18397 research outputs found
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Collaborative action possibilities and constraints in emergent public digital service platforms: A solution design knowledge contribution
No full textThis thesis designs and evaluates a digital platform to improve and develop our understanding of digital connectivity, information sharing, and service coordination in health service ecosystems. The research gives unique insights into how digital platforms in a healthcare sector ought to be designed on a supra-organizational level to facilitate digital connectivity, cooperation and coordination among the stakeholders involved. This contributes to design knowledge that advances service coordination and collaboration in emergent public digital service platforms
Evaluation of the Ganbina Jobs4U2 Program 2020-2022
No full textThis research project was commissioned by Ganbina to evaluate the ‘Jobs4U2’ program in the Shepparton region for the three year period 2020 to 2022. The evaluation explores the outcomes for participants (with a significant focus on those aged 13 to 25 years), and the factors that contribute to or hinder those outcomes from a range of perspectives.</p
Leadership in the charity sector: how Australians view the integrity, competence and contribution of charities
No full textCharities are at the heart of social ecosystems and play a vital role in building and sustaining flourishing communities. Yet, charities face several interlocking challenges that have only become more complex in a post-pandemic environment – one that has also been impacted by natural disasters.
In this context, charities are grappling with increased demand for services, financial sustainability, increasing job complexity, a declining volunteer workforce and the need to re-establish relationships with donors, all in the context of sustained impacts on the mental health, well-being and resilience of charity employees and leaders.
Ultimately, addressing these challenges is the work of leadership, requiring charity leaders to jointly orchestrate and create the enabling conditions to address these issues while sustaining the community goodwill and the social license to operate that charities have historically enjoyed.
What, then, is the current state of public perceptions of leadership in Australia’s charity sector? How does the charity sector compare to other institutions in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, and what are the types of things that charity leaders can do to sustain public trust and confidence in charities?</p
Understanding human actions through interaction modelling
No full textThis research focuses on understanding actions by modelling the interactions between either human & human or human & objects. This is achieved by learning discriminative spatio-temporal representations for recognising human actions at the coarse and finer levels. However, the current state-of-the-art methods are not effective in distinguishing highly similar actions. Such actions that are visually similar to each other and involve subtle interactions between human & objects are known as fine-grained actions. The difficulty in modelling these interactions due to high inter-class similarity, presence of diverse objects, actor and view-point variations have motivated us to propose novel approaches for efficient classification of actions.</p
A single blinded study exploring the efficacy of improving affect and cognitive performance using two sham-controlled theta neurofeedback protocols within a healthy sample
No full textThis thesis aimed to evaluate whether a single-blinded 30-minute session of theta neurofeedback (NF) training can successfully alter affect and cognitive performance compared to a control within 34 healthy participants. Two theta training protocols were compared based on sources of theta frequency found in literature. The results discussed in this thesis provide a discussion on NF learning, the design of NF protocols and the feasibility of acute NF training sessions.</p
Laser–Metal Interaction with a Pulse Shorter than the Ion Period: Ablation Threshold, Electron Emission and Ion Explosion
No full textThe laser energy per unit surface, necessary to trigger material removal, decreases with the pulse shortening, becoming pulse-time independent in the sub-picosecond range. These pulses are shorter than the electron-to-ion energy transfer time and electronic heat conduction time, minimising the energy losses. Electrons receiving an energy larger than the threshold drag the ions off the surface in the mode of electrostatic ablation. We show that a pulse shorter than the ion period (Shorter-the-Limit (StL)) ejects conduction electrons with an energy larger than the work function (from a metal), leaving the bare ions immobile in a few atomic layers. Electron emission is followed by the bare ion's explosion, ablation, and THz radiation from the expanding plasma. We compare this phenomenon to the classic photo effect and nanocluster Coulomb explosions, and show differences and consider possibilities for detecting new modes of ablation experimentally via emitted THz radiation. We also consider the applications of high-precision nano-machining with this low intensity irradiation
Periodic Radio Emission from the T8 Dwarf WISE J062309.94-045624.6
No full textWe present the detection of rotationally modulated, circularly polarized radio emission from the T8 brown dwarf WISE J062309.94−045624.6 between 0.9 and 2.0 GHz. We detected this high-proper-motion ultracool dwarf with the Australian SKA Pathfinder in 1.36 GHz imaging data from the Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey. We observed WISE J062309.94−045624.6 to have a time and frequency averaged Stokes I flux density of 4.17 ± 0.41 mJy beam−1, with an absolute circular polarization fraction of 66.3% ± 9.0%, and calculated a specific radio luminosity of L ν ∼ 1014.8 erg s−1 Hz−1. In follow-up observations with the Australian Telescope Compact Array and MeerKAT we identified a multipeaked pulse structure, used dynamic spectra to place a lower limit of B > 0.71 kG on the dwarf’s magnetic field, and measured a P = 1.912 ± 0.005 hr periodicity, which we concluded to be due to rotational modulation. The luminosity and period we measured are comparable to those of other ultracool dwarfs observed at radio wavelengths. This implies that future megahertz to gigahertz surveys, with increased cadence and improved sensitivity, are likely to detect similar or later-type dwarfs. Our detection of WISE J062309.94−045624.6 makes this dwarf the coolest and latest-type star observed to produce radio emission
Developing energy literacies for meaningful community engagement
No full textThe Donald and Tarnagulla Microgrid Feasibility Study, led by the Centre for New Energy Technology (C4NET) is a large-scale, three-year study to assess the technical, cultural, and social, elements of introducing microgrids as an alternative energy solution. The feasibility study was conducted in the rural and regional communities of Donald and Tarnagulla in Victoria, Australia. While technological advancements and reductions in cost have made microgrids more commercially viable than they once were, a feasibility study was needed to better understand the community needs (e.g., reliability, cost, self-sufficiency) to determine the suitability of these two towns.
This report contains four sections, beginning with learnings from talking to microgrid and community engagement experts in roundtable sessions, followed by illustrative quotes provided by members of the two communities that volunteered to be interviewed for this study. Both sections are analysed qualitatively, and emerging themes from each are presented.
The authors also present three case studies of community engagement in practice; that is, the kinds of interventions that were trialled to incorporate a creative process to both boosting digital literacy in the community (a need highlighted from the expert roundtables in Part 1) and increasing engagement with the community on the topic of microgrids. In the final section, the authors share ten tips for meaningfully engaging with communities around emerging energy solutions, based on their experiences in conducting and delivering the research and practice in Parts 1-3.</p
Acute neurocognitive and subjective effects of oral methamphetamine with low doses of alcohol: A randomised controlled trial
No full textBackground: Methamphetamine is often recreationally co-consumed with alcohol due to desirable off-target effects; however, the acute neurocognitive and subjective consequences of combined use are unclear. Methods: In a randomised, placebo-controlled, counterbalanced, cross-over study design, the effects of acute oral methamphetamine (0.42 mg/kg) were assessed with and without low doses of alcohol (target 0.04% blood–alcohol concentration, BAC) on subjective intoxication, alertness, physiological outcomes and neurocognition during the ascending and descending phases of the BAC curve. Sixteen healthy adults (mean age = 30.4 years, SD ± 4.4, 67% male) completed four experimental sessions over 4 weeks involving a one-week washout period. Results: Cardiovascular measures [heart rate (beats/minute), blood pressure (mmHg)] were predictably elevated following methamphetamine, but unaffected by combined alcohol use. Methamphetamine and alcohol produce divergent effects on subjective alertness and sedation across time, yet their combination produced predominantly sustained stimulative effects independent of the biphasic alcohol curve. At a peak BAC of 0.029%, alcohol alone impaired performance across most functional neurocognitive domains relative to placebo and methamphetamine only, and the addition of methamphetamine attenuated these effects. Methamphetamine alone produced isolated improvement in psychomotor speed consistent with peak drug effects. Conclusion: Methamphetamine combined with alcohol does not substantially alter the physiological or metabolic profile compared to either drug alone. Strong stimulative effects of methamphetamine appear to mask the biphasic sedative and performance effects of low doses of alcohol, which may underlie motivations for co-consumption in recreational settings and increase propensity for harm
Strength and stiffness performance of geopolymer stabilized washed recycled sands derived from demolition wastes in pavement subgrades
No full textIn this research study, geopolymer stabilized washed recycled sand (RS) derived from construction and demolition (C&D) waste was evaluated to effectively address issues related to the landfilling of wastes and the unsustainable usage of virgin sand quarry materials. This study evaluated the feasibilities of stabilizing washed RS with geopolymers and their subsequent usage as pavement subgrade materials. Industrial by-products comprising of fly ash (FA), granulated blast furnace slag (S), and the combination of (FA + S) were considered as three different precursors in the geopolymer stabilization of RS. The strength performance of geopolymers stabilized RS for each precursor was investigated through the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests. Geopolymer stabilized samples with S were found to exhibit a generally higher UCS strength than FA-based samples. Yet the curing time was found to be important in geopolymerization process, that commonly longer the curing periods, higher the UCS strength. The chemical reaction of S-based geopolymer required a considerable amount of water to take place. A strength drop was therefore noticed in S-related instances at longer curing period due consideration of the water consumption during the geopolymerization process. As such, under cases of when an excess amount of S was added to the sample, when a high curing temperature was used or when longer curing durations were implemented. The highest UCS value attained among the tested samples was 22.024 MPa, when a precursor of 15 % FA + 15 % S was used and when cured for 7 days at 40 °C. A repeated load triaxial (RLT) test was carried out to further prove that the geopolymer stabilized washed RS could substitute the role of quarried sands in pavement. Under the curing condition of 7 days at 21 °C, samples stabilized with 30 % FA or 10 % S were found to be stiff enough to respond to the axial stress change under the same confining condition