Conference on urban issues

Personal reflections and opinion on the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) National Indigenous Studies Conference, Perspectives on Urban life: Connections and Reconnections was held in Canberra from 28 September – 1 October 2009.

Methods and preliminary results for a data linkage project to determine long-term survival after intensive care unit admission

Aims: To describe a local data linkage project to match hospital data with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) National Death Index (NDI) to assess longterm outcomes of intensive care unit patients. Methods: Data were obtained from hospital intensive care and cardiac surgery databases on all patients aged 18 years and over admitted to either of two intensive care units at a tertiary-referral hospital between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 2005. Date of death was obtained from the AIHW NDI by probabilistic software matching, in addition to manual checking through hospital databases and other sources. Survival was calculated from time of ICU admission, with a censoring date of 14 February 2007. Data for patients with multiple hospital admissions requiring intensive care were analysed only from the first admission. Summary and descriptive statistics were used for preliminary data analysis. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to analyse factors determining long-term survival. Results: During the study period, 21 415 unique patients had 22 552 hospital admissions that included an ICU admission; 19 058 surgical procedures were performed with a total of 20 092 ICU admissions. There were 4936 deaths. Median follow-up was 6.2 years, totalling 134 203 patient years. The casemix was predominantly cardiac surgery (80%), followed by cardiac medical (6%), and other medical (4%). The unadjusted survival at 1, 5 and 10 years was 97%, 84% and 70%, respectively. The 1-year survival ranged from 97% for cardiac surgery to 36% for cardiac arrest. An APACHE II score was available for 16 877 patients. In those discharged alive from hospital, the 1, 5 and 10-year survival varied with discharge location. Conclusions: ICU-based linkage projects are feasible to determine long-term outcomes of ICU patients

Framework and processes for enhancing sustainability deliverables in Australian road infrastructure projects

Road and highway infrastructure provides the backbone for a nation’s economic growth. The versatile dispersion of population in Australia and its resource boom, coupled with improved living standards and growing societal expectations, calls for continuing development and improvement of road infrastructure under the current local, state and federal governments’ policies and strategic plans. As road infrastructure projects involve huge resources and mechanisms, achieving sustainability not only on economic scales but also through environmental and social responsibility becomes a crucial issue. While sustainability is a logical link to infrastructure development, literature study and consultation with the industry found that there is a lack of common understanding on what constitutes sustainability in the infrastructure context. Its priorities are often interpreted differently among multiple stakeholders. For road infrastructure projects which typically span over long periods of time, achieving tangible sustainability outcomes during the lifecycle of development remains a formidable task. Sustainable development initiatives often remain ideological as in macro-level policies and broad-based concepts. There were little elaboration and exemplar cases on how these policies and concepts can be translated into practical decision-making during project implementation. In contrast, there seemed to be over commitment on research and development of sustainability assessment methods and tools. Between the two positions, there is a perception-reality gap and mismatch, specifically on how to enhance sustainability deliverables during infrastructure project delivery. Review on past research in this industry sector also found that little has been done to promote sustainable road infrastructure development; this has wide and varied potential impacts. This research identified the common perceptions and expectations by different stakeholders towards achieving sustainability in road and highway infrastructure projects. Face to face interviews on selected representatives of these stakeholders were carried out in order to select and categorize, confirm and prioritize a list of sustainability performance targets identified through literature and past research. A Delphi study was conducted with the assistance of a panel of senior industry professionals and academic experts, which further considered the interrelationship and influence of the sustainability indicators, and identified critical sustainability indicators under ten critical sustainability criteria (e.g. Environmental, Health & Safety, Resource Utilization & Management, Social & Cultural, Economic, Public Governance & Community Engagement, Relations Management, Engineering, Institutional and Project Management). This presented critical sustainability issues that needed to be addressed at the project level. Accordingly, exemplar highway development projects were used as case studies to elicit solutions for the critical issues. Through the identification and integration of different perceptions and priority needs of the stakeholders, as well as key sustainability indicators and solutions for critical issues, a set of decision-making guidelines was developed to promote and drive consistent sustainability deliverables in road infrastructure projects.

Financial incentives and advanced construction procurement systems

Construction clients often use financial incentives to encourage stakeholder motivation and commitment to voluntary higher-order project goals. Despite the increased use of financial incentives, there is little literature addressing means of optimizing outcomes. Using a case study methodology, the examination of a successful Australian construction project demonstrates the features of a positively geared procurement approach that promotes the effectiveness of financial incentives. The research results show that if the incentive system is perceived to be fair and is applied to reward exceptional performance, and not to manipulate, then contractors are more likely to be positively motivated.

Educating the world's railway engineers

An increasing loss of engineering expertise from the railway industry globally coincides with a rapid expansion of the industry. Continuing professional development is critical to this sector, but needs to be distance based to cater for the international demand for such development. A unique Master degree in railway infrastructure was created out of extensive materials prepared by expert engineers, which captured their detailed knowledge. A team at Queensland University of Technology in Australia prepared the detailed and high quality online resources needed for this degree; the team comprised an academic, a project manager, learning designers and a publisher, all with experience in distance education. The degree has been running for 12 months with students from many countries. A key aim of the degree is to create a collaborative community comprising learners, teachers and practicing engineers from around the world. The team has also worked hard to ensure the content of the study materials, the form of the assessment tasks and the interactive learning sessions relate closely to real-world problems and challenges faced by the students in their workplace, wherever that is. Widely differing time zones are a challenge but are usually obviated by the asynchronous nature of the online resources.

The silk road project : dance and embodiment in the age of motion capture

The Silk Road Project was a practice-based research project investigating the potential of motion capture technology to inform perceptions of embodiment in dance performance. The project created a multi-disciplinary collaborative performance event using dance performance and real-time motion capture at Deakin University’s Deakin Motion Lab. Several new technological advances in producing real-time motion capture performance were produced, along with a performance event that examined the aesthetic interplay between a dancer’s movement and the precise mappings of its trajectories created by motion capture and real-time motion graphic visualisations.

Eat, drink and be civil

Brisbane is provincial city that has been developing rapidly since the early 1990s. The growth and development of its public and semi-public spaces means there are many more ways to engage with the city than was previously possible. --------- I suggest the city’s new and transformed spaces have enabled 2 important developments 1) a growth in forms of sociability and encounters with difference and 2) the negotiation of civic competencies. --------- The paper draws upon research conducted during a PhD project which used multi-method approaches - including qualitative [interviews] and quantitative data [surveys], psychoanalytic theory and text analysis.The study also made connections between the real city and the discursive city to argue that urban experience is constituted both materially and imaginatively.

Full scale fire tests of a new light gauge steel floor-ceiling system

Cold-formed steel members can be assembled in various combinations to provide cost-efficient and safe light gauge floor systems for buildings. Such Light gauge Steel Framing (LSF) systems are widely accepted in industrial and commercial building construction. An example application is in floor-ceiling systems. Light gauge steel floor-ceiling systems must be designed to serve as fire compartment boundaries and provide adequate fire resistance. Fire-rated floor-ceiling assemblies formed with new materials and construction methodologies have been increasingly used in buildings. However, limited research has been undertaken in the past and hence a thorough understanding of their fire resistance behaviour is not available. Recently a new composite floor-ceiling system has been developed to provide higher fire rating under standard fire conditions. But its increased fire rating could not be determined using the currently available design methods. Therefore a research project was carried out to investigate its structural and fire resistance behaviour under standard fire conditions. In this research project full scale experimental tests of the new LSF floor system based on a composite ceiling unit were undertaken using a gas furnace at the Queensland University of Technology. Both the conventional and the new steel floor-ceiling systems were tested under structural and fire loads. Full scale fire tests provided a good understanding of the fire behaviour of the LSF floor-ceiling systems and confirmed the superior performance of the new composite system. This paper presents the details of this research into the structural and fire behaviour of light gauge steel floor systems protected by the new composite panel, and the results.

Community engagement for sustainable urban futures : editorial preface

This special issue of Futures is concerned with community engagement strategies that help to inform medium and long-term futures studies in order to foster sustainable urban environments. Recent special issues of Futures, such as Human Extinction (41:10) and Utopian Thought (41:4), reflect the increasing significance of sustainability issues, which is why we present another crucial component of sustainability, community engagement. Responding to futurists’ long term concerns about climate change outlined in Futures 41(9) [1], Stevenson concluded that we can no longer support infinite growth, and that our goal should be to reshape the economy to let us live within our means. In the face of the continued and accelerated crisis in environmental, economic and social sustainability, a number of trends informed our call for papers on the possible role of community engagement in contributing to enhanced urban sustainability: • Changes in the public sphere in terms of participation, online deliberation systems, polity of urban futures; • The possible use of user-generated content for urban planning (paralleling the rise of user generated content elsewhere); • The related role of social networking, collective and civic intelligence, and crowd- sourcing in urban futures; • The rise of technologies such as wireless Internet and mobile applications, and the impact of neogeography, simulations and 3D virtual environments that reproduce and analyse complex social phenomena and city systems in urban futures, design and planning.

Cities in the airports 'shadow' : underlying interests and discretionary power in airport-region development

The previously distinct boundary between airports and their cities has become increasingly blurred as new interests and actors are identified as important stakeholders in the decision making process. As a consequence airport entities are more than ever seeking an integrated existence with their surrounding regions. While current planning strategies provide insights on how to improve and leverage land use planning in and around airports, emerging challenges for implementing and protecting these planning ideals stem from the governance shadows of development decisions. The thesis of this paper is that improving the identification, articulation and consideration of city and airport interests in the development approval process (between planning and implementation) can help avoid outcomes that hinder the ability of cities and their airports to meet their separate/mutual long-term objectives. By applying a network governance perspective to the pilot case study of Brisbane, analysis of overlapping and competing actor interests show how different governance arrangements facilitate (or impede) decision making that protects sustainable ‘airport region’ development. ---------- Contributions are made to airport and city development decision makers through the identification and analysis of effective and ineffective decision making pathways, and to governance literature by way of forwarding empirically derived frameworks for showing how actors protect their interests in the ‘crowded decision making domain’ of airport region development. This work was carried out through the Airport Metropolis Research Project under the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects funding scheme (LP0775225).

Value-mapping inputs

This research aims to increase understanding of and delivery to qualitative (or intangible) outcomes and impacts of major economic infrastructure projects (i.e. bridges, roads, water infrastructure and the like), and the role of stakeholder engagement in this process.-------- Recent doctoral research completed at the Queensland University of Technology by the author investigated how the principles of corporate responsibility are applied in the construction sector. This related specifically to major economic infrastructure projects (hereafter referred to as major projects), with particular regard to urban transportation projects. One outcome of this past research was a value-mapping framework which enables organisations to track project outcomes to pre-existing corporate objectives, and report on these throughout the project life-cycle. Two recommendations for future research from that work formed the basis for this current research: • How can qualitative measurables be better integrated into decision-making on major economic infrastructure projects? • How can non-contractual stakeholders be more effectively engaged with on these projects? The link between these two areas may relate to the stakeholders’ role in qualitative indicator identification and measurement. This is a key point for future investigation.---------- The aim of this research is thus to further investigate these two areas, with the intent of (i) better defining the research direction; (ii) identifying potential research partners; and (iii) identify possible sources of future funding.

“Filling out the forms was a nightmare” : project evaluation and the reflective practitioner in community theatre in contemporary Northern Ireland

Since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, large sums have been invested in community theatre projects in Northern Ireland, in the interests of conflict transformation and peace building. While this injection of funds has resulted in an unprecedented level of applied theatre activity, opportunities to maximise learning from this activity are being missed. It is generally assumed that project evaluation is undertaken at least partly to assess the degree of success of projects against important social objectives, with a view to learning what works, what does not, and what might work in the future. However, three ethnographic case studies of organisations delivering applied theatre projects in Northern Ireland indicate that current processes used to evaluate such projects are both flawed and inadequate for this purpose. Practitioners report that the administrative work involved in applying for and justifying funding is onerous, burdensome, and occurs at the expense of artistic activity. This is a very real concern when the time and effort devoted to ‘filling out the forms’ does not ultimately result in useful evaluative information. There are strong disincentives for organisations to report honestly on their experiences of difficulties, or undesirable impacts of projects, and this problem is not transcended by the use of external evaluators. Current evaluation processes provide little opportunity to capture unexpected benefits of projects, and small but significant successes which occur in the context of over-ambitious objectives. Little or no attempt is made to assess long-term impacts of projects on communities. Finally, official evaluation mechanisms fail to capture the reflective practice and dialogic analysis of practitioners, which would richly inform future projects. The authors argue that there is a need for clearer lines of communication, and more opportunities for mutual learning, among stakeholders involved in community development. In particular, greater involvement of the higher education sector in partnership with government and non-government agencies could yield significant benefits in terms of optimizing learning from applied theatre project evaluations.

Steering towards pinnacle of success : the NEC tenets in Australian construction contracting

Contractual relationships have become increasingly strained in recent years in the construction industry result in the use of the judicial system for the settlement of contractual disagreements. Why is this so? Evidence from anecdotes suggest that the lack of capacity amongst owners and contractors to carry out a contract using a good practice approach during the construction of a project contribute to the occurrence of conflicts, losses, deficient contractual relationships and poor performance of the construction work. Recognizing that current forms of contract in use today perpetuate a legacy of construction problems, we are conducting explanatory research to examine whether the widely publicized benefits of New Engineering Contract (NEC) could be realized in the Australian construction industry. This paper outlines a research agenda that will help shed light on how contract forms are able to be used as a mechanism to ensure construction projects are delivered successfully whilst also meeting the goals of multiple stakeholders. Understanding the Critical Success Factors (CSFs), commonly used construction contracts and the NEC system can help us address some of these issues. However, there are gaps in the validation of the benefits of NEC and its link with project success. We identify some of these gaps and propose a methodology by which to gain insights into this phenomenon. Keywords: Project Success, Construction Contracting, New Engineering Contract (NEC)

Construction performance and organisational culture

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the outcomes of a detailed research study carried out as part of the fulfilment of a doctoral programme which examined the relationships between, and impacts of organisational culture on construction performance within a Hong Kong context. The research used a mixed methodology approach consisting of an organisational culture survey using an adapted validated and reliable measurement instrument (the Denison Organisational Culture Survey), mini-case studies in four Hong Kong construction companies and correlated the derived culture scores against performance scores measured by the Hong Kong Housing Department Performance Assessment Scoring System (PASS). The significance of the research was to advance knowledge of the importance of organisational culture strength as a performance driver in the construction industry and the further proof of the culture performance links using a set of measures of the latter which were not financially-based. The findings of the research make a contribution to theory by further validating the work by Denison (1990) and others, not only in that a successful link between organisational culture and performance was demonstrated, but it also identifies particular cultural factors in organisations that appear to be significantly responsible for achieving successful outcomes and reveals opportunities for further research into the organisational culture of construction companies Keywords: organisational culture, construction performance, business success.

Responding to sustainability challenge and cost implications in highway construction projects

Highway construction often requires a significant capital input; therefore it often causes serious financial implications for developers, owners and operators. The recent industry-wide focus on sustainability has added a new dimension to the evaluation of highway projects, particularly on the economical scale of ‘going green’. Comprehensive analysis of the whole-of-life highway development that responds to sustainability challenges is one of the primary concerns for stakeholders. Principles of engineering economics and life cycle costing have been used to determine the incremental capacity investments for highway projects. However, the consideration of costs and issues associated with sustainability is still very limited in current studies on highway projects. Previous studies have identified that highway project investments are primarily concerned with direct market costs that can be quantified through life cycle costing analysis (LCCA). But they tend to ignore costs that are difficult to calculate, as those related to environmental and social elements. On a more positive note, these studies proved that the inclusion of such costs is an essential part of the overall development investment and a primary concern for decision making by the stakeholders. This paper discusses a research attempt to identify and categorise sustainability cost elements for highway projects. Through questionnaire survey, a set of sustainability cost elements on highway projects has been proposed. These cost elements are incorporated into the extension of some of the existing Life Cycle Costing Analysis (LCCA) models in order to produce a holistic financial picture of the highway project. It is expected that a new LCCA model will be established to serve as a suitable tool for decision making for highway project stakeholders.