Showing items 181 - 200 of 13205

Effect of pyrolysis conditions on bone char characterization and its ability for arsenic and fluoride removal

- Alkurdi, Susan, Al-Juboori, Raed, Bundschuh, Jochen, Bowtell, Les, McKnight, Stafford

  • Authors: Alkurdi, Susan , Al-Juboori, Raed , Bundschuh, Jochen , Bowtell, Les , McKnight, Stafford
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Environmental Pollution Vol. 262, no. (2020), p.
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  • Description: This study examined arsenite [As(III)], arsenate [As(V)] and fluoride (F−) removal potential of bone char produced from sheep (Ovis aries) bone waste. Pyrolysis conditions tested were in the 500 °C–900 °C range, for a holding time of 1 or 2 h, with or without N2 gas purging. Previous bone char studies mainly focused on either low or high temperature range with limited information provided on As(III) removal. This study aims to address these gaps and provide insights into the effect of pyrolysis conditions on bone char sorption capacity. A range of advanced chemical analyses were employed to track the change in bone char properties. As pyrolysis temperature and holding time increased, the resulting pH, surface charge, surface roughness, crystallinity, pore size and CEC all increased, accompanied by a decrease in the acidic functional groups and surface area. Pyrolysis temperature was a key parameter, showing improvement in the removal of both As(III) and As(V) as pyrolysis temperature was increased, while As(V) removal was higher than As(III) removal overall. F− removal displayed an inverse relationship with increasing pyrolysis temperature. Bone char prepared at 500 °C released significantly more dissolved organic carbon (DOC) then those prepared at a higher temperature. The bone protein is believed to be a major factor. The predominant removal mechanisms for As were surface complexation, precipitation and interaction with nitrogenous functional groups. Whereas F− removal was mainly influenced by interaction with oxygen functional groups and electrostatic interaction. This study recommends that the bone char pyrolysis temperature used for As and F− removal are 900 °C and 650 °C, respectively. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd
  • Description: This research was performed as a part of PhD research which was supported in part by the Iraqi Government and the Australian Research Training Program.

Effect of rock mass permeability and rock fracture leak-off coefficient on the pore water pressure distribution in a fractured slope

- Shaghaghi, Tahereh, Ghadrdan, Mohsen, Tolooiyan, Ali

  • Authors: Shaghaghi, Tahereh , Ghadrdan, Mohsen , Tolooiyan, Ali
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory Vol. 105, no. (2020), p. 1-13
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  • Description: The reliable assessment of the stability of saturated slopes becomes a challenging task when slopes are consisting of discontinuous materials and containing pre-existing joints. The discontinuous nature of the slopes' material could increase the overall permeability of the slope, while existing joints facilitate groundwater leakage through the joint surfaces into the slope which subsequently exerts a major impact on deformation and the effective stress distribution. This paper aims to study the Pore Water Pressure (PWP) distribution changes in a saturated fractured slope by conducting advanced coupled pore fluid diffusion and stress-strain analyses, while investigating the sensitivity of results to the variation of permeability and leakage properties of fracture surfaces. Modelling of jointed slopes is carried out using the e-Xtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) in conjunction with the Finite Element Method (FEM). In this study, the fluid flow inside the joint is the major focus at which the constitutive response of the fluid inside the joint considers both tangential and normal flows. To demonstrate the state-of-the-art simulation technique presented in this paper, simulation of a fractured slope at the second largest open-pit mine in Australia is performed as a case study. This study shows the effect of a variable leak-off coefficient of the joint surfaces and the permeability magnitude on the pore water pressure distribution.
  • Description: This research has been supported financially by the Earth Resources Regulation of the Victorian State Government Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources. The first and second authors are funded by the GHERG LV Batter Stability Project Scholarship and Faculty Tuition Scholarship of Federation University Australia.

Effects of a proper feature selection on prediction and optimization of drilling rate using intelligent techniques

- Liao, Xiufeng, Khandelwal, Manoj, Yang, Haiqing, Koopialipoor, Mohammadreza, Murlidhar, Bhatawdekar

  • Authors: Liao, Xiufeng , Khandelwal, Manoj , Yang, Haiqing , Koopialipoor, Mohammadreza , Murlidhar, Bhatawdekar
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Engineering with Computers Vol. 36, no. 2 (Apr 2020), p. 499-510
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  • Description: One of the important factors during drilling times is the rate of penetration (ROP), which is controlled based on different variables. Factors affecting different drillings are of paramount importance. In the current research, an attempt was made to better recognize drilling parameters and optimize them based on an optimization algorithm. For this purpose, 618 data sets, including RPM, flushing media, and compressive strength parameters, were measured and collected. After an initial investigation, the compressive strength feature of samples, which is an important parameter from the rocks, was used as a proper criterion for classification. Then using intelligent systems, three different levels of the rock strength and all data were modeled. The results showed that systems which were classified based on compressive strength showed a better performance for ROP assessment due to the proximity of features. Therefore, these three levels were used for classification. A new artificial bee colony algorithm was used to solve this problem. Optimizations were applied to the selected models under different optimization conditions, and optimal states were determined. As determining drilling machine parameters is important, these parameters were determined based on optimal conditions. The obtained results showed that this intelligent system can well improve drilling conditions and increase the ROP value for three strength levels of the rocks. This modeling system can be used in different drilling operations.

Effects of sub-concussion on neuropsychological performance and its potential mechanisms : a narrative review

- Rawlings, Samuel, Takechi, Ryusuke, Lavender, Andrew

  • Authors: Rawlings, Samuel , Takechi, Ryusuke , Lavender, Andrew
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article , Journal article, Review
  • Relation: Brain Research Bulletin Vol. 165, no. (2020), p. 56-62
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  • Description: Concussion and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) are recognised as serious medical events that are relatively common in contact sports. Recently, the seemingly non-injurious phenomenon of sub-concussion has gained interest among neuroscience researchers and early studies are showing that there may be some acute and chronic effects on brain health and function with repeated sub-concussive events of the type seen in soccer, where players strike the ball with the head, and collision sports like the rugby codes. The aim of this narrative review is to describe sub-concussion and the current understanding of short and long term effects of repeated minor impacts that have been found to occur in human and animal models. Here, potential mechanisms for cognitive dysfunction following sub-concussion and recommend directions for future research are discussed. The Potential mechanisms of injuries resulting from sub-concussion such as changes in blood brain barrier integrity, neuroinflammation, cognitive impairment, and oxidative stress damage, among other changes in central nervous system function vary considerably making understanding of the underlying causative mechanism challenging for researchers. Some evidence suggests a link between impaired cerebrovascular function and cognitive impairment which poses a potential mechanism linking the two. It is hoped that this review helps guide researchers toward a potential direction of investigations. © 2020
  • Description: National Health and Medical Research Council, NHMRC, GNT1135590

Efficacy of combined general, special, and specific resistance training on pace bowling skill in club-standard cricketers

- Feros, Simon, Young, Warren, OʼBrien, Brendan

  • Authors: Feros, Simon , Young, Warren , OʼBrien, Brendan
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Journal of strength and conditioning research Vol. 34, no. 9 (2020), p. 2596-2607
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  • Description: Feros, SA, Young, WB, and O'Brien, BJ. Efficacy of combined general, special, and specific resistance training on pace bowling skill in club-standard cricketers. J Strength Cond Res 34(9): 2596-2607, 2020-This study investigated the efficacy of combined "general," "special," and "specific" resistance training on pace bowling skill. Twelve male, club-standard pace bowlers were randomly allocated to a combined resistance training (CRT) program or traditional cricket training (TCT) program for 8 weeks. The CRT group (n = 6) trained with 300, 250-g, and standard cricket balls; performed 20-m sprints with +20% and +15% body mass resistance (but also unresisted); and completed chin-up and pull-up training. The TCT group (n = 6) trained with standard balls and performed unresisted 20-m sprints. No statistically significant GROUP × TIME interactions were identified. The CRT group demonstrated a "clear moderate" enhancement in peak ball release speed (mean ±95% confidence limits [CLs]: 1.2 ± 1.5 m·s, d = 0.66 ± 0.83), a "clear large" increase in mean radial error (mean ±95% CLs: 7.1 ± 6.5 cm, d = 0.94 ± 0.87), and a "clear large" rise in bivariate variable error (mean ±95% CLs: 7.2 ± 7.8 cm, d = 0.97 ± 1.05). The TCT group exhibited "unclear" changes across all pace bowling skill measures. Both groups displayed "unclear" changes in approach speed, 20-m sprint time, and 1 repetition maximum pull-up strength. In 8 weeks, the CRT program improved peak ball release speed, but at the cost of poorer bowling accuracy and consistency of bowling accuracy. These findings could be attributed to bowling with the heavier balls. The inclusion of "specific" resistance training does not seem to be effective in enhancing all-round pace bowling skill in club-standard cricketers.

Efficient evaluation of remaining wall thickness in corroded water pipes using pulsed Eddy current data

- Nguyen, Linh, Miro, Jaime Valls

  • Authors: Nguyen, Linh , Miro, Jaime Valls
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Sensors Journal Vol. 20, no. 23 (2020), p. 14465-14473
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  • Description: In order to analyse failures of an ageing water pipe, some methods such as the loss-of-section require remaining wall thickness (RWT) along the pipe to be fully known, which can be measured by the magnetism based non-destructive evaluation sensors though they are practically slow due to the magnetic penetrating process. That is, fully measuring RWT at every location in a water pipe is not really practical if RWT inspection causes disruption of water supply to customers. Thus, this paper proposes a new data prediction approach that can increase amount of RWT data of a corroded water pipe collected in a given period of time by only measuring RWT on a part (e.g. 20%) of the total pipe surface area and then employing the measurements to predict RWT at unmeasured area. It is proposed to utilize a marginal distribution to convert the non-Gaussian RWT measurements to the standard normally distributed data, which can then be input into a 3-dimensional Gaussian process model for efficiently predicting RWT at unmeasured locations on the pipe. The proposed approach was implemented in two real-life in-service pipes, and the obtained results demonstrate its practicality. © 2001-2012 IEEE.

Electric vehicle participated electricity market model considering flexible ramping product provisions

- Zhang, Xian, Hu, Jiefeng, Wang, Huaizhi, Wang, Guibin, Chan, Ka, Qiu, Jing

  • Authors: Zhang, Xian , Hu, Jiefeng , Wang, Huaizhi , Wang, Guibin , Chan, Ka , Qiu, Jing
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications Vol. 56, no. 5 (2020), p. 5868-5879
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  • Description: This article studies electric vehicle (EV) potential to participate in the energy market and provide flexible ramping products (FRPs). EV traffic flows are predicted by the deep belief network, and the availability of flexible EVs is estimated based on the predicted EV traffic flows. Then, a novel market mechanism in distribution system is proposed to encourage the dispatchable EV demand to react to economic signals and provide ramping services. The designed market model is based on locational marginal pricing of energy and marginal pricing of FRPs. System ramping capacity constraints and EV operation constraints are incorporated in the proposed model to achieve the balance between the system social cost minimization and the EV traveling convenience. Moreover, typical uncertainties are considered by the scenario-based approach. Finally, simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the established model and demonstrate the contributions of EVs to the system reliability and flexibility. © 1972-2012 IEEE.
  • Description: ITIAC: Funding details: JCYJ20170817100412438, 2019-AAAE-1307, JCYJ20190808141019317

Embeddings of free topological vector spaces

- Leiderman, Arkady, Morris, Sidney

  • Authors: Leiderman, Arkady , Morris, Sidney
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society Vol. 101, no. 2 (2020), p. 311-324
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  • Description: It is proved that the free topological vector space contains an isomorphic copy of the free topological vector space for every finite-dimensional cube , thereby answering an open question in the literature. We show that this result cannot be extended from the closed unit interval to general metrisable spaces. Indeed, we prove that the free topological vector space does not even have a vector subspace isomorphic as a topological vector space to , where is a Cook continuum, which is a one-dimensional compact metric space. This is also shown to be the case for a rigid Bernstein set, which is a zero-dimensional subspace of the real line. © 2019 Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc..

Emergency warning messages dissemination in vehicular social networks: A trust based scheme

- Ullah, Noor, Kong, Xiangjie, Ning, Zhaolong, Tolba, Amr, Alrashoud, Mubarak, Xia, Feng

  • Authors: Ullah, Noor , Kong, Xiangjie , Ning, Zhaolong , Tolba, Amr , Alrashoud, Mubarak , Xia, Feng
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Vehicular Communications Vol. 22, no. (2020), p.
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  • Description: To ensure users' safety on the road, a plethora of dissemination schemes for Emergency Warning Messages (EWMs) have been proposed in vehicular networks. However, the issue of false alarms triggered by malicious users still poses serious challenges, such as disruption of vehicular traffic especially on highways leading to precarious effects. This paper proposes a novel Trust based Dissemination Scheme (TDS) for EWMs in Vehicular Social Networks (VSNs) to solve the aforementioned issue. To ensure the authenticity of EWMs, we exploit the user-post credibility network for identifying true and false alarms. Moreover, we develop a reputation mechanism by calculating a trust-score for each node based on its social-utility, behavior, and contribution in the network. We utilize the hybrid architecture of VSNs by employing social-groups based dissemination in Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) mode, whereas nodes' friendship-network in Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) mode. We analyze the proposed scheme for accuracy by extensive simulations under varying malicious nodes ratio in the network. Furthermore, we compare the efficiency of TDS with state-of-the-art dissemination schemes in VSNs for delivery ratio, transmission delay, number of transmissions, and hop-count. The experimental results validate the significant efficacy of TDS in accuracy and aforementioned network parameters. © 2019 Elsevier Inc.

Enablers and barriers of exclusive breastfeeding among employed women in low and lower middle-income countries

- Gebrekidan, Kahsu, Fooladi, Ensieh, Plummer, Virginia, Hall, Helen

  • Authors: Gebrekidan, Kahsu , Fooladi, Ensieh , Plummer, Virginia , Hall, Helen
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Vol. 25, no. (2020), p.
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  • Description: Objective: This systematic review and narrative synthesis aims to explore the specific facilitators and barriers of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) among employed mothers in low and lower middle-income countries. Methods: Primary quantitative and qualitative studies undertaken in low and lower middle-income countries published from 2003 to 2019 were included in the review. Two reviewers independently assessed each article for eligibility using standardized critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute. Results: Seven papers were included in this review. The enabler and barrier factors to EBF are summarized into three categories including maternal factors (such as mode of delivery, number of children, knowledge and attitude on breastfeeding), social factors (such as support from husband, family and child day care), and work-related factors (such as duration of maternal leave, flexibility of work, and availability of physical facilities). Conclusion: To increase EBF among employed women, employers should support them by offering flexible working hours, a minimum of six months maternity leave and providing breastfeeding facilities. Support from family and maternal factors were important factors that could positively affect EBF. Identification of modifiable barrier and facilitator factors may contribute to successful EBF in employed women thereby reducing mortality and morbidity in countries with limited resources. © 2020

Energy sector development : system dynamics analysis

- Laimon, Mohamd, Mai, Thanh, Goh, Steven, Yusaf, Talal

  • Authors: Laimon, Mohamd , Mai, Thanh , Goh, Steven , Yusaf, Talal
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Applied Sciences-Basel Vol. 10, no. 1 (Jan 2020), p. 19
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  • Description: The development of a complex and dynamic system such as the energy sector requires a comprehensive understanding of its constituent components and their interactions, and thus requires approaches that can adapt to the dynamic complexity in systems. Previous efforts mainly used reductionist approaches, which examine the components of the system in isolation, neglecting their interdependent nature. Such approaches reduce our ability to understand the system and/or mitigate undesirable outcomes. We adopt a system dynamics approach to construct an integrated model for analysing the behaviour of the energy sector. Although the Australian energy sector is used as a case study, the model can be applied in other context elsewhere around the world The results indicate that the current trajectory of the Australian energy sector is unsustainable and growth is not being controlled. Limits to growth are fast approaching due to excessive fossil fuel extraction, high emissions and high energy dependency. With the current growth, Australia's global CO2 emissions footprint will increase to unprecedented levels reaching 12% by 2030 (9.5% for exports and 2.5% for domestic). Oil dependency will account for 43% and 47% of total consumption by 2030 and 2050. By 2032, coal will be the only fossil fuel resource available in Australia. Expansion of investment in coal and gas production is a large risk.

Enhancement of microgrid operation by considering the cascaded impact of communication delay on system stability and power management

- Aghanoori, Navid, Masoum, Mohammad, Abu-Siada, Ahmed, Islam, Syed

  • Authors: Aghanoori, Navid , Masoum, Mohammad , Abu-Siada, Ahmed , Islam, Syed
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems Vol. 120, no. (2020), p.
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  • Description: Power management, system stability and communication structure are three key aspects of microgrids (MGs) that have been explored in many research studies. However, the cascaded effect of communication structure on system stability followed by the impact of stability on the power management has not been fully explored in the literature yet and needs more attention. This paper not only explores this cascaded impact, but also provides a comprehensive platform to optimally consider three layers of MG design and operation from this perspective. For generation cost minimization and stability assessment, the proposed platform uses an adaptive particle swarm optimization (PSO) while a new class of data exchange scheme based on IEC 61850 protocol is proposed to reduce the communication time delays among the inverters of distributed generations and the MG control center. This paper also considers the system stability using small-signal model of a MG in a real-time manner as an embedded function in the PSO. In this context investigations have been conducted by modeling an isolated MG with solar farm, fuel cell generator and micro-turbine in MATLAB Simulink. Detailed simulation results indicate the proposed power and stability management method effectively reduces the MG generation cost through maximizing the utilization of the available renewable generations while considering system stability. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Enhancing linear time complexity time series classification with hybrid bag-of-patterns

- Liang, Shen, Zhang, Yanchun, Ma, Jiangang

  • Authors: Liang, Shen , Zhang, Yanchun , Ma, Jiangang
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: 25th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications, DASFAA 2020 Vol. 12112 LNCS, p. 717-735
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  • Description: In time series classification, one of the most popular models is Bag-Of-Patterns (BOP). Most BOP methods run in super-linear time. A recent work proposed a linear time BOP model, yet it has limited accuracy. In this work, we present Hybrid Bag-Of-Patterns (HBOP), which can greatly enhance accuracy while maintaining linear complexity. Concretely, we first propose a novel time series discretization method called SLA, which can retain more information than the classic SAX. We use a hybrid of SLA and SAX to expressively and compactly represent subsequences, which is our most important design feature. Moreover, we develop an efficient time series transformation method that is key to achieving linear complexity. We also propose a novel X-means clustering subroutine to handle subclasses. Extensive experiments on over 100 datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our method. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Enhancing service quality and reliability in intelligent traffic system

- Chowdhury, Abdullahi

  • Authors: Chowdhury, Abdullahi
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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  • Description: Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) can manage on-road traffic efficiently based on real-time traffic conditions, reduce delay at the intersections, and maintain the safety of the road users. However, emergency vehicles still struggle to meet their targeted response time, and an ITS is vulnerable to various types of attacks, including cyberattacks. To address these issues, in this dissertation, we introduce three techniques that enhance the service quality and reliability of an ITS. First, an innovative Emergency Vehicle Priority System (EVPS) is presented to assist an Emergency Vehicle (EV) in attending the incident place faster. Our proposed EVPS determines the proper priority codes of EV based on the type of incidents. After priority code generation, EVPS selects the number of traffic signals needed to be turned green considering the impact on other vehicles gathered in the relevant adjacent cells. Second, for improving reliability, an Intrusion Detection System for traffic signals is proposed for the first time, which leverages traffic and signal characteristics such as the flow rate, vehicle speed, and signal phase time. Shannon’s entropy is used to calculate the uncertainty associated with the likelihood of particular evidence and Dempster-Shafer (DS) decision theory is used to fuse the evidential information. Finally, to improve the reliability of a future ITS, we introduce a model that assesses the trust level of four major On-Board Units (OBU) of a self-driving car along with Global Positioning System (GPS) data and safety messages. Both subjective logic (DS theory) and CertainLogic are used to develop the theoretical underpinning for estimating the trust value of a self-driving car by fusing the trust value of four OBU components, GPS data and safety messages. For evaluation and validation purposes, a popular and widely used traffic simulation package, namely Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO), is used to develop the simulation platform using a real map of Melbourne CBD. The relevant historical real data taken from the VicRoads website were used to inject the traffic flow and density in the simulation model. We evaluated the performance of our proposed techniques considering different traffic and signal characteristics such as occupancy rate, flow rate, phase time, and vehicle speed under many realistic scenarios. The simulation result shows the potential efficacy of our proposed techniques for all selected scenarios.
  • Description: Doctor of Philosophy

Epidemiology of injury and illness in 153 Australian international-level rowers over eight international seasons

- Trease, Larissa, Wilkie, Kellie, Lovell, Greg, Drew, Michael, Hooper, Ivan

  • Authors: Trease, Larissa , Wilkie, Kellie , Lovell, Greg , Drew, Michael , Hooper, Ivan
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: British Journal of Sports Medicine Vol. 54, no. 21 (2020), p. 1288-1293
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  • Description: Aim To report the epidemiology of injury and illness in elite rowers over eight seasons (two Olympiads). Methods All athletes selected to the Australian Rowing Team between 2009 and 2016 were monitored prospectively under surveillance for injury and illness. The incidence and burden of injury and illness were calculated per 1000 athlete days (ADs). The body area, mechanism and type of all injuries were recorded and followed until the resumption of full training. We used interrupted time series analyses to examine the association between fixed and dynamic ergometer testing on rowers' injury rates. Time lost from illness was also recorded. Results All 153 rowers selected over eight seasons were observed for 48 611 AD. 270 injuries occurred with an incidence of 4.1-6.4 injuries per 1000 AD. Training days lost totalled 4522 (9.2% AD). The most frequent area injured was the lumbar region (84 cases, 1.7% AD) but the greatest burden was from chest wall injuries (64 cases, 2.6% AD.) Overuse injuries (n=224, 83%) were more frequent than acute injuries (n=42, 15%). The most common activity at the time of injury was on-water rowing training (n=191, 68). Female rowers were at 1.4 times the relative risk of chest wall injuries than male rowers; they had half the relative risk of lumbar injuries of male rowers. The implementation of a dynamic ergometers testing policy (Concept II on sliders) was positively associated with a lower incidence and burden of low back injury compared with fixed ergometers (Concept II). Illness accounted for the greatest number of case presentations (128, 32.2% cases, 1.2% AD). Conclusions Chest wall and lumbar injuries caused training time loss. Policy decisions regarding ergometer testing modality were associated with lumbar injury rates. As in many sports, illness burden has been under-recognised in elite Australian rowers. ©

ESMLB : efficient switch migration-based load balancing for multicontroller SDN in IoT

- Sahoo, Kshira, Puthal, Deepak, Tiwary, Mayank, Usman, Muhammad, Sahoo, Bibhudatta, Wen, Zhenyu, Sahoo, Biswa, Ranjan, Rajiv

  • Authors: Sahoo, Kshira , Puthal, Deepak , Tiwary, Mayank , Usman, Muhammad , Sahoo, Bibhudatta , Wen, Zhenyu , Sahoo, Biswa , Ranjan, Rajiv
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Internet of Things Journal Vol. 7, no. 7 (2020), p. 5852-5860
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  • Description: In software-defined networks (SDNs), the deployment of multiple controllers improves the reliability and scalability of the distributed control plane. Recently, edge computing (EC) has become a backbone to networks where computational infrastructures and services are getting closer to the end user. The unique characteristics of SDN can serve as a key enabler to lower the complexity barriers involved in EC, and provide better quality-of-services (QoS) to users. As the demand for IoT keeps growing, gradually a huge number of smart devices will be connected to EC and generate tremendous IoT traffic. Due to a huge volume of control messages, the controller may not have sufficient capacity to respond to them. To handle such a scenario and to achieve better load balancing, dynamic switch migrating is one effective approach. However, a deliberate mechanism is required to accomplish such a task on the control plane, and the migration process results in high network delay. Taking it into consideration, this article has introduced an efficient switch migration-based load balancing (ESMLB) framework, which aims to assign switches to an underutilized controller effectively. Among many alternatives for selecting a target controller, a multicriteria decision-making method, i.e., the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS), has been used in our framework. This framework enables flexible decision-making processes for selecting controllers having different resource attributes. The emulation results indicate the efficacy of the ESMLB. © 2014 IEEE.

Estimating global injuries morbidity and mortality : methods and data used in the global burden of disease 2017 study

- James, Spencer, Castle, Chris, Dingels, Zachary, Fox, Jack, Rahman, Muhammad

  • Authors: James, Spencer , Castle, Chris , Dingels, Zachary , Fox, Jack , Rahman, Muhammad
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Injury Prevention Vol. 26, no. 1 (2020), p. I125-I153
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  • Description: Background: While there is a long history of measuring death and disability from injuries, modern research methods must account for the wide spectrum of disability that can occur in an injury, and must provide estimates with sufficient demographic, geographical and temporal detail to be useful for policy makers. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study used methods to provide highly detailed estimates of global injury burden that meet these criteria. Methods: In this study, we report and discuss the methods used in GBD 2017 for injury morbidity and mortality burden estimation. In summary, these methods included estimating cause-specific mortality for every cause of injury, and then estimating incidence for every cause of injury. Non-fatal disability for each cause is then calculated based on the probabilities of suffering from different types of bodily injury experienced. Results: GBD 2017 produced morbidity and mortality estimates for 38 causes of injury. Estimates were produced in terms of incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, cause-specific mortality, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life-years for a 28-year period for 22 age groups, 195 countries and both sexes. Conclusions: GBD 2017 demonstrated a complex and sophisticated series of analytical steps using the largest known database of morbidity and mortality data on injuries. GBD 2017 results should be used to help inform injury prevention policy making and resource allocation. We also identify important avenues for improving injury burden estimation in the future. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC B Y. Published by BMJ. ***Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Muhammad Rahman” is provided in this record***

Ethnobotany, rattan agroforestry, and conservation of ecosystem services in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

- Afentina, McShane, Paul, Wright, Wendy

  • Authors: Afentina , McShane, Paul , Wright, Wendy
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Agroforestry Systems Vol. 94, no. 2 (2020), p. 639-650
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  • Description: Rattan agroforestry is an important land use system in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, providing a wide range of products for subsistence communities. The ethnobotanical importance of rattan includes heritage values reflecting traditional ecological knowledge. This traditional forestry practice is consistent with necessary conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services currently threatened by expansion of oil palm plantations. We examined species composition and morphology (including life stages) of vegetation associated with rattan agroforests in the Katingan district, Central Kalimantan. An examination of harvested rattan plots revealed 101 species of vegetation of which 90% are considered to be useful (food, construction materials, medicines) and most (97%) were native species, typical of lowland tropical forest vegetation. Vegetation in the rattan agroforests was dominated by trees (in terms of species richness). There were 80 species of trees, representing 79% of the plants surveyed. Vitex pubescens (kaluan) had the highest importance value as it occupied more space, was represented by more individuals and was most frequently found in rattan gardens. These trees in general have a relatively open canopy with strong branches; properties considered ideal to support rattan. Canopy forming species are actively managed to provide for growth of useful understory vegetation (including rattan) important in the livelihoods of village communities. Rattan agroforests also provide cultural services reflecting traditional use (e.g. a sense of belonging and ancestral linkages for local forest-dependent communities). The importance of ethnobotanical approaches to rattan cultivation includes the socio-economic evaluation of land use and the promotion of sustainable land use policies in Indonesia. This is important in the context of oil palm expansion which has a demonstrably adverse impact on ecosystem services. © 2019, Springer Nature B.V.

Evading labour market regulations to preserve team performance : Evidence from the Victorian Football League, 1930-70

- Borrowman, Luc, Frost, Lionel, Halabi, Abdel, Schuwalow, Peter

  • Authors: Borrowman, Luc , Frost, Lionel , Halabi, Abdel , Schuwalow, Peter
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Business History Vol. 62, no. 8 (2020), p. 1303-1323
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  • Description: Sports teams that seek to maximise the number of wins, rather than profits, may not comply with league labour market regulations that compress payroll structures to promote even competition. This strategic behaviour depends on others, as teams choose a strategy to create team incentives, to which rivals will respond. A case study of four teams in a semi-professional Australian Rules football league tests the effectiveness of strategies to evade these regulations on winning percentages. Both compliance and non-compliance within this labour market regulation regime, based on different wage structures and talent distribution, were effective strategies to improve team performance.

Evaluating the Performances of the Agoraphilic Navigation Algorithm under Dead-Lock Situations

- Hewawasam, Hasitha, Ibrahim, Yousef, Kahandawa, Gayan, Choudhury, Tanveer

  • Authors: Hewawasam, Hasitha , Ibrahim, Yousef , Kahandawa, Gayan , Choudhury, Tanveer
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Conference proceedings , Conference paper
  • Relation: 29th IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics, ISIE 2020 Vol. 2020-June, p. 536-542
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  • Description: This paper presents a summary of the research which was conducted in developing a new free-space based (Agoraphilic) navigation algorithm. This new methodology is capable of maneuvering robots in static as well as dynamically cluttered unknown environments. The new algorithm uses only one force to drive the robot. This force is always an attractive force created by the freespace. This force is focused towards the goal by a force shaping module. Consequently, the robot is motivated to follow free-space directing towards the goal. As this method only based on the attractive forces, the robot always moves towards the goal as long as there is free-space . This method has eradicated many drawbacks of the traditional APF method. Several experimental tests were conducted using Turtlebot3 research platform. These tests were focused on testing the behavior of the new algorithm under dead-lock (local minima) situations for APF method. The test results proved that the proposed algorithm has successfully eliminated the local minima problem of APF method. © 2020 IEEE.