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News Audience Experiences with Local Visual News: A Digital Diary Study
No full textFocusing attention on the visual mode in news is essential given the visual nature of online news environments, the necessity of engaging audiences inundated in a flood of content, and the way that visual news can spark a unique reaction with its viewers. Given this, the present study explores the topics represented in visual news—photographs, other types of images, or videos—that non-urban audiences regard as surprising, interesting, or remarkable. It also identifies the specific aspects that explain why participants find these examples distinctive. To do this, the project uses a digital diary study method to better understand news audiences’ in situ encounters with local visual news. Visuals related to four topics—crime and justice, nature/pets/animals, politics, and economics—were the most prevalent in the sample. Participants’ responses around why the examples were interesting, surprising, or remarkable coalesced around five reasons: aspects of the image or video itself, aspects of the presentation context, some personal connection to the image or video, a connection one’s friends, colleagues, or family have or could potentially have to the image or video, or the perceived relevance or impact of the example for the local community writ large.</p
Single cell oils from oleaginous yeasts and metabolic engineering for potent cultivated lipids: A review with food application perspectives
No full textSingle Cell Oils (SCO), produced by oleaginous yeasts, are emerging as a promising alternative to traditional edible lipids due to their ability to minimise environmental impact and their high capacity for oil accumulation. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the advancements and future prospects in SCO production, with a particular focus on its role as a sustainable and nutritionally valuable lipid alternative. An important advantage of SCO production is its ecological sustainability, as it can utilise various substrates, including agricultural and industrial byproducts. However, to address the low recovery efficiency caused by inadequate biomass yield, several strategies have been proposed, including process optimisation and non-metabolic/metabolic engineering approaches. Effective recovery of lipids also requires the optimisation of downstream processes, particularly the disruption of cellular structures through the integration of sonication, thermal, acid/alkaline treatments, and glass bead-assisted homogenisation. Despite its potential, there is currently limited empirical research on the application of SCO in food technology, especially in terms of assessing their safety for human consumption. For SCO to become viable alternatives in food processing, challenges such as economic competitiveness with traditional food ingredients, technological feasibility, toxicological safety, and consumer acceptance must be addressed.</p
The effect of varying casein to whey protein ratio on physicochemical and structural properties of lactose and maltodextrin modified liquid and concentrated milk-tea blends
No full textMilk tea is popular for its distinct taste and nutritional benefits. While adjusting the casein-to-whey protein ratio is commonly used to enhance milk-based formulas, its effects on milk tea quality are under-researched. This study investigates the effect of varying casein-to-whey (C: W; 80:20, 70:30, 60:40) and lactose-to-maltodextrin ratio (L:M; 90:10, 80:20, 75:25) on physicochemical and structural properties of milk-tea, including both post-pasteurized and concentrated skim milk-tea (SM-T) and fat filled milk-tea (FM-T) formulations. The primary focus is optimizing the retention of total phenolic content (TPC) to enhance the nutritional value of these formulations. The results showed that specific combinations of ratios significantly enhanced the TPC in the milk-tea such as FM-T with L:M ratios of 90:10 and 75:25, combined with C:W ratios of 70:30, and skim milk-tea formulations with L:M ratios of 90:10 and 80:20, combined with C:W ratios of 80:20 and 70:30, respectively. This enhancement was attributed to various mechanisms, including maltodextrin-phenolic interaction, enhanced protein-phenolic binding with whey proteins, the synergistic/combined effects of maltodextrin and whey proteins, fat-maltodextrin-whey protein interactions, and increased protein structural stability with higher maltodextrin and whey protein levels. Therefore, optimizing milk-tea stability and phenolic enhancement through L:M and C:W ratio adjustments provides a promising approach for enhancing final milk-tea properties.</p
Impact of Livestream Shopping on Online Shopping Behaviour
No full textLivestream shopping has rapidly emerged as a dominant online retail channel, reshaping the e-commerce landscape and consumer purchasing behaviour. While this evolution has drawn increasing academic and industry attention, research examining the actual behavioural outcomes of marketing strategies—especially through big data and psychologically grounded experimentation—remains limited. This thesis addresses this gap by investigating how livestream marketing strategies influence consumer behaviour across different stages of the marketing funnel, from attention and interest to decision and action. It further explores the psychological mechanisms and motivational drivers that shape consumers' responses under time-sensitive and socially interactive contexts.
To this end, three empirical studies were conducted, each aligned with a different stage of the marketing funnel and capturing distinct dimensions of consumer motivation and engagement. The first study, “Time’s Up! The Effects of Marketing Time Pressure on Sales and User Stickiness in Livestream Shopping,” examines how time-pressure strategies influence immediate consumer responses (i.e., the action stage). Drawing on over 1,800 hours of livestream video and more than 99,000 minute-level observations on sales and viewer retention, this study utilises machine learning techniques to identify scarcity-based persuasion strategies, including limited-time scarcity, limited-quantity scarcity, and special promotional conditions. The livestream video data were first transcribed into timestamped text, which was then merged with platform analytics capturing both transactional outcomes (purchase behaviour) and relational outcomes (viewer retention) at the minute level. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modelling was applied to the panelised transcript data to detect periods of heightened time pressure. Subsequently, econometric modelling using a random effects specification was employed to examine the effects of time pressure, along with other influential factors such as seller attributes and product characteristics, on both sales and retention outcomes. Findings reveal that while time pressure significantly boosts sales conversion, it reduces user stickiness, indicating a trade-off between short-term gains and long-term customer relationship. The effectiveness of these tactics also varies based on seller characteristics, with mega and macro influencers outperforming micro sellers. This study highlights the instrumental role of urgency-based strategies in driving transactional outcomes at the lower funnel.
Building on these results, the second study, “See Now, Buy Now: The Impact of Time Pressure on Purchase Acceleration in Livestream Shopping,” delves into the underlying psychological mechanisms that govern accelerated decision-making under time pressure. Anchored in Construal Level Theory (CLT), this experimental study explores how temporal distance perceptions shape consumers' transition through the evaluation and decision stages of the funnel. The research design employed an AI-generated video to simulate a livestream shopping session under two experimental conditions. The time pressure condition featured cues such as countdown timers and urgency-oriented language to induce a heightened sense of urgency, while the control condition included reassurances from the seller encouraging participants to take their time in making purchase decisions. Two product types were featured: a utilitarian item (a basic white T-shirt for everyday wear) and a hedonic item (a ticket to a favourite artist’s concert). Following the viewing, participants completed a questionnaire designed to assess the effects of time pressure on purchase acceleration, as well as the influence of potential moderating variables. Time pressure was found to reduce perceived temporal distance, heightening the salience of immediate rewards and prompting quicker decisions. This effect is further moderated by social dynamics: consumer perceptions of community building and social competition amplify purchase acceleration, as does susceptibility to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Additionally, motivational differences across product types reveal that utilitarian products benefit more from time pressure than hedonic ones. This study offers a nuanced understanding of how psychological distance and social cues interact to influence mid-funnel behaviours.
Extending the inquiry to the top of the funnel, the third study, “Fur Real: The Power of Pet Influencers in Shaping Customer Engagement in Livestream Shopping,” investigates emerging marketing strategies that capture consumer attention and foster engagement. Grounded in Regulatory Focus Theory, the study explores how different types of pet influencers (dogs vs. cats) trigger distinct motivational orientations—promotion vs. prevention focus—that drive varied viewer engagement behaviours. Three studies were employed to examine pet influencers’ impact on viewer engagement behaviours in livestream shopping at multiple dimensions (i.e. virtual gifting, likes and comments) from both seller and viewer perspective. To analyse 14,567 minutes of unstructured livestream video data, both the videos and crawled viewer comments were transcribed into per-second text segments and combined with corresponding engagement behaviours. The first study presents descriptive insights into pet influencer livestream sessions. Using the GPT-4o large language model with chain-of-thought prompting, the results reveal that cat influencer streams are characterised by relaxed tones and neutral emotional expressions, often focusing on product information. In contrast, dog influencer sessions exhibit higher levels of positive emotions and pet attachment. The second and third studies apply econometric modelling to examine the effects of pet type (dog versus cat) and discussion content, including aspects, emotions, and sentiments, on viewer engagement behaviours. These analyses draw on 70,299 observations of seller speech and 761,495 observations of individual viewer comments, demonstrating how interactions in pet influencers’ livestream session impact on virtual gifting, likes and comments. Results show that dog influencers drive immediate action through virtual gifting and product-related discussions, while cat influencers foster passive, emotionally driven engagement through likes and comments. These findings demonstrate how symbolic and emotional cues at the awareness and interest stages of the funnel can shape consumer interaction patterns and engagement intensity.
Collectively, these three studies form a coherent narrative that spans the full marketing funnel—from engagement to evaluation to purchase—while unpacking the roles of time pressure, psychological distance, social dynamics, and motivational triggers in livestream shopping. This thesis adopts a holistic and methodologically innovative approach, combining AI-enabled data analytics, experimental design, and real-world business data. It contributes to the advancement of consumer research by extending Construal Level Theory and Regulatory Focus Theory into livestream commerce contexts and offers actionable insights for practitioners on how to optimise urgency tactics, tailor promotional strategies to product type and consumer profiles, and leverage emerging influencer formats to drive conversions and engagement. In doing so, it equips brands with data-driven strategies to navigate the evolving livestream shopping as emerging e-commerce channel and remain competitive in digital marketplace.</p
Non-Malicious Data Breach (NMDB) Behaviours Within the Australian Home Context
No full textInformation security management in the home context has become a priority for Australian
organisations because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. There is a growing body of
literature studying employees’ non-malicious security violation policy behaviour within the
workplace context. However, this study is the first to investigate a novel and critical threat:
employees’ non-malicious data breach (NMDB) behaviour in the home context, which is
neither adequately theorised nor empirically tested. Employing a composite behaviour model
(CBM) approach, this research examines different kinds of NMDB behaviour and the factors
that lead to this behaviour.
In this research study, an embedded sequential mixed-methods approach that included
qualitative and quantitative methods was undertaken to investigate such behaviour and its
influencing factors. This research study has two stages. These comprise a qualitative stage that
developed and tested realistic hypothetical scenarios representing non-malicious violation
behaviour with five Australian employees who work from different industries. The main
method is the quantitative stage in which data are collected and analysed with respect to the
relationships between behavioural factors. A survey questionnaire was administered to collect
the data. Using web-based online surveys, 324 useful responses were obtained from employees
working in various industries and regions across Australia. Collected data were analysed using
SPSS and PLS-SEM. Construct validity and reliability tests were conducted, and the structural
model was assessed to examine the research hypotheses (Chapter 7).
Results indicated that the attitude towards behaviour, habit, perceived identity match, and role
of responsibility positively influence NMDB behaviour. The habit factor plays a vital role in
explaining this behaviour. Furthermore, personal self-sanction along with general information
security awareness variables plays an essential part in discouraging such NMDB behaviour,
including the perceived identity match factor. This research contributes to the body of
knowledge by highlighting unexplored non-malicious security violation behaviour within the
Australian home context. This, in turn, helps to highlight the threat to Australian industries,
foregrounding the need to enhance their employees’ security awareness.</p
In One Hundred Thousand Yearsw
No full textResearch background In One Hundred Thousand Yearsw is a 2017 book by Adam Cruickshank published by True Belief (ISBN 978‑0‑9871705‑8‑3). It responds to the practice of the Melbourne collective Open Spatial Workshop (Terri Bird, Bianca Hester, Scott Mitchell), operating both as the first published monograph on OSW and as an artist’s book. Launched at the National Gallery of Victoria with speakers Spiros Panigirakis and Helen Hughes.Research contribution The book couples documentary and bibliographic materials with typographic and structural interventions (tête‑bêche binding; waterless offset printing, cold glue binding). It includes a complete, intentionally overprinted and illegible bootleg of OSW’s second monograph, Converging in time. It also includes various commissioned texts, including Spiros Panigirakis’s essay “A Name is not a Verb” (pp. 100–121), a contribution by Jon Roffe, to frame OSW’s methods across art, design and philosophy and a text from Dermot Henry, Deputy Director, Sciences, Division of Research and Collections at Museums Victoria.Research significance Issued by an independent art publisher with an established catalogue, the book provides a durable, ISBN‑tracked reference for OSW’s practice, cited on OSW’s own site, indexed by Google Books and included in many national library collections. The NGV launch situates the publication within a major public‑gallery programme, evidencing reach beyond the immediate artist network. Book is sold out from a print run of 300.</p
Radiant Systems
No full textBackground: ‘Radiant Systems: Threshold Fields’ (37PK Haarlem, 2025) was an international invitation developing work for ‘The LeWitt Tapestry Suite’. Drawing on the Chester Studio, the exhibition investigated radiant thresholds where figuration and abstraction, intuition and analysis converge. Central was the exploration of sequence, serialisation, repetition, and reversal between duets as architectonic states in the Chester studio. Research Question: ‘How can radiant thresholds, re-sited through LeWitt’s studio legacies, operate as material-intuitive zones where figuration/abstraction and intuition/analysis coalesce, generating processes that culminate in a three-layered, light-emitting tapestry?’ Significance: ‘Radiant Systems’ reframed personal languages as radiant sequences and duets, establishing thresholds as active knowledge fields. Engaging David Areford's ‘Locating Sol LeWitt’ it positioned the studio as both geographic anchor and knowledge structure where process itself produces outcomes. By embedding Jewish and Christian traditions within systemic possibilities, the project advanced ‘Radiant Systems’ as a theological inquiry also, opening new ground for global LeWitt studies. Contribution: The exhibition comprised nine works in drawing and installation, with ‘Radiant Reversals’ as the central piece. Engaging LeWitt’s Jewish heritage in dialogue with Christian iconography, it positioned reversal as both method and metaphor. Developed during the Haarlem residency, the series employed colour, folded paper, tape, thread, and light-based sequences to test threshold possibilities. The project reimagined the “threshold” not as boundary but as radiant field, producing a transferable methodology for material abstraction. Linking LeWitt’s Chester Studio to contemporary contexts and extending research from ‘The Tapestry of Light’, it generated new knowledge fields in the thresholds within LeWitt’s legacies.</p
Online electric vehicle charging detection based on memory-based transformer using smart meter data
No full textThe increasing adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) presents significant challenges for electricity grid management, particularly in accurately identifying EV charging patterns to optimize distribution network planning. Most recent works focus on EV load forecasting for future grid planning and do not take into account real-time EV charging identification. This paper introduces a novel unsupervised memory-based transformer (M-TR) model for real-time detection of EV charging events from streaming smart meter data. The proposed method is designed for deployment by Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) and can be integrated into smart grid management systems to enhance grid stability and demand response strategies. The M-TR model leverages an encoder-decoder architecture: the encoder captures coarse-scale historical patterns over an extended temporal window, while the decoder focuses on fine-scale details within a local window. A key innovation of this approach is the dual memory comparison mechanism, which enables faster real-time inference by dynamically integrating historical and recent data. Unlike existing methods, the M-TR requires no prior knowledge of EV charging profiles and only uses real power consumption data from non-EV users. The goal of this approach is to automatically identify EV charging events from behind the meter aggregated smart meter data without requiring labeled EV data or additional sensors, thereby enabling real-time monitoring, reducing grid uncertainties, and supporting load balancing strategies. Benchmarking against state-of-the-art unsupervised models, the M-TR achieves superior performance with an average F-score of 0.844 and an AUC of 0.910, demonstrating its accuracy and robustness. Additionally, the model’s efficient execution time of 1.2 s per 1-min data sample highlights its suitability for real-time applications. This work underscores the importance of incorporating global temporal context and dual memory mechanisms in EV charging detection, offering a scalable solution for integrating EVs into the power grid.</p
Performance-Guaranteed Finite-Time Secondary Control for Islanded AC Microgrids with Time-Varying Disturbances
No full textThis paper investigates distributed finite-Time secondary control of islanded AC microgrids with prescribed performance subject to time-varying disturbances. By specifying the desired performance function, the transient and steady-state performances (including the convergence rate, the maximum overshoot, and the maximum steady-state error) of both the voltage and frequency restoration processes are considered in the design phase. Given the microgrid modeling inaccuracies and load-switching effects, the time-varying disturbances lump unmodeled dynamics, parameter perturbations, and exogenous load disturbances. A novel control scheme, which consists of two main parts, is established. In the first part, reference signal generators are constructed to produce the restoration references in a finite time for each power unit. In the second part, with the observer-based disturbance rejection technique and the prescribed performance control philosophy, performance-guaranteed finite-Time secondary controllers are designed such that the finite-Time restoration task with the prescribed performance is fulfilled, and the time-varying disturbance rejection is achieved. Rigorous stability analysis and case studies are conducted to verify the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.</p
Concealed Spaces
No full textResearch Background Concealed Spaces extends my long-term investigation into how sound and image can reveal the hidden dimensions of built and natural environments. Informed by contemporary practices such as Christina Kubisch’s investigations of hidden electromagnetic infrastructures and Jana Winderen’s ecological listening, the project mobilises recording and perceptual strategies as tools of inquiry. This approach situates sonic practice within debates around perception, infrastructure, and ecological precarity, asking how subterranean and alpine architectures embody cultural memory, ideology, and human–environment relations. Research Significance By directing attention to concealed infrastructures—bunkers, dams, shelters, and industrial sites—the project contributes to broader discourses on how environments are shaped by secrecy, surveillance, and civil protection. Through immersive recording, deep listening, and photographic documentation, Concealed Spaces captures the acoustic, spatial, and material qualities of sites that often remain inaccessible or overlooked. The work highlights latent histories embedded in these architectures while interrogating their ongoing cultural, political, and ecological resonance. Research Contribution The project generates new artistic works that advance the methodological use of sound as both a mode of inquiry and expression, offering transferable approaches for artists and researchers engaging with fragile ecologies and contested infrastructures. Its significance is evidenced by support from the Creative Australia International Engagement Fund, the Verbier 3-D Foundation, and the Valais School of Art, and by its premiere commissioned by ANAT for the RECIPROCITY Festival. Together, these outcomes establish Concealed Spaces as a high-quality, internationally recognised project that strengthens Swiss–Australian cultural exchange while positioning Australian sound art within global conversations on ecology, geopolitics, and hidden architectures.</p