Night visibility of highway pavement surfaces; paint durability tests.

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The constitutional power to make war: domestic legal issues raised by Australia's action in Iraq

The legal power to declare war has traditionally been a part of a prerogative to be exercised solely on advice that passed from the King to the Governor-General no later than 1942. In 2003, the Governor- General was not involved in the decision by the Prime Minister and Cabinet to commit Australian troops to the invasion of Iraq. The authors explore the alternative legal means by which Australia can go to war - means the government in fact used in 2003 - and the constitutional basis of those means. While the prerogative power can be regulated and/or devolved by legislation, and just possibly by practice, there does not seem to be a sound legal basis to assert that the power has been devolved to any other person. It appears that in 2003 the Defence Minister used his legal powers under the Defence Act 1903 (Cth) (as amended in 1975) to give instructions to the service head(s). A powerful argument could be made that the relevant sections of the Defence Act were not intended to be used for the decision to go to war, and that such instructions are for peacetime or in bello decisions. If so, the power to make war remains within the prerogative to be exercised on advice. Interviews with the then Governor-General indicate that Prime Minister Howard had planned to take the matter to the Federal Executive Council 'for noting', but did not do so after the Governor-General sought the views of the then Attorney-General about relevant issues of international law. The exchange raises many issues, but those of interest concern the kinds of questions the Governor-General could and should ask about proposed international action and whether they in any way mirror the assurances that are uncontroversially required for domestic action. In 2003, the Governor-General's scrutiny was the only independent scrutiny available because the legality of the decision to go to war was not a matter that could be determined in the High Court, and the federal government had taken action in March 2002 that effectively prevented the matter coming before the International Court of Justice

Raised Floor System applications for refurbishing office spaces

While raised floors as a building component has been around since the 70's, its application in terms of a holistic system in the fit-out of commercial office buildings has not been fully embraced due to some inherent problems and negative perceptions of the stakeholders involved. Today, the new generation of raised floor systems(RFS) offers a suite of innovative and integrated products and solutions, and as such are not only suitable for the changing office space requirements, but also capable of meeting tbe smart and sustainable challenges, which are becoming the prerequisite in the refurbishment of existing buildings. As there has been a prediction for continued growth in refurbishment projects in major cities around the globe, RFS as an alternative methodology warrants new examination and highlight. This paper introduces research recently completed in Australia that provided a holistic approach to the application of RFS enabled by intelligent building technologies, and examined key issues of project development when refurbishing commercial office buildings. It focuses on the constructability of RFS, and how it will respond to smart feature requirements in buildings while extending service life, meeting new organisational change and workplace health needs for applications in today's office environment. It also introduces key project procurement issues and the integrated decision support when dealing with the refurbishment of office buildings. The paper recommends procurement strategies as well as the justification of adopting the RFS technology in the Australian office building sector. Given the current economic downturn, refitting as opposed to new build .projects will come onto the spotlight. This paper will provide valuable information for building owners and developers alike when contemplating the retrofit of office buildings.

Accurate urban road model reconstruction from high resolution remotely sensed imagery based on Support Vector Machine and Gabor filters

In this paper, we presented an automatic system for precise urban road model reconstruction based on aerial images with high spatial resolution. The proposed approach consists of two steps: i) road surface detection and ii) road pavement marking extraction. In the first step, support vector machine (SVM) was utilized to classify the images into two categories: road and non-road. In the second step, road lane markings are further extracted on the generated road surface based on 2D Gabor filters. The experiments using several pan-sharpened aerial images of Brisbane, Queensland have validated the proposed method.

An analysis of parliamentary questions raised by Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh (India) State Legislative Assembly

The use of parliamentary questions is the most popular and visible tool in the hands of the Opposition as a means to make government accountable. Their main purpose is to seek information or press for action. Contemporary parliamentary literature from the UK, Canada, and Australia, however, suggests that parliamentary questions have lost their effectiveness. The literature points out that Question Time in parliaments has become a battle ground between Ruling and Opposition parties in their fight to gain maximum political advantage. In this context, the effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the Indian state legislatures has not been investigated. The aim of this study, therefore, is to analyse the use, purpose and effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the State Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh (India) to explore differences, if any, between Ruling and Opposition parties. In this study, 4023 parliamentary questions asked in the Uttar Pradesh State Legislative Assembly were analysed. The effectiveness of answers was also analysed qualitatively. The results show that half of the total members of the Assembly used this device, out of which 60% of the questions were asked by the Opposition party members. 31% of the questions from the Opposition were seeking information and 69% were pressing for action. The government provided the required information in 96% of the questions in the former category and took action in only 35% of the latter category. Furthermore, 60% of the questions raised by the Opposition were related to constituency matters and the remaining 40% were related to policy issues or public welfare. Comparing the data with the ruling party, the results indicate that the use,purpose and effectiveness of parliamentary questions were similar to that of the Opposition except some minor differences. Surprisingly, there was no evidence of any ‘Dorothy Dix’ questions. The study concludes parliamentary question is an effective device in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Digital image processing techniques for pavement macro-texture analysis

Road surface macro-texture is an indicator used to determine the skid resistance levels in pavements. Existing methods of quantifying macro-texture include the sand patch test and the laser profilometer. These methods utilise the 3D information of the pavement surface to extract the average texture depth. Recently, interest in image processing techniques as a quantifier of macro-texture has arisen, mainly using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). This paper reviews the FFT method, and then proposes two new methods, one using the autocorrelation function and the other using wavelets. The methods are tested on pictures obtained from a pavement surface extending more than 2km's. About 200 images were acquired from the surface at approx. 10m intervals from a height 80cm above ground. The results obtained from image analysis methods using the FFT, the autocorrelation function and wavelets are compared with sensor measured texture depth (SMTD) data obtained from the same paved surface. The results indicate that coefficients of determination (R2) exceeding 0.8 are obtained when up to 10% of outliers are removed.

A probability-based approach for assessing the relationship between crash accidents and pavement properties

Skid resistance is a condition parameter characterising the contribution that a road makes to the friction between a road surface and a vehicle tyre. Studies of traffic crash histories around the world have consistently found that a disproportionate number of crashes occur where the road surface has a low level of surface friction and/or surface texture, particularly when the road surface is wet. Various research results have been published over many years and have tried to quantify the influence of skid resistance on accident occurrence and to characterise a correlation between skid resistance and accident frequency. Most of the research studies used simple statistical correlation methods in analysing skid resistance and crash data.----- ------ Preliminary findings of a systematic and extensive literature search conclude that there is rarely a single causation factor in a crash. Findings from research projects do affirm various levels of correlation between skid resistance and accident occurrence. Studies indicate that the level of skid resistance at critical places such as intersections, curves, roundabouts, ramps and approaches to pedestrian crossings needs to be well maintained.----- ----- Management of risk is an integral aspect of the Queensland Department of Main Roads (QDMR) strategy for managing its infrastructure assets. The risk-based approach has been used in many areas of infrastructure engineering. However, very limited information is reported on using risk-based approach to mitigate crash rates related to road surface. Low skid resistance and surface texture may increase the risk of traffic crashes.----- ----- The objectives of this paper are to explore current issues of skid resistance in relation to crashes, to provide a framework of probability-based approach to be adopted by QDMR in assessing the relationship between crash accidents and pavement properties, and to explain why the probability-based approach is a suitable tool for QDMR in order to reduce accident rates due to skid resistance.