The vernacular terrain : Songzhang Art Museum, Beijing, China

The field was the curation of cross-cultural new media/ digital media practices within large-scale exhibition practices in China. The context was improved understandings of the intertwining of the natural and the artificial with respect to landscape and culture, and their consequent effect on our contemporary globalised society. The research highlighted new languages of media art with respect to landscape and their particular underpinning dialects. The methodology was principally practice-led. --------- The research brought together over 60 practitioners from both local and diasporic Asian, European and Australian cultures for the first time within a Chinese exhibition context. Through pursuing a strong response to both cultural displacement and re-identification the research forged and documented an enduring commonality within difference – an agenda further concentrated through sensitivities surrounding that year’s Beijing’s Olympics. In contrast to the severe threats posed to the local dialects of many of the world’s spoken and written languages the ‘Vernacular Terrain’ project evidenced that many local creative ‘dialects’ of the environment-media art continuum had indeed survived and flourished. --------- The project was co-funded by the Beijing Film Academy, QUT Precincts, IDAProjects and Platform China Art Institute. A broad range of peer-reviewed grants was won including from the Australia China Council and the Australian Embassy in China. Through invitations from external curators much of the work then traveled to other venues including the Block Gallery at QUT and the outdoor screens at Federation Square, Melbourne. The Vernacular Terrain catalogue featured a comprehensive history of the IDA project from 2000 to 2008 alongside several major essays. Due to the reputation IDA Projects had established, the team were invited to curate a major exhibition showcasing fifty new media artists: The Vernacular Terrain, at the prestigious Songzhang Art Museum, Beijing in Dec 07-Jan 2008. The exhibition was designed for an extensive, newly opened gallery owned by one of China's most important art historians Li Xian Ting. This exhibition was not only this gallery’s inaugural non-Chinese curated show but also the Gallery’s first new media exhibition. It included important works by artists such as Peter Greenway, Michael Roulier, Maleonn and Cui Xuiwen. --------- Each artist was chosen both for a focus upon their own local environmental concerns as well as their specific forms of practice - that included virtual world design, interactive design, video art, real time and manipulated multiplayer gaming platforms and web 2.0 practices. This exhibition examined the interconnectivities of cultural dialogue on both a micro and macro scale; incorporating the local and the global, through display methods and design approaches that stitched these diverse practices into a spatial map of meanings and conversations. By examining the contexts of each artist’s practice in relationship to the specificity of their own local place and prevailing global contexts the exhibition sought to uncover a global vernacular. Through pursuing this concentrated anthropological direction the research identified key themes and concerns of a contextual language that was clearly underpinned by distinctive local ‘dialects’ thereby contributing to a profound sense of cross-cultural association. Through augmentation of existing discourse the exhibition confirmed the enduring relevance and influence of both localized and globalised languages of the landscape-technology continuum.

Tax morale affects tax compliance : evidence from surveys and an artefactual field experiment

Our working hypotheses is that cross-cultural differences in tax compliance behaviour have foundations in the institutions of tax administration and citizen assessment of the quality of governance. Tax compliance being a complex behavioural issue. Its investigation requires use of a variety of methods and data sources. Results from artefactual field experiments conducted in countries with substantially different political histories and records of governance quality demondtrate that observed differences in tax compliance levels persist over alternative levels of enforcement. The experimental results are shown to be robust by replicating them for the same countries using survey response measures of tax compliance.

Public asset management framework for local governments : opportunities and challenges for public asset managers

The aim of the study is to identify the opportunities and challenges a local government public asset manager is most likely to deal with when adopting the appropriate Public Asset Management Framework especially in developing countries. In order to achieve its aim, this study employs a Case Study in Indonesia for collecting all data i.e. interviews, document analysis and observations at South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. The study concludes that there are significant opportunities and challenges that local governments in developing countries, especially Indonesia, might be required to manage if apply public asset management framework appropriately. The opportunities are more effective and efficient local government, accountable and auditable local government organization, increase local government portfolio, reflect up to date information for decision makers in local government, and improve the quality of public services. On the other hand, there are also challenges. Those challenges are local governments has no clear legal and institutional framework to support the asset management application, non-profit principle of public assets, cross jurisdictions and applications in public asset management, the complexity of public organization objectives, and data availability required for managing public property. The study only covers the condition of developing countries where Indonesia as an example, which could not represent exactly the whole local governments’ condition in the world. Further study to develop an asset management system applicable for all local governments in developing countries is urgently needed. Findings from this study will provide useful input for the policy maker, scholars and asset management practitioners to develop an asset management framework for more efficient and effective local governments.

The significant of public asset management framework application for Indonesian local governments : Opportunities and challenges

The purpose of this paper is to emphasis the significance of public asset management in Indonesia that is by identifying opportunities and challenges of Indonesian local governments in adopting current practice of Public Asset Management System. A Case Study, in South Sulawesi Provincial government was used as the approach to achieve the research objective. The case study involved two data collection techniques i.e. interviews followed by study on documents. The result of the study indicates there are some significant opportunities and challenges that Indonesian local government might deal with in adopting current practice of public asset management. There are opportunities that can lead to more effective and efficient local government, accountable and auditable local government organization, increase local government portfolio, and improve the quality of public services. The challenges include no clear institutional and legal framework to support the asset management application, non-profit principle of public assets, cross jurisdictions in public asset management, complexity of local government objectives, and unavailability of data for managing public property. The study only covers condition of South Sulawesi Province, which could not represent exactly the whole local governments’ condition in Indonesia. Findings from this study provide useful input for the policy makers, scholars and asset management practitioners in Indonesia to establish a public asset management framework that suitable for Indonesia.

Measuring performance of municipal real estate : softening the impact of financial crisis to local governments

Asset management in local government is an emerging discipline and over a decade has become a crucial aspect towards a more efficient and effective organisation. One crucial feature in the public asset management is performance measurement toward the public real estates. This measurement critically at the important component of public wealth and seeks to apply a standard of economic efficiency and effective organisational management especially in such global financial crisis condition. This paper aims to identify global economic crisis effect and proposes alternative solution for local governments to softening the impact of the crisis to the local governments organisation. This study found that the most suitable solution for local government to solve the global economic crisis in Indonesia is application of performance measurement in its asset management. Thus, it is important to develop performance measurement system in local government asset management process. This study provides suggestions from published documents and literatures. The paper also discusses the elements of public real estate performance measurement. The measurement of performance has become an essential component of the strategic thinking of assets owners and managers. Without having a formal measurement system for performance, it is difficult to plan, control and improve local government real estate management system. A close look at best practices in public sectors reveals that in most cases these practices were transferred from private sector reals estate management under the direction of real estate experts retained by government. One of the most significant advances in government property performance measurement resulted from recognition that the methodology used by private sector, non real estate corporations for managing their real property offered a valuable prototype for local governments. In general, there are two approaches most frequently used to measure performance of public organisations. Those are subjective and objective measures. Finally, findings from this study provides useful input for the local government policy makers, scholars and asset management practitioners to establish a public real estate performance measurement system toward more efficient and effective local governments in managing their assets as well as increasing public services quality in order to soften the impact of global financial crisis.

Inequality Aversion and Performance in and on the Field

The experimental literature and studies using survey data have established that people care a great deal about their relative economic position and not solely, as standard economic theory assumes, about their absolute economic position. Individuals are concerned about social comparisons. However, behavioral evidence in the field is rare. This paper provides an empirical analysis, testing the model of inequality aversion using two unique panel data sets for basketball and soccer players. We find support that the concept of inequality aversion helps to understand how the relative income situation affects performance in a real competitive environment with real tasks and real incentives.

The public sector’s perspective on procuring public works projects : comparing the views of practitioners in Hong Kong and Australia

Hong Kong has been one of the early jurisdictions to adopt Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for delivering large public infrastructure projects. The development of this procurement approach in Hong Kong has followed an intricate path. As such, it is believed that there are a number of areas which are interesting to unveil. As part of a comprehensive research study looking at implementing PPPs, interviews with experienced local industrial practitioners from the public sector were conducted to realize their perspective on the topic of procuring public works projects. Amongst these interviews, fourteen were launched government officials and advisers. The interview findings show that the majority of the Hong Kong and Australian interviewees had previously conducted some kind of research in the field of PPP. Both groups of interviewees agreed that “PPPs gain private sector’s added efficiency/expertise/management skills” when compared to projects procured traditionally. Also, both groups of interviewees felt that projects best suited to use PPP are those that have an “Economic business case”. The interviewees believed that “Contractor’s performance” could be used as key performance indicators for PPP projects. A large number of critical success factors were identified by the interviewees for PPP projects; two of these were similar for both groups of interviewees. These included “Project objectives well defined” and “Partnership spirit/commitment/trust”. Finally it was found that in-house guidance materials were more common in the organizations of the Australian interviewees compared to the Hong Kong ones. This paper studies the views of the public sector towards the topic of PPPs in Hong Kong and Australia, which helps to answer some of the queries that both academics and the private sector in these jurisdictions are keen to know. As a result the private sector can be more prepared when negotiating with the public sector and realise their needs better, academics on the other hand are provided a wider perspective of this topic benefiting the research industry at large.

Rethinking health planning : a framework for organising information to underpin collaborative health planning

The field of collaborative health planning faces significant challenges created by the narrow focus of the available information, the absence of a framework to organise that information and the lack of systems to make information accessible and guide decision-making. These challenges have been magnified by the rise of the ‘healthy communities movement’, as a result of which, there have been more frequent calls for localised, collaborative and evidence-driven health related decision-making. This paper discusses the role of decision support systems as a mechanism to facilitate collaborative health decision-making. The paper presents a potential information management framework to underpin a health decision support system and describes the participatory process that is currently being used to create an online tool for health planners using geographic information systems. The need for a comprehensive information management framework to guide the process of planning for healthy communities has been emphasised. The paper also underlines the critical importance of the proposed framework not only in forcing planners to engage with the entire range of health determinants, but also in providing sufficient flexibility to allow exploration of the local setting-based determinants of health.

Temperature and electric field dependent mobility in poly„3-hexylthiophene diodes

Current-voltage (I-V) curves of Poly(3-hexyl-thiophene) (P3HT) diodes have been collected to investigate the polymer hole-dominated charge transport. At room temperature and at low electric fields the I-V characteristic is purely Ohmic whereas at medium-high electric fields, experimental data shows that the hole transport is Trap Dominated - Space Charge Limited Current (TD-SCLC). In this regime, it is possible to extract the I-V characteristic of the P3HT/Al junction showing the ideal Schottky diode behaviour over five orders of magnitude. At high-applied electric fields, holes’ transport is found to be in the trap free SCLC regime. We have measured and modelled in this regime the holes’ mobility to evaluate its dependence from the electric field applied and the temperature of the device.

Market access of Papua New Guinea bananas (Musa spp.) with particular respect to banana fly (Bactrocera musae (Tryon)) (Diptera: Tephritidae)

International market access for fresh commodities is regulated by international accepted phytosanitary guidelines, the objectives of which are to reduce the biosecurity risk of plant pest and disease movement. Papua New Guinea (PNG) has identified banana as a potential export crop and to help meet international market access requirements, this thesis provides information for the development of a pest risk analysis (PRA) for PNG banana fruit. The PRA is a three step process which first identifies the pests associated with a particular commodity or pathway, then assesses the risk associated with those pests, and finally identifies risk management options for those pests if required. As the first step of the PRA process, I collated a definitive list on the organisms associated with the banana plant in PNG using formal literature, structured interviews with local experts, grey literature and unpublished file material held in PNG field research stations. I identified 112 organisms (invertebrates, vertebrate, pathogens and weeds) associated with banana in PNG, but only 14 of these were reported as commonly requiring management. For these 14 I present detailed information summaries on their known biology and pest impact. A major finding of the review was that of the 14 identified key pests, some research information occurs for 13. The single exception for which information was found to be lacking was Bactrocera musae (Tryon), the banana fly. The lack of information for this widely reported ‘major pest on PNG bananas’ would hinder the development of a PNG banana fruit PRA. For this reason the remainder of the thesis focused on this organism, particularly with respect to generation of information required by the PRA process. Utilising an existing, but previously unanalysed fruit fly trapping database for PNG, I carried out a Geographic Information System analysis of the distribution and abundance of banana in four major regions of PNG. This information is required for a PRA to determine if banana fruit grown in different parts of the country are at different risks from the fly. Results showed that the fly was widespread in all cropping regions and that temperature and rainfall were not significantly correlated with banana fly abundance. Abundance of the fly was significantly correlated (albeit weakly) with host availability. The same analysis was done with four other PNG pest fruit flies and their responses to the environmental factors differed to banana fly and each other. This implies that subsequent PRA analyses for other PNG fresh commodities will need to investigate the risk of each of these flies independently. To quantify the damage to banana fruit caused by banana fly in PNG, local surveys and one national survey of banana fruit infestation were carried out. Contrary to expectations, infestation was found to be very low, particularly in the widely grown commercial cultivar, Cavendish. Infestation of Cavendish fingers was only 0.41% in a structured, national survey of over 2 700 banana fingers. Follow up laboratory studies showed that fingers of Cavendish, and another commercial variety Lady-finger, are very poor hosts for B. musae, with very low host selection rates by female flies and very poor immature survival. An analysis of a recent (within last decade) incursion of B. musae into the Gazelle Peninsula of East New Britain Province, PNG, provided the final set of B. musae data. Surveys of the fly on the peninsular showed that establishment and spread of the fly in the novel environment was very rapid and thus the fly should be regarded as being of high biosecurity concern, at least in tropical areas. Supporting the earlier impact studies, however, banana fly has not become a significant banana fruit problem on the Gazelle, despite bananas being the primary starch staple of the region. The results of the research chapters are combined in the final Discussion in the form of a B. musae focused PRA for PNG banana fruit. Putting the thesis in a broader context, the Discussion also deals with the apparent discrepancy between high local abundance of banana fly and very low infestation rates. This discussion focuses on host utilisation patterns of specialist herbivores and suggests that local pest abundance, as determined by trapping or monitoring, need not be good surrogate for crop damage, despite this linkage being implicit in a number of international phytosanitary protocols.

Incorporating uncertainty in environmental models informed by imagery

In this thesis, the issue of incorporating uncertainty for environmental modelling informed by imagery is explored by considering uncertainty in deterministic modelling, measurement uncertainty and uncertainty in image composition. Incorporating uncertainty in deterministic modelling is extended for use with imagery using the Bayesian melding approach. In the application presented, slope steepness is shown to be the main contributor to total uncertainty in the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation. A spatial sampling procedure is also proposed to assist in implementing Bayesian melding given the increased data size with models informed by imagery. Measurement error models are another approach to incorporating uncertainty when data is informed by imagery. These models for measurement uncertainty, considered in a Bayesian conditional independence framework, are applied to ecological data generated from imagery. The models are shown to be appropriate and useful in certain situations. Measurement uncertainty is also considered in the context of change detection when two images are not co-registered. An approach for detecting change in two successive images is proposed that is not affected by registration. The procedure uses the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test on homogeneous segments of an image to detect change, with the homogeneous segments determined using a Bayesian mixture model of pixel values. Using the mixture model to segment an image also allows for uncertainty in the composition of an image. This thesis concludes by comparing several different Bayesian image segmentation approaches that allow for uncertainty regarding the allocation of pixels to different ground components. Each segmentation approach is applied to a data set of chlorophyll values and shown to have different benefits and drawbacks depending on the aims of the analysis.

Field and Service Robotics Results of the 5th International Conference

The 5th International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR05) was held in Port Douglas, Australia, on 29th - 31st July 2005, and brought together the worlds' leading experts in field and service automation. The goal of the conference was to report and encourage the latest research and practical results towards the use of field and service robotics in the community with particular focus on proven technology. The conference provided a forum for researchers, professionals and robot manufacturers to exchange up-to-date technical knowledge and experience. Field robots are robots which operate in outdoor, complex, and dynamic environments. Service robots are those that work closely with humans, with particular applications involving indoor and structured environments. There are a wide range of topics presented in this issue on field and service robots including: Agricultural and Forestry Robotics, Mining and Exploration Robots, Robots for Construction, Security & Defence Robots, Cleaning Robots, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles and Autonomous Flying Robots. This meeting was the fifth in the series and brings FSR back to Australia where it was first held. FSR has been held every 2 years, starting with Canberra 1997, followed by Pittsburgh 1999, Helsinki 2001 and Lake Yamanaka 2003.

In the Rough : In-Field evaluation of an autonomous vehicle for golf course maintenance

Maintenance is a time consuming and expensive task for any golf course or driving range manager. For a golf course the primary tasks are grass mowing and maintenance (fertilizer and herbicide spreading), while for a driving range mowing, maintenance and ball collection are required. All these tasks require an operator to drive a vehicle along paths which are generally predefined. This paper presents some preliminary in-field tsting results for an automated tractor vehicle performing golf ball collection on an actual driving range, and mowing on difficult unstructured terrain.