities: sensing digital social signals that are emitted by individuals on social media; decoding online data of social media in order to reconstruct digital social signals; matching the signals with consumers’ life events; and configuring individualized goods and service offerings tailored to the individual needs of customers. We further contribute to tying loose ends of different research areas together, in order to frame DSSP as a field for further investigation. We conclude with developing a research agenda.

Methyl ester preparation from peanut oil and its effect on DI diesel engine combustion

This study investigated the preparation of methyl ester (Biodiesel) from peanut oil by transesterification method and its effect on DI diesel engine. Two parameters were measured during the engine operation: one is engine performance (brake thermal efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption), and the other is the exhaust emissions (NOx and CO). The result showed that, when compared with neat diesel fuel, the brake thermal efficiency of biodiesel blend was almost similar or a slight lower. However, brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc) was a little higher than neat diesel. CO was lower and NOx was little higher with biodiesel blend than that of diesel. The engine performance for B10 and B20 was very similar. At medium and high load conditions the engine emissions for B10 and B20 has no significant variation. Hence, B20 can safely be used in diesel engine without any significant penalty in engine performance and emissions.