Different approaches to reduce shaft voltage in AC generators

This paper presents several shaft voltage reduction techniques for doubly-fed induction generators in wind turbine applications. These techniques includes: pulse width modulated voltage without zero vectors, multi-level inverters with proper PWM strategy, better generator design to minimize effective capacitive couplings in shaft voltage, active common-mode filter, reducing dc-link voltage and increasing modulation index. These methods have been verified with mathematical analysis and simulations.

Approaches for calculation of holding costs in the context of greenfield residential development

There are increasing indications that the contribution of holding costs and its impact on housing affordability is very significant. Their importance and perceived high level impact can be gauged from considering the unprecedented level of attention policy makers have given them recently. This may be evidenced by the embedding of specific strategies to address burgeoning holding costs (and particularly those cost savings associated with streamlining regulatory assessment) within statutory instruments such as the Queensland Housing Affordability Strategy, and the South East Queensland Regional Plan. However, several key issues require further investigation. Firstly, the computation and methodology behind the calculation of holding costs varies widely. In fact, it is not only variable, but in some instances completely ignored. Secondly, some ambiguity exists in terms of the inclusion of various elements of holding costs and assessment of their relative contribution. Perhaps this may in part be explained by their nature: such costs are not always immediately apparent. They are not as visible as more tangible cost items associated with greenfield development such as regulatory fees, government taxes, acquisition costs, selling fees, commissions and others. Holding costs are also more difficult to evaluate since for the most part they must be ultimately assessed over time in an ever-changing environment based on their strong relationship with opportunity cost which is in turn dependant, inter alia, upon prevailing inflation and / or interest rates. This paper seeks to provide a more detailed investigation of those elements related to holding costs, and in so doing determine the size of their impact specifically on the end user. It extends research in this area clarifying the extent to which holding costs impact housing affordability. Geographical diversity indicated by the considerable variation between various planning instruments and the length of regulatory assessment periods suggests further research should adopt a case study approach in order to test the relevance of theoretical modelling conducted.

From Sydney and Shanghai : Australian and Chinese women writing modernism

In the 1930s and 1940s, Australian women writers published novels, poems, and short stories that pushed the boundaries of their national literary culture. From their position in the Pacific, they entered into a dialogue with a European modernism that they reworked to invigorate their own writing and to make cross-continental connections. My interest in the work of Australian women prose writers of this period stems from an appreciation of the extent of their engagement with interwar modernism (an engagement that is generally under-acknowledged) and the realization that there are commonalities of approach with the ways in which contemporaneous Chinese authors negotiated this transnational cultural traffic. China and Australia, it has been argued, share an imaginative and literal association of many centuries, and this psychic history produces a situation in which ‘Australians feel drawn towards China: they cannot leave it alone.’1 Equally, Chinese exploration of the great southern land began in the fifteenth century, prior to European contact. In recent times, the intensity of Australia’s cultural and commercial connections with Asia has led to a repositioning of the Australian sense of regionalism in general and, in particular, has activated yet another stage in the history of its relationship with China. In this context, the association of Australian and Chinese writing is instructive because the commonalities of approach and areas of interest between certain authors indicate that Australian writers were not alone in either the content or style of their response to European modernism. This recognition, in turn, advances discussions of modernism in Australia and reveals an alternative way of looking at the world from the Pacific Rim through literature. The intent is to examine selective Australian and Chinese authors who are part of this continuous history and whose writing demonstrates common thematic and stylistic features via the vector of modernism. I focus on the 1930s and 1940s because these are the decades in which Australia and China experienced wideranging conflict in the Pacific, and it is significant that war, both forthcoming and actual, features as an ominous soundtrack in the writing of Chinese and Australian women. I argue that, given the immensity of cultural difference between Australia and China, there is an especially interesting juncture in the ways in which the authors interrogate modernist practices and the challenge of modernism. The process in which writing from the Pacific Rim jointly negotiates the twin desires of engaging with European literary form and representing one’s own culture may be seen as what Jessica Berman identifies as a geomodernism, one of the ‘new possible geographies’ of modernism.2 My discussion centres on the work of the Australian women, to which the Chinese material serves as a point of reference, albeit a critical one. The Chinese writing examined here is restricted to authors who wrote at least some material in English and whose work is available in translation.

African Indigeneity

The current argument is that there exist no indigenous people in Africa because all Africans are indigenous. The obverse considers those Africans who have not been touched by colonialism and lost their traditional cultures commensurate with attachments to the lands or a distinguishable traditional lifestyle to be indigenous. This paper argues in favor of the latter. For example, modernism, materialism, ex-colonial socio-cultural impacts (as in the remnants of European legal structures, and cultural scarring), globalization, and technology are international social homogenizers. People who live in this telos and do not participate in a distinct traditional culture that has been attached to the land for centuries are not indigenous. It is argued that this cultural divergence between modern and traditional is the major identifying point to settle the indigenous-non indigenous African debate. Finally, the paper looks at inclusive development, how this helps to distinguish African indigeneity, and provides a new political analysis model for quantifying inclusivity.

Changes in accountancy costs for Tasmanian SMEs implementing computerised accounting systems

There have been powerful incentives for Tasmanian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to adopt information technology to enable them to remain competitive and to comply with legislative regulations. This research study was undertaken to establish whether SMEs implementing computerised accounting systems have a subsequent change in their external accountancy fees. The research study employed a quantitative methodology using survey questionnaires. The study found that in less than 3% of cases SMEs reported a decrease in accountancy fees, in almost 45% of cases the organisation actually experienced a slight to substantial fee increase while 52% reported no change in accountancy fees.

Studio game-on

The studio-gameon event was supported by the Institute of the Creative Industries and Innovation and the Faculty of IT as part of the State Library of Queensland GAME ON exhibition (ex Barbican, UK) The studio produced a full game in six weeks. It was a curated event, a live web-based exhibition, a performance for the public and the team produced a digital / creative work which is available for download. The studio enabled a team of students to experience the pressures of a real game studio within the space of the precincts but also very much in the public eye. It was a physical hypothesis of the University's mantra - "for the real world" statement: Studio GameOn is an opportunity running alongside the GAME ON exhibition at the State Library of Queensland. The exhibition itself is open to the public from November 17th through to February 15th. The studio runs from January 5th to February 13th 2009. The Studio GameOn challenge? To put together a team of game developers and make a playable game in six weeks! The studio-game on team consists of a group of game developers in training - the team members are all students who are either half-way through or completing a qualification in game design and all its elements - we have designers, artists, programmers and productionteam members. We are also fortunate to have an Industry Board consisting of local Queensland Games professionals: John Passfield (Red Sprite Studios), Adrian Cook (WIldfire Studios) and Duncan Curtis and Marko Grgic (The 3 Blokes). We also invite the public to play with us - there is an ideas box both on-site at the State Library and a number of ways to communicate with us on this studio website.

Collaborative business process modeling using 3D virtual environments

Process modeling is a complex organizational task that requires many iterations and communication between the business analysts and the domain specialists involved in the process modeling. The challenge of process modeling is exacerbated, when the process of modeling has to be performed in a cross-organizational, distributed environment. Some systems have been developed to support collaborative process modeling, all of which use traditional 2D interfaces. We present an environment for collaborative process modeling, using 3D virtual environment technology. We make use of avatar instantiations of user ego centres, to allow for the spatial embodiment of the user with reference to the process model. We describe an innovative prototype collaborative process modeling approach, implemented as a modeling environment in Second Life. This approach leverages the use of virtual environments to provide user context for editing and collaborative exercises. We present a positive preliminary report on a case study, in which a test group modelled a business process using the system in Second Life.

On the cognitive effectiveness of routing symbols in process modeling languages

Process models provide visual support for analyzing and improving complex organizational processes. In this paper, we discuss differences of process modeling languages using cognitive effectiveness considerations, to make statements about the ease of use and quality of user experience. Aspects of cognitive effectiveness are of importance for learning a modeling language, creating models, and understanding models. We identify the criteria representational clarity, perceptual discriminability, perceptual immediacy, visual expressiveness, and graphic parsimony to compare and assess the cognitive effectiveness of different modeling languages. We apply these criteria in an analysis of the routing elements of UML Activity Diagrams, YAWL, BPMN, and EPCs, to uncover their relative strengths and weaknesses from a quality of user experience perspective. We draw conclusions that are relevant to the usability of these languages in business process modeling projects.

Enablers and barriers to the organizational adoption of sustainable business practices

Individuals, organizations, and governments are increasingly becoming aware of the necessity of sustainability in living, organizing, performing, and managing work. In this context, “green IS” has become an established colloquial term, acknowledging that information technology, corporate information systems, and the surrounding practices are both a contributor to the sustainability challenge and a potential enabler for green and sustainable practices. To date, however, there are few reported studies on the role of information systems for the challenge, and solution, of sustainability. This paper presents results from a case study of a world-wide operating IT software solution provider that is engaged in the development and adoption of sustainable practices. Our study suggests that the adoption of sustainable practices comes along with a number of particularities. We found information technology to be a key enabler of transparency about the progress of sustainability operations. We further found personal, motivator factors as well as organizational factors such as business inclusion, strategy definition, and a dialectic top-management and bottom-up support, to play a role in enabling a company to manage their sustainability. We describe a set of conjectures forthcoming from our case analysis, and detail some implications for further research in this area.