Description:
This paper explores the author’s transition from university lecturing and course coordination to secondary teaching and curriculum leadership: a return and also a taboo. It draws on the personal experience of the author and also on her recent doctoral work around teacher development of a disposition for enquiry into professional practice (Reid & O’Donoghue, 2001) and ‘care-full research’ (Brown, 2006). Preparing beginning teachers to enquire into practice is one thing; introducing experienced teachers to the concept will pose different issues. While it is very early days of transition, the paper will be an autoethnography which makes use of narrative methods of enquiry to explore the terrain of returning to secondary school teaching and working with experienced teachers to build a culture of professional learning. The paper connects the concept of ‘care-full’ research (an analytical framework developed in the doctoral work) and ‘care-full’ teaching. It will be argued that the need for care in research of and with teachers, should be developed into a more sophisticated disposition of care for pedagogy, content knowledge and people within the teaching profession. In this way the myth that higher degree research has little impact on school classroom practice will be explored. The totems are my beliefs about teaching and learning and professional practice. The taboos are my actions (moving from tertiary to secondary teaching) and this fits with the concept of risk taking within teaching.
Description:
The extent of fraud in large organistations is an increasing phenomenon. The implications of fraud are well known, in addition to the moneys lost from the fraudulent act, fraud has adverse effects arising from the negative publicity relating to the fraud. Responding to fraud represents a major challenge for business and the professions with considerable resources being devoted annually to fraud risk management and prevention.
Description:
Women who have a cognitive impairment (CI) (including mental illness, dementia, intellectual disability and acquired brain injury) are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault, yet very few assaults are reported to police. Once reported very few cases find their way through the justice system. The discourse of stereotyping and its impact on access to justice for victim/survivors is central to this research project which examines the uptake and exit stages of reports of sexual assault by persons with a cognitive impairment to police in Victoria, Australia. Data collection involves focus group interviews, analysis of police records of reports of sexual assault by persons with a cognitive impairment across a finite period of time (2002-2004) and one in-depth case study of a victim of rape with a cognitive impairment who successfully accessed the legal system to a completed trial. This paper discusses the results of preliminary analysis of data collected from focus group discussions held across Victoria including rural, regional and metropolitan locations with police, sexual assault counsellors and advocates for sexual assault victims with a CI. Data have been analysed using a modified Grounded Theory framework and ‘interpretative repertoire’ analysis. These methods of analysis have been used to identify commonly held perceptions of sexual assault victims who have cognitive impairments. Early findings indicate that police and advocates alike, draw on commonly held stereotypes about victims with cognitive impairments. These include whether their word can be believed and assumptions that ‘they cannot stand up to the rigors of the justice system’. Potentially these views have a significant effect on the depth and quality of service the victims receive from their advocate as well as the continued pathway of the report through the justice system.
Description:
The paper starts with an evaluation of a group of ICT organizations in a regional Victorian town and using a range of qualitative and quantitative data evaluates whether there is a cluster emerging and if so what are the processes of clustering that underpin this. Using archival and interview data the paper then examines key events and turning points in the development of what might be identified as a nascent cluster (Rosenfeld, 1997). In the context of current public policy that directly or indirectly supports ‘clustering’, the paper then assesses the effectiveness of public policy versus private action in the development of regional agglomerations of organisations and institutions that may be called clusters.
Description:
The paper starts with an evaluation of a group of ICT organizations in a regional Victorian town and using a range of qualitative and quantitative data evaluates whether there is a cluster emerging and if so what are the processes of clustering that underpin this. Using archival and interview data the paper then examines key events and turning points in the development of what might be identified as a nascent cluster (Rosenfeld, 1997). In the context of current public policy that directly or indirectly supports ‘clustering’, the paper then assesses the effectiveness of public policy versus private action in the development of regional agglomerations of organisations and institutions that may be called clusters.
Description:
In this paper, we present a global optimization method based on the filled function method to solve systems of nonlinear equations. Formulating a system of nonlinear equation into an equivalent global optimization problem, we manage to find a solution or an appropriate solution of the system of nonlinear equations by solving the formulated global optimization problem. A novel filled function method is proposed to solve the global optimization problem. Two numerical examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency of this method.
Description:
Collision detection is fundamental to many kinds of simulation. Any simulation that needs to model interactions between solid objects needs some form of collision detection. However, despite this need, a general-purpose collision detection framework has not been developed for the High Level Architecture (HLA). This research paper proposes a framework which facilitates this need. The framework differs from previous solutions by conforming to the principles of low coupling and high cohesion, cornerstones of the HLA ideology, which promote reuse of simulation components. To this end, the framework does not bind itself to the existing Object Model of the simulation it supports. The HLA Data Distribution Management (DDM) services are used to increase the network and processing efficiency of the solution. By incorporation of advanced spatial partitioning and collision detection algorithms, the solution provides an accurate, fast collision detection service to HLA federates.
Description:
Enrichment programs for Research Higher Degree (RHD) students are an endeavour undertaken by all Australian Universities. Most of these enrichment programs have in the main been centred on the generic skills required to expedite the research program, for example software skills, information gathering and collating skills, language development programs and seminars on various methodologies. There are some examples where enrichment programs have focused on leadership. These programs often assume not only that leadership can be taught, but also that a traditional seminar/lecture approaches to such a curriculum is a practical, efficient and effective approach to leadership education. This paper questions these assumptions by arguing for a more experientially-based approach to leadership education at the RHD level. This approach has demanded a consideration of pedagogical approaches outside, or peripheral, to the traditional approaches of RHD training. A specific example of a leadership program that incorporates experiential learning in is presented. The paper delineates a brief overview of experiential approaches to education, followed by a more specific review of the potential role these approaches can play in leadership education.
Description:
Enrichment programs for Research Higher Degree (RHD) students are an endeavour undertaken by all Australian Universities. Most of these enrichment programs have in the main been centred on the generic skills required to expedite the research program, for example software skills, information gathering and collating skills, language development programs and seminars on various methodologies. There are some examples where enrichment programs have focused on leadership. These programs often assume not only that leadership can be taught, but also that a traditional seminar/lecture approaches to such a curriculum is a practical, efficient and effective approach to leadership education. This paper questions these assumptions by arguing for a more experientially-based approach to leadership education at the RHD level. This approach has demanded a consideration of pedagogical approaches outside, or peripheral, to the traditional approaches of RHD training. A specific example of a leadership program that incorporates experiential learning in is presented. The paper delineates a brief overview of experiential approaches to education, followed by a more specific review of the potential role these approaches can play in leadership education.
Description:
This paper discusses elements of inter-entrepreneurial trust in regional networks and clusters in terms of influencing business processes and economic viability in today’s economy. The message that can be extracted from the literature is that competitive advantage strongly depends on interfirm collaboration and that networks with a high degree of trust lead to entrepreneurship and innovation. The paper highlights two local Victorian network studies, one in the grains industry and one in the tourism industry, and explores trust based relations in these regional networks. Contrasting sectoral results indicate that social network cohesion and trust were found to be present in the grains community but were absent in the tourism community. Borrowing from the economics and leadership literature, it is proposed that trust fosters certain types of inter-entrepreneurial networks. A description of these networks and related policy implications conclude the paper.
Description:
This paper discusses elements of inter-entrepreneurial trust in regional networks and clusters in terms of influencing business processes and economic viability in today’s economy. The message that can be extracted from the literature is that competitive advantage strongly depends on interfirm collaboration and that networks with a high degree of trust lead to entrepreneurship and innovation. The paper highlights two local Victorian network studies, one in the grains industry and one in the tourism industry, and explores trust based relations in these regional networks. Contrasting sectoral results indicate that social network cohesion and trust were found to be present in the grains community but were absent in the tourism community. Borrowing from the economics and leadership literature, it is proposed that trust fosters certain types of inter-entrepreneurial networks. A description of these networks and related policy implications conclude the paper.
A profile of men's sheds in Australia: Patterns, purposes, profiles and experiences of participants: Some implications for ACE and VET about engaging older men
Description:
This paper uses literature and survey results to explore several issues associated with the emergence and development of community-based men’s sheds in Australia and their relationship to both community and further education and the training system. It develops a series of questions about these developments and their relationship to the development of men as learners as well as the nature of education and voluntary organisations. The confirms for the first time, using compelling and rigorously collected survey data from participants, the critical value of men’s sheds in community settings in Australia to older men’s well being: particularly to their health, social enjoyment, ongoing learning capacity and ability to contribute to the community. The sheds, relatively recently created, now provide a valuable and critically important place for a wide range of mainly older men within safe, supervised settings in where approximately 150 such sheds are now found in southern Australia. They allow men to regularly meet and happily socialise, mainly with other men with tools, in a safe, familiar, shared workspace in a wide range of communities, situations and organisational types. The men who use men’s sheds respond positively to environments that allow them to feel at home and learn by doing, in practical, group situations with other men. This paper confirms the high potential of men’s sheds, if carefully configured and managed, to include and support men experiencing issues associated with retirement, health, social isolation, aging and significant change.
Description:
This paper uses literature and survey results to explore several issues associated with the emergence and development of community-based men’s sheds in Australia and their relationship to both community and further education and the training system. It develops a series of questions about these developments and their relationship to the development of men as learners as well as the nature of education and voluntary organisations. The confirms for the first time, using compelling and rigorously collected survey data from participants, the critical value of men’s sheds in community settings in Australia to older men’s well being: particularly to their health, social enjoyment, ongoing learning capacity and ability to contribute to the community. The sheds, relatively recently created, now provide a valuable and critically important place for a wide range of mainly older men within safe, supervised settings in where approximately 150 such sheds are now found in southern Australia. They allow men to regularly meet and happily socialise, mainly with other men with tools, in a safe, familiar, shared workspace in a wide range of communities, situations and organisational types. The men who use men’s sheds respond positively to environments that allow them to feel at home and learn by doing, in practical, group situations with other men. This paper confirms the high potential of men’s sheds, if carefully configured and managed, to include and support men experiencing issues associated with retirement, health, social isolation, aging and significant change.
Description:
Close form analytical techniques for the design of a certain class of recursive digital filters such as the elliptic filter have appeared. Such close form analytical techniques are suitable for designing filters with piece-wise constant magnitude response. The design of recursive digital filters with arbitrary frequency response is a nonlinear optimization problem. Specifically, it belongs to the class of global bi-lever programming problem. Optimal solution for a global bi-lever programming problem is notoriously difficult to obtain. In this paper, the bi-lever programming problem is first converted into a differentiate one-lever problem. Consequently we not only prove that the global minimizer of the converted one-lever problem is an approximate global minimizer of the original bi-lever problem, but also a novel filled function method for the design of recursive digital filters meeting arbitrary frequency response specifications is proposed. Several design examples are presented to illustrate our new technique
Description:
In the current state of the rapid growth of information resources and the huge number of requests submitted by users to existing information retrieval systems; recently, Question Answering systems have attracted more attention to meet information needs providing users with more precise and focused retrieval units. As one of the most challenging and important processes of such systems is to retrieve the best related text excerpts with regard to the questions, we propose a novel approach to exploit not only the syntax of the natural language of the questions and texts, but also the semantics relayed beneath them via a semantic question rewriting and passage retrieval task. The semantic structure used to address the surface mismatch of the semantically related passages and queries is FrameNet which is a lexical resource for English constituted based on frame semantics. We have run our proposed approach on a subset of the TREC 2004 factoid questions to retrieve passages containing correct answers from the AQUAINT collection and we have obtained promising results.
Description:
In the current state of the rapid growth of information resources and the huge number of requests submitted by users to existing information retrieval systems; recently, Question Answering systems have attracted more attention to meet information needs providing users with more precise and focused retrieval units. As one of the most challenging and important processes of such systems is to retrieve the best related text excerpts with regard to the questions, we propose a novel approach to exploit not only the syntax of the natural language of the questions and texts, but also the semantics relayed beneath them via a semantic question rewriting and passage retrieval task. The semantic structure used to address the surface mismatch of the semantically related passages and queries is FrameNet which is a lexical resource for English constituted based on frame semantics. We have run our proposed approach on a subset of the TREC 2004 factoid questions to retrieve passages containing correct answers from the AQUAINT collection and we have obtained promising results.
Description:
The traditional method for estimation of the parameters of Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based acoustic modeling of speech uses the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm. The EM algorithm is sensitive to initial values of HMM parameters and is likely to terminate at a local maximum of likelihood function resulting in non-optimized estimation for HMM and lower recognition accuracy. In this paper, to obtain better estimation for HMM and higher recognition accuracy, several candidate HMMs are created by applying EM on multiple initial models. The best HMM is chosen from the candidate HMMs which has highest value for likelihood function. Initial models are created by varying maximum frame number in the segmentation step of HMM initialization process. A binary search is applied while creating the initial models. The proposed method has been tested on TIMIT database. Experimental results show that our approach obtains improved values for likelihood function and improved recognition accuracy.
Description:
The teaching of statistical techniques to people in industry, as part of quality control or process improvement programs, can be a rewarding but somewhat daunting process for academics. Whilst the spin-offs for undergraduate teaching are numerous, and will be explored in a future paper, the biggest gains include the co-operation between the specific industry and the academic institution concerned. This paper explores some of the requirements and conditions that go towards enhancing successful industrial consultancies involving statistically based training programs provided by academics.
Description:
The teaching of statistical techniques to people in industry, as part of quality control or process improvement programs, can be a rewarding but somewhat daunting process for academics. Whilst the spin-offs for undergraduate teaching are numerous, and will be explored in a future paper, the biggest gains include the co-operation between the specific industry and the academic institution concerned. This paper explores some of the requirements and conditions that go towards enhancing successful industrial consultancies involving statistically based training programs provided by academics.
Description:
The recognition of the authentic voice(s) of people with intellectual disability has been an emerging trend over the last decade and a half. Less often, however, have these voices been heard in relation to research, and directions for the future. dal Gourmet Café and Catering, which provides training in the hospitality industry for young people with disabilities in Geelong received funding to establish an action research project to develop, implement, monitor and reflect on a variety of strategies and innovations to support transition from this training and development setting into open employment. A committee of critical friends consisting largely of people with disability was established, and consultation carried out with schools, staff in training, and community employers. The committee, once educated in the action research process, designed a training program that was trialed and evaluated in three action research cycles. The program was deemed successful, but with modifications and changes as decided by the committee, and with the addition of a fourth cycle. This paper strongly argues that such inclusive research addresses significant and fundamental debates about inclusion and the rights of people with disability to exert agency and take direct grassroots action for their future.
Description:
The recognition of the authentic voice(s) of people with intellectual disability has been an emerging trend over the last decade and a half. Less often, however, have these voices been heard in relation to research, and directions for the future. dal Gourmet Café and Catering, which provides training in the hospitality industry for young people with disabilities in Geelong received funding to establish an action research project to develop, implement, monitor and reflect on a variety of strategies and innovations to support transition from this training and development setting into open employment. A committee of critical friends consisting largely of people with disability was established, and consultation carried out with schools, staff in training, and community employers. The committee, once educated in the action research process, designed a training program that was trialed and evaluated in three action research cycles. The program was deemed successful, but with modifications and changes as decided by the committee, and with the addition of a fourth cycle. This paper strongly argues that such inclusive research addresses significant and fundamental debates about inclusion and the rights of people with disability to exert agency and take direct grassroots action for their future.
Description:
To make a valuable contribution to our society today, knowledge must be relevant, applicable and actionable. On the side of managers it calls for collaborative approaches to knowledge creation and knowledge transfer between their organisations and knowledge institutions. On the side of academics, it calls for engaged scholarship aimed at knowledge transfer and knowledge contribution to the practical know-how of managers and organisations. Action researchers have long advocated collaborative knowledge creation processes as the way forward, despite the fact that working within an environment that aspires for knowledge to be become applicable and actionable can be complex and challenging. This paper discusses actionable research methods with a focus on networks and learning in a regional development context.
Description:
To make a valuable contribution to our society today, knowledge must be relevant, applicable and actionable. On the side of managers it calls for collaborative approaches to knowledge creation and knowledge transfer between their organisations and knowledge institutions. On the side of academics, it calls for engaged scholarship aimed at knowledge transfer and knowledge contribution to the practical know-how of managers and organisations. Action researchers have long advocated collaborative knowledge creation processes as the way forward, despite the fact that working within an environment that aspires for knowledge to be become applicable and actionable can be complex and challenging. This paper discusses actionable research methods with a focus on networks and learning in a regional development context.
Description:
We propose attributes that are needed in sophisticated agent teams capable of working to manage an evolving disaster. Such agent teams need to be dynamically formed and ca- pable of adaptive reorganization as the demands and com- plexity of the situation evolve. The agents need to have self- awareness of their own roles, responsibilities and capabilities and be aware of their relationships with others in the team. Each agent is not only empowered to act autonomously to- ward realizing their goals, agents are also able to negotiate to change roles as a situation changes, if reorganization is required or perceived to be in the team interest. The hierar- chical 'position' of an agent and the 'relationships' between agents govern the authority and obligations that an agent adopts. Such sophisticated agents might work in a collabora- tive team with people to self-organize and manage a critical incident such as a bush-¯re. We are planning to implement a team of agents to interface with a bush-¯re simulation, working with people in real time, to test our architecture.
Description:
We propose attributes that are needed in sophisticated agent teams capable of working to manage an evolving disaster. Such agent teams need to be dynamically formed and ca- pable of adaptive reorganization as the demands and com- plexity of the situation evolve. The agents need to have self- awareness of their own roles, responsibilities and capabilities and be aware of their relationships with others in the team. Each agent is not only empowered to act autonomously to- ward realizing their goals, agents are also able to negotiate to change roles as a situation changes, if reorganization is required or perceived to be in the team interest. The hierar- chical 'position' of an agent and the 'relationships' between agents govern the authority and obligations that an agent adopts. Such sophisticated agents might work in a collabora- tive team with people to self-organize and manage a critical incident such as a bush-¯re. We are planning to implement a team of agents to interface with a bush-¯re simulation, working with people in real time, to test our architecture.
Description:
Given the prominence of elite archiving in contemporary multiobjective optimisation research and the limitations inherent in bounded population sizes, it is unusual that the vast majority of popular techniques aggressively truncate the capacity of archives and are based upon inefficient list representations. By forming better data structures and algorithms for the storage of archival members, the need for truncation is reduced and unbounded elite sets become viable. While work does exist in this vein, it is always of a general nature and significant improvements can be made in the bi-objective case. As such, this paper elucidates the unique properties of two-dimensional non-dominated sets and capitalises on these notions to develop the highly efficient and specialised bi-objective Mak_Tree algorithm. Theoretical results indicate that the specialised approach is preferable to pre-existing general techniques, while empirical analysis illustrates improved performance over both unbounded and bounded list techniques.
Description:
This research is about the take – up of Western ideas and Western knowledge in Chinese organizations. The research addresses the fundamental issues for Chinese companies as recipients of the knowledge and also addresses the issues of understanding knowledge diffusion processes and the strategic management of growing an organization that is based, partly, on externally sourced capital and technology. Specifically, using the Cohen and Levinthal (1990) notion of absorptive capacity (ACAP), the paper reports on some preliminary findings on ACAP in China, and sets out a model that will be used for further empirical work.
Description:
Although popular and engaging, three dimensional environments are rarely deployed to depict strong narratives involving complex characters engaged in reasoning. The design of three dimensional environments rich in narrative and character depth can be facilitated with a detailed representation of interactions between characters. However, the representation of interaction in current 3D development environments such as game engines is quite basic. This work advances a scheme for representing interactions that integrates a representation of semantics from linguistics called FrameNet with conceptualizations of drama and narrative by Georges Polti and Joseph Campbell. The resulting interaction frame facilitates the design of 3D environments by providing designers rich, yet standard elements that include spatial and temporal data, with which to represent complex interactions in 3D environments. This has application for the authoring of dynamically generated interactive narrative environments.
Description:
Although popular and engaging, three dimensional environments are rarely deployed to depict strong narratives involving complex characters engaged in reasoning. The design of three dimensional environments rich in narrative and character depth can be facilitated with a detailed representation of interactions between characters. However, the representation of interaction in current 3D development environments such as game engines is quite basic. This work advances a scheme for representing interactions that integrates a representation of semantics from linguistics called FrameNet with conceptualizations of drama and narrative by Georges Polti and Joseph Campbell. The resulting interaction frame facilitates the design of 3D environments by providing designers rich, yet standard elements that include spatial and temporal data, with which to represent complex interactions in 3D environments. This has application for the authoring of dynamically generated interactive narrative environments.