Description:
Organizations need to be able to collect reliable and accurate data on the causal factors that lead to near misses and injury causing incidents in order to design appropriate, informed, safety interventions. The aim of this study was to test the inter-rater reliability of a prototype taxonomy for classifying the causal factors involved in incidents in the outdoor education and recreation sector. The taxonomy consists of three levels, where each category level breaks the previous one down into a finer level of detail. The study involved 14 respondents, who play a key role in risk management within their organization, using the taxonomy to code 10 detailed incident reports. The incident reports were composited from reports and enquiries into actual events, and ranged in injury severity from fractures to fatalities. Participants were asked to: 1) identify the causal factors involved in each incident; and 2) identify the code/s from the taxonomy which best described those causal factors. The study demonstrated that the taxonomy can be used by risk managers to identify and code causal factors across all levels of the led outdoor activity system. However, identifying appropriate codes at the second and third level of detail was problematic.
Description:
The cognitive concept of subjective user-orientated relevance is consistent with the description of accounting as a socio-technical information and communication system that is influenced by the mental processes and cognitive abilities of accountants. The purpose of this paper is the development of a theoretical framework to examine accountants’ judgment process as it relates to biological assets and to empirically test the attributes and constitution of useful information in the preparation of financial statements. A questionnaire is considered the most appropriate approach in this instance to collect data for this study as it is a more efficient means of obtaining responses from a large group of accountants located throughout Malaysia. The respondents generally believe that biological assets should be measured at current market value as it would provide relevant and useful information for investment decisions. However, there is a concern about the reliability of the information given the subjectivity involved in the measurement process. The survey elicits attitudes and opinions of the respondents encapsulated in the survey vignette and are therefore perceptions of respondents to a quasi-real situation. This study provides evidence supporting the conundrum facing the accounting profession concerning relevant information for decision purposes and the conflicting reliability of the information
Description:
The cognitive concept of subjective user-orientated relevance is consistent with the description of accounting as a socio-technical information and communication system that is influenced by the mental processes and cognitive abilities of accountants. The purpose of this paper is the development of a theoretical framework to examine accountants’ judgment process as it relates to biological assets and to empirically test the attributes and constitution of useful information in the preparation of financial statements. A questionnaire is considered the most appropriate approach in this instance to collect data for this study as it is a more efficient means of obtaining responses from a large group of accountants located throughout Malaysia. The respondents generally believe that biological assets should be measured at current market value as it would provide relevant and useful information for investment decisions. However, there is a concern about the reliability of the information given the subjectivity involved in the measurement process. The survey elicits attitudes and opinions of the respondents encapsulated in the survey vignette and are therefore perceptions of respondents to a quasi-real situation. This study provides evidence supporting the conundrum facing the accounting profession concerning relevant information for decision purposes and the conflicting reliability of the information
Description:
Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA), a sleeping disorder, is a serious health issue with significant public health implications. Due to the interrupted sleep, OSA patients suffer with excessive day-time sleepiness, fatigue and other health complexities that lead to on-road and work-related accidents and incur billions of dollars per year. Traditionally, treatment of OSA begins with nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). Alternatively, Mandibular Repositioning Appliances or surgical interventions can be used. Although Maxillomandibular Advancement (MMA) surgery is often advised as the last line of treatment due to the expense and significant changes in the facial appearance, it is the only permanent solution to OSA with a definitive outcome especially for the patients with significant facial deformation or anomalies. In this article, three dimensional (3D) image-guided predictive algorithms are proposed to improve the treatment planning and overall outcome of the MMA surgery. 3D analysis of the facial surface data and Computational Biomechanics-based 3D modelling of airway segmented from Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) data are proposed to predict the required physiological changes to ensure optimal air-flow through the airway. Moreover, 3D Computer Graphics-based techniques are proposed to visualise and demonstrate the expected facial outcomes to inform patients and surgeons prior to this non-reversible surgery.
Description:
This paper presents a hardware design for a Travelling Wave (TW) Detector and data recorder for a three phase Medium Voltage (MV) distribution network. The proposed pole mounted platform consists of a capacitively coupled receiver system, a GPS receiver and a Texas Instruments Delfino 28377 processor based travelling wave detection unit. The data recording system uses an Intel Atom base single board computer, a four channel 10Ms/s analogue to digital converter card along with Wi-Fi and GORS communications links. The proposed system is capable of recording three phase voltages simultaneously with the ability to trigger remotely. The platform is mounted in an IP56 enclosure and can be mounted on the MV distribution poles. The paper provides a brief review of hardware and software developed for the TW detector.
Description:
The School for Student Leadership (SSL) was set up in Victoria, Australia, in 2000 to provide an avenue for Year 9 students in government secondary schools to experience an alternative to the ‘traditional classroom’. The three campuses of the school provide nine-week fully residential programs that promote the development of leadership skills and relationship building, within a framework underpinned by experiential education and cooperative learning practices. At a time when engagement and expectations are not necessarily in alignment, an opportunity to experience education in a unique way is enticing for both students and their parents. Yet there are also associated fears, particularly for parents. For example, the experience provided deviates substantially from the traditional school curriculum and this could be seen as impacting on student progress. There are also fears about how fifteen year olds will cope with sharing dormitories, taking responsibility for their own washing and cleaning, helping with cooking, taking part in physically challenging expeditions, having limited access to social media and surviving without ‘junk food’. This paper reports on part of a longitudinal study that began in partnership with Monash University in 2000. The most recent aspect involved a mixed methods study to collect data from parents and students who were participating in the program at the SSL during Terms 3 and 4 in 2012. Pre and post surveys were conducted as well as interviews with both parents and students. Data was analysed using SPSS and NVivo, however the focus of this paper will be the qualitative aspects of the initial findings from the interviews. Preliminary findings from 12 focus group and 24 individual interviews conducted with student participants, suggest a high level of respect for and engagement with the program offerings. While initial concerns about coping with physical and social challenges were expressed, educational concerns were almost non-existent. A major theme that emerged from the data was the importance of relationships, with the vast majority perceiving that lifelong friendships had been forged with their peers. Students also drew clear distinctions between the positive relationships they had developed with SSL teachers compared to teachers at their home schools. Parents were also overwhelmingly positive about the experiences they perceived their adolescent children had while at the SSL, despite initial fears. Interviews with 15 parents illustrated that they did have a number of concerns that were both educational and social, which was different to the focus of the students. However the reality for these parents was that these fears did not come to fruition, and thus they ended up sharing their child’s enthusiasm for the program, which they felt had supported both cognitive and social development in their adolescent children to a greater extent than traditional education.
Description:
The native fairy grass (Lachnagrostis filiformis (G. Forst.) Trin.) has colonised extensive areas of dry lake beds in western Victoria during the current drought. Large numbers of the plants’ detached mature panicles (seed heads) lodge against housing, fences, railway lines and other obstacles. This can be a fire hazard, degrades township aesthetics and creates a general nuisance to communities of lakeside towns. Current control measures are costly and only provide short-term solutions. A three-year study commencing in 2006 was designed to assess current and innovative control measures and develop a potential long-term management solution to the problem. Treatments applied to the bed of Lake Learmonth during the first year of the study included late-season glyphosate herbicide at two concentrations, late-season slashing, and seed broadcasting of two native species to reduce L. filiformis inflorescence biomass through competition. Slashing reduced L. filiformis inflorescence biomass and herbicide treatments successfully killed L. filiformis plants, while having no effect on germination of seed collected from sprayed plants. Although these treatments successfully limited the impact of L. filiformis on lakeside towns during the first year, the longer term efficiency is doubted. Treatment effects will be monitored over a further two years.
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:
Traditional QoS routing protocols find paths that meet the QoS requirements while discovering routes. The chosen route is used while the QoS is met. If the QoS is violated rerouting takes place. Violation of QoS may be unacceptable for delay sensitive traffic. We introduce a preemptive QoS re-routing scheme. The end-to-end delay of packets in each session is monitored and if it seems likely that QoS violation might occur, a preemptive QoS rerouting process is initiated. This helps maintain QoS in dynamic wireless ad hoc networks. Schemes for triggering QoS re-routing are investigated. We have reduced the number of late packets and improved the overall end-to-end delay of the communications.
Description:
This paper describes a web-based environment for constructing narrative from story snippets contributed by a community of interest. The underlying model uses an argument based structure to infer the next event in the narrative sequence. The approach makes use of both events and higher level story elements derived from Polti’s dramatic situations. Dramatic situations used are consistent with a theme, and events are generally constrained by the dramatic situation. The narrative generated is a function of the event history, the dramatic situations chosen and the plausible inferences about next events that are contributed by a community of interest in the theme. At this stage, a player’s actions are simulated using a random selection from a set and the implementation of a nonsense filter. Example outputs from the system are provided and discussed.
Description:
This paper describes a web-based environment for constructing narrative from story snippets contributed by a community of interest. The underlying model uses an argument based structure to infer the next event in the narrative sequence. The approach makes use of both events and higher level story elements derived from Polti’s dramatic situations. Dramatic situations used are consistent with a theme, and events are generally constrained by the dramatic situation. The narrative generated is a function of the event history, the dramatic situations chosen and the plausible inferences about next events that are contributed by a community of interest in the theme. At this stage, a player’s actions are simulated using a random selection from a set and the implementation of a nonsense filter. Example outputs from the system are provided and discussed.
Description:
An ontological extension on the frames in FrameNet is presented in this paper. The general conceptual relations between frame elements, in conjunction with existing characteristics of this lexical resource, suggest more sophisticated semantic analysis of lexical chains (e.g. predicate chains) exploited in many text understanding applications. In particular, we have investigated its benefit for meaning-aware question answering when combined with an inference strategy. The proposed knowledge representation mechanism on the frame elements of FrameNet has been shown to have an impact on answering natural language questions on the basis of our case analysis.