A computational model to investigate the influence of electrode lengths on the single probe bipolar radiofrequency ablation of the liver
- Authors: Cheong, Jason , Yap, Shelley , Ooi, Ean Tat , Ooi, Ean Hin
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine Vol. 176, no. (2019), p. 17-32
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Background and objectives: Recently, there have been calls for RFA to be implemented in the bipolar mode for cancer treatment due to the benefits it offers over the monopolar mode. These include the ability to prevent skin burns at the grounding pad and to avoid tumour track seeding. The usage of bipolar RFA in clinical practice remains uncommon however, as not many research studies have been carried out on bipolar RFA. As such, there is still uncertainty in understanding the effects of the different RF probe configurations on the treatment outcome of RFA. This paper demonstrates that the electrode lengths have a strong influence on the mechanics of bipolar RFA. The information obtained here may lead to further optimization of the system for subsequent uses in the hospitals. Methods: A 2D model in the axisymmetric coordinates was developed to simulate the electro-thermophysiological responses of the tissue during a single probe bipolar RFA. Two different probe configurations were considered, namely the configuration where the active electrode is longer than the ground and the configuration where the ground electrode is longer than the active. The mathematical model was first verified with an existing experimental study found in the literature. Results: Results from the simulations showed that heating is confined only to the region around the shorter electrode, regardless of whether the shorter electrode is the active or the ground. Consequently, thermal coagulation also occurs in the region surrounding the shorter electrode. This opened up the possibility for a better customized treatment through the development of RF probes with adjustable electrode lengths. Conclusions: The electrode length was found to play a significant role on the outcome of single probe bipolar RFA. In particular, the length of the shorter electrode becomes the limiting factor that influences the mechanics of single probe bipolar RFA. Results from this study can be used to further develop and optimize bipolar RFA as an effective and reliable cancer treatment technique. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A conceptual analysis of price setting in Australian local government
- Authors: Carnegie, Garry , West, Brian
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Accounting Review Vol. 20, no. 2 (2010), p. 110-120
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: A complex set of issues underlies the pricing of the diverse range of goods and services from which Australian local governments derive a significant portion of their revenues. Although local governments have a not-for-profit orientation, they are expected to be financially viable and embrace a broad notion of accountability. They are also expected to influence the behaviour of constituents in accordance with policy decisions, but be equitable in doing so. These and related parameters are discussed and illustrated in order to reveal and elucidate the nature of pricing decisions in local government, and to differentiate the local government context from other price-setting environments.
A conceptual framework for assessing sustainable development in regional SMEs
- Authors: Salimzadeh, Parisa , Courvisanos, Jerry
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management Vol. 17, no. 4 (2015), p. 1-17
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are significant regional development agents. Therefore, if SMEs adopt sustainability and regional economic strategies at the same time, it enables local communities to benefit from sustainable development, innovation and economic development in their regions. In the SME literature, there is a lack of appreciation of the sustainability issue and its connection with its local community. Bringing together the relevant literature, this paper develops a sustainability assessment framework for SMEs by providing the internal and external drivers and inhibitors affecting the adoption of social and environmental friendly practices in SMEs within the regional context. This framework can be used as a basis for application in regional development. It will also be a valuable tool for evaluation and monitoring of strategies for sustainability adoption. © 2015 Imperial College Press.
A consolidated process model for identity management
- Authors: Ng, Alex , Watters, Paul , Chen, Shiping
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Information Resources Management Journal Vol. 25, no. 3 (2012), p. 1-29
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Recently, identity management has gained increasing attention from both enterprises and government organisations, in terms of security, privacy, and trust. A considerable number of theories and techniques have been developed to deal with identity management issues within and between organisations. In this paper, the authors reviewed, assessed, and consolidated the research and development activities of identity management in 14 privately and publicly funded organisations. Furthermore, the authors developed a taxonomy to characterise and classify these identity management frameworks into two categories: processes and technologies. The authors then studied these frameworks by systematically reviewing the whole lifecycle of an identity management framework, including actors, roles, security, privacy, trust, interoperability, and federation. This paper aims to provide the reader with the state of art of existing identity management frameworks and a good understanding of the research issues and progress in this area. Copyright © 2012, IGI Global.
- Description: 2003010402
A constraint handling technique for constrained multi-objective genetic algorithm
- Authors: Long, Qiang
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Swarm and Evolutionary Computation Vol. 15, no. (2014), p. 66-79
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: A new constraint handling technique for multi-objective genetic algorithm is proposed in this paper. There are two important issues in multi-objective genetic algorithm, closeness of the obtained solutions to the real Pareto frontier and diversity of the obtained solutions. If considering a constrained multi-objective programming problem, one needs to take account of feasibility of solutions. Thus, in this new constraint handling technique, we systematically take closeness, diversity and feasibility as three objectives in a multi-objective subproblem. And solutions in each iteration are sorted by optimal sequence method based on those three objectives. Then, the solutions inherited to the next generation are selected based on its optimal order. Numerical tests show that the solutions obtained by this method are not only feasible, but also close to the real Pareto front and have good diversity. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.
A consumer definition of store convenience (finally)
- Authors: Reimers, Vaughan
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management Vol. 42, no. 4 (2014), p. 315-333
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Purpose: Despite an increasingly convenience-oriented society, very few empirical studies have identified convenience as a salient determinant of store patronage. Such atypical findings could be due to the way in which academics have defined store convenience. The purpose of this study is to empirically develop an alternative definition of store convenience. Design/methodology/approach: A household mail-out survey was used to identify the attributes consumers associate with store convenience. Findings: Empirical analysis provides strong support for the alternative definition, with respondents indicating that 25 of the test attributes serve as convenience attributes in the context of a department store. Practical implications: In spite of the many things a store manager can do to make their store more convenient, academic studies have recognised very few of these as convenience attributes. This study provides store managers with a list of 25 tools they have at their disposal to help save their customers' time and effort and help combat the internet threat. Originality/value: Comprising 25 attributes, the alternative definition represents a significant increase over any existing definition. The failure of existing definitions to incorporate so many of these attributes may explain why academic research has suggested that, in an era of convenience, convenience itself is a less-than-salient determinant of store patronage. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
A content analysis of cross-cultural motivational studies in tourism relating to nationalities
- Authors: Soldatenko, Daria , Backer, Elisa
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management Vol. 38, no. (2019), p. 122-139
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The importance of outbound markets to a host country has increased scholars' interest in understanding motivational factors. Motivation is a basic determinant of tourists' behaviour and has a fundamental role in tourism. The awareness of motivational differences among tourists from main generating markets is a prerequisite for effective and successful destination marketing programs. However, cross-cultural motivation comparisons of tourists from different cultural backgrounds has received relatively little research attention. In addition, there has not been a content analysis undertaken on this topic. Therefore, the aim of this research was to examine and synthesise previous studies on cross-cultural tourist motivation comparison, reveal the gaps in the literature and indicate the future research trends. A review of 71 publications covering a period of 30 years, from 1988 to 2017, was conducted. This study focuses on both subject areas and research methods used. The findings of this content analysis identified a recent growth in cross-cultural comparison studies. The analysis also revealed an increase in more advanced analysis including multiple variables such as motivations, satisfaction, segmentation of visitors, intention behaviours, and information search behaviour. The analysis of nationalities compared in the reviewed studies indicated the shift of research interest towards Asian countries. In the case of research methods, quantitative design is more common for cross-cultural motivation studies.
A content analysis of Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) travel research
- Authors: Yousuf, Mohammad , Backer, Elisa
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management Vol. 25, no. (2015), p. 1-10
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) travel is a significant form of tourism worldwide. Scholarly research into VFR commenced in 1990 and since then only one review of the literature has been conducted, which was a content analysis based exclusively on journal articles. That research, based from 1990 to 2010 highlighted that only 39 VFR articles had been published in tourism journals. Given the small number of publications identified, it was felt that an analysis encompassing a wider selection of publication forums and extended to 2015 would be valuable to scholarship. This research also considered citations and outputs by individual authors to determine where research is being derived from. The findings of this research identified recent growth in VFR travel research from wider publication forums, including conference papers and theses. However, VFR has made the most presence through book chapters in recent years. VFR research has historically focused on the commercial and marketing aspects, but more recently has turned to furthering understanding of the social aspects by giving particular importance to the VFR hosts and migration topics for the future direction of VFR research. © 2015 The Authors.
A continental narrative : Human settlement patterns and Australian climate change over the last 35,000 years
- Authors: Williams, Alan , Veth, Peter , Steffen, Will , Ulm, Sean , Turney, Chris , Reeves, Jessica , Phipps, Steven , Smith, Mike
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Quaternary Science Reviews Vol. 123, no. (2015), p. 91-112
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Drawing on the recent synthesis of Australian palaeoclimate by the OZ-INTIMATE group (Reeves etal., 2013a), we consider the effects of climate systems on past human settlement patterns and inferred demography. We use 5044 radiocarbon dates from ~1750 archaeological sites to develop regional time-series curves for different regions defined in the OZ-INTIMATE compilation as the temperate, tropics, interior and Southern Ocean sectors to explore human-climate relationships in Australia over the last 35,000 years. Correlations undertaken with improved palaeoclimatic data and archaeological records indicate that the regional time-series curves are robust, and can be used as a proxy for human behaviour. However, interrogation of the datasets is essential with artificial peaks and taphonomic over-correction being critical considerations. The time-series curves are interpreted as reflecting population growth, stasis and even decline in phase with terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene climatic fluctuations. This coupling, however, decreases during the last 5000 years, most likely due to increased population levels, greater territoriality, technological solutions to stress, and social and ideational innovation. Curves from all sectors show exponential population growth over the last 5000 years. We identify future research priorities, highlighting the paucity of archaeological records across several parts of Australia (<1 dated site/4,000km2), especially around the fringes of the arid zone, and the need for improved taphonomic correction techniques. Finally, we discuss how these time-series curves represent a first-order framework, not dissimilar to global climate models, which researchers can continue to test and refine with local, regional and continental records. © 2015.
A continuous homomorphism of a thin set onto a fat set
- Authors: Chalebgwa, Taboka , Morris, Sidney
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society Vol. 106, no. 3 (2022), p. 500-503
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: A thin set is defined to be an uncountable dense zero-dimensional subset of measure zero and Hausdorff measure zero of an Euclidean space. A fat set is defined to be an uncountable dense path-connected subset of an Euclidean space which has full measure, that is, its complement has measure zero. While there are well-known pathological maps of a set of measure zero, such as the Cantor set, onto an interval, we show that the standard addition on
A controlled trial of internet-based cognitive-behavioural therapy for panic disorder with face-to-face support from a general practitioner or email support from a psychologist
- Authors: Pier, Ciaran , Austin, David , Klein, Britt , Mitchell, Joanna , Schattner, Peter , Ciechomski, Lisa , Gilson, Kathryn , Pierce, David , Shandley, Kerrie , Wade, Victoria
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Mental Health in Family Medicine Vol. 5, no. 1 (2008), p. 28-29
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Background: Panic disorder (PD) is one of the most common anxiety disorders seen in general practice, but provision of evidence-based cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT) is rare. Many Australian GPs are now trained to deliver focused psychological strategies, but in practice this is time consuming and costly. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of an internet-based CBT intervention (Panic Online) for the treatment of PD supported by general practitioner (GP)-delivered therapeutic assistance. Design: Panic Online supported by GP-delivered face-to-face therapy was compared to Panic Online supported by psychologist-delivered email therapy. Methods: Sixty-five people with a primary diagnosis of PD (78% of whom also had agoraphobia) completed 12 weeks of therapy using Panic Online and therapeutic assistance with his/her GP (n = 34) or a clinical psychologist (n = 31). The mean duration of PD for participants allocated to these groups was 59 months and 58 months, respectively. Participants completed a clinical diagnostic interview delivered by a psychologist via telephone and questionnaires to assess panic-related symptoms, before and after treatment. Results: The total attrition rate was 20%, with no group differences in attrition frequency. Both treatments led to significant improvements in panic attack frequency, depression, anxiety, stress, anxiety sensitivity and quality of life. There were no statistically significant differences in the two treatments on any of these measures, or in the frequency of participants with clinically significant PD at post assessment. Conclusions: When provided with accessible online treatment protocols, GPs trained to deliver focused psychological strategies can achieve patient outcomes comparable to efficacious treatments delivered by clinical psychologists. The findings of this research provide a model for how GPs may be assisted to provide evidence-based mental healthcare successfully. © 2008 Radcliffe Publishing.
A convolutional recursive modified Self Organizing Map for handwritten digits recognition
- Authors: Mohebi, Ehsan , Bagirov, Adil
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Neural Networks Vol. 60, no. (2014), p. 104-118
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP140103213
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: It is well known that the handwritten digits recognition is a challenging problem. Different classification algorithms have been applied to solve it. Among them, the Self Organizing Maps (SOM) produced promising results. In this paper, first we introduce a Modified SOM for the vector quantization problem with improved initialization process and topology preservation. Then we develop a Convolutional Recursive Modified SOM and apply it to the problem of handwritten digits recognition. The computational results obtained using the well known MNIST dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm over the existing SOM-based algorithms.
A cooperative crowdsensing system based on flying and ground vehicles to control respiratory viral disease outbreaks
- Authors: Sahraoui, Yesin , Kerrache, Chaker , Amadeo, Marica , Vegni, Anna , Korichi, Ahmed , Nebhen, Jamel , Imran, Muhammad
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Ad Hoc Networks Vol. 124, no. (2022), p.
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The massive increase in population density in cities has led to several urban problems, such as an increment of air pollution, traffic congestion, and a faster spread of infectious diseases. With the rapid innovation in the intelligent sensors technology, and its integration into smart vehicles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), a novel sensing paradigm has been promoted, namely vehicular crowdsensing, which leverages on-board sensors to capture information from the surrounding environment. Collected data are then analyzed to take proper countermeasures. In this paper, we present a smart coordination mechanism between UAVs and ground vehicles (GVs), which sense information like body temperature and breathing rate of people, in order to support a variety of monitoring applications, including discovering the presence of infectious diseases. In our framework, namely GUAVA, aerial and ground vehicles are equipped with GPS devices and thermal cameras to monitor specific geographic areas, detect humans’ vital parameters and, at the same time, discover duplicate data by identifying matching faces in thermal video sequences with the GaussianFace algorithm. The sensing tasks in hard-to-reach places are assigned to UAVs, with the ability to power up wirelessly from the nearest GV and offload the collected monitoring images to it. Simulation results have assessed our proposed framework, showing good performance in terms of distinct Quality of Service (QoS) metrics. © 2021
A cooperative heterogeneous vehicular clustering mechanism for road traffic management
- Authors: Ahmad, Iftikhar , Noor, Rafidah , Zaba, Muhammad , Qureshi, Muhammad , Imran, Muhammad , Shoaib, Muhammad
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Parallel Programming Vol. 48, no. 5 (2020), p. 870-889
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The vehicular ad-hoc networks integrates with long-term evolution (LTE) forming a heterogeneous network, capable of providing seamless connectivity, which meets the communication requirements of intelligent transportation systems. However, heterogeneous network-based applications involve LTE resource (data and spectrum) usage cost and must be taken care while developing such a solution. One of the scenarios is the access of the information to/from remote server over the internet via LTE for road traffic management applications. Although clustering of the vehicle is significant to minimize the data and LTE network usage, however, the problem of non-cooperation of the vehicles in clustering process and within a cluster are major issues in sharing costly data acquired from the internet. Because, who and why one (vehicle) should pay the cost is the big question, proliferating the non-cooperative behavior among the cluster members. To solve these issues, strategic game-theoretic based clustering mechanism named as cooperative interest-aware clustering (CIAC) is developed. The proposed CIAC not only balance the cost of usage by controlling non-cooperative behavior among the vehicles within the cluster but at the same time motivate vehicles to participate in the clustering process to share the data and cost as well. It consists of a cluster head selection process based on the strategic game-theoretic approach and a fair-use policy. The implementation results show superiority in performance of our protocol over the existing approaches. © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
A coordination polymer for the site-specific integration of semiconducting sequences into DNA-based materials
- Authors: Al-Mahamad, Lamia , El-Zubir, Osama , Smith, David , Horrocks, Benjamin , Houlton, Andrew
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Nature Communications Vol. 8, no. 1 (2017), p. 720-27
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Advances in bottom-up material design have been significantly progressed through DNA-based approaches. However, the routine integration of semiconducting properties, particularly long-range electrical conduction, into the basic topological motif of DNA remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate this with a coordination polymer derived from 6-thioguanosine (6-TG-H), a sulfur-containing analog of a natural nucleoside. The complexation reaction with Au(I) ions spontaneously assembles luminescent one-dimensional helical chains, characterized as {Au (μ-6-TG)} , extending many μm in length that are structurally analogous to natural DNA. Uniquely, for such a material, this gold-thiolate can be transformed into a wire-like conducting form by oxidative doping. We also show that this self-assembly reaction is compatible with a 6-TG-modified DNA duplex and provides a straightforward method by which to integrate semiconducting sequences, site-specifically, into the framework of DNA materials, transforming their properties in a fundamental and technologically useful manner.Integration of semiconducting properties into the basic topological motif of DNA remains challenging. Here, the authors show a coordination polymer derived from 6-thioguanosine that complexes with Au(I) ions to form a wire-like material that can also integrate semiconducting sequences into the framework of DNA materials.
A correlation between Schmidt hammer rebound numbers with impact strength index, slake durability index and P-wave velocity
- Authors: Sharma, Pramod , Khandelwal, Manoj , Singh, Trilok
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Earth Sciences Vol. 100, no. 1 (2011), p. 189-195
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The main objective of this study was to establish statistical relationship between Schmidt hammer rebound numbers with impact strength index (ISI), slake durability index (SDI) and P-wave velocity. These are important properties to characterize a rock mass and are being widely used in geological and geotechnical engineering. Due to its importance, Schmidt hammer rebound number is considered as one of the most important property for the determination of other properties, like ISI, SDI and P-wave velocity. Determination of these properties in the laboratory is time consuming and tedious as well as requiring expertise, whereas Schmidt hammer rebound number can be easily obtained on site which in addition is non-destructive. So, in this study, an attempt has been made to determine these index properties in the laboratory and each index property was correlated with Schmidt hammer rebound values. Empirical equations have been developed to predict ISI, SDI and P-wave velocity using rebound values. It was found that Schmidt hammer rebound number shows linear relation with ISI and SDI, whereas exponential relation with P-wave velocity. To check the sensitivity of empirical relations, Student's t test was done to verify the correlation between rebound values and other rock index properties. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.
A cricket ground or a football stadium? The business of ground sharing at the Adelaide Oval before 1973
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Lightbody, Margaret , Carter, Amanda , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Business History Vol. 58, no. 8 (2016), p. 1164-1182
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Before 1973, cricket and Australian Football used the Adelaide Oval for major games during their respective seasons. Football's popularity as a spectator sport prompted its organising body to seek to build an improved stadium, but cricket authorities controlled the asset and acted to maintain its specialised character as a cricket ground. A case study of how the gains from a shared capital good are negotiated when asset controllers and users have different objectives is provided. A series of counterfactual scenarios based on football remaining at the Oval is constructed from archival sources and their outcomes projected based on data in financial reports.
A critical evaluation of the Australian accident classification standard
- Authors: Viner, D. , Harvey, Jack , Borys, David
- Date: 2003
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Safety in Australia Vol. 25, no. 2 (2003), p. 27-39
- Full Text: false
- Description: The researchers undertook a study involving post-graduate occupational health and safety students at the University of Ballarat designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Australian standard for classifying accidents. The results showed that the classification scheme has significant limitations which may impact upon the setting of prevention priorities at the national, state, industry and organisational levels of the system for risk control.
- Description: C3
- Description: 2003002690
A critical examination of the reliability and validity of the SZTPI-15 in British, American and Australian samples
- Authors: McKay, Michael , Worrell, Frank , Temple, Elizabeth , Perry, John , Cole, Jon
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Personality and Individual Differences Vol. 69, no. (October 2014 2014), p. 168-172
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: As an individual difference variable assessing the extent to which attitudes towards past, present and future influence behavior, time perspective is a potentially useful construct. However, its development and utility has been compromised by measurement issues. Recently, a short form of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI), the SZTPI-15 has been suggested to yield valid and reliable scores. Using three independent samples from America, Australia, and the United Kingdom, the present study tested the psychometric properties of SZPTI-15 scores. Confirmatory factor analyses did not support the 5-factor structure and internal consistency estimates for four of the subscales were low. Fit indices obtained from exploratory structural equation modeling were better, suggesting that permitting items to load on multiple factors improved model fit. Correlations with variables shown to be related to ZTPI factors broadly supported the concurrent validity of the SZTPI-15. Results suggest that further psychometric examination of SZTPI-15 scores is required.
- Description: C1
A critical review of robust self-scheduling for generation companies under electricity price uncertainty
- Authors: Vatani, Behdad , Chowdhury, Badrul , Dehghan, Shahab , Amjady, Nima
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems Vol. 97, no. (2018), p. 428-439
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: For a generation company trading in an electricity market, efficient control of the financial risks and robustness is as vital as maximizing profit. A robust approach is preferred since the generation company can obtain an optimal self-schedule considering price volatility as a source of uncertainty. The goal of this paper is to implement and compare different robust approaches such as robust optimization methods with different uncertainty sets, conditional value-at-risk based stochastic programming, and information gap decision theory for self-scheduling of generation companies. Moreover, all robust methods are applied to test cases with different price behaviors in the long-run to demonstrate the performance and features of each method. Finally, the different self-scheduling strategies based on the price data and the generation company's desired robustness level are proposed. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd