Comparing cost uplift in infrastructure delivery methods : a case based approach

The alliance project delivery method is used for approximately one third of all Australian government infrastructure projects representing $8-$10 billion per annum. Despite its widespread use, little is known about the differences between estimated project cost and actual cost over the project lifecycle. This paper presents the findings of research into 14 Australian government alliance case studies investigating the observed cost uplift over each project’s lifecycle. I find that significant cost uplift is likely and that this uplift is greater than that afflicting traditional delivery methods. Furthermore, most of the cost uplift occurs at a different place in the project lifecycle, namely between Business Case and Contractual Commitment.

Everyone wants Web 2.0

The interactive nature of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is the impetus for the adoption of digital technologies by students for socialising and communicating in new ways. In particular these new ways of communication have embraced web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook© ©, however, teaching practices within educational institutions have remained relatively unchanged. This paper explores the use of the web 2.0 technology Facebook© in a Higher Educational setting to support undergraduate students. It further highlights how students in a developing country currently use this technology and their expectations for the future use of this web 2.0 technology.

Conceptualising a capstone experience for law students

Currently the final year curriculum in most, if not all, Australian law schools is delivered in a disjointed way which is not engaging final year students in a genuine capstone experience that supports the development of their professional identity and their transition out of university. The possible benefits of a capstone experience include preparing law students for the practice of law by assisting them to synthesise and extend their knowledge and skills, develop a professional identity that incorporates moral, ethical and social values, and become skilled problem solvers and life-long learners who can meet the rigours of the dynamic, competitive, and challenging world of twenty-first century legal practice. In 2009 the ALTC funded the “Curriculum renewal in legal education” project which seeks to achieve curriculum renewal for legal education through the articulation of a set of curriculum design principles for the final year and the design of a transferable model for an effective final year program. The three cornerstone capstone curriculum objectives identified by the project are closure of the tertiary experience, reflection on that experience, and transitioning from university student to legal professional. These cornerstone curriculum objectives will inform the development of the final year principles and model program. This paper will report on the progress that has been made on the project including a meeting of the project reference group held in February 2010 and the draft curriculum design principles.

Provisional supervision in Hong Kong : third time lucky?

Provisional supervision (PS) is Hong Kong’s proposed new corporate rescue procedure. In essence, it is a procedure for the preparation by a professional, usually an accountant or a solicitor, of a proposal for a voluntary arrangement, supported by a moratorium. There should be little court involvement in the process and it is anticipated that the costs and delays of the process would be less than alternate, currently available procedures. This article will retrace some of the key events and issues arising from the numerous policy and legislative debates about PS in Hong Kong. At present the Hong Kong government is in the midst of drafting a new Bill on corporate rescue procedure to be introduced to the HKSAR Legislative Council. This will be the third attempt. Setting aside the controversies and the content of this new effort by the Hong Kong administration, the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 has signalled to the international policy and business community, free markets alone cannot be an effective regulatory mechanism. Having legal safeguards and clear rules to regulate procedures and conduct of market participants are imperative to avoid future financial meltdowns.

Full circle : the future of sustainable fashion manufacturing in New Zealand

Many fashion businesses in New Zealand have followed a global trend towards inexpensive off shore manufacturing. The transfer of the production of garments to overseas workers has had consequences for the wellbeing of local businesses, fashion designers and garment makers. The gradual decline of fashion manufacturing also appears to have resulted in a local fashion scene where many garments look the same in style, colour, fabric, cut and fit. The excitement of the past, where the majority of fashion designers established their own individuality through the cut and shape of the garments that they produced, may have been inadvertently lost in an effort to take advantage of cost savings achieved through mass production and manufacturing methods which are now largely unavailable in New Zealand. Consequently, a sustainable local fashion and manufacturing industry, with design integrity, seems further out of reach. This paper is focussed upon the thesis that the design and manufacture of a fashion garment, bearing in mind certain economic and practical restrictions at its inception, can contribute to a more sustainable fashion manufacturing industry in New Zealand.

Whole life cycle costing for Malaysia residential property development : the cultural environment

As knowledge of the residential development costing impact on resource and budgeting use increase, developers are moving towards more sustainable solution by implementing whole life cycle costing. Property management requires an understanding of infrastructure management, service life planning and quality management. Today, people are beginning to realize that effective property management in high-rise residential property can sustain the property value and maintain high returns on their investment. The continuous growth of high-rise residential properties indicates that there is a need for an effective property management system to provide a sustainable high-rise residential property development. For such reasons, this paper attempts to study the culture that have been applied due the residential property development in Malaysia as to improve to the best and sustainable practice in providing the best cost effectiveness management system in residential property development.

Predicting mothers’ decisions to introduce complementary feeding at 6 months : an investigation using an extended theory of planned behaviour

In Australia and other developed countries there is poor adherence to guidelines recommending the introduction of complementary feeding to infants at 6 months of age. We aimed to investigate, via adopting a theory of planned behaviour framework and incorporating additional normative and demographic influences, mothers’ complementary feeding intentions and behaviour. Participants were 375 primiparas who completed an initial questionnaire (infant age 13±3weeks) that assessed the theory of planned behaviour constructs of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control, as well as group norm and additional maternal and infant variables of mothers’ age, education level, weight status perception, current maternal feeding practices, and infant birth weight. Approximately, 3 months after completion of the main questionnaire, mothers completed a follow-up questionnaire that assessed the age in months at which the infant was first introduced to solids. The theory of planned behaviour variables of attitude and subjective norm, along with group norm, predicted intentions, with intention, mothers’ age (older more likely), and weight status perception (overweight less likely) predicting behaviour. Overall, the results highlight the importance of attitudes, normative influences, and individual characteristics in complementary feeding decision-making which should be considered when designing interventions aimed at improving adherence to current maternal feeding guidelines.

Management [4th Asia Pacific Edition]

The fourth edition of this popular text has been throughly updated, continuing its strong emphasis on the importance of the Asian region to contemporary Australian and New Zealand organizations. Many Asian case examples are featured to illustrate key management concepts. ----- ----- ----- Joining the author team for this edition and enhancing this edition's critical analysis of management theory and applications are the best-selling authors from another of Wiley's undergraduate introductory management texts - Management: Core Concepts and Applications, 2nd Australasian edition (Davidson et al.).----- ----- ----- This new edition also discusses the impact of recent events such as the global financial crisis on the management of organisations, both during the crisis and in its aftermath.----- ----- ----- Of course, Management, 4th Asia- Pacific edition also retains the features that made it so popular with students and lecturers in the earlier editions: a balanced coverage of small to medium-sized enterprises and larger multinational corporations an emphasis on the need for business activities to be sustainable in terms of preserving the welfare of future generations the Career Readiness Workbook at the end of the book, which includes a range of individual and group activities to encourage the practical applications of management theory. With its clear insights into dynamics of management in the workplace of today and the future, Management, 4th Asia-Pacific edition provides a sound basis for the contemporary undergraduate study of introductory management.

The Australian Nonprofit Sector Legal Almanac 2010, ACPNS Working Paper 53

This is the third year that we have summarised annual developments in the law for nonprofit staff, boards and volunteers. We were encouraged by the interest shown in last year’s publication and the use made of the digital copy on our web site, so here is the almanac for the Jan 2010–Dec 2010 period. We are delighted that the Australian Charity Law Association and PilchConnect (Victoria) have again agreed to contribute and promote the publication as well. These two organisations are beginning to fill the void of professional legal development and assistance to small nonprofit organisations that has characterised Australia for too many years. The first conference of the Australian Charity Law Association in Sydney was a significant event and one of the addresses is included in the Almanac. Other materials from the conference can be accessed at the Centre’s website.

The empty city

Picture Book, Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Book 2008 What would you do if you were the only one in a deserted city? Where would you go, and what would you do? The Empty City taps into a fantasy that many of us have had as children to be allowed to explore, unhindered, the ordinarily crowded environment of a shopping centre.

The artistic partnership of two women

This brief paper details the artistic working relationship between Bronwyn Fredericks and Pamela Croft within the Keppel Sands / Rockhampton region.

The voices of the exegesis

In a recent journal article, Luke Jaaniste and I identified an emergent model of exegesis. From a content analysis of submitted exegeses within a local archive, we identified an approach that is quite different from the traditional thesis, but is also distinct from previously identified forms of exegesis, which Milech and Schilo have described as a ‘context model’ (which assumes the voice of academic objectivity and provides an historical or theoretical context for the creative practice) and a ‘commentary’ model’ (which takes the form of a first person reflection on the challenges, insights and achievements of the practice). The model we identified combines these dichotomous forms and assumes a dual orientation–looking outwards to the established field of research, exemplars and theories, and inwards to the methodologies, processes and outcomes of the practice. We went on to argue that this ‘connective’ exegesis offers clear benefits to the researcher in connecting the practice to an established field while allowing the researcher to demonstrate how the methods have led to outcomes that advance the field in some way. And, while it helps the candidate to articulate objective claims for research innovation, it enables them to retain a voiced, personal relationship with their practice. However, it also poses considerable complexities and challenges in the writing. It requires a reconciliation of multi-perspectival subject positions: the disinterested perspective and academic objectivity of an observer/ethnographer/analyst/theorist at times and the invested perspective of the practitioner/ producer at others. The author must also contend with a range of writing styles, speech genres and voices: from the formal, polemical voice of the theorist to the personal, questioning and sometimes emotive voice of reflexivity. Moreover, the connective exegesis requires the researcher to synthesize various perspectives, subject positions, writing styles, and voices into a unified and coherent text. In this paper I consider strategies for writing a hybrid, connective exegesis. I first ground the discussion on polyvocality and alternate textual structures through reference to recent discussions in philosophy and critical theory, and point to examples of emergent approaches to texts and practices in related fields. I then return to the collection of archived exegeses to investigate the strategies that postgraduate candidates have adopted to resolve the problems that arise from a polyvocal, connective exegesis.

Enhancing professional ethics : service-learning in teacher education

The ethical conduct of professionals has been the focus of increasing scrutiny over the past several decades as members of the public, the media, professional bodies, and legislative authorities have struggled to define ethical behaviour in times of governmental change, increasing internationalisation, globalised communications, threats of terrorism, and the challenges of developments in science and medicine (e.g., Demmke & Bossaert, 2004). National governments and transnational bodies have responded to these concerns about ethics and corruption through measures such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2004), Transparency International’s annual corruption index (2010) and Queensland’s Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 (Queensland Parliament 1994). Similarly, academic interest in ethics and its application across a range of domains(e.g., business, health care, social welfare, criminal justice, law, journalism, defence, environment, and media) has also increased. To illustrate, in 1993, a non-partisan, non-profit national umbrella organisation, the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics, was formed following a conference concerned with the teaching of ethics (http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au./aapae/about_aapae/about_aapae.htm), while a recent review of the Excellence in Research for Australian rankings of national and international academic journals revealed that 16 journals related to ethics had received the top ratings of A* or A (Australian Research Council, 2009). In this chapter we examine professional ethics and argue, with specific reference to the context of pre-service teacher education, that Service-learning is one way of enhancing emerging professionals’ understanding of ethics.