Enacted Cartography : Formations - 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale

RESEARCH BACKGROUND Enacted Cartography documents 10 years of creative research practice by Ian Weir Research Architect and was developed as standalone exhibition to support Dr Weir’s selection by the Australian Institute of Architects to represent innovative architectural practice via the Institute’s review entitled Formations: New Practices in Australian Architecture – which took the form of an exhibition and book presented in Venice, Italy for 13th International Architecture Exhibition (Venice Architecture Biennale). All works exhibited in Enacted Cartography are original works by Dr Weir and are generated either from or for the remote biodiverse landscapes of the Fitzgerald Bioregion on the south coast of Western Australia. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION As a creative work in its own right, the Enacted Cartography exhibition makes the following contributions to knowledge: 1. Expands understandings of architectural practice by presenting a geographically-specific but multimodal form of architectural practice - wherein practitioners cross over discipline boundaries into art practice, landscape representation, website design, undergraduate university teaching and community advocacy. 2. Contributes to understandings of how such a diverse multimodal form of practice might be represented through both digital media and traditional print media in an exhibition format. 3. Expands understandings of how architectural practitioners might work within a particular place to develop a geographically-specific sense of identity, a ‘landscape of resistance’. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE Enacted Cartography was presented to an international audience during the 13th International Architecture Exhibition (Venice Architecture Biennale). The significance of Dr Weir’s research is evidence by his selected by the Australian Institute of Architects to represent innovation in architectural practice for the Biennale. Enacted Cartography addresses problems of national and international importance including: 1. The sustainable development of biodiverse remote landscapes; 2. The reconciliation of bushfire safety and biodiversity conservation; 3. The necessity for rethinking of architectural design methodologies to meet the complexity of landscape management and design; 4. It challenges orthodox forms of landscape representation (aerial photography, for example) which are demonstrably inadequate registrations of biophysical and cultural landscapes.

Application-level simulation for network security

NeSSi (network security simulator) is a novel network simulation tool which incorporates a variety of features relevant to network security distinguishing it from general-purpose network simulators. Its capabilities such as profile-based automated attack generation, traffic analysis and support for detection algorithm plug-ins allow it to be used for security research and evaluation purposes. NeSSi has been successfully used for testing intrusion detection algorithms, conducting network security analysis and developing overlay security frameworks. NeSSi is built upon the agent framework JIAC, resulting in a distributed and extensible architecture. In this paper, we provide an overview of the NeSSi architecture as well as its distinguishing features and briefly demonstrate its application to current security research projects.

Optimal distribution network reinforcement considering load growth, line loss, and reliability

In this paper, a new comprehensive planning methodology is proposed for implementing distribution network reinforcement. The load growth, voltage profile, distribution line loss, and reliability are considered in this procedure. A time-segmentation technique is employed to reduce the computational load. Options considered range from supporting the load growth using the traditional approach of upgrading the conventional equipment in the distribution network, through to the use of dispatchable distributed generators (DDG). The objective function is composed of the construction cost, loss cost and reliability cost. As constraints, the bus voltages and the feeder currents should be maintained within the standard level. The DDG output power should not be less than a ratio of its rated power because of efficiency. A hybrid optimization method, called modified discrete particle swarm optimization, is employed to solve this nonlinear and discrete optimization problem. A comparison is performed between the optimized solution based on planning of capacitors along with tap-changing transformer and line upgrading and when DDGs are included in the optimization.

Policy measures for creating an integrated and brand-focused innovation system for film industries in shadow nations : an application to Australia's national film industry

Shadow nations face particular problems in constructing competitive film industries. Shadow nations refer to nations whose relative competitiveness suffers from easy product substitutability by products initiated, produced and distributed by powerful actors, such as media conglomerates located in Hollywood. The dominant literature has so far neglected the developing policy recommendations for dealing explicitly with the challenges of shadow nations. This paper aims to develop and apply a normative model for the development of film industries in shadow nations. The model integrates insights from innovation system studies and place branding. The developed model is applied to the Australian film industry as Australia represents a typical shadow nation within the film industry.

A viable and sustainable key management approach for a national e-health environment

To protect the health information security, cryptography plays an important role to establish confidentiality, authentication, integrity and non-repudiation. Keys used for encryption/decryption and digital signing must be managed in a safe, secure, effective and efficient fashion. The certificate-based Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) scheme may seem to be a common way to support information security; however, so far, there is still a lack of successful large-scale certificate-based PKI deployment in the world. In addressing the limitations of the certificate-based PKI scheme, this paper proposes a non-certificate-based key management scheme for a national e-health implementation. The proposed scheme eliminates certificate management and complex certificate validation procedures while still maintaining security. It is also believed that this study will create a new dimension to the provision of security for the protection of health information in a national e-health environment.

How activation, entanglement, and searching a semantic network contribute to event memory

Free association norms indicate that words are organized into semantic/associative neighborhoods within a larger network of words and links that bind the net together. We present evidence indicating that memory for a recent word event can depend on implicitly and simultaneously activating related words in its neighborhood. Processing a word during encoding primes its network representation as a function of the density of the links in its neighborhood. Such priming increases recall and recognition and can have long lasting effects when the word is processed in working memory. Evidence for this phenomenon is reviewed in extralist cuing, primed free association, intralist cuing, and single-item recognition tasks. The findings also show that when a related word is presented to cue the recall of a studied word, the cue activates it in an array of related words that distract and reduce the probability of its selection. The activation of the semantic network produces priming benefits during encoding and search costs during retrieval. In extralist cuing recall is a negative function of cue-to-distracter strength and a positive function of neighborhood density, cue-to-target strength, and target-to cue strength. We show how four measures derived from the network can be combined and used to predict memory performance. These measures play different roles in different tasks indicating that the contribution of the semantic network varies with the context provided by the task. We evaluate spreading activation and quantum-like entanglement explanations for the priming effect produced by neighborhood density.

Agricultural biodiversity, farm level technical efficiency and conservation benefits : an empirical investigation

The issues involved in agricultural biodiversity are important and interesting areas for the application of economic theory. However, very little theoretical and empirical work has been undertaken to understand the benefits of conserving agricultural biodiversity. Accordingly, the main objectives of this PhD thesis are to: (1) Investigate farmers’ valuation of agricultural biodiversity; (2) Identify factors influencing farmers’ demand for agricultural biodiversity; (3) Examine farmers’ demand for biodiversity rich farming systems; (4) Investigate the relationship between agricultural biodiversity and farm level technical efficiency. This PhD thesis investigates these issues by using primary data in small-scale farms, along with secondary data from Sri Lanka. The overall findings of the thesis can be summarized as follows. Firstly, owing to educational and poverty issues of those being interviewed, some policy makers in developed countries question whether non-market valuation techniques such as Choice Experiment (CE) can be applied to developing countries such as Sri Lanka. The CE study in this thesis indicates that carefully designed and pre-tested nonmarket valuation techniques can be applied in developing countries with a high level of reliability. The CE findings support the priori assumption that small-scale farms and their multiple attributes contribute positively and significantly to the utility of farm families in Sri Lanka. Farmers have strong positive attitudes towards increasing agricultural biodiversity in rural areas. This suggests that these attitudes can be the basis on which appropriate policies can be introduced to improve agricultural biodiversity. Secondly, the thesis identifies the factors which influence farmers’ demand for agricultural biodiversity and farmers’ demands on biodiversity rich farming systems. As such they provide important tools for the implementation of policies designed to avoid the loss agricultural biodiversity which is shown to be a major impediment to agricultural growth and sustainable development in a number of developing countries. The results illustrate that certain key household, market and other characteristics (such as agricultural subsidies, percentage of investment of owned money and farm size) are the major determinants of demand for agricultural biodiversity on small-scale farms. The significant household characteristics that determine crop and livestock diversity include household member participation on the farm, off-farm income, shared labour, market price fluctuations and household wealth. Furthermore, it is shown that all the included market characteristics as well as agricultural subsidies are also important determinants of agricultural biodiversity. Thirdly, it is found that when the efficiency of agricultural production is measured in practice, the role of agricultural biodiversity has rarely been investigated in the literature. The results in the final section of the thesis show that crop diversity, livestock diversity and mix farming system are positively related to farm level technical efficiency. In addition to these variables education level, number of separate plots, agricultural extension service, credit access, membership of farm organization and land ownerships are significant and direct policy relevant variables in the inefficiency model. The results of the study therefore have important policy implications for conserving agricultural biodiversity in Sri Lanka.

A new framework of measuring national nutrients balance for international and global comparison

Nutrients balance such as nitrogen and phosphorus balance are increasingly used as an indicator of the environmental performance of agricultural sector in international and global context. However there still is a lack of harmony in the use of methods for estimating the nutrients balance among countries. This is because of the disagreement regarding the accuracy and uncertainty of different accounting methods. The lack of harmony in the methods used in different countries further increases the uncertainty in the context of the international comparisons. This paper provides a new framework for nutrients balance calculation using the farm-gate accounting method. The calculation under this new framework takes advantage of availability of data from FAO and other reliable national and international sources. Due to this, the proposed framework is highly adaptable in many countries, making the global comparison feasible. The paper also proposes three criteria including adaptability, accuracy and interpretability to assess the appropriateness of nutrients accounting method. Based on these criteria, the paper provides a comprehensive comparison of the farm-gate and soil-surface methods in accounting country-level nutrients balance of agricultural production. The paper identifies some shortcomings of the soil-surface balance and shows that the farm-gate method has a greater potential of providing a more accurate and meaningful estimation of national nutrients balance.

National architecture conference 2012

May was a particularly busy month with lots of exciting architectural things happening in Brisbane, including the sell-out 2012 National Architecture Conference. The total number of conference attendees was 1,625, which was the largest number of attendees to any Australian National Architecture Conference to date. This was the first time that the National Architecture Conference had been held in Brisbane in over 20 years, and the enormous turnout of 947 Queenslanders to the conference was testament to the positive decision to include Brisbane as a conference venue. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘experience’. Building on ideas introduced in the recent ‘natural artifice’ conference, creative directors Shane Thompson, Michael Rayner and Peter Skinner focused closely on the real, sensed experience of architecture within its natural and constructed settings and the experience of designing and making architecture. The conference attracted a variety of high profile international speakers, including architect and professor, Wang Shu, the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate and co-founder of the Amateur Architecture Studio in China. Other highlights included presentations from Peter Rich [South Africa], Kathryn Findlay [United Kingdom], Rachel Neeson [Australia], Anuradha Mathur & Dilip da Cunha [United States] and Kjetil Thorsen [Norway]. QUT had a strong presence at the conference. In addition to pleasing attendance rates from QUT School of Design students and staff, our Head-of-School Professor Paul Sanders, was given the honourable task of introducing keynote speaker Peter Rich, and facilitating the Q&A session after his presentation, which received a standing ovation. There were many events organised for students and young architects by QUT’s SONA reps, including a masterclass, opening party, collaborative design and construction of the SONA Pavilion, and finally, organisation of the all important SONA Hangover Breakfast, the morning after the closing party. The 2012 National Architecture Conference was truly memorable and an experience not to have been missed. I encourage anyone with a passion for architecture and a desire to be completely inspired by current and emerging leaders in our exciting profession, to start making plans to attend next year’s conference.

A new civics curriculum for Australian schools : is it national education?

In nation states and regions including Australia, Hong Kong, other countries of Asia, the European Economic Community and elsewhere, Civics and Citizenship education (CCE) is a contested concept. The development of The Australian Curriculum is providing a national opportunity for educators to rethink curriculum priorities and to decide on new emphases for learning in Australian schools, but policy documents have emphasized the importance of CCE for all young Australians. In this paper we discuss the notion of citizenship education as ‘national education’ in Australia. We suggest that while the development of CCE in Australia does include elements of ‘national education’, the new curriculum provides an opportunity to frame the civil, political and social components of CC for young Australians in ways that include local, national and global understandings. We argue that CCE should broaden young peoples’ world views and their passion and capacity to express their own identity, so they can be active and engaged citizens in diverse communities that include their own communities, the nation and beyond.

From simulation to emulation : an integrated approach for network security evaluation

We present a virtual test bed for network security evaluation in mid-scale telecommunication networks. Migration from simulation scenarios towards the test bed is supported and enables researchers to evaluate experiments in a more realistic environment. We provide a comprehensive interface to manage, run and evaluate experiments. On basis of a concrete example we show how the proposed test bed can be utilized.

Contested notions of civics and citizenship education as national education in the Australian curriculum

Civics and Citizenship (CC) education is a contested concept and a learning area that creates curriculum and implementation challenges for schools in many nations. The current development of the first national curriculum to be implemented in Australia, the Australian Curriculum, provides a national opportunity for educators to rethink curriculum priorities and to decide on new emphases for learning in schools, in response to policy that emphasizes the importance of CC for all young Australians. In this paper, we discuss the contested notion of citizenship education as ‘national education’ in Australia, the development of this learning area and some challenges schools will encounter implementing CC in the Australian Curriculum.

Investigation into the noise map based on traffic flow prediction in the citywide road network

As one of the measures for decreasing road traffic noise in a city, the control of the traffic flow and the physical distribution is considered. To conduct the measure effectively, the model for predicting the traffic flow in the citywide road network is necessary. In this study, the existing model named AVENUE was used as a traffic flow prediction model. The traffic flow model was integrated with the road vehicles' sound power model and the sound propagation model, and the new road traffic noise prediction model was established. As a case study, the prediction model was applied to the road network of Tsukuba city in Japan and the noise map of the city was made. To examine the calculation accuracy of the noise map, the calculated values of the noise at the main roads were compared with the measured values. As a result, it was found that there was a possibility that the high accuracy noise map of the city could be made by using the noise prediction model developed in this study.

Information provision and network performance represented by Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram

The existence of the Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD), which relates network space-mean density and flow, has been shown in urban networks under homogeneous traffic conditions. Since the MFD represents the area-wide network traffic performances, studies on perimeter control strategies and an area traffic state estimation utilizing the MFD concept has been reported. The key requirements for the well-defined MFD is the homogeneity of the area wide traffic condition, which is not universally expected in real world. For the practical application of the MFD concept, several researchers have identified the influencing factors for network homogeneity. However, they did not explicitly take drivers’ behaviour under real time information provision into account, which has a significant impact on the shape of the MFD. This research aims to demonstrate the impact of drivers’ route choice behaviour on network performance by employing the MFD as a measurement. A microscopic simulation is chosen as an experimental platform. By changing the ratio of en-route informed drivers and pre-trip informed drivers as well as by taking different route choice parameters, various scenarios are simulated in order to investigate how drivers’ adaptation to the traffic congestion influences the network performance and the MFD shape. This study confirmed and addressed the impact of information provision on the MFD shape and highlighted the significance of the route choice parameter setting as an influencing factor in the MFD analysis.

Effects of wireless sensor network uncertainties on output-only modal analysis employing merged data of multiple tests

The use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has become a promising approach due to many advantages such as low cost, fast and flexible deployment. However, inherent technical issues such as data synchronization error and data loss have prevented these distinct systems from being extensively used. Recently, several SHM-oriented WSNs have been proposed and believed to be able to overcome a large number of technical uncertainties. Nevertheless, there is limited research verifying the applicability of those WSNs with respect to demanding SHM applications like modal analysis and damage identification. This paper first presents a brief review of the most inherent uncertainties of the SHM-oriented WSN platforms and then investigates their effects on outcomes and performance of the most robust Output-only Modal Analysis (OMA) techniques when employing merged data from multiple tests. The two OMA families selected for this investigation are Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD) and Data-driven Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI-data) due to the fact that they both have been widely applied in the past decade. Experimental accelerations collected by a wired sensory system on a large-scale laboratory bridge model are initially used as clean data before being contaminated by different data pollutants in sequential manner to simulate practical SHM-oriented WSN uncertainties. The results of this study show the robustness of FDD and the precautions needed for SSI-data family when dealing with SHM-WSN uncertainties. Finally, the use of the measurement channel projection for the time-domain OMA techniques and the preferred combination of the OMA techniques to cope with the SHM-WSN uncertainties is recommended.