Personal media and wireless cities : towards an urban spatial analysis

For the past decade, at least, varieties of small, hand held networked instruments have appeared on the global scene, selling in record numbers, and being utilized by all manner of persons from the old to the young; children, women, men, the wealthy and the poor and in all countries. Their presences bespeak a radical shift in telecommunications infrastructure and the future of communications. They are particularly visible in urban areas where mobile transmission network infrastructure (3G, 4G, cellular and Wi-Fi) is more established and substantial, options more plentiful, and density of populations more dramatic. These end user products—I phones, cell phones, Blackberries, DSi, DS, IPads, Zooms, and others – of the mobile communications industry are the latest, hottest globalized commodities. At the same time, wirelessness, or the state of being wireless, and therefore capable of taking along one's networks, communicating from unlikely spaces, and navigating with GPS, is a complex social, political and economic communications phenomenon of early 21st century life. This thesis examines the specter of being wireless in cities. It lends the entire idea an experimentally envisioned, historical and planned context wherein personalization of media tools is seen both as a design development of corporate, artistic, and military imagination, as well as a profound social phenomenon enabling new forms of sharing, belonging, and urban community. In doing that it asserts the parameters of a new mobile space which, aside from clear benefits to humankind by way of mobility, has reinscribed numerous categories including gender. Moreover, it posits the recognition of other, more nuanced theoretical spaces for complex readings of gender and gendered use, including some instantiation of the notion of 'network' itself as a cyborgian and gendered social form. Additionally, cities are studied as places where technology is not only quickly popularized, but is connected to larger political interests, such as the reading of data, tracking of information, and the new security culture. In so doing the work has been undertaken as an urban spatial analysis and experimental ethnography, utilizing architectural, feminist, techno-utopian, industrial and theoretical literatures as discursive underpinnings from whence understandings and interpretations of mobile space, the mobile office, networked mobility, and personal media have come, linking the space of cities to specific, pioneering urban public art projects in which voice, texting and MMS have been utilized in expressions of ubiquitous networks and urban history. Through numerous examples of techno art, the thesis discusses the 'wireless city' as an emerging cultural, socially constructed economic and spatial entity, both conceived and formed through historic processes of urbanization.

Methodology for developing real-time motorway traffic risk identification models using individual-vehicle data

Most of existing motorway traffic safety studies using disaggregate traffic flow data aim at developing models for identifying real-time traffic risks by comparing pre-crash and non-crash conditions. One of serious shortcomings in those studies is that non-crash conditions are arbitrarily selected and hence, not representative, i.e. selected non-crash data might not be the right data comparable with pre-crash data; the non-crash/pre-crash ratio is arbitrarily decided and neglects the abundance of non-crash over pre-crash conditions; etc. Here, we present a methodology for developing a real-time MotorwaY Traffic Risk Identification Model (MyTRIM) using individual vehicle data, meteorological data, and crash data. Non-crash data are clustered into groups called traffic regimes. Thereafter, pre-crash data are classified into regimes to match with relevant non-crash data. Among totally eight traffic regimes obtained, four highly risky regimes were identified; three regime-based Risk Identification Models (RIM) with sufficient pre-crash data were developed. MyTRIM memorizes the latest risk evolution identified by RIM to predict near future risks. Traffic practitioners can decide MyTRIM’s memory size based on the trade-off between detection and false alarm rates. Decreasing the memory size from 5 to 1 precipitates the increase of detection rate from 65.0% to 100.0% and of false alarm rate from 0.21% to 3.68%. Moreover, critical factors in differentiating pre-crash and non-crash conditions are recognized and usable for developing preventive measures. MyTRIM can be used by practitioners in real-time as an independent tool to make online decision or integrated with existing traffic management systems.

Noisy Bluetooth traffic data?

Traffic state estimation in an urban road network remains a challenge for traffic models and the question of how such a network performs remains a difficult one to answer for traffic operators. Lack of detailed traffic information has long restricted research in this area. The introduction of Bluetooth into the automotive world presented an alternative that has now developed to a stage where large-scale test-beds are becoming available, for traffic monitoring and model validation purposes. But how much confidence should we have in such data? This paper aims to give an overview of the usage of Bluetooth, primarily for the city-scale management of urban transport networks, and to encourage researchers and practitioners to take a more cautious look at what is currently understood as a mature technology for monitoring travellers in urban environments. We argue that the full value of this technology is yet to be realised, for the analytical accuracies peculiar to the data have still to be adequately resolved.

Analysis of the needs of the East Coast cluster regional natural resource management bodies in relation to planning for climate change adaptation

The Climate Change Adaptation for Natural Resource Management (NRM) in East Coast Australia Project aims to foster and support an effective “community of practice” for climate change adaptation within the East Coast Cluster NRM regions that will increase the capacity for adaptation to climate change through enhancements in knowledge and skills and through the establishment of long‐term collaborations. It is being delivered by six consortium research partners: * The University of Queensland (project lead) * Griffith University * University of the Sunshine Coast * CSIRO * New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage * Queensland Department of Science, IT, Innovation and the Arts (Queensland Herbarium). The project relates to the East Coast Cluster, comprising the six coastal NRM regions and regional bodies between Rockhampton and Sydney: * Fitzroy Basin Association (FBA) * Burnett‐Mary Regional Group (BMRG) * SEQ Catchments (SEQC) * Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority (CMA) (NRCMA) * Hunter‐Central Rivers CMA (HCRCMA) * Hawkesbury Nepean CMA (HNCMA). The aims of this report are to summarise the needs of the regional bodies in relation to NRM planning for climate change adaptation, and provide a basis for developing the detailed work plan for the research consortium. Two primary methods were used to identify the needs of the regional bodies: (1) document analysis of the existing NRM/ Catchment Action Plans (CAPs) and applications by the regional bodies for funding under Stream 1 of the Regional NRM Planning for Climate Change Fund, and; (2) a needs analysis workshop, held in May 2013 involving representatives from the research consortium partners and the regional bodies. The East Coast Cluster includes five of the ten largest significant urban areas in Australia, world heritage listed natural environments, significant agriculture, mining and extensive grazing. The three NSW CMAs have recently completed strategic level CAPs, with implementation plans to be finalised in 2014/2015. SEQC and FBA are beginning a review of their existing NRM Plans, to be completed in 2014 and 2015 respectively; while BMRG is aiming to produce a NRM and Climate Variability Action Strategy. The regional bodies will receive funding from the Australian Government through the Regional NRM Planning for Climate Change Fund (NRM Fund) to improve regional planning for climate change and help guide the location of carbon and biodiversity activities, including wildlife corridors. The bulk of the funding will be available for activities in 2013/2014, with smaller amounts available in subsequent years. Most regional bodies aim to have a large proportion of the planning work complete by the end of 2014. In addition, NSW CMAs are undergoing major structural change and will be incorporated into semi‐autonomous statutory Local Land Services bodies from 2014. Boundaries will align with local government boundaries and there will be significant change in staff and structures. The regional bodies in the cluster have a varying degree of climate knowledge. All plans recognise climate change as a key driver of change, but there are few specific actions or targets addressing climate change. Regional bodies also have varying capacity to analyse large volumes of spatial or modelling data. Due to the complex nature of natural resource management, all regional bodies work with key stakeholders (e.g. local government, industry groups, and community groups) to deliver NRM outcomes. Regional bodies therefore require project outputs that can be used directly in stakeholder engagement activities, and are likely to require some form of capacity building associated with each of the outputs to maximise uptake. Some of the immediate needs of the regional bodies are a summary of information or tools that are able to be used immediately; and a summary of the key outputs and milestone dates for the project, to facilitate alignment of planning activities with research outputs. A project framework is useful to show the linkages between research elements and the relevance of the research to the adaptive management cycle for NRM planning in which the regional bodies are engaged. A draft framework is proposed to stimulate and promote discussion on research elements and linkages; this will be refined during and following the development of the detailed project work plan. The regional bodies strongly emphasised the need to incorporate a shift to a systems based resilience approach to NRM planning, and that approach is included in the framework. The regional bodies identified that information on climate projections would be most useful at regional and subregional scale, to feed into scenario planning and impact analysis. Outputs should be ‘engagement ready’ and there is a need for capacity building to enable regional bodies to understand and use the projections in stakeholder engagement. There was interest in understanding the impacts of climate change projections on ecosystems (e.g. ecosystem shift), and the consequent impacts on the production of ecosystem services. It was emphasised that any modelling should be able to be used by the regional bodies with their stakeholders to allow for community input (i.e. no black box models). The online regrowth benefits tool was of great interest to the regional bodies, as spatial mapping of carbon farming opportunities would be relevant to their funding requirements. The NSW CMAs identified an interest in development of the tool for NSW vegetation types. Needs relating to socio‐economic information included understanding the socio‐economic determinants of carbon farming uptake and managing community expectations. A need was also identified to understand the vulnerability of industry groups as well as community to climate change impacts, and in particular understanding how changes in the flow of ecosystem services would interact with the vulnerability of these groups to impact on the linked ecologicalsocio‐economic system. Responses to disasters (particularly flooding and storm surge) and recovery responses were also identified as being of interest. An ecosystem services framework was highlighted as a useful approach to synthesising biophysical and socioeconomic information in the context of a systems based, resilience approach to NRM planning. A need was identified to develop processes to move towards such an approach to NRM planning from the current asset management approach. Examples of best practice in incorporating climate science into planning, using scenarios for stakeholder engagement in planning and processes for institutionalising learning were also identified as cross‐cutting needs. The over‐arching theme identified was the need for capacity building for the NRM bodies to best use the information available at any point in time. To this end a planners working group has been established to support the building of a network of informed and articulate NRM agents with knowledge of current climate science and capacity to use current tools to engage stakeholders in NRM planning for climate change adaptation. The planners working group would form the core group of the community of practice, with the broader group of stakeholders participating when activities aligned with their interests. In this way, it is anticipated that the Project will contribute to building capacity within the wider community to effectively plan for climate change adaptation.

Security analysis of the non-aggressive challenge response of the DNP3 Protocol using a CPN Model

Distributed Network Protocol Version 3 (DNP3) is the de-facto communication protocol for power grids. Standard-based interoperability among devices has made the protocol useful to other infrastructures such as water, sewage, oil and gas. DNP3 is designed to facilitate interaction between master stations and outstations. In this paper, we apply a formal modelling methodology called Coloured Petri Nets (CPN) to create an executable model representation of DNP3 protocol. The model facilitates the analysis of the protocol to ensure that the protocol will behave as expected. Also, we illustrate how to verify and validate the behaviour of the protocol, using the CPN model and the corresponding state space tool to determine if there are insecure states. With this approach, we were able to identify a Denial of Service (DoS) attack against the DNP3 protocol.

Formal analysis of card-based payment systems in mobile devices

To provide card holder authentication while they are conducting an electronic transaction using mobile devices, VISA and MasterCard independently proposed two electronic payment protocols: Visa 3D Secure and MasterCard Secure Code. The protocols use pre-registered passwords to provide card holder authentication and Secure Socket Layer/ Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) for data confidentiality over wired networks and Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS) between a wireless device and a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) gateway. The paper presents our analysis of security properties in the proposed protocols using formal method tools: Casper and FDR2. We also highlight issues concerning payment security in the proposed protocols.

What I want for my Social Network privacy

Social Networks (SN) users have various privacy requirements to protect their information; to address this issue, a six-stage thematic analysis of scholarly articles related to SN user privacy concerns were synthesized. Then this research combines mixed methods research employing the strengths of quantitative and qualitative research to investigate general SN users, and thus construct a new set of ?ve primary and Twenty-?ve secondary SN user privacy requirements. Such an approach has been rarely used to examine the privacy requirements. Factor analysis results show superior agreement with theoretical predictions and signi?cant improvement over previous alternative models of SN user privacy requirements. This research presented here has the potential to provide for the development of more sophisticated privacy controls which will increase the ability of SN users to: specify their rights in SNs and to determine the protection of their own SN data.

Enhanced fast handover triggering mechanism for fast proxy mobile IPv6

Handover performance is critical to support real-time traffic applications in wireless network communications. The longer the handover delay is, the longer an Mobile Node (MN) is prevented from sending and receiving any data packet. In real-time network communication applications, such as VoIP and video-conference, a long handover delay is often unacceptable. In order to achieve better handover performance, Fast Proxy Mobile IPv6 (FPMIPv6) has been standardised as an improvement to the original Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The FPMIPv6 adopts a link layer triggering mechanism to perform two modes of operation: predictive and reactive modes. Using the link layer triggering, the handover performance of the FPMIPv6 can be improved in the predictive mode. However, an unsuccessful predictive handover operation will lead to activation of a reactive handover. In the reactive mode, MNs still experience long handover delays and a large amount of packet loss, which significantly degrade the handover performance of the FPMIPv6. Addressing this problem, this thesis presents an Enhanced Triggering Mechanism (ETM) in the FPMIPv6 to form an enhanced FPMIPv6 (eFPMIPv6). The ETM reduces the most time consuming processes in the reactive handover: the failed Handover Initiate (HO-Initiate) delay and bidirectional tunnel establishment delay. Consequently, the overall handover performance of the FPMIPv6 is enhanced in the eFPMIPv6. To show the advantages of the proposed eFPMIPv6, a theoretical analysis is carried out to mathematically model the performance of PMIPv6, FPMIPv6 and eFPMIPv6. Extensive case studies are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the presented eFPMIPv6 mechanism. They are carried out under various scenarios with changes in network link delay, traffic load, number of hops and MN moving velocity. The case studies show that the proposed mechanism ETM reduces the reactive handover delay, and the presented eFPMIPv6 outperforms the PMIPv6 and FPMIPv6 in terms of the overall handover performance.

Three-dimensional analysis of budding sites and released virus suggests a revised model for HIV-1 morphogenesis

Current models of HIV-1 morphogenesis hold that newly synthesized viral Gag polyproteins traffic to and assemble at the cell membrane into spherical protein shells. The resulting late-budding structure is thought to be released by the cellular ESCRT machinery severing the membrane tether connecting it to the producer cell. Using electron tomography and scanning transmission electron microscopy, we find that virions have a morphology and composition distinct from late-budding sites. Gag is arranged as a continuous but incomplete sphere in the released virion. In contrast, late-budding sites lacking functional ESCRT exhibited a nearly closed Gag sphere. The results lead us to propose that budding is initiated by Gag assembly, but is completed in an ESCRT-dependent manner before the Gag sphere is complete. This suggests that ESCRT functions early in HIV-1 release-akin to its role in vesicle formation-and is not restricted to severing the thin membrane tether.

A case study of the Iranian national railway and its absolute capacity expansion using analytical models

Identifying railway capacity is an important task that can identify "in principal" whether the network can handle an intended traffic flow, and whether there is any free capacity left for additional train services. Capacity determination techniques can also be used to identify how best to improve an existing network, and at least cost. In this article an optimization approach has been applied to a case study of the Iran national railway, in order to identify its current capacity and to optimally expand it given a variety of technical conditions. This railway is very important in Iran and will be upgraded extensively in the coming years. Hence the conclusions in this article may help in that endeavor. A sensitivity analysis is recommended to evaluate a wider range of possible scenarios. Hence more useful lower and upper bounds can be provided for the performance of the system

Antisocial behaviour orders : Unanticipated directions in social network site development

Abstract: Social network technologies, as we know them today have become a popular feature of everyday life for many people. As their name suggests, their underlying premise is to enable people to connect with each other for a variety of purposes. These purposes however, are generally thought of in a positive fashion. Based on a multi-method study of two online environments, Habbo Hotel and Second Life, which incorporate social networking functionality, we she light on forms of what can be conceptualized as antisocial behaviours and the rationales for these. Such behaviours included: scamming, racist/homophobic attacks, sim attacks, avatar attacks, non-conformance to contextual norms, counterfeiting and unneighbourly behaviour. The rationales for sub behaviours included: profit, fun, status building, network disruption, accidental acts and prejudice. Through our analysis we are able to comment upon the difficulties of defining antisocial behaviour in such environments, particularly when such environments are subject to interpretation vis their use and expected norms. We also point to the problems we face in conducting our public and private lives given the role ICTs are playing in the convergence of these two spaces and also the convergence of ICTs themselves.

Pipeline renewal decision support : a case study using LinEAR in a water pipeline network

This paper presents a case study for the application of a Linear Engineering Asset Renewal decision support software tool (LinEAR) at a water distribution network in Australia. This case study examines how the LinEAR can assist water utilities to minimise their total pipeline management cost, to make a long-term budget based on mathematically predicted expenditure, and to present calculated evidence for supporting their expenditure requirements. The outcomes from the study on pipeline renewal decision support demonstrate that LinEAR can help water utilities to improve the decision process and save renewal costs over a long-term by providing an optimum renewal schedules. This software can help organisation to accumulate technical knowledge and prediction future impact of the decision using what-if analysis.

Proactive safety assessment in roadwork zones : a synthesis of surrogate measures of safety

Work zone safety studies have traditionally relied on historical crash records—an approach which is reactive in nature as it requires crashes to accumulate first before taking any preventive actions. However, detailed and accurate data on work zone crashes are often not available, as is the case for Australian road work zones. The lack of reliable safety records and the reactive nature of the crash-based safety analysis approach motivated this research to seek alternative and proactive measures of safety. Various surrogate measures of safety have been developed in the traffic safety literature including time to collision, time to accident, gap time, post encroachment time, required deceleration rate, proportion of stopping distances, lateral distance to departure, and time to departure. These measures express how close road-user(s) are from a potential crash by analysing their movement trajectories. A review of this fast-growing literature is presented in this paper from the viewpoint of applying the measures to untangle work zone safety issues. The review revealed that the use of the surrogate measures is very limited for analysing work zone safety, although numerous studies have used these measures for analysing safety in other parts of the road network, such as intersections and motorway ramps. There exist great opportunities for adopting this proactive safety assessment approach to transform work zone safety for both roadworkers and motorists.

Mismatch negativity in recent-onset and chronic schizophrenia : a current source density analysis

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a component of the event-related potential elicited by deviant auditory stimuli. It is presumed to index pre-attentive monitoring of changes in the auditory environment. MMN amplitude is smaller in groups of individuals with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls. We compared duration-deviant MMN in 16 recent-onset and 19 chronic schizophrenia patients versus age- and sex-matched controls. Reduced frontal MMN was found in both patient groups, involved reduced hemispheric asymmetry, and was correlated with Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) and negative symptom ratings. A cortically-constrained LORETA analysis, incorporating anatomical data from each individual's MRI, was performed to generate a current source density model of the MMN response over time. This model suggested MMN generation within a temporal, parietal and frontal network, which was right hemisphere dominant only in controls. An exploratory analysis revealed reduced CSD in patients in superior and middle temporal cortex, inferior and superior parietal cortex, precuneus, anterior cingulate, and superior and middle frontal cortex. A region of interest (ROI) analysis was performed. For the early phase of the MMN, patients had reduced bilateral temporal and parietal response and no lateralisation in frontal ROIs. For late MMN, patients had reduced bilateral parietal response and no lateralisation in temporal ROIs. In patients, correlations revealed a link between GAF and the MMN response in parietal cortex. In controls, the frontal response onset was 17 ms later than the temporal and parietal response. In patients, onset latency of the MMN response was delayed in secondary, but not primary, auditory cortex. However amplitude reductions were observed in both primary and secondary auditory cortex. These latency delays may indicate relatively intact information processing upstream of the primary auditory cortex, but impaired primary auditory cortex or cortico-cortical or thalamo-cortical communication with higher auditory cortices as a core deficit in schizophrenia.

The feasibility, delivery and cost effectiveness of drink driving interventions : a qualitative analysis of professional stakeholders

Many intervention programs have been designed to decrease the rate of drink driving by altering the behavioural characteristics that may lead a person to drink and drive. However, most programs target high risk and repeat offenders. There is very little research on the feasibility and effectiveness of first offender programs. This project is part of a larger program of research that focuses on first time offenders, in order to reduce the rate of subsequent drink driving which may result in a repeat offence. A number of professional stakeholders were approached and interviewed with a view to capturing and reflecting current drink driving related concerns while developing an intervention in the context of Australian drink driving related legislation. The qualitative interviews involved open ended questioning which led to the themes discussed in the analysis. Included in the interviews were senior representatives from the Magistrates Court, Queensland Transport, Probation & Parole, Queensland Corrective Services, Royal Automobile Club Queensland (RACQ), Intraface Consulting (drug & alcohol EAP), Brisbane Police Prosecution Corps, Queensland Police Service and private practice psychology. Issues such as delivery of interventions, feasibility and cost-effectiveness were discussed, as were potential content and design. It was generally agreed that a tailored online intervention imposed as a sentencing option would be the most effective for first time offenders in terms of cost, ease of delivery and feasibility. The development of an online intervention program for first offenders is widely supported by professional stakeholders.