CARRS-Q screen profiles

Staff from QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty (Drama, Film & TV) collaborated with CARRS-Q (Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland) to research, develop and produce a series of screen products. These products are designed to profile CARRS-Q for a variety of Australian and international audiences including potential students, research colleagues and collaborators, industry partners and professional bodies. They are designed for multiplatform display, including web, DVD and mobile devices. This project entails the adoption of practice-led research methodologies to explore and apply innovative screen production techniques including multi-image display; rapid-cut editing; and a combination of trained and non-trained talent.

The appropriateness of default investment options in defined contribution plans : Australian evidence

For participants in defined contribution (DC) plans who refrain from exercising investment choice, plan contributions are invested following the default investment option of their respective plans. Since default investment options of different plans vary widely in terms of their benchmark asset allocation, the most important determinant of investment performance, participants enrolled in these options face significantly different wealth outcomes at retirement. This paper simulates the terminal wealth outcomes under different static asset allocation strategies to evaluate their relative appeal as default investment choice in DC plans. We find that strategies with low or moderate allocation to stocks are consistently outperformed in terms of upside potential of exceeding the participant’s wealth accumulation target at retirement as well as downside risk of falling below that target outcome by aggressive strategies whose allocation to stocks approach 100%. The risk of extremely adverse wealth outcomes for plan participants also does not appear to be very sensitive to asset allocation. Our evidence suggests the appropriateness of strategies heavily tilted towards stocks to be nominated as default investment options in DC plans unless plan providers emphasize predictability of wealth outcomes over adequacy of retirement wealth.

Socially responsible investment in market downturns : implications for the fiduciary responsibilities of investment fund trustees

This paper investigates whether Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) is more or less sensitive to market downturns than conventional investment, and examines the legal implications for fund managers and trustees. Using a market model methodology, we find that over the past 15 years, the beta risk of SRI, both in Australia and internationally, increased more than that of conventional investment during economic downturns. This implies that companies acting as fund trustees, managed investment schemes and traditional institutional fund managers risk breaching their fiduciary or statutory duties if they go long - or remain long - in SRI funds during market downturns, unless perhaps relevant legislation is reformed. If reform is viewed as desirable, possible reforms could include explicitly overriding the common law to allow all traditional funds to invest in SRI; granting immunity to directors of trustee companies from potential personal liability under sections 197 or 588G et seq of the Corporations Act; allowing companies acting as trustees, managed investment schemes and traditional institutional fund managers and trustees to invest in SRI without triggering a substantial capital gains tax liability through trust resettlement; tax concessions for SRI (eg. introducing a 150% tax deduction or investment allowance for SRI); and allowing SRI sub-funds to obtain “deductible gift recipient” status or the equivalent from relevant taxation authorities. The research is important and original insofar as the assessment of risk in SRIs during market downturns is an area which has hitherto not been subjected to rigorous empirical investigation, despite its serious legal implications.

The Queensland Cancer Physics Collaborative and the Quantitative Biomedical Imaging & Characterisation (Q-BIC) Research Group

a presentation about immersive visualised simulation systems, image analysis and GPGPU Techonology

Don’t judge a superannuation default investment option by its name

With the massive decline in savings arising from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), it is timely to review superannuation fund investment and disclosure strategies in the lead-up to the crisis. Accordingly, this study examines differences among superannuation funds’ default investment options in terms of naming and framing over three years from 2005 to 2007, as presented in product disclosure statements (PDSs). The findings indicate that default options are becoming more alike regardless of their name, and consequently, members may face increasing difficulties in distinguishing between balanced and growth-named default options when comparing them across superannuation funds. Comparability is also likely to be constrained by variations in the framing of default options presented in investment option menus in PDSs. These findings highlight the need for standardisation of default option definitions and disclosures to ensure descriptive accuracy, transparency and comparability.

A process for the management of physical infrastructure

Physical infrastructure assets are important components of our society and our economy. They are usually designed to last for many years, are expected to be heavily used during their lifetime, carry considerable load, and are exposed to the natural environment. They are also normally major structures, and therefore present a heavy investment, requiring constant management over their life cycle to ensure that they perform as required by their owners and users. Given a complex and varied infrastructure life cycle, constraints on available resources, and continuing requirements for effectiveness and efficiency, good management of infrastructure is important. While there is often no one best management approach, the choice of options is improved by better identification and analysis of the issues, by the ability to prioritise objectives, and by a scientific approach to the analysis process. The abilities to better understand the effect of inputs in the infrastructure life cycle on results, to minimise uncertainty, and to better evaluate the effect of decisions in a complex environment, are important in allocating scarce resources and making sound decisions. Through the development of an infrastructure management modelling and analysis methodology, this thesis provides a process that assists the infrastructure manager in the analysis, prioritisation and decision making process. This is achieved through the use of practical, relatively simple tools, integrated in a modular flexible framework that aims to provide an understanding of the interactions and issues in the infrastructure management process. The methodology uses a combination of flowcharting and analysis techniques. It first charts the infrastructure management process and its underlying infrastructure life cycle through the time interaction diagram, a graphical flowcharting methodology that is an extension of methodologies for modelling data flows in information systems. This process divides the infrastructure management process over time into self contained modules that are based on a particular set of activities, the information flows between which are defined by the interfaces and relationships between them. The modular approach also permits more detailed analysis, or aggregation, as the case may be. It also forms the basis of ext~nding the infrastructure modelling and analysis process to infrastructure networks, through using individual infrastructure assets and their related projects as the basis of the network analysis process. It is recognised that the infrastructure manager is required to meet, and balance, a number of different objectives, and therefore a number of high level outcome goals for the infrastructure management process have been developed, based on common purpose or measurement scales. These goals form the basis of classifYing the larger set of multiple objectives for analysis purposes. A two stage approach that rationalises then weights objectives, using a paired comparison process, ensures that the objectives required to be met are both kept to the minimum number required and are fairly weighted. Qualitative variables are incorporated into the weighting and scoring process, utility functions being proposed where there is risk, or a trade-off situation applies. Variability is considered important in the infrastructure life cycle, the approach used being based on analytical principles but incorporating randomness in variables where required. The modular design of the process permits alternative processes to be used within particular modules, if this is considered a more appropriate way of analysis, provided boundary conditions and requirements for linkages to other modules, are met. Development and use of the methodology has highlighted a number of infrastructure life cycle issues, including data and information aspects, and consequences of change over the life cycle, as well as variability and the other matters discussed above. It has also highlighted the requirement to use judgment where required, and for organisations that own and manage infrastructure to retain intellectual knowledge regarding that infrastructure. It is considered that the methodology discussed in this thesis, which to the author's knowledge has not been developed elsewhere, may be used for the analysis of alternatives, planning, prioritisation of a number of projects, and identification of the principal issues in the infrastructure life cycle.

Analytical modeling and sensitivity analysis for travel time estimation on signalized urban networks

This paper presents a model for estimation of average travel time and its variability on signalized urban networks using cumulative plots. The plots are generated based on the availability of data: a) case-D, for detector data only; b) case-DS, for detector data and signal timings; and c) case-DSS, for detector data, signal timings and saturation flow rate. The performance of the model for different degrees of saturation and different detector detection intervals is consistent for case-DSS and case-DS whereas, for case-D the performance is inconsistent. The sensitivity analysis of the model for case-D indicates that it is sensitive to detection interval and signal timings within the interval. When detection interval is integral multiple of signal cycle then it has low accuracy and low reliability. Whereas, for detection interval around 1.5 times signal cycle both accuracy and reliability are high.

TCSC control design for transient stability improvement of a multi-machine power system using trajectory sensitivity

This paper discusses the effects of thyristor controlled series compensator (TCSC), a series FACTS controller, on the transient stability of a power system. Trajectory sensitivity analysis (TSA) has been used to measure the transient stability condition of the system. The TCSC is modeled by a variable capacitor, the value of which changes with the firing angle. It is shown that TSA can be used in the design of the controller. The optimal locations of the TCSC-controller for different fault conditions can also be identified with the help of TSA. The paper depicts the advantage of the use of TCSC with a suitable controller over fixed capacitor operation.

Validation of FHWA crash models for rural intersections - Lessons learned

A national-level safety analysis tool is needed to complement existing analytical tools for assessment of the safety impacts of roadway design alternatives. FHWA has sponsored the development of the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM), which is roadway design and redesign software that estimates the safety effects of alternative designs. Considering the importance of IHSDM in shaping the future of safety-related transportation investment decisions, FHWA justifiably sponsored research with the sole intent of independently validating some of the statistical models and algorithms in IHSDM. Statistical model validation aims to accomplish many important tasks, including (a) assessment of the logical defensibility of proposed models, (b) assessment of the transferability of models over future time periods and across different geographic locations, and (c) identification of areas in which future model improvements should be made. These three activities are reported for five proposed types of rural intersection crash prediction models. The internal validation of the model revealed that the crash models potentially suffer from omitted variables that affect safety, site selection and countermeasure selection bias, poorly measured and surrogate variables, and misspecification of model functional forms. The external validation indicated the inability of models to perform on par with model estimation performance. Recommendations for improving the state of the practice from this research include the systematic conduct of carefully designed before-and-after studies, improvements in data standardization and collection practices, and the development of analytical methods to combine the results of before-and-after studies with cross-sectional studies in a meaningful and useful way.

Experimental warming shows that decomposition temperature sensitivity increases with soil organic matter recalcitrance

Soil C decomposition is sensitive to changes in temperature, and even small increases in temperature may prompt large releases of C from soils. But much of what we know about soil C responses to global change is based on short-term incubation data and model output that implicitly assumes soil C pools are composed of organic matter fractions with uniform temperature sensitivities. In contrast, kinetic theory based on chemical reactions suggests that older, more-resistant C fractions may be more temperature sensitive. Recent research on the subject is inconclusive, indicating that the temperature sensitivity of labile soil organic matter (OM) decomposition could either be greater than, less than, or equivalent to that of resistant soil OM. We incubated soils at constant temperature to deplete them of labile soil OM and then successively assessed the CO2-C efflux in response to warming. We found that the decomposition response to experimental warming early during soil incubation (when more labile C remained) was less than that later when labile C was depleted. These results suggest that the temperature sensitivity of resistant soil OM pools is greater than that for labile soil OM and that global change-driven soil C losses may be greater than previously estimated.