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Evaluation of the nature based community recovery project - extended 2023
Get PDFThe Australian bushfire season of 2019-20 was unprecedented in its intensity with fires burning vast areas across Victoria. The impact on the environment, communities and businesses was devastating. Zoos Victoria, ARI (DELWP) partnered with Bushfire Recovery Victoria (BRV) to work with local communities in east Gippsland to support people’s recovery through experiencing, supporting and witnessing nature’s recovery. The nature-based community projects were diverse and varied such as community gardens, fencing, planting of native plants and the establishment of a fire-resistant garden to be used for educational purposes. In Phase 1 of this project, evaluation of projects that received grants of up to $5,000 that were made available to community organisations and social enterprises was undertaken. Evaluated projects were those that would benefit the environment, wildlife and habitats and actively support the recovery of fire-affected communities. Phase 2 of this project aimed to investigate how the broader communities in East Gippsland interacted with nature whilst healing personally and as a community from the Black Summer bushfires. Investigation into how communities in East Gippsland interact with nature could provide insight into future recovery projects and ensure that sustainable nature-based recovery solutions for bushfire-impacted communities could be established. The Collaborative Evaluation and Research Centre (CERC) were commissioned to explore how nature had improved the recovery of remote and rural communities affected by bushfires. Data were collected from June 2023 - September 2023 through a nature-based community recovery project survey and community interviews
Telling adults about it : children’s experience of disclosing interpersonal violence in community sport
Get PDFA challenge in safeguarding children from interpersonal violence (IV) in sport is the reliance on self-disclosures and a limited understanding of the frequency, barriers to and process of disclosures of IV. Through a mixed-methods design, combining survey and interviews, we explored the frequencies of childhood disclosures of experiences of IV in Australian community sport as well as who children disclosed to and how the interaction unfolded. Those who experienced peer violence disclosed at the highest frequency (35%), followed by coach (27%) or parent (13%) perpetrated IV. A parent/carer was most often the adult that the child disclosed to. Interviews highlighted how the normalisation of violence influenced all aspects of the disclosure and elements of stress buffering (normalising or rationalising) particularly underpinned the disclosure interaction. Policies and practices should explicitly identify all forms of IV in sport as prohibited conduct; education and intervention initiatives should target parents as first responders to disclosures. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Slope stability analysis considering fully saturated poro-elasto-plasticity by an image-based scaled boundary finite element approach
Get PDFOpen pit mines are large geotechnical structures. Their stability is an important consideration in the mining industry. The deformations of geotechnical structures often involve the coupled interaction between the pore fluid pressure and the nonlinear deformation of soil, characterised by poro-elasto-plastic behaviour. This paper develops the scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM) to address poro-elasto-plastic in slope stability problems. It builds upon a previously developed elasto-plastic formulation to consider the effect of pore fluid pressure and its interaction with the nonlinear deformation within the soil. The pore pressure field introduces an additional variable in the governing equations that is similarly discretised using SBFEM shape functions. The SBFEM is implemented together with a pixel-based quadtree mesh generation technique, enabling automatic meshing directly from digital images. This leads to efficient automation when modelling problems with iterative changes in the geometry such as in optimisation of construction processes during the rehabilitation of slopes. The formulation is validated first using a standard numerical benchmark. Application of the developed technique in construction applications in slopes where the stability and effect of pore water pressure is considered e.g., tailings dam construction and optimisation of backfilling process is demonstrated in three examples to demonstrate feasibility. © 2023 The Author
Yoga in schools that contributes to a positive classroom atmosphere for young children and educators : a PRISMA scoping review
Get PDFIntroduction: This scoping review aims to examines yoga taught to children in a variety of different educational settings including after-school and in-school activity. Yoga has been found to support children in regard to wellbeing in a number of ways. Methods: A scoping review using a systematic approach was undertaken using EBSCO, CINAHL, Medline and Psycinfo. Google Scholar was used to search for grey literature and journal reference lists reviewed. Results: Fourteen studies were identified within the review that describe how children are able to understand and regulate their bodies through movement. As such four main themes were identified and included: (1) yoga and psychological wellbeing in school children; (2) yoga and self-regulation in pre-school children (3) yoga and cognitive function in school children; and (4) yoga and contemplative practices. Conclusion: Children who participate in yoga during and after school were framing their world using their own creativity and fantasy in an attempt to understand and navigate it. The physical and psychological difficulty of some of the yoga shapes assisted children to develop a persistent mindset which enabled them to use in other unrelated contexts, such as difficulties at school. Copyright © 2024 Martin, Peck and Terry
A new closed-loop solar power forecasting method with sample selection
No full textIn this article, a new short-term solar power forecasting method is proposed which has a closed-loop structure composed of point-estimating and range-classifying parts. If the forecasts generated by these parts for solar power are inconsistent, the feedback loop sends appropriate signals to them to correct their predictions. The feedback loop iterates until consistent forecasts are generated for the solar power by the point-estimating and range-classifying parts. This enables the proposed closed-loop forecasting method to enhance its solar power prediction accuracy and reliability. Furthermore, a novel sample selection approach, different from feature selection methods, is devised to mine the historical data for finding the most informative training samples for training the proposed forecasting engine. The effectiveness of the proposed solar power forecasting method is illustrated by testing it on some real-world solar farms and comparing its results with the results of several state-of-the-art solar power prediction methods. © 2010-2012 IEEE
Maturity method to estimate early age concrete strength in cold weather : alternative activation energy calibration
Get PDFMany critical concreting activities require the determination of the in-place concrete strength. It can be costly to wait too long to execute these activities, but acting too early can have a negative impact on structural performance. Conventional moulded concrete cylinders and alternative strength assessment methods such as the maturity method are commonly used to assess concrete’s in-place strength. This study is focused on a special case when the maturity method is applied for evaluating concrete strength in cold weather at an early age. Specifically, the study proposes an alternative method for calibrating the activation energy, an input for the maturity method. Concretes cured at two different temperatures are used to calibrate the activation energy. The maturity method based on this activation energy predicted the cold weather concrete’s compressive strength satisfactorily. It was also found that for a successful application of the proposed activation energy calibration, the two temperatures should represent the expected minimum and maximum temperature at the site. Furthermore, the results showed that the maturity method based on the proposed activation energy calibration method performed better than the conventional cylinder method. ©, Engineers Australia
Assessing the validity and reliability of a baseball pitch discrimination online task
No full textThere has been an increasing interest in training perceptual skills in sports through online video-based methods, particularly in baseball. However, there is little empirical evidence related to the reliability and validity of such online methods for the assessment of these skill. Here we developed an online task to assess pitch discrimination and evaluated (a) inter-item reliability, (b) reliability in assessment compared to an in-person task, also tapping into external validity and (c) discriminability across different skill groups. We also compared performance on a non-sport specific Dynamic Visual Acuity task (DVA), thought to tap into underlying visual skills comprising pitch discrimination. Skilled, Varsity-level baseball players (n = 17) were compared to novices (n = 14) when discriminating pitches thrown by two different pitchers, across three pitch types, edited to progressively remove sections of ball flight (3 time points). The online task discriminated across skill groups, showed good reliability across repeated viewings and from the online task to an in-person assessment of skilled athletes (n = 8). There were, however, differences in reliability and discriminant validity based on the type of pitcher, with one pitcher being responded to more accurately and reliably. Skilled participants showed good discriminability between fastballs and change-ups. There were no group differences for DVA, nor did it correlate with pitch discrimination for the skilled group. These data illustrate the reliability of online video assessments, but raise issues concerning discriminability across different pitchers and when standing ready to swing. Greater sensitivity testing of such assessments is still needed, within and across skill groups. © 2024 International Society of Sport Psychology
The Strange afterlife of L. F. Giblin
No full textLong before the publication of Giblin’s Platoon by William Coleman, Selwyn Cornish and Alf Hagger in 2006 there was an earlier attempt at writing L. F. Giblin’s biography. This paper examines the attempts made to write it in the immediate years following his death in 1951. While a biography was at one stage in prospect, it was replaced by an edited book of essays written by his colleagues celebrating both Giblin’s many-sided life as well as his contribution to Australian economic thought. Unfortunately, it became a protracted production with some key players not contributing; nor did it prove an entirely satisfactory volume on disclosing what made Giblin tick. In the 1970s Sir Roland Wilson led a campaign to enable the University of Tasmania to have a tangible memorial to celebrate Giblin’s association with that place of higher learning. This effort, too, led to a rather bizarre outcome
Hydromechanical contributions to mine stability linked to aquifer depressurisation and heterogenous material underlying the mine void, development of conceptual model
No full textTertiary Brown Coal deposits in the Gippsland Basin are mined for power generation in the Latrobe Valley (major tertiary basin, Victoria), with mining progressing for over 100 years at Yallourn Mine. These geological deposits formed in an old swamp land, has historically, and continues, to pose challenges to mining operations linked to groundwater (surface and subsurface). The coal winning related activities continually create a dynamic environment for the geological stress regime in and around the mine void. This is magnified by surface hydrology sourced from shallow overburden aquifer, rainfall runoff, adjacent river system(s), and groundwater within the ore body and the underlying stratigraphy. These are contributing features to geotechnical performance of such mining operations, and thus require an integrated approach to assess their coupled contributions to mine stability. Hydromechanical factors have been conceptualized for the Yallourn Mine site to better understand factors contributing to mine stability with emphasis on aquifer depressurisation responses and heterogeneity of materials underlying the mine void. For a selective interval, the loading and unloading factors (episodic events) can be collated for consideration and their scale of contributions to mine stability. Some key data sets have been extracted that best represent the resultant changes to groundwater and ground movement during such episodes such that their hydromechanical behaviors can be better represented. Key contributing factors and data inputs have been explore to propose a preliminary conceptual hydromechanical coupling model complimentary to this mining environment. Considering the transient pore pressures across the full depth profile and assessing these with the parallel episodic events and the heterogeneity of the materials, can further represent the key factors defining the resultant stress envelope (extent of ground movements) and interpreted stress variations, during and post the assessed episodes. Findings of this study will guide development of an analytical method that qualifies relevant episodic data with a focus on direct and secondary contributions from aquifer depressurisation allowing for an improved understanding of hydrocoupling contributions to mine stability. © 2024 National Committee on Water Engineering, Engineers Australia
Estimation of optimal hedge ratio : a wild bootstrap approach
Get PDFThis paper proposes a new approach to estimating the minimum variance hedge ratio (MVHR) based on the wild bootstrap and evaluates the approach using a spectrum of conservative to aggressive alternative hedging strategies associated with the percentiles of the MVHR’s bootstrap distribution. This approach is suggested to be more informative and effective relative to the conventional method of hedging solely based on a single-point estimate. Furthermore, the percentile-based MVHRs are robust to influential outliers, non-normality, and unknown forms of heteroskedasticity. The bootstrap percentile-based hedging strategies’ effectiveness is compared with those from the naïve method and the asymmetric DCC-GARCH model for a range of financial assets and commodities. The bootstrap percentile-based hedging technique is identified to outperform its alternatives in terms of hedging effectiveness, downside risk, and return variability, suggesting its superiority to other methods in both the literature and in practice. © 2024 by the authors