Decision making guidelines for sustainable construction of industrialised building systems

The construction industry has an obligation to respond to sustainability expectations of our society. Solutions that integrate innovative, intelligent and sustainability deliverables are vital for us to meet new and emerging challenges. Industrialised Building Systems (IBS), or known otherwise as prefabrication, employs a combination of ready-made components in the construction of buildings. They promote quality of production, enhance simplification of construction processes and minimise waste. The unique characteristics of this construction method respond well to sustainability. Despite the promises however, IBS has yet to be effectively implemented in Malaysia. There are often misconceptions among key stakeholders about IBS applications. The existing rating schemes fail to assess IBS against sustainability measures. To ensure the capture of full sustainability potential in buildings developed, the critical factors and action plans agreeable to all participants in the development processes need to be identified. Through questionnaire survey, eighteen critical factors relevant to IBS sustainability were identified and encapsulated into a conceptual framework to coordinate a systematic IBS decision making approach. Five categories were used to separate the critical factors into: ecological performance; economic value; social equity and culture; technical quality; and implementation and enforcement. This categorisation extends the "Triple Bottom Lines" to include social, economic, environmental and institutional dimensions. Semi-structured interviews help identify strategies of actions and solutions of potential problems through a SWOT analysis framework. These tools help the decision-makers maximise the opportunities by using available strengths, avoid weaknesses, and diagnose possible threats in the examined issues. The recommendations formed an integrated action plan to present information on what and how to improve sustainability through tackling each critical factor during IBS development. It can be used as part of the project briefing documents for IBS designers. For validation and finalisation the research deliverables, three case studies were conducted. The research fills a current gap by responding to IBS project scenarios in developing countries. It also provides a balanced view for designers to better understand sustainability potential and prioritize attentions to manage sustainability issues in IBS applications.

The efficiency of corpus-based distributional models for literature-based discovery on large data sets

This paper evaluates the efficiency of a number of popular corpus-based distributional models in performing discovery on very large document sets, including online collections. Literature-based discovery is the process of identifying previously unknown connections from text, often published literature, that could lead to the development of new techniques or technologies. Literature-based discovery has attracted growing research interest ever since Swanson's serendipitous discovery of the therapeutic effects of fish oil on Raynaud's disease in 1986. The successful application of distributional models in automating the identification of indirect associations underpinning literature-based discovery has been heavily demonstrated in the medical domain. However, we wish to investigate the computational complexity of distributional models for literature-based discovery on much larger document collections, as they may provide computationally tractable solutions to tasks including, predicting future disruptive innovations. In this paper we perform a computational complexity analysis on four successful corpus-based distributional models to evaluate their fit for such tasks. Our results indicate that corpus-based distributional models that store their representations in fixed dimensions provide superior efficiency on literature-based discovery tasks.

An examination of learning design in elite springboard diving

The overarching aim of this programme of work was to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing learning environment within the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) elite springboard diving programme. Unique to the current research programme, is the application of ideas from an established theory of motor learning, specifically ecological dynamics, to an applied high performance training environment. In this research programme springboard diving is examined as a complex system, where individual, task, and environmental constraints are continually interacting to shape performance. As a consequence, this thesis presents some necessary and unique insights into representative learning design and movement adaptations in a sample of elite athletes. The questions examined in this programme of work relate to how best to structure practice, which is central to developing an effective learning environment in a high performance setting. Specifically, the series of studies reported in the chapters of this doctoral thesis: (i) provide evidence for the importance of designing representative practice tasks in training; (ii) establish that completed and baulked (prematurely terminated) take-offs are not different enough to justify the abortion of a planned dive; and (iii), confirm that elite athletes performing complex skills are able to adapt their movement patterns to achieve consistent performance outcomes from variable dive take-off conditions. Chapters One and Two of the thesis provide an overview of the theoretical ideas framing the programme of work, and include a review of literature pertinent to the research aims and subsequent empirical chapters. Chapter Three examined the representativeness of take-off tasks completed in the two AIS diving training facilities routinely used in springboard diving. Results highlighted differences in the preparatory phase of reverse dive take-offs completed by elite divers during normal training tasks in the dry-land and aquatic training environments. The most noticeable differences in dive take-off between environments began during the hurdle (step, jump, height and flight) where the diver generates the necessary momentum to complete the dive. Consequently, greater step lengths, jump heights and flight times, resulted in greater board depression prior to take-off in the aquatic environment where the dives required greater amounts of rotation. The differences observed between the preparatory phases of reverse dive take-offs completed in the dry-land and aquatic training environments are arguably a consequence of the constraints of the training environment. Specifically, differences in the environmental information available to the athletes, and the need to alter the landing (feet first vs. wrist first landing) from the take-off, resulted in a decoupling of important perception and action information and a decomposition of the dive take-off task. In attempting to only practise high quality dives, many athletes have followed a traditional motor learning approach (Schmidt, 1975) and tried to eliminate take-off variations during training. Chapter Four examined whether observable differences existed between the movement kinematics of elite divers in the preparation phases of baulked (prematurely terminated) and completed take-offs that might justify this approach to training. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of variability within conditions revealed greater consistency and less variability when dives were completed, and greater variability amongst baulked take-offs for all participants. Based on these findings, it is probable that athletes choose to abort a planned take-off when they detect small variations from the movement patterns (e.g., step lengths, jump height, springboard depression) of highly practiced comfortable dives. However, with no major differences in coordination patterns (topology of the angle-angle plots), and the potential for negative performance outcomes in competition, there appears to be no training advantage in baulking on unsatisfactory take-offs during training, except when a threat of injury is perceived by the athlete. Instead, it was considered that enhancing the athletes' movement adaptability would be a more functional motor learning strategy. In Chapter Five, a twelve-week training programme was conducted to determine whether a sample of elite divers were able to adapt their movement patterns and complete dives successfully, regardless of the perceived quality of their preparatory movements on the springboard. The data indeed suggested that elite divers were able to adapt their movements during the preparatory phase of the take-off and complete good quality dives under more varied take-off conditions; displaying greater consistency and stability in the key performance outcome (dive entry). These findings are in line with previous research findings from other sports (e.g., shooting, triple jump and basketball) and demonstrate how functional or compensatory movement variability can afford greater flexibility in task execution. By previously only practising dives with good quality take-offs, it can be argued that divers only developed strong couplings between information and movement under very specific performance circumstances. As a result, this sample was sometimes characterised by poor performance in competition when the athletes experienced a suboptimal take-off. Throughout this training programme, where divers were encouraged to minimise baulking and attempt to complete every dive, they demonstrated that it was possible to strengthen the information and movement coupling in a variety of performance circumstances, widening of the basin of performance solutions and providing alternative couplings to solve a performance problem even when the take-off was not ideal. The results of this programme of research provide theoretical and experimental implications for understanding representative learning design and movement pattern variability in applied sports science research. Theoretically, this PhD programme contributes empirical evidence to demonstrate the importance of representative design in the training environments of high performance sports programmes. Specifically, this thesis advocates for the design of learning environments that effectively capture and enhance functional and flexible movement responses representative of performance contexts. Further, data from this thesis showed that elite athletes performing complex tasks were able to adapt their movements in the preparatory phase and complete good quality dives under more varied take-off conditions. This finding signals some significant practical implications for athletes, coaches and sports scientists. As such, it is recommended that care should be taken by coaches when designing practice tasks since the clear implication is that athletes need to practice adapting movement patterns during ongoing regulation of multi-articular coordination tasks. For example, volleyball servers can adapt to small variations in the ball toss phase, long jumpers can visually regulate gait as they prepare for the take-off, and springboard divers need to continue to practice adapting their take-off from the hurdle step. In summary, the studies of this programme of work have confirmed that the task constraints of training environments in elite sport performance programmes need to provide a faithful simulation of a competitive performance environment in order that performance outcomes may be stabilised with practice. Further, it is apparent that training environments can be enhanced by ensuring the representative design of task constraints, which have high action fidelity with the performance context. Ultimately, this study recommends that the traditional coaching adage 'perfect practice makes perfect", be reconsidered; instead advocating that practice should be, as Bernstein (1967) suggested, "repetition without repetition".

Two-dimensional graphene heterojunctions: The tunable mechanical properties

We report the mechanical properties of different two-dimensional carbon heterojunctions (HJs) made from graphene and various stable graphene allotropes, including α-, β-, γ- and 6612-graphyne (GY), and graphdiyne (GDY). It is found that all HJs exhibit a brittle behaviour except the one with α-GY, which however shows a hardening process due to the formation of triple carbon rings. Such hardening process has greatly deferred the failure of the structure. The yielding of the HJs is usually initiated at the interface between graphene and graphene allotropes, and monoatomic carbon rings are normally formed after yielding. By varying the locations of graphene (either in the middle or at the two ends of the HJs), similar mechanical properties have been obtained, suggesting insignificant impacts from location of graphene allotropes. Whereas, changing the types and percentages of the graphene allotropes, the HJs exhibit vastly different mechanical properties. In general, with the increasing graphene percentage, the yield strain decreases and the effective Young’s modulus increases. Meanwhile, the yield stress appears irrelevant with the graphene percentage. This study provides a fundamental understanding of the tensile properties of the heterojunctions that are crucial for the design and engineering of their mechanical properties, in order to facilitate their emerging future applications in nanoscale devices, such as flexible/stretchable electronics.

High energy states of gold and their importance in electrocatalytic processes at surfaces and interfaces

The ability of metals to store or trap considerable amounts of energy, and thus exist in a non-equilibrium or metastable state, is very well known in metallurgy; however, such behaviour, which is intimately connected with the defect character of metals, has been largely ignored in noble metal surface electrochemistry. Techniques for generating unusually high energy surface states for gold, and the unusual voltammetric responses of such states, are outlined. The surprisingly high (and complex) electrocatalytic activity of gold in aqueous media is attributed to the presence of a range of such non-equilibrium states as the vital entities at active sites on conventional gold surfaces. The possible relevance of these ideas to account for the remarkable catalytic activity of oxide-supported gold microparticles is briefly outlined.

AFM study of morphological changes associated with electrochemical solid--solid transformation of three-dimensional crystals of TCNQ to metal derivatives (metal= Cu, Co, Ni; TCNQ= tetracyanoquinodimethane)

In situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) allows images from the upper face and sides of TCNQ crystals to be monitored during the course of the electrochemical solid–solid state conversion of 50 × 50 μm2 three-dimensional drop cast crystals of TCNQ to CuTCNQ or M[TCNQ]2(H2O)2 (M = Co, Ni). Ex situ images obtained by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) also allow the bottom face of the TCNQ crystals, in contact with the indium tin oxide or gold electrode surface and aqueous metal electrolyte solution, to be examined. Results show that by carefully controlling the reaction conditions, nearly mono-dispersed, rod-like phase I CuTCNQ or M[TCNQ]2(H2O)2 can be achieved on all faces. However, CuTCNQ has two different phases, and the transformation of rod-like phase 1 to rhombic-like phase 2 achieved under conditions of cyclic voltammetry was monitored in situ by AFM. The similarity of in situ AFM results with ex situ SEM studies accomplished previously implies that the morphology of the samples remains unchanged when the solvent environment is removed. In the process of crystal transformation, the triple phase solid∣electrode∣electrolyte junction is confirmed to be the initial nucleation site. Raman spectra and AFM images suggest that 100% interconversion is not always achieved, even after extended electrolysis of large 50 × 50 μm2 TCNQ crystals.

Electrochemically-induced TCNQ/Mn TCNQ 2 (H2O) 2 (TCNQ= 7, 7, 8, 8-Tetracyanoquinodimethane) solid-solid interconversion : two voltammetrically distinct processes that allow selective generation of nanofiber or nanorod network morphologies

Unlike the case with other divalent transition metal M\[TCNQ](2)(H(2)O)(2) (M = Fe, Co, Ni) analogues, the electrochemically induced solid-solid phase interconversion of TCNQ microcrystals (TCNQ = 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane) to Mn\[TCNQ](2)(H(2)O)(2) occurs via two voltammetrically distinct, time dependent processes that generate the coordination polymer in nanofiber or rod-like morphologies. Careful manipulation of the voltammetric scan rate, electrolysis time, Mn(2+)((aq)) concentration, and the method of electrode modification with solid TCNQ allows selective generation of either morphology. Detailed ex situ spectroscopic (IR, Raman), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) characterization clearly establish that differences in the electrochemically synthesized Mn-TCNQ material are confined to morphology. Generation of the nanofiber form is proposed to take place rapidly via formation and reduction of a Mn-stabilized anionic dimer intermediate, \[(Mn(2+))(TCNQ-TCNQ)(2)(*-)], formed as a result of radical-substrate coupling between TCNQ(*-) and neutral TCNQ, accompanied by ingress of Mn(2+) ions from the aqueous solution at the triple phase TCNQ/electrode/electrolyte boundary. In contrast, formation of the nanorod form is much slower and is postulated to arise from disproportionation of the \[(Mn(2+))(TCNQ-TCNQ)(*-)(2)] intermediate. Thus, identification of the time dependent pathways via the solid-solid state electrochemical approach allows the crystal size of the Mn\[TCNQ](2)(H(2)O)(2) material to be tuned and provides new mechanistic insights into the formation of different morphologies.

Australia’s rural youth, online storytelling and identity performance

Online storytelling spaces provide young people who live in rural and remote parts of Australia with an opportunity to develop their personal identities and connect and communicate with other young people. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC’s) rural and regional youth network, Heywire, is such a space (http://www.abc.net.au/heywire/). Heywire invites 16-22 year old Australians who identify as ‘rural’ or ‘regional’ to create an online profile and upload stories about their lives in the form of text, audio, video or photographs. Emerging from my PhD project, this paper describes how rural and regional youth perform their identities through creating stories for the Heywire website, addressing notions of individual and social identities as a sub-theme. Compared with their city counterparts, the youth who live in regional towns or isolated properties have fewer opportunities to socialise with other people their own age. Subsequently computer mediated technologies, particularly the internet, can enable this group of people to connect with each other and develop a sense of community. In this paper I outline how these possibilities exist within an online storytelling space. I describe a number of reasons for young people’s story-sharing on the Heywire website in order to demonstrate the potential for spaces such as this to enable isolated youth to experience a sense of connection and belonging, despite geographical dispersion and physical isolation.

GO423 - the second Game On / brIGDA Independant Game Symposium

GO423 was initiated in 2012 as part of a community effort to ensure the vitality of the Queensland Games Sector. In common with other industrialised nations, the game industry in Australia is a reasonably significant contributor to Gross National Product (GNP). Games are played in 92% of Australian homes and the average adult player has been playing them for at least twelve years with 26% playing for more than thirty years (Brand, 2011). Like the games and interactive entertainment industries in other countries, the Australian industry has its roots in the small team model of the 1980s. So, for example, Beam Software, which was established in Melbourne in 1980, was started by two people and Krome Studios was started in 1999 by three. Both these companies grew to employing over 100 people in their heydays (considered large by Antipodean standards), not by producing their own intellectual property (IP) but by content generation for off shore parent companies. Thus our bigger companies grew on a model of service provision and tended not to generate their own IP (Darchen, 2012). There are some no-table exceptions where IP has originated locally and been ac-quired by international companies but in the case of some of the works of which we are most proud, the Australian company took on the role of “Night Elf” – a convenience due to affordances of the time zone which allowed our companies to work while the parent companies slept in a different time zone. In the post GFC climate, the strong Australian dollar and the vulnerability of such service provision means that job security is virtually non-existent with employees invariably being on short-term contracts. These issues are exacerbated by the decline of middle-ground games (those which fall between the triple-A titles and the smaller games often produced for a casual audience). The response to this state of affairs has been the change in the Australian games industry to new recognition of its identity as a wider cultural sector and the rise (or return) of an increasing number of small independent game development companies. ’In-dies’ consist of small teams, often making games for mobile and casual platforms, that depend on producing at least one if not two games a year and who often explore more radical definitions of games as designed cultural objects. The need for innovation and creativity in the Australian context is seen as a vital aspect of the current changing scene where we see the emphasis on the large studio production model give way to an emerging cultural sector model where small independent teams are engaged in shorter design and production schedules driven by digital distribution. In terms of Quality of Life (QoL) this new digital distribution brings with it the danger of 'digital isolation' - a studio can work from home and deliver from home. Community events thus become increasingly important. The GO423 Symposium is a response to these perceived needs and the event is based on the understanding that our new small creative teams depend on the local community of practice in no small way. GO423 thus offers local industry participants the opportunity to talk to each other about their work, to talk to potential new members about their work and to show off their work in a small intimate situation, encouraging both feedback and support.

Lower respiratory infections in Australian Indigenous children

Despite Australia being one of the wealthiest countries of the world, Australian Indigenous children have a health status and social circumstance comparable to developing countries. Indigenous infants have 10 times the mortality rate for respiratory conditions. The lower respiratory infection (LRI) rate in Australian Indigenous children is at least as high as that of children in developing countries; the frequency of hospitalisations of Indigenous infants is triple that of non-Indigenous Australian infants (201.7 vs. 62.6/1000, respectively). While Indigenous Australian children have many risk factors for LRIs described in developing countries, there is little specific data, and hence, evidence-based intervention points are yet to be identified. Efficacy of conjugate vaccines for common bacterial causes of pneumonia has been less marked in Indigenous children than that documented overseas. Gaps in the management and prevention of disease are glaring. Given the burden of LRI in Indigenous children and the association with long-term respiratory dysfunction, LRIs should be addressed as a matter of priority.

Intrusion detection in distributed systems, an approach based on taint marking

This paper presents a new framework for distributed intrusion detection based on taint marking. Our system tracks information flows between applications of multiple hosts gathered in groups (i.e., sets of hosts sharing the same distributed information flow policy) by attaching taint labels to system objects such as files, sockets, Inter Process Communication (IPC) abstractions, and memory mappings. Labels are carried over the network by tainting network packets. A distributed information flow policy is defined for each group at the host level by labeling information and defining how users and applications can legally access, alter or transfer information towards other trusted or untrusted hosts. As opposed to existing approaches, where information is most often represented by two security levels (low/high, public/private, etc.), our model identifies each piece of information within a distributed system, and defines their legal interaction in a fine-grained manner. Hosts store and exchange security labels in a peer to peer fashion, and there is no central monitor. Our IDS is implemented in the Linux kernel as a Linux Security Module (LSM) and runs standard software on commodity hardware with no required modification. The only trusted code is our modified operating system kernel. We finally present a scenario of intrusion in a web service running on multiple hosts, and show how our distributed IDS is able to report security violations at each host level.

Chinese fashion designers in Shanghai : a new perspective

Shanghai possesses an apt legacy, once referred to as “Paris of the East”. Municipal aspirations for Shanghai to assume a position among the great fashion cities of the world have been integrated in the recent re-shaping of this modern city into a role model for Chinese creative enterprise yet China is still known primarily as centre of clothing production. Increasingly however, “Made in China” is being replaced by “Created in China” drawing attention to two distinct consumer markets for Chinese designers. Fashion designers who have entered the global fashion system for education or by showing their collections have generally adopted a design aesthetic that aligns with Western markets, allowing little competitive advantage. In contrast, Chinese designers who rest their attention on the domestic Chinese market find a disparate, highly competitive marketplace. The pillars of authenticity that for foreign fashion brands extend far into their cultural and creative histories, often for many decades in the case of Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Christian Dior do not yet exist in China in this era of rapid globalisation. Here, the cultural bedrock allows these same pillars to extend only thirty years or so into the past reaching the moments when Deng Xiaoping granted China’s creative entrepreneurs passage. To this end, interviews with fashion designers in Shanghai have been undertaken during the last twelve months for a PhD dissertation. Production of culture theory has been used to identify working methods, practices of production and the social and cultural milieu necessary for designers to achieve viability. Preliminary findings indicate that some fashion designers have adopted an as-yet unexplored strategy of business and brand development with a distinct Chinese aesthetic at its core, in contrast to the clichéd cultural iconography often viewed by Western viewers as representative of Chinese creativity.

Designing a seasonality application to support urban agriculture practice

This position paper describes the work in progress towards the goal of building a technical prototype that enables users – those who have little or no knowledge and experience engaging in urban agriculture – to receive information personalised to their location and situation, and allow them to ask questions and share experiences with others. We describe the design process thus far, informed by a survey and a workshop with experts in the field, before concluding with the future direction of this work.

Well-being, satisfaction and commitment : the substitutable nature of resources for maternity hospital nurses

Abstract Aims. To investigate the relationship between three types of organizational resources (job control, social support and organizational justice) and the impact of job demands on nurse’s well-being and attitudes towards their work. Background. The negative impact of work-related stress on nurse’s health and attitudes towards their work has been established. Increasingly, research is focusing on the role of organizational resources in reducing the impact of work related stress. Design. Cross-sectional survey. Method. Data collected in November 2008 from 226 Australian nurses and midwives were analysed using the full Job Strain Model with the addition of organizational justice variables. Multiple regression analyses explored the relationships among job control, job demands, three sources of social support and four types of organizational justice on well-being and work attitudes. Results. The overall regression models explained a significant amount of variance in well-being, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Significant main effects were evident for support variables and organizational justice variables on well-being and job satisfaction. Interactions between job control and supervisor support and between job demands and supervisor support were evident for job satisfaction. Conclusions. Supervisor support and organizational justice have significant relationships with nurses’ well-being and job satisfaction. More broadly, the findings suggest that, in the triple-matching approach from a work-stressor to a resource to a work outcome, personal, supervisory and organizational resources may be substitutable. These findings provide nurse management with empirical endorsement for the development and delivery of the organization’s resources for nursing staff.

Lexis Nexis Questions and Answers : Equity and Trusts [4th Ed.]

"LexisNexis Questions and Answers: Equity and Trusts provides students with a clear and systematic approach to successfully analysing and answering assessment questions on equity and trusts. Each chapter commences with a discussion of key principles and issues including a summary of relevant leading cases and legislation for effective revision. Examples of written questions with fact scenarios follow, each with a suggested answer plan, sample answer and comments on how the answer might be viewed by an examiner. Readers are provided with advice on common errors to avoid when answering questions and practical hints and tips on how to achieve higher marks. Features • Summary of key issues helps students revise key areas before attempting problem questions • Sample questions with model answers assist students with effective exam study preparation"--publisher website