Academic and administrative support for distance learners

The named works discuss the process of completing a doctorate via distance education.

Variation of fibre diameter coefficient of variation and fibre curvature across mohair fleeces: Implications for animal selection, genetic selection and fleece evaluation

The presentwork aimed to determine howthe average fibre diameter coefficient of variation (CVD) and fibre curvature (FC) differences between nine sampling sites vary between sex and flock, to identify differences in variability between sampling sites as a result of between animal and between sire variability and to determine correlations between sampling sites in between animal and between sire variability. Australian Angoras (n = 313) from two farms in southern Australia were sampled at 12 and 18 months of age at nine sites (mid side, belly, brisket, hind flank, hip, hock, mid back, neck, shoulder). Staples were taken prior to shearing at skin level and CVD and FC determined. For each shearing, differences in CVD and FC between sampling sites, how these differences were affected by farm, sex, and sire, and the covariance between sites for sire and individual animal effects were investigated by restricted maximum likelihood (REML) analyses. The median mid side CVD at 12 and 18 months of age ranged from 23.6 to 25.1% but the actual range was 16.8–34.2%. The median mid side FC at 12 and 18 months of age ranged from 14.4 to 18.6◦/mm but the actual range was 10.5–26.3◦/mm. The general pattern for CVDwas for the mid back, hip and neck sites to have similar CVD, the brisket, hind flank and hock sites to have larger CVD and the belly to have smaller CVD than the mid side site. The between animal variation for CVD was lowest at the mid back site. This implies that the mid back would be the most effective site for between animal selection for CVD. Heritabilities for CVD (range at 18 months 0.18–0.30) were only about half the heritabilities for mean fibre diameter in the same study. There was a marked anterior–posterior increase in FC at both farms and with both ages. The results give no clear indication of the best site for between animal selection for FC, other than that the hock should be avoided. Heritabilities for FC are moderate to high (range at 18 months 0.44–0.77) and the genetic correlations are high except for the hock. Thus genetic selection for FC at any site, other than the hock, should be effective for changing FC over the entire fleece. There was more variability between animals than between sites and sires. These results are put into context with associated research on variation in mean fibre diameter and staple length.

Spherical harmonics and distance transform for image representation and retrieval

In this paper, we have proposed a method for 2D image retrieval based on object shapes. The method relies on transforming the 2D images into 3D space based on distance transform. Spherical harmonics are obtained for the 3D data and used as descriptors for the underlying 2D images. The proposed method is compared against two existing methods which use spherical harmonics for shape based retrieval of images. MPEG-7 Still Images Content Set is used for performing experiments; this dataset consists of 3621 still images. Experimental results show that the performance of the proposed descriptors is significantly better than other methods in the same category.

Discriminating DDoS flows from flash crowds using information distance

Discriminating DDoS flooding attacks from flash crowds poses a tough challenge for the network security community. Because of the vulnerability of the original design of the Internet, attackers can easily mimic the patterns of legitimate network traffic to fly under the radar. The existing fingerprint or feature based algorithms are incapable to detect new attack strategies. In this paper, we aim to differentiate DDoS attack flows from flash crowds. We are motivated by the following fact: the attack flows are generated by the same prebuilt program (attack tools), however, flash crowds come from randomly distributed users all over the Internet. Therefore, the flow similarity among DDoS attack flows is much stronger than that among flash crowds. We employ abstract distance metrics, the Jeffrey distance, the Sibson distance, and the Hellinger distance to measure the similarity among flows to achieve our goal. We compared the three metrics and found that the Sibson distance is the most suitable one for our purpose. We apply our algorithm to the real datasets and the results indicate that the proposed algorithm can differentiate them with an accuracy around 65%.

The future of distance education : reformed, scrapped or recycled

A mass of under-educated people, an expanding population, major global crises and an expanding knowledge economy all combine to sustain a massive demand for basic, further, higher, continuing and lifelong education.This demand cannot be met solely in the world’s classrooms; even if there were enough classrooms, many people will be unwilling or unable to attend them to learn. In this sense, distance education is essential for the future, but the fluidity around educational terms and practices means that it is also quite possible that ‘distance education’—the term and its history—will be towed to the scrap yard for many of its useful parts to be recycled. This chapter considers three key elements of distance education—technology, students and educational institutions—and the educational possibilities that surround them by reflection on past and present changes. The future of distance education is intimately connected to broader social, economic and cultural changes. These changes are strongly influenced by the ‘disruptive’ technologies, demographic transformations in the nature of distance learners and the pressures of global techno-capitalism on educational institutions.

Magnetism of C adatoms on BN nanostructures : implications for functional nanodevices

Spin-polarized density functional calculations reveal that magnetism can be induced by carbon adatoms on boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) and BN hexagonal sheets. As a result of the localization of impurity states, these hybrid sp-electron systems are spin-polarized, with a local magnetic moment of 2.0 μB per C adatom regardless of the tube diameter and the bonding between the C atom and the BNNTs/BN sheets. An analysis of orbital hybridization indicates that two valence electrons participate in the bonding and the remaining two electrons of the C adatom are confined at the adsorption site and contribute to the magnetism accordingly. The effective interaction distance between the C-induced magnetic moments is evaluated. In terms of the diffusion barrier and the adsorption energy of C adatoms on the BN nanotubes/ sheets, a fabrication method for BN-C-based functional nanodevices is proposed, and a series of virtual building blocks for functional devices are illustrated.

Race-day carbohydrate intakes of elite triathletes contesting olympic-distance triathlon events

The aim of this study was to investigate the prerace and during-race carbohydrate intakes of elite-level triathletes contesting draft-legal Olympic-distance triathlon (ODT) events. Self-reported prerace and during-race nutrition data were collected at 3 separate ODT events from 51 elite senior and under-23 triathletes. One hundred twenty-nine observations of food and fluid intake representing actual prerace (n = 62) and during-race (n = 67) nutrition practices from 36 male and 15 female triathletes were used in the final analysis of this study. Female triathletes consumed significantly more carbohydrate on the morning before race start when corrected for body mass and race start time than their male counterparts (p < .05). Male and female triathletes consumed 26% more energy (kJ/kg) and 24% more carbohydrate (g/kg) when commencing a race after midday (1:00-1:30 p.m.) than for a late morning (11:00-11:15 a.m.) race start. During the race, triathletes consumed less than 60 g of carbohydrate on 66% of occasions, with average total race intakes of 48 ± 25 and 49 ± 25 g carbohydrate for men and women, respectively. Given average race times of 1:57:07 hr and 2:08:12 hr, hourly carbohydrate intakes were ∼25 g and ∼23 g for men and women, respectively. Although most elite ODT triathletes consume sufficient carbohydrate to meet recommended prerace carbohydrate intake guidelines, during-race carbohydrate intakes varied considerably, with many failing to meet recommended levels.

Quality in flexible, online and distance education at Deakin University, Australia

This chapter presents an overview of the management of quality for flexible, online and distance education (off-campus education) at Deakin University in Australia. In 1974, Deakin University was established as a dual-mode institution educating large numbers of both on- and off-campus students. From its foundation it has increasingly sought to provide the same learning resources, equivalent learning experiences and parity of outcomes to students studying in all modes (Hay, Lowe, Gibb & Anderson, 2002). While this was the ideal on which Deakin was founded, in practice approaches differed across various schools and courses where in some areas integration was achieved through an open-campus model, while in others the tendency was towards separation of the modes of delivery by course. Deakin’s history can be characterised as moving from dual-mode approaches to educating its student cohorts, to a now well articulated, integrated and institution-wide approach to assuring and improving the quality of all modes of educational delivery for an extremely diverse and complex set of student cohorts. In this regard, it makes no particular distinction between these student groups in its policies, procedures and processes relating to educational matters.

Estimating the diameter of yarns with irregular constituent fibres

Yarn diameter and packing density are difficult to measure directly. Existing models on fibre packing density in a yarn assume that all fibres are uniform and have an identical diameter. Yet real staple yarns, such as wool yarns, consist of fibres of varying diameters. This paper proposes an effective and simple yarn model for calculating the average diameter of yarns, in which fibres have circular cross-section and the close packing in the yarn cross-section. The concept of “area equivalent diameter” is introduced to transform fibres of varying diameters to identical fibres with one equivalent diameter to simplify the calculations of the average yarn diameter for a range of yarns.

Optimal radio labellings of complete m-ary trees

A radio labelling of a connected graph G is a mapping f : V (G) → {0, 1, 2, ...} such that | f (u) - f (v) | ≥ diam (G) - d (u, v) + 1 for each pair of distinct vertices u, v ∈ V (G), where diam (G) is the diameter of G and d (u, v) the distance between u and v. The span of f is defined as max_u, _{v ∈ V (G)} | f (u) - f (v) |, and the radio number of G is the minimum span of a radio labelling of G. A complete m-ary tree (m ≥ 2) is a rooted tree such that each vertex of degree greater than one has exactly m children and all degree-one vertices are of equal distance (height) to the root. In this paper we determine the radio number of the complete m-ary tree for any m ≥ 2 with any height and construct explicitly an optimal radio labelling.