Sperm donor limits : controlling for the 'relative risks' associated with the multiple use of donors in donor insemination (DI)
- Authors: Sawyer, Neroli
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: "Investigates the central problem that most donor limits associated with multiple use of sperm donors in donor insemination (DI) vary considerably between jurisdictions, despite no evidence-base."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
The interplay between the experience of doctoral education and familial relationships for mid and late-career academics employed in Australian universities
- Authors: Webb, Janis
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: This investigation explored how family relationships are affected when adults with significant cross-generation responsibilities undertake doctoral study. How family commitments impact on these students’ study and work was also considered.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Unwrapping packages: Power politics and place in the delivery of community aged care
- Authors: Brown, Katrina
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: The thesis analyses the delivery of the Community Aged Care Packages Program, revealing the flaws in the program’s design and the consequences of this programmatic design for service providers in rural Victoria
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Utilization of the geared five-bar slider-crank mechanism for positive displacement machines.
- Authors: Kalim, Azfar
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: The conventional slider-crank mechanism which is often employed to drive reciprocating positive displacement machines is not adequate when it is necessary to produce non-uniform reciprocations in order to improve machine performance. Instead, this thesis dicusses the utilisation of the geared five-bar slider-crank mechanism to drive these machines." -- Introduction.
- Description: Doctor of Philosphy
Why winning a war is no longer necessary : modern warfare and the United States of America through the prism of the wars of Vietnam and Iraq
- Authors: Driver, Strobe
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: This thesis explores the role of warfare and the United States of America (US) in contemporary times. Prior to this, however, pre-modern warfare is examined to illustrate its dynamics prior to the emergence of the nation-state... This thesis is original because it steps beyond the boundaries of what war research has focussed on, which directly postulates victory or defeat in war is what provides unambiguous power-stakes. The thesis addresses why it is no longer necessary to win a war in order for power to be unambiguous and I contend, not needing to win a war, in the traditional sense of the term is the new objective of the US military, and the way in which this is accomplished is examined in detail."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Behind the masks: a study of teachers' work, emotions and school change
- Authors: McDonough, Sharon
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: This thesis examines the role of teachers’ emotions in their work, particularly during times of school reform and highlights the important role they play during change processes.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Development and evaluation of a pilot program to reduce stigma of mental illness among rural adolescents
- Authors: Newnham, Krystal
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Two forms of stigma – social and self – represent barriers to receiving professional help for rural Australian adolescents with mental health issues. Characteristics of rural communities such as self-reliance, social proximity and social exclusion are thought to compound experiences of stigma, creating a fear of seeking professional help. The aim of this project was to design and evaluate a stigma reduction program for rural secondary school students. A two-stage quasi-experimental research design was developed. Study 1 involved working collaboratively with seven students from a rural secondary school to develop a population specific program. The curriculum development process was evaluated and the final form of the intervention documented. Study 2 involved delivering and evaluating the intervention within the same secondary school. The aim of Study 2 was to decrease adolescents‟ stigma of mental illness, as measured by social and self stigmatic attitudes, desired social distance, and help-seeking intentions. The treatment group comprised students from year 7, 8, 9, and 12, and the control comprised a delayed treatment group of comparable students from these year levels. After accounting for attrition, the treatment group comprised 31 (16 females) participants, and the delayed treatment group 36 participants (16 females). Measures of stigmatic attitudes, desired social distance and help-seeking intentions were taken at pre-, post-, and 12-week follow-up. The intervention comprised two sessions each of 90 minutes spaced one week apart. Focus-group discussions held post-intervention expanded evaluations of the program; and suggested areas for improvement. The first hypothesis, that prior to intervention, adolescent boys would have significantly higher social stigma, self stigma, desired social distance from those with mental illness, and perceived barriers to seeking help than females, was supported. The second hypothesis, that participants in the treatment group would report lower social- and self-stigma, desired social distance, and fewer perceived barriers to seeking help post-intervention than pre-intervention and compared to the control group was supported in part. The third hypothesis, that reductions in social stigma, self stigma, desired social distance, and barriers to seeking help would be maintained at follow-up also received mixed support. Qualitative data confirmed that student attitudes towards those with mental health issues improved slightly; however, it also indicated that more change was possible and provided direction for future programs. Results have implications for anti-stigma campaign development and implementation. Suggestions for developing more effective anti-stigma programs that will help to lift the burden of stigma and to increase help-seeking behaviours for rural youth are discussed.
- Description: Doctor of Psychology
Differential desiring practice- A path into a Deleuze inspired literary discourse
- Authors: Gaudlitz, Erika
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: Drawing on Deleuze’s and Deleuze-Guattari’s differential and A path into a Deleuze inspired literary discourse in Difference and repetition and The logic of sense; Anti-Oedipus and A thousand plateaus and their engagement with literary texts in Kafka: Toward a minor literature; Proust and signs and Masochism: Coldness and cruelty, I unfold the following problematic in this thesis: What Deleuze (and Deleuze-Guattari) inspired critical practice can be theorized which allows the reading of works that resist interpretative representational practices? Proposing the differential, the libidinal, the schizoanalytic, the symptomatological and the simulacral as schizoid processes of discursive dissociation, this thesis theorizes and develops such a practice. More specifically I unravel and explore, theoretically and practically, the strands of what I term a differential desiring practice. Further I demonstrate the usefulness and power of this differential desiring practice, engaging first with Duras’ work as schizoid and liminal processes of event and becoming; and second with Carter’s work as schizoanalytic and parodic processes. Overall this thesis presents differential desiring practice as a reading and writing practice marked by thematic and stylistic schizodicity and discursive dissociation. Such a presentation not only opens a new path into a Deleuze inspired literary discourse by reappraising Deleuze’s and Deleuze-Guattari’s differential and schizoanalytic project, but puts forward a productive model for working with recalcitrant literary texts.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Effect of proteins and low molecular weight surfactants on spray-drying and powder properties of sugar-rich foods
- Authors: Jayasundera, Mithila
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: The effect of proteins and low molecular weight surfactants on spray-drying and powder properties of sugar-rich foods has been studied. This PhD study was aimed at quantifying both the extent and effects of the migration of protein and surfactant to the powder surface of spray-dried sugar-rich foods and their implications for powder formation yields and the powder properties such as moisture content, water activity, particle size, glass transition temperature, amorphous/crystalline nature, surface protein coverage, surface stickiness and reconstitution (solubility). The use of proteins and to a lesser extent surfactants as drying aids for sugar rich foods is novel. Sodium caseinate can act as a ‘smart’ drying aid in producing powders out of sugar-rich foods due to their higher solubility and better film-forming property. The remarkable behaviour of sodium caseinate as a drying aid, especially for sucrose is a very significant result both scientifically and commercially. The surface protein coverage and the recovery of the powder in sucrose–protein systems were found to be very sensitive in the presence of low molecular weight surfactants as the concentration of the sodium caseinate in the bulk was below its critical micelle concentration. However, the type of low molecular weight surfactants had no effect on the amorphous nature of fructose–protein powders mainly due to higher protein content (higher than critical micelle concentration) in these powders. It has been found that the nature of the sugar (sucrose or fructose), especially its glass transition temperature determines the extent of protein required to achieve a comparable powder recovery. The maximum solubility of the protein content of sugar–protein and sugar–protein–surfactant powders was achieved within 5 minutes of dissolution.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Efficient piecewise linear classifiers and applications
- Authors: Webb, Dean
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Supervised learning has become an essential part of data mining for industry, military, science and academia. Classification, a type of supervised learning allows a machine to learn from data to then predict certain behaviours, variables or outcomes. Classification can be used to solve many problems including the detection of malignant cancers, potentially bad creditors and even enabling autonomy in robots. The ability to collect and store large amounts of data has increased significantly over the past few decades. However, the ability of classification techniques to deal with large scale data has not been matched. Many data transformation and reduction schemes have been tried with mixed success. This problem is further exacerbated when dealing with real time classification in embedded systems. The real time classifier must classify using only limited processing, memory and power resources. Piecewise linear boundaries are known to provide efficient real time classifiers. They have low memory requirements, require little processing effort, are parameterless and classify in real time. Piecewise linear functions are used to approximate non-linear decision boundaries between pattern classes. Finding these piecewise linear boundaries is a difficult optimization problem that can require a long training time. Multiple optimization approaches have been used for real time classification, but can lead to suboptimal piecewise linear boundaries. This thesis develops three real time piecewise linear classifiers that deal with large scale data. Each classifier uses a single optimization algorithm in conjunction with an incremental approach that reduces the number of points as the decision boundaries are built. Two of the classifiers further reduce complexity by augmenting the incremental approach with additional schemes. One scheme uses hyperboxes to identify points inside the so-called “indeterminate” regions. The other uses a polyhedral conic set to identify data points lying on or close to the boundary. All other points are excluded from the process of building the decision boundaries. The three classifiers are applied to real time data classification problems and the results of numerical experiments on real world data sets are reported. These results demonstrate that the new classifiers require a reasonable training time and their test set accuracy is consistently good on most data sets compared with current state of the art classifiers.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Getting traction on transition lived experience and first year on-campus residential transition
- Authors: Sheehan, Anne Marie
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text: false
- Description: In this research I have explored the transition experience of first year on-campus residential students and the challenges faced during the early phase of living in the two on-campus halls of residence in one rural Australian university."
- Description: Doctor of Philosphy
Managing international knowledge transfer in Chinese firms
- Authors: Tian, Feng
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text: false
- Description: This dissertation reports on an empirical study of the management of knowledge and technology transfer by Chinese companies acquiring product, process and organizational knowledge from overseas partners.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Posttraumatic growth in refugees: The role of shame and guilt-proneness, world assumptions and coping strategies
- Authors: Kopecki, Vedrana
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: This thesis investigated the role of shame and guilt-proneness, assumptions about the world and coping strategies in the development of Posttraumatic Stress and Posttraumatic growth.
- Description: Doctor of Psychology
Raw politics : politics without the State
- Authors: Eyssens, Terry
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "... the thesis examines traditional anarchist theorisations of 'politics without the state' and finds them to be as contained by the State and its founding concepts as the political liberalism of our present. All that remains to be salvaged from anarchist thought is the idea expressed in its name: that is, to be 'without rulers'. In order to escape such conceptual containment, Raw politics aims to produce a 'stripped-down' conceptualisation of politics." - Abstract.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Regulatory network discovery using heuristics
- Authors: Zarnegar, Armita
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: This thesis improves the GRN discovery process by integrating heuristic information via a co-regulation function, a post-processing procedure, and a Hub Network algorithm to build the backbone of the network.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
The relationship between internalised homophobia, sense of belonging to specific communities and depressive symptoms among self-identified gay men
- Authors: Davidson, Kenneth
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: This study explored depressive symptoms among gay men. Gay men who internalised anti-gay attitudes experienced more depressive symptoms, where as gay men who reported a sense of belonging to gay friends and the general community reported fewer depressive symptoms.
- Description: Doctor of Psychology (Clinical)
Trace : an exploration of alternative means of documenting ephemeral environmental art
- Authors: Shiell, Michael
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
- Description: The field of Ephemeral Environmental Art is now very well established in contemporary arts practice. The ephemerality of the work together with the fact that its location is frequently inaccessible results in the need for documentation. Photography is the primary means by which these artworks are recorded. The role of photography is very important, however, it is also limited as a documentary outcome. As a visual artist who creates Ephemeral Environmental Art I am concerned that while photography can quickly and relatively easily create a visual record of the created form, its highly refined view of time and space is also problematic. The value placed on an instantaneous moment denies the process underpinning the interaction. Additionally, the camera as a mechanical intermediary between the work and its representation is counter to the intimate, viscerally known manipulation of materials that occurs onsite. Therefore a sense of disjunction can occur. There are isolated examples of artists using alternative documentary formats in the recording of this art form. This research engages with these alternative image-making techniques to explore and extend the notion of documentation. While direct reference to the form is maintained, the documentary outcomes are enriched with subtle and appropriate allusions to the site, the significance of change over time and the process of material manipulation in the construction of the artwork. This practice-led investigation has found that these alternative image-making techniques can produce meaningful forms of visual documentation. The considered application of these techniques, which is informed by the critical engagement with contemporary theoretical concepts, allows for the creation of conceptually appropriate documents. While the artworks demonstrate these enriched outcomes, no single documentary technique has been identified as applicable in all instances of recording Ephemeral Environmental Art.
An identification of the meanings(s) of 'development' in a Chinese village context : The first piece of a jigsaw puzzle
- Authors: Roy, Cameron
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: This thesis examines the meaning(s) of ‘development’ within a rural village in Sichuan province, China... Importantly, this thesis is a unique snapshot account containing grassroots stories about what development means from the voice and perspective of average Han villagers in a single village in contemporary rural China. (Taken from Abstract)
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Consultation and organisational maturity in the Victorian construction industry
- Authors: Ayers, Gerard
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Consultation is generally acknowledged both in Australia and internationally, as being essential if high levels of occupational health and safety (OHS) are to be achieved and maintained. In Victoria, such is the recognition of the important role that consultation plays in OHS, that it is mandated under the Victorian OHS regulatory framework. Indeed, all Australian OHS statutes now make provision, to varying degrees, for consultation to occur when dealing with OHS matters. This is principally conducted through OHS representatives and OHS committees. However, there is a growing body of opinion which raises concerns over whether such legislative provisions that provide for OHS consultation, is sufficiently adequate to ensure that the consultation is both meaningful and effective in terms of OHS outcomes. If this is the case, what might be missing or lacking from the consultation process, especially in hazardous and dangerous industries where OHS success would appear to be imperative? The Victorian construction industry, like the construction industry in general, is acknowledged for its dangerous and hazardous nature. It has a large transitory workforce with little permanent job security and often suffers from a multifarious and disjointed work organisation structure. Such features tend to work against an environment that openly recognises and encourages meaningful and effective consultation. These conditions also tend to confound the development of any kind of social and positive learning and communicative culture within the industry, leading to an underutilization of the knowledge and skill contained within the workforce. As well as failing to bring to fruition the full participation of workers in the management of OHS, the underutilization of knowledge and skill is potentially one of the largest hidden costs that an organisation may incur. The notion of organisational and cultural maturity is acknowledged both internationally and in Australia as a useful concept that can assist organisations in achieving higher standards and levels of OHS. This is especially so in high risk and hazardous industries such as the petrochemical, oil refinery and aviation industries. However, organisational and cultural maturity is arguably a relatively new and under-researched construct in the Victorian building and construction industry, while the concept of consultation within both the industry and the organisational maturity paradigm has not yet been sufficiently explored. The role that moral and ethical principles play in consultation is now beginning to emerge and gain wider recognition within the literature. This research project set out to examine how some of these principles were applied by senior site managers and OHS representatives of five Victorian construction companies during OHS consultation at five different constructions sites, and whether this consultation could be considered to be meaningful and effective. The companies who participated in this project were each allocated a level of organisational maturity, dependent upon how they managed various aspects of their business operations in terms of OHS. Senior managers and OHS representatives were chosen as participants in the research because they are generally acknowledged as the critical vectors in the sharing and transferring of knowledge and skill at the workplace. The data from this research suggest that regardless of the level of organisational maturity each organisation was deemed to have reached, and no matter how the individual participants applied the particular moral and ethical principles used during this research, the OHS consultation that took place on the different construction sites was limited to, and focused primarily on, everyday operational and execution aspects of the job, rather than more strategic and longer term OHS issues. The practical implications of this research are that if OHS consultation between senior managers and OHS representatives can be conducted in such a way as to openly and unambiguously recognise and apply particular moral and ethical principles, and if consultation is allowed to focus on more strategic and longer term OHS and organisational aspects of a construction project, this may yield more benefits, in terms of OHS outcomes, for all industry participants.
Forensic identification and detection of hidden and obfuscated malware
- Authors: Alazab, Mamoun
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: The revolution in online criminal activities and malicious software (malware) has posed a serious challenge in malware forensics. Malicious attacks have become more organized and purposefully directed. With cybercrimes escalating to great heights in quantity as well as in sophistication and stealth, the main challenge is to detect hidden and obfuscated malware. Malware authors use a variety of obfuscation methods and specialized stealth techniques of information hiding to embed malicious code, to infect systems and to thwart any attempt to detect them, specifically with the use of commercially available anti-malware engines. This has led to the situation of zero-day attacks, where malware inflict systems even with existing security measures. The aim of this thesis is to address this situation by proposing a variety of novel digital forensic and data mining techniques to automatically detect hidden and obfuscated malware. Anti-malware engines use signature matching to detect malware where signatures are generated by human experts by disassembling the file and selecting pieces of unique code. Such signature based detection works effectively with known malware but performs poorly with hidden or unknown malware. Code obfuscation techniques, such as packers, polymorphism and metamorphism, are able to fool current detection techniques by modifying the parent code to produce offspring copies resulting in malware that has the same functionality, but with a different structure. These evasion techniques exploit the drawbacks of traditional malware detection methods, which take current malware structure and create a signature for detecting this malware in the future. However, obfuscation techniques aim to reduce vulnerability to any kind of static analysis to the determent of any reverse engineering process. Furthermore, malware can be hidden in file system slack space, inherent in NTFS file system based partitions, resulting in malware detection that even more difficult.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy