Visioning technology-based simulated learning environments in the social work curriculum

This report, prepared by QUT Social Work and Human Services, in collaboration with key sector stakeholders, identifies the current and potentially expanded uses of Simulated Learning Environments (SLE) as part of the Health Workforce Australia (HWA) National Project. An expert Reference Group guided the project, facilitated the data collection, and provided feedback and support on the findings and broad recommendations.

Daylighting design and simulation : ease of use analysis of digital tools for architects

Good daylighting design in buildings not only provides a comfortable luminous environment, but also delivers energy savings and comfortable and healthy environments for building occupants. Yet, there is still no consensus on how to assess what constitutes good daylighting design. Currently amongst building performance guidelines, Daylighting factors (DF) or minimum illuminance values are the standard; however, previous research has shown the shortcomings of these metrics. New computer software for daylighting analysis contains new more advanced metrics for daylighting (Climate Base Daylight Metrics-CBDM). Yet, these tools (new metrics or simulation tools) are not currently understood by architects and are not used within architectural firms in Australia. A survey of architectural firms in Brisbane showed the most relevant tools used by industry. The purpose of this paper is to assess and compare these computer simulation tools and new tools available architects and designers for daylighting. The tools are assessed in terms of their ease of use (e.g. previous knowledge required, complexity of geometry input, etc.), efficiency (e.g. speed, render capabilities, etc.) and outcomes (e.g. presentation of results, etc. The study shows tools that are most accessible for architects, are those that import a wide variety of files, or can be integrated into the current 3d modelling software or package. These software’s need to be able to calculate for point in times simulations, and annual analysis. There is a current need in these software solutions for an open source program able to read raw data (in the form of spreadsheets) and show that graphically within a 3D medium. Currently, development into plug-in based software’s are trying to solve this need through third party analysis, however some of these packages are heavily reliant and their host program. These programs however which allow dynamic daylighting simulation, which will make it easier to calculate accurate daylighting no matter which modelling platform the designer uses, while producing more tangible analysis today, without the need to process raw data.

An efficient online secondary path estimation for feedback active noise control systems

In practical cases for active noise control (ANC), the secondary path has usually a time varying behavior. For these cases, an online secondary path modeling method that uses a white noise as a training signal is required to ensure convergence of the system. The modeling accuracy and the convergence rate are increased when a white noise with a larger variance is used. However, the larger variance increases the residual noise, which decreases performance of the system and additionally causes instability problem to feedback structures. A sudden change in the secondary path leads to divergence of the online secondary path modeling filter. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a new approach for online secondary path modeling in feedback ANC systems. The proposed algorithm uses the advantages of white noise with larger variance to model the secondary path, but the injection is stopped at the optimum point to increase performance of the algorithm and to prevent the instability effect of the white noise. In this approach, instead of continuous injection of the white noise, a sudden change in secondary path during the operation makes the algorithm to reactivate injection of the white noise to correct the secondary path estimation. In addition, the proposed method models the secondary path without the need of using off-line estimation of the secondary path. Considering the above features increases the convergence rate and modeling accuracy, which results in a high system performance. Computer simulation results shown in this paper indicate effectiveness of the proposed method.

Design approaches for promoting beneficial indoor environments in healthcare facilities : a review

As a result of growing evidence regarding the effects of environmental characteristics on the health and wellbeing of people in healthcare facilities (HCFs), more emphasis is being placed on, and more attention being paid to, the consequences of design choices in HCFs. Therefore, we have critically reviewed the implications of key indoor physical design parameters, in relation to their potential impact on human health and wellbeing. In addition, we discussed these findings within the context of the relevant guidelines and standards for the design of HCFs. A total of 810 abstracts, which met the inclusion criteria, were identified through a Pubmed search, and these covered journal articles, guidelines, books, reports and monographs in the studied area. Of these, 231 full publications were selected for this review. According to the literature, the most beneficial design elements were: single-bed patient rooms, safe and easily cleaned surface materials, sound-absorbing ceiling tiles, adequate and sufficient ventilation, thermal comfort, natural daylight, control over temperature and lighting, views, exposure and access to nature, and appropriate equipment, tools and furniture. The effects of some design elements, such as lighting (e.g. artificial lighting levels) and layout (e.g. decentralized versus centralized nurses’ stations), on staff and patients vary, and “the best design practice” for each HCF should always be formulated in co-operation with different user groups and a multi-professional design team. The relevant guidelines and standards should also be considered in future design, construction and renovations, in order to produce more favourable physical indoor environments in HCFs.

Making more sustainable urban environments by responding to neurodiversity in later life

The ageing population is increasing worldwide, as are a range of chronic diseases, conditions, and physical and cognitive disabilities associated with later life. The older population is also neurologically diverse, with unique and specific challenges around mobility and engagement with the urban environment. Older people tend to interact less with cities and neighbourhoods, putting them at risk of further illnesses and co-morbidities associated with being less physically and socially active. Empirical evidence has shown that reduced access to healthcare services, health-related resources and social interaction opportunities is associated with increases in morbidity and premature mortality. While it is crucial to respond to the needs of this ageing population, there is insufficient evidence for interventions regarding their experiences of public space from the vantage point of neurodiversity. This paper provides a conceptual and methodological framework to investigate relationships between the sensory and cognitive abilities of older people, and their use and negotiation of the urban environment. The paper will refer to a case example of the city of Logan, an urban area in Queensland, Australia, where current urban development provides opportunities for the design of spaces that take experiences of neurodiversity into account. The framework will inform the development of principles for urban design for increasingly neurologically diverse populations.

Ingenious : Emerging Youth Cultures in Urban Australia

The book documents new findings on the contribution of migrant young people to Australia’s urban life. The essays collected traces teenagers within a world of city suburbs and P plates, shopping malls and chat rooms and text messages. Proud of their migrant backgrounds, they are moving away from explicit ethnically defined cultural groups to focus on their place in contemporary Australian society. These young people through their every day activities are redefining what it means to be an Australian The book is edited by widely published cultural researchers Melissa Butcher from the University of Sydney and Mandy Thomas from the Australian National University who together worked on the GENERATE project. It is far too common for our youth to be portrayed as not belonging to our dominant or mainstream culture. In Ingenious, the editors study the kaleidoscope of influences and environments our youth move within - online networks, dance parties and more - to paint a flexible, innovative generation.

Managing the therapeutic relationship in online cognitive behavioural therapy for depression: Therapists' treatment of clients' contributions

This article examines how therapists and clients manage the therapeutic relationship in online psychotherapy. Our study focuses on early sessions of therapy involving 22 therapist-client pairs participating in online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for depression. Using Conversation Analysis (CA), we examine how therapists can orient to clients’ contributions, while also retaining control of the therapeutic trajectory. We report two practices that therapists can use, at their discretion, following clients’ responses to requests for information. The first, thanking, accepts clients’ responses, orienting to the neutral affective valence of those responses. The second, commiseration, orients to the negative affective valence of clients’ responses. We argue that both practices are a means by which therapists can simultaneously manage developing rapport, while also retaining control of the therapeutic process.

Street Computing : Urban Informatics and City Interfaces

This book develops tools and techniques that will help urban residents gain access to urban computing. Metaphorically speaking, it is taking computing to the street by giving the general public – rather than just researchers and professionals – the power to leverage available city infrastructure and create solutions tailored to their individual needs. It brings together five chapters that are based on presentations given at the Street Computing Workshop held on 24 November 2009 in Melbourne in conjunction with the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference (OZCHI 2009). This book focuses on applying urban informatics, urban and community sensing and open application programming interfaces (APIs) to the public space through the delivery of online services, on demand and in real time. It then offers a case study of how the city of Singapore has harnessed the potential of an online infrastructure so that residents and visitors can access services electronically. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Urban Technology, 19(2), 2012.

A variable step-size FxLMS algorithm for feedforward active noise control systems based on a new online secondary path modelling technique

Several approaches have been introduced in literature for active noise control (ANC) systems. Since FxLMS algorithm appears to be the best choice as a controller filter, researchers tend to improve performance of ANC systems by enhancing and modifying this algorithm. This paper proposes a new version of FxLMS algorithm. In many ANC applications an online secondary path modelling method using a white noise as a training signal is required to ensure convergence of the system. This paper also proposes a new approach for online secondary path modelling in feedfoward ANC systems. The proposed algorithm stops injection of the white noise at the optimum point and reactivate the injection during the operation, if needed, to maintain performance of the system. Benefiting new version of FxLMS algorithm and not continually injection of white noise makes the system more desirable and improves the noise attenuation performance. Comparative simulation results indicate effectiveness of the proposed approach.

A new online secondary path modelling method for feedforward active noise control systems

An online secondary path modelling method using a white noise as a training signal is required in many applications of active noise control (ANC) to ensure convergence of the system. Not continually injection of white noise during system operation makes the system more desirable. The purposes of the proposed method are two folds: controlling white noise by preventing continually injection, and benefiting white noise with a larger variance. The modelling accuracy and the convergence rate increase when a white noise with larger variance is used, however larger the variance increases the residual noise, which decreases performance of the system. This paper proposes a new approach for online secondary path modelling in feedfoward ANC systems. The proposed algorithm uses the advantages of the white noise with larger variance to model the secondary path, but the injection is stopped at the optimum point to increase performance of the system. Comparative simulation results shown in this paper indicate effectiveness of the proposed approach in controlling active noise.

Groundwater visualisation system (GVS) : a software framework for integrated display and interrogation of conceptual hydrogeological models, data and time-series animation

Management of groundwater systems requires realistic conceptual hydrogeological models as a framework for numerical simulation modelling, but also for system understanding and communicating this to stakeholders and the broader community. To help overcome these challenges we developed GVS (Groundwater Visualisation System), a stand-alone desktop software package that uses interactive 3D visualisation and animation techniques. The goal was a user-friendly groundwater management tool that could support a range of existing real-world and pre-processed data, both surface and subsurface, including geology and various types of temporal hydrological information. GVS allows these data to be integrated into a single conceptual hydrogeological model. In addition, 3D geological models produced externally using other software packages, can readily be imported into GVS models, as can outputs of simulations (e.g. piezometric surfaces) produced by software such as MODFLOW or FEFLOW. Boreholes can be integrated, showing any down-hole data and properties, including screen information, intersected geology, water level data and water chemistry. Animation is used to display spatial and temporal changes, with time-series data such as rainfall, standing water levels and electrical conductivity, displaying dynamic processes. Time and space variations can be presented using a range of contouring and colour mapping techniques, in addition to interactive plots of time-series parameters. Other types of data, for example, demographics and cultural information, can also be readily incorporated. The GVS software can execute on a standard Windows or Linux-based PC with a minimum of 2 GB RAM, and the model output is easy and inexpensive to distribute, by download or via USB/DVD/CD. Example models are described here for three groundwater systems in Queensland, northeastern Australia: two unconfined alluvial groundwater systems with intensive irrigation, the Lockyer Valley and the upper Condamine Valley, and the Surat Basin, a large sedimentary basin of confined artesian aquifers. This latter example required more detail in the hydrostratigraphy, correlation of formations with drillholes and visualisation of simulation piezometric surfaces. Both alluvial system GVS models were developed during drought conditions to support government strategies to implement groundwater management. The Surat Basin model was industry sponsored research, for coal seam gas groundwater management and community information and consultation. The “virtual” groundwater systems in these 3D GVS models can be interactively interrogated by standard functions, plus production of 2D cross-sections, data selection from the 3D scene, rear end database and plot displays. A unique feature is that GVS allows investigation of time-series data across different display modes, both 2D and 3D. GVS has been used successfully as a tool to enhance community/stakeholder understanding and knowledge of groundwater systems and is of value for training and educational purposes. Projects completed confirm that GVS provides a powerful support to management and decision making, and as a tool for interpretation of groundwater system hydrological processes. A highly effective visualisation output is the production of short videos (e.g. 2–5 min) based on sequences of camera ‘fly-throughs’ and screen images. Further work involves developing support for multi-screen displays and touch-screen technologies, distributed rendering, gestural interaction systems. To highlight the visualisation and animation capability of the GVS software, links to related multimedia hosted online sites are included in the references.

Schools as meeting places : critical and inclusive literacies in changing local environments

Schools bring people together. Yet for many children there are major discontinuities between their lives in and out of school and such differences impact on literacy teaching and learning in both predictable and unpredictable ways. However if schools were reconceptualised as meeting places, where different people are thrown together (Massey, 2005) curriculum and pedagogy could be designed to take into account students’ and teachers’ different experiences and histories and to make those differences a resource for literacy learning. This paper draws on a long-term project with administrators and teachers working in a school situated in a site of urban regeneration and significant demographic shifts. It draws particularly on the ways in which one teacher re-positioned her grade 4/5 students as researchers, designers and journalists exploring student and staff memories of a school. It argues that place, and people’s relationships with places, can be a rich resource for literacy learning when teachers make it the object of study.

Aerosol mass spectrometric analysis of the chemical composition of non- refractory PM1 samples from school environments in Brisbane, Australia

Long term exposure to vehicle emissions has been associated with harmful health effects. Children are amongst the most susceptible group and schools represent an environment where they can experience significant exposure to vehicle emissions. However, there are limited studies on children’s exposure to vehicle emissions in schools. The aim of this study was to quantify the concentration of organic aerosol and in particular, vehicle emissions that children are exposed to during school hours. Therefore an Aerodyne compact time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (TOF-AMS) was deployed at five urban schools in Brisbane, Australia. The TOF-AMS enabled the chemical composition of the non- refractory (NR-PM1) to be analysed with a high temporal resolution to assess the concentration of vehicle emissions and other organic aerosols during school hours. At each school the organic fraction comprised the majority of NR-PM1 with secondary organic aerosols as the main constitute. At two of the schools, a significant source of the organic aerosol (OA) was slightly aged vehicle emissions from nearby highways. More aged and oxidised OA was observed at the other three schools, which also recorded strong biomass burning influences. Primary emissions were found to dominate the OA at only one school which had an O:C ratio of 0.17, due to fuel powered gardening equipment used near the TOF-AMS. The diurnal cycle of OA concentration varied between schools and was found to be at a minimum during school hours. The major organic component that school children were exposed to during school hours was secondary OA. Peak exposure of school children to HOA occurred during school drop off and pick up times. Unless a school is located near major roads, children are exposed predominately to regional secondary OA as opposed to local emissions during schools hours in urban environments.

Spatial variation of particle number concentration in school microscale environments and its impact on exposure assessment

It has not yet been established whether the spatial variation of particle number concentration (PNC) within a microscale environment can have an effect on exposure estimation results. In general, the degree of spatial variation within microscale environments remains unclear, since previous studies have only focused on spatial variation within macroscale environments. The aims of this study were to determine the spatial variation of PNC within microscale school environments, in order to assess the importance of the number of monitoring sites on exposure estimation. Furthermore, this paper aims to identify which parameters have the largest influence on spatial variation, as well as the relationship between those parameters and spatial variation. Air quality measurements were conducted for two consecutive weeks at each of the 25 schools across Brisbane, Australia. PNC was measured at three sites within the grounds of each school, along with the measurement of meteorological and several other air quality parameters. Traffic density was recorded for the busiest road adjacent to the school. Spatial variation at each school was quantified using coefficient of variation (CV). The portion of CV associated with instrument uncertainty was found to be 0.3 and therefore, CV was corrected so that only non-instrument uncertainty was analysed in the data. The median corrected CV (CVc) ranged from 0 to 0.35 across the schools, with 12 schools found to exhibit spatial variation. The study determined the number of required monitoring sites at schools with spatial variability and tested the deviation in exposure estimation arising from using only a single site. Nine schools required two measurement sites and three schools required three sites. Overall, the deviation in exposure estimation from using only one monitoring site was as much as one order of magnitude. The study also tested the association of spatial variation with wind speed/direction and traffic density, using partial correlation coefficients to identify sources of variation and non-parametric function estimation to quantify the level of variability. Traffic density and road to school wind direction were found to have a positive effect on CVc, and therefore, also on spatial variation. Wind speed was found to have a decreasing effect on spatial variation when it exceeded a threshold of 1.5 (m/s), while it had no effect below this threshold. Traffic density had a positive effect on spatial variation and its effect increased until it reached a density of 70 vehicles per five minutes, at which point its effect plateaued and did not increase further as a result of increasing traffic density.

Discussion: Response of a plastic pipe buried in expansive clay

Response to discussion on Gallage CPK, Chan D and Kodilara J (2012) Response of a plastic pipe buried in expansive clay. Proceedings of ICE, Geotechnical Engineering, Vol 164, February 2012, Issue GE1, pages 45-57.