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The Generalisation Ability of Machine-Learning Algorithms for Mapping Seagrass, Reef Habitat, and Live Coral
No full textThis thesis addresses the challenge of mapping seagrass and coral reef habitat using remotely sensed imagery. These maps have become essential components for marine science and management. Despite moderate to high accuracies achieved by currently utilised machine-learning algorithms, their lack of spatial generalisation capabilities limits their scalability. Generalisation in this context refers to the ability of a machine-learning algorithm to accurately classify target habitats at a new location where the algorithm has not been trained. This thesis aimed to develop and test a machine-learning algorithm capable of spatial generalisation in relation to seagrass and coral reef habitat mapping by answering the following questions: 1) Can a machine-learning algorithm spatially generalise across varying levels of marine habitat complexity starting with seagrass, then reef habitat, and finally live coral cover? 2) Do regularisation techniques such as dropout, L2 regularisation, or an increase in the number and diversity of training samples reduce overfitting? 3) What implications does spatial generalisation have on the scalability of marine habitat mapping?A systematic literature review of machine-learning algorithms used for shallow coral reef habitat mapping identified the random forest algorithm and a deep learning algorithm known as U-Net, as two promising candidates for spatial generalisation. This thesis first compared their spatial generalisation capabilities in relation to mapping seagrass across three different sites in New Zealand. The results found that U-Net models were significantly better at spatial generalisation compared to random forest models. Next, these models were compared in relation to mapping reef habitat and live coral, with results finding again that U-Net models were significantly better at generalising. These results indicate U-Nets’ deep multi-layered hierarchical framework used for extracting complex feature representations is a critical component in relation to generalisation capability when it comes to mapping seagrass, reef habitat, and live coral. However, U-Nets’ ability to generalise was moderate in terms of accuracy, and strategies such as dropout and L2 regularisation were subsequently explored to mitigate overfitting. Results of these experiments found that although dropout and L2 regularisation did not improve generalisation capability, increasing the size and diversity of the training dataset can improve the spatial generalisation capabilities of U-Net models, although not in all cases.In conclusion, this thesis determined U-Net to be significantly better at spatially generalising compared to random forest models and identified a way to improve the spatial generalisation capability of U-Net by increasing the number and diversity of training samples. By identifying a machine-learning algorithm that can generalise, this thesis provides the foundation for the use of U-Net in developing more scalable maps of seagrass and coral reef habitats.</p
“Nobody has even thought that people with dementia could be supported to be employed": Exploring perspectives of Australian workers with dementia about diagnosis, workforce participation and transition to retirement experiences
No full textIn response to an ‘ageing’ global population, government policies in developed economies are raising the age of eligibility for retirement pensions and promoting workforce participation rates of workers over 45 years. Since the risk of developing dementia increases with age, an increase in the numbers of people experiencing the onset of dementia whilst still working is likely. Dementia refers to a set of symptoms of cognitive decline that gradually impact on memory, thinking, daily activities and work capacity. Therefore, onset of dementia in workers, both younger and older, poses significant social, economic, and health concerns for both employees and employers.Research examining perspectives about engagement in meaningful occupation among workers experiencing onset and progression of dementia is limited. It is also unclear if legislation in Australia and other countries that dictates approaches to reasonable adjustments for people with other disabilities, are routinely adopted for those with dementia.Using narrative inquiry [NI] methodology, this thesis explores the stories of ten Australians who experienced onset and progression of dementia symptoms while in paid work and their perspectives about their transition to retirement. A stepwise approach to data analysis revealed six critical moments in the storytellers’ work to retirement transitions: (i) experiencing dissatisfaction at work; (ii) having an awareness that something is not quite right; (iii) knowing something is wrong triggers the search for a diagnosis; (iv) putting things in perspective after diagnosis; (v) extending workforce participation; and (vi) finding new beginnings when formal work ended.Key enablers supporting individuals’ choices about extending workforce participation and transitioning to retirement were identified: (i) informal support from employers around adjusting work hours and duties when they disclosed their dementia diagnosis; (ii) employer support to navigate the medical retirement process; and (iii) practical and emotional support provided by family members, usually a spouse, prior to and after diagnosis.Of concern was the extensive and enduring nature of the prejudicial responses that negatively impacted storytellers’ access to timely diagnosis, formal support for extending workforce participation and smooth transitions to retirement. For most storytellers, intersectional stigma based on age, gender, and dementia delayed diagnosis. Multiple and overlapping forms of occupational injustice was experienced across the work to retirement journey. Opportunities to extend workforce participation legislated under the Australian Disability Discrimination Act (1992) and a dignified transition away from their worker role were negatively impacted. This included denial of timely access to appropriate medical investigations, workplace adjustments, a planned transition to retirement or medical retirement provisions. Whilst some storytellers were able to effect control by not disclosing the nature of their health condition or by making personal informal adjustments to their employment arrangements, significant financial losses and the abrupt deprivation of occupational roles and identity frequently occurred. Despite challenges, storytellers demonstrated resilience in adapting to remain engaged in work or transitioning to new roles as symptoms progressed.Based on these findings, health professional and employer education programs have been recommended. However, education alone will not be sufficient to address the enduring and pervasive nature of the intersecting social injustice issues reported by storytellers. Stereotypical assumptions that people with dementia cannot and need not be supported to extend workforce participation must be challenged.The complaints-based nature of disability discrimination legislation is a significant barrier for people with dementia. Therefore, this thesis informs advocacy e\orts of people with dementia themselves, their family members, and allies to hold employers, health professionals and other stakeholders accountable for supporting workforce participation and transition to retirement entitlements. Support for pursuing complaints and enforcing penalties for denying workers with dementia support afforded to other workers with a disability is required.</p
Mechanical recycling of plastics: associated issues and innovative methods for reducing the environmental impact of plastic consumption
No full textCompared to other materials, plastic is found to have one of the lowest recycling rates, with estimates ranging from 14 to 18%. Although recycling rates are low, the plastic recycling industry is a vital element in the transition to a circular economy, in which any resource has the ability to be recycled or repurposed. To increase recycling rates and drive this transition, it is therefore necessary to first understand what issues are affecting the plastic recycling industry and to provide plausible and practicable solutions to these problems. The focus of this research is on the issues that are affecting the mechanical recycling of plastic, as this is the most popular method for recycling plastic waste. This research is split into two components; issues affecting the quality of the recycled product and the environmental issues associated with the mechanical recycling process.In order to facilitate the transition to a circular economy, it is important to investigate the possibility for recycling littered plastics, as this may add value to a material that would otherwise be disposed of in a landfill or incinerated. To determine an appropriate recycling pathway for littered plastics, it is essential to understand the changes that occur to the physical, mechanical, and chemical properties of a plastic after it undergoes environmental degradation. In Chapter 3, four types of plastics (polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), polycarbonate (PC) and polylactic acid (PLA)), were subjected to simulated terrestrial, ocean, and river environments to determine the levels of degradation that would occur and to propose plausible recycling pathways for the plastics if collected from the respective environments. The recycling pathways were split into two categories based upon the plastic guidelines for the recovery and recycling of plastic wastes (ISO 15720-2008). The two categories were defined as upcycling (conversion of plastic waste into a material of equal value) and downcycling (conversion of plastic waste into a material of lesser value). The results obtained from a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, colour change analysis, tensile strength analysis and a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) analysis showed PET, PP, and PLA to have significant changes to their physical, mechanical, and chemical properties. Due to this, it was concluded that the appropriate recycling pathway for PET, PP and PLA waste collected from the environment would be downcycling. No significant degradation was noted for PC samples in any of the simulated environments due to the plastic having a high resistance to UV exposure. As such, the appropriate recycling pathway for PC waste collected from the environment was upcycling.The input waste stream at a plastic recycling facility plays a critical role on determining the quality of the recycled product, therefore, it is important to minimise contamination and ensure a homogenous input waste stream. However, current material separation techniques are not capable of ensuring a pure input waste stream and as such, polymer contamination is still highly likely to occur. Chapter 4 explored the scenario of polylactic acid (PLA) contaminating the input waste stream of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) recycling and what impact this had on the quality of the recycled product. PLA contamination levels of 0%, 1%, 2.5%, 5% and 10% by weight were examined and subjected to UVA radiation to assess the long-term impact of PLA contamination on the recycled HPDE. At 10% PLA contamination, the ultimate tensile strength was reduced by 50%. After UVA exposure, the ultimate tensile strength was reduced by 51% when PLA contamination was only at 2.5%. PLA contamination increased the hydrophilicity of the HDPE, which will generate issues if the recycled product was intended to be used for liquid storage. Physical deformations on the surface of the recycled HDPE were noted at all contamination concentrations. PLA contamination was visibly noticed to impact the colour of the recycled HDPE sheets, therefore decreasing the value of the recycled product. Based on the findings of this study, when HDPE is contamination with PLA at concentration of just 1%, the physical, mechanical, and chemical properties can significantly be impacted.Emerging research has highlighted the plastic recycling industry as potentially being a significant source of microplastic pollution, however, due to the uniqueness of this field of study, there is a dearth of knowledge surrounding the factors that affect the generation of the contaminant during the process. Chapter 5 showed the size reduction phase in the plastic recycling process to generate significant amounts of microplastic particles. An investigation into whether the plastic type and environmental exposure would affect the amount of microplastics being generated was performed. Significant variations in microplastics generation rates between polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polycarbonate (PC), and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) were noted. A microplastic count of the particles generated in the size range of 0.212 – 1.18 mm, showed PC to generate the most and PP to generate the least amount of microplastics (28,600 Å} 3,961 and 6,807 Å} 393 particles/kg of plastic material shredded, respectively). The variations in microplastic generation rates between plastic types was correlated to the hardness of the plastic (R=0.88). When PP, PC, HDPE, and PET were exposed to environmental weathering conditions for a six-month period, the microplastic generation rates increased by 121-185%, compared to their virgin counterparts. The findings from this study confirmed the significant amounts of microplastics that are unintentionally being generated during the plastic recycling process and prompts further research into how to implement microplastic minimisation strategies into the current process.Recent investigations have discovered that plastic recycling facilities are unintentionally generating large amounts of microplastics during the size reduction process. Chapter 6 proposes a systematic change to the current plastic recycling process by introducing a sieving stage in between the shredding and washing units to capture the microplastics being generated. The benefit of adding the sieving stage to minimise microplastics release to wash water was highlighted by comparing the findings with the case where microplastics are released to wash water and a conventional coagulation process is used to remove microplastics from water. Two coagulants, aluminium sulphate (Al2(SO4)3.18H2O) and aluminium chloride (AlCl3.6H2O), were used to remove polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polycarbonate (PC) from water. The size of the microplastic particles played a significant role on the removal efficiency. The maximum removal efficiency of PET by AlCl3.6H2O was 99.2% for the particles in 1.18 – 5 mm range, whereas the average removal efficiency over the whole tested size range of 0.15- 5.00 mm was 76.1% for the same plastic-coagulant combination. By contrast, the addition of a 5 mm sieve between the shredding and the washing units was found to capture 96-97% of the microplastics generated. The findings of this innovative experiment demonstrate the beneficial impact that this strategy has on capturing microplastics prior to entering water matrix. This study is the first of its kind to propose a process change to the current procedure used in the mechanical plastic recycling process.</p
Youth offending during an exceptional event: a developmental view of the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textDevelopmental and life-course perspectives in criminology have provided valuable frameworks for conceptualising and understanding the trajectory and development of criminal behaviour. Historically, these perspectives have emphasised the importance of major life events and ‘turning points’ in shaping an individual’s trajectory both into and out of crime. The emergence of unprecedented exceptional events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have challenged existing theoretical paradigms and opened new pathways of research for criminologists. Indeed, criminologists quickly documented large declines among adult offending populations, and, later, a smaller subset of scholars documented similar declines among youth offending populations. Compared to the large body of research conducted on adult offending populations, only a handful of studies have been conducted on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young offenders and their offending.It is here that the current thesis makes its contribution. The principal aim of this thesis is to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on offending and criminal career dimensions for young people entering mid to late adolescence in the first stages of the pandemic in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. To do so, this thesis utilises unit-record offence-level data from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) for individuals born in 2000, 2002, and 2004. The main interest in this thesis is the criminal justice contact of those born in 2004 during the first two years of the pandemic when COVID-19 restrictions were in place. This cohort was chosen because they were entering mid-adolescence, a key time for the onset and escalation of criminal offending, as COVID-19 restrictions were first introduced.Using these data, the research disentangles the various parameters of the criminal career paradigm among a cohort of young people during the first two years of an exceptional event. Overall, substantial declines in the prevalence and frequency offending and the rate of onset among the 2004 cohort are found when compared to the older cohorts at the developmentally equivalent time. The research finds that the pandemic had no discernible impact on the rate of offending among persistent offenders and instead document an increasing concentration to property offending among this group during the two years of the pandemic. These findings hold true across gender, suggesting a generalised and broad impact on young people and their offending. Further, the geographical concentration of offending during the COVID-19 pandemic is investigated and it is documented that the 2004 cohorts offending became more concentrated towards the Sydney area during COVID-19 lockdowns. Finally, it is shown that the declines in some criminal career parameters are larger in some areas where COVID-19 restrictions were harsher. The theoretical implications of these findings for the fields of developmental and life-course criminology and exceptional event criminology are discussed, and future areas of research are identified.</p
New Cascade Reactions of Indigo to Structurally Complex Heterocycles
No full textThe work presented here is a contribution to the previous and parallel study to expand the understanding of indigo chemistry. The reactivity of indigo 1 was investigated with highly reactive electrophiles, namely ethyl bromoacetate 112, Michael acceptors (acryloyl chloride 170-173 and methyl acrylate 180-181), and with singlet carbene (dichlorocarbene) along with carbenoids (diazomalonate ester 196 and diazoacetylacetone 204).The optimised reactions of indigo 1 with ethyl bromoacetate 112 gave sets of new polyheterocycles via cascade process under various reaction settings. Using 5 equivalents of ethyl bromoacetate 112 in a reaction produced N,N'-dialkylated indigo 115 (6%), pyrazinodiindole derivatives 118 (2%), and 119 (3%) as the major products along with the spiro biindigoid 116 (2%) as a minor product. By increasing the amount (10 equivalents) of ethyl bromoacetate 112 in a reaction, N,N'-dialkylated indigo 115 (19%) and N-alkylated indigo 117 (5%) were isolated respectively. However, altering the reaction time (12 minutes 10 second), and reducing the reaction temperature to 80 oC gave N,N'-dialkylated indigo 115, and N-alkylated indigo 117 with increased yields of 27% and 22% respectively.Further investigation into the reactivity of ethyl bromoacetate 112 with indirubin 1a yielded mixture of new heterocycles 152-155 in a one-pot reaction under different reaction conditions. The optimised reaction of indirubin 1a with 112 at 70 oC yielded N-alkylated indirubin 151 (48%), and N,N'-dialkylated indirubin 152 (20%). Further investigation of indirubin 1a with 112 at higher temperature (110 oC) resulted in the formation of mixture of polyheterocycles; N-alkylated indirubin 151 (The reactivity of indigo 1 was investigated with various α,-unsaturated electrophiles. The treatment of indigo 1 with (E)-but-2-enoyl chloride 170 resulted in the 8-methyldiazepinodiindoletrione 174 (15%) as a dark red amorphous solid. However, reaction with 3-methylbut-2-enoyl chloride 171 produced (E)-3,3'-dioxo-[2,2'-biindolinylidene]-1-carbaldehyde 175 (45%). Further investigation of indigo 1 with methyl acrylate 180 resulted in the formation of methyl-7a-hydroxytetrahydro-6H-pyridodiindole-7-carboxylate 182 (13%) as a pink solid.A new methodology was developed to explore the reactivity of indigo system with singlet carbene and carbenoids to produced polyheterocyclic frameworks. The reaction of N,N'-dimethylindigo 189 with singlet carbene (dichlorocarbene) yielded the unprecedented dibenzo-1,5-oxazocinoindole 190 (51%), the reaction N,N'-dimethylindigo 189 with diazomalonate ester 196 yielded spirofuroindoleindoline-dicarboxylate 198 (20%).The chemistry described here introduces a new approach for the indigo motif, potentially opening avenues for cascade reactions utilizing this easily accessible and affordable starting material. These methods could have broader the applications in synthesizing various new polyheterocyclic frameworks that are typically challenging to obtain through other methods.</p
Development and integration of stochastic occupant behaviour models in residential building performance simulation and rating tools
No full textEnergy policies and regulations play a critical role in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions in the building sector. One of the widely used methods to evaluate the compliance of building designs with energy regulations is to employ Building Performance Simulations (BPS) to estimate their energy demand. BPS tools need several inputs to simulate how the building will perform, and often assumptions must be made for those variables that are difficult to measure. Occupant behaviour is generally one of those challenging inputs due to the stochastic nature of human behaviour and the difficulty of measuring it, which contributes to uncertainty in BPS results. The user-defined simulation assumptions might over-simplify the realistic occupant behaviour, leading to potentially substantial gaps between real and simulated energy performance.This thesis first identified research gaps in the field by reviewing the literature on occupant behaviour and building energy performance, including the absence of a clear method to represent the variability in heating and cooling thermostat setting preferences in building simulation tools for building energy rating purposes, the scarcity of equivalent comparisons among different existing window state models for representing window operation state of individual and cohort households and their impact on simulated households’ heating and cooling energy consumption with respect to the current deterministic approaches used in household energy rating methodologies. Following these identified research gaps, the thesis proposed to investigate the stochastic modelling of the following two of impactful user behaviours from the perspective of energy rating assessments (1) heating and cooling thermostat setting preferences and (2) window opening behaviour of occupants in terms of their capacity to produce realistic occupant preferences and practices.To represent thermostat preferences, two occupant behaviour modelling methods were developed and assessed using experimental datasets collected from 102 households located in three different Australian climate regions. The first method, with a stochastic approach, used the probability distribution of heating and cooling thermostat setpoints to run multiple simulations, while the second method, with a single-setpoint deterministic approach, used weighted averaged values from the same distribution to run a single simulation. Both methods were benchmarked against a baseline simulation, with embedded uncertainty in the user behaviour in the setpoint choice. While both methods equally accurately estimated the resulting heating demands, the stochastic method performed better in estimating the cooling demand, revealing that the deterministic method failed to capture the effects of non-linearities in cooling, which cannot correspond with an average behaviour.To analyse occupants’ behaviour in operating windows, this thesis developed a set of stochastic window operation models using seven well-established state-of-the-art approaches: Gaussian distribution function, logistic regression, Markov chain, Markov-logit hybrid, classification tree, random forest and artificial neural network. These models were trained and tested using operational data from 50 households in two different Australian climate regions. Models were developed to represent (1) each window individually and (2) a cohort of similarly operating windows (e.g. living room windows) before comparing the model performances against monitored data. While artificial neural network and Markov-logit hybrid models performed well in terms of generating higher accuracy values compared to the rest of the models when trained and used on an individual window, random forest and classification tree models were better when employed as cohort models to represent a population of households. The results indicated that the model selection for BPS should not be made out of convenience but on the suitability of a model for a specific objective (individual/cohort modelling).To evaluate the impact of these models on energy rating, the selected better-performing stochastic window operation models were then integrated into the BPS tool used for energy rating in Australia (AccuRate). The impact of the stochastic window operation models on the overall energy simulation was quantified against the default deterministic rule-based model, using eight apartment building models as case studies. The thesis also examined the model transferability between climates: this was achieved by training the stochastic models with data from other houses located in a climate different from the one in which the simulated buildings were located. The classification tree and random forest cohort models trained with data from the same climate were the best at reproducing window opening patterns distributed similarly to the monitored buildings. Nevertheless, the transferred models performed still better than the default deterministic rule-based model of the rating tool, even though their performance was slightly lower than the locally trained models.Employing stochastic window operation models was found to have a significant impact on the estimated buildings’ energy consumption and rating, with an estimated 71% - 480% higher cooling energy consumption than the default rule-based model. The reason for this was attributed to a higher cooling demand due to more sub-optimal use of passive cooling by the realistic user behaviour.The thesis also explored the possibility of finding a fixed threshold to make the binary decision of ‘open’ or ‘close’ state for the stochastic window operation models that would enable a more realistic deterministic one-time simulation that provides similar energy consumption and rating results to the stochastic one but with less time and effort. It was possible to achieve this with the classification tree (fixed threshold of 0.26) and random forest (fixed threshold of 0.4) models, with energy consumption and rating estimations being very close to the median value of the corresponding stochastic model results.Overall, the findings of this work provided evidence that data-driven, stochastic occupant behaviour models improve the results of Building Performance Simulation tools, and their use would positively impact the development of new-generation residential building energy rating tools.</p
Molecular, Morphological, and Functional Profiling of Human Astrocytes in Stress-Related Psychiatric Disorders
No full textSevere stress is consistently one of the strongest risk factors for the development of psychiatric disorders, yet we still have a poor understanding of the cellular contributions to this risk in humans. Astrocytes are emergent players across brain functions, including regulation of the synaptic environment. However, the impact of stress on astrocytic functions, particularly in the context of human psychiatric disorders, is not yet well understood.The primary goal of this thesis was to build a body of human-specific evidence on how astrocytes are shaped by stress at the cellular and molecular levels. This was conducted using a curated postmortem cohort consisting of psychiatric disorder cases stratified based on whether they had exposure to profound stress (deemed to have persisting ramifications) prior to diagnosis and at what life stage this primarily occurred. The work presented in Chapter 2 explores the transcriptome-wide changes underlying an association with a history of profound stress, using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics platforms to explore the transcriptional heterogeneity of cortical astrocytes. This approach highlighted that cortical astrocytes in the grey matter involved in synapse homeostasis particularly delineate the brains of people who lived with a psychiatric disorder and had a profound history of severe stress prior to diagnosis. This chapter also highlighted that these effects were largely driven by female cases. It also highlighted that the timing of stress exposure was important, as earlier exposures (i.e. during childhood) were associated with stronger transcriptional changes. The work described in Chapter 3 provides further cytoarchitectural support that grey matter astrocytes are disproportionately associated with profound early life stress. Astrocytes expressing the glutamate transporter excitatory amino acid transporter 2 were more dense and larger in size in cases that had a history of profound stress during childhood. These modifications were replicated at the bulk level via western blot and inversely correlated with synaptic structure density across the cohort, suggesting that these modifications are associated with changes to the synaptic environment. Finally, the work in Chapter 4 utilised human pluripotent stem cell-derived astrocytes (iAsts) to demonstrate that human astrocytes can be directly impacted by exposure to glucocorticoids. iAsts were highly responsive to the glucocorticoid receptor agonist dexamethasone and demonstrated changes to both neurotransmitter clearance and increases in calcium signalling in response to the neurotransmitters glutamate, N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). This provides evidence that core functions of human astrocytes to regulate the synapse can be directly impacted by circulating stress hormones.This body of work successfully identifies several human-relevant phenotypes in astrocytes related to stress. We identify that human astrocytes can be directly shaped by stress and that prior exposures to stress are also associated with both transcriptional and cytoarchitectural alterations to astrocytes in the human cortex. The evidence from this work indicates that functions of astrocytes in regulating synapses in the grey matter appear to be particularly associated with these stress histories. By focusing on astrocytes, we also highlight that the human brain is persistently impacted by profound stress, particularly during childhood, which has notable implications for treatment and diagnostic specificity.</p
A Framework for Optimising Cross-border Logistics Processes in an Industry 4.0 Environment
No full textGoods and services flow frequently across national and state borders as global supply networks connect suppliers and customers dispersed around the world. In order to make goods available to consumers at the lowest possible prices, these networks strive for smooth and even flows across the border. The trade generated by the flow of goods and services creates employment, generates tax revenue and attracts foreign investments resulting in economic growth and prosperity for the nations and populations concerned. However, the critical performance criteria of speed, efficiency and responsiveness of supply networks are often challenged at the border by regulatory obstacles, inadequate infrastructure, slow adoption of technology and the lack of coordination among the multitude of stakeholders involved.Containerised maritime CBL systems comprise infrastructure such as ports and logistics hubs, technologies such as container handling systems, regulatory regimes such as customs and border protection, as well as the humans operating each of these sub-systems. As such, CBL systems can be broadly viewed as socio-technical systems. At the micro level, the CBL literature focuses on optimisations for individual stakeholders, adoption of novel technologies and optimal utilisation of capital-intensive assets without due consideration for implications on other stakeholders. At the macro level, expensive infrastructure investments and information solutions such as National Single Windows proposed without delving into the nuances of the architecture and implementation of such systems. This leaves a research gap at the meso level that connect the macro and micro perspectives to arrive at an integrated solution. Furthermore, attempts to investigate CBL systems have been hampered by the lack of granular empirical data, the focus on selected segments and the lack of well-suited tools and methodologies for analysis and improvement. As such, this study aims to come up with a framework for analysis and improvement of CBL operations which will also guide the adoption of appropriate technologies.This study identifies process-based analysis which forms the core of most of operations improvement approaches as the most appropriate for analysing and improving CBL operations. The study reveals the ability of process maps to capture different dimensions of operations for structured analysis and improvement of operations. Control, functional, informational and organisational dimensions have been discussed in extant business process management literature as process dimensions. However, this study stipulates that temporal, interactional and spatial dimensions are also required to complete the set and to comprehensively represent CBL operations. Analysis revealed that none of the existing modelling formalisms could capture these seven dimensions in a unified view. As such, the study sought to extend Role Activity Diagrams (RAD), with addendums to capture CBL processes comprehensively.</p
Working Together in Uncertain Times: Japan’s Evolving Relations with Latin American and the Caribbean in the 21st Century.
No full textThis lecture explores the dynamic and multifaceted evolution of Japan’s foreign policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in the 21st century, drawing on insights from a forthcoming book co-authored with Kanako Yamaoka and sponsored by IDE-JETRO. Historically rooted in trade, migration, and diplomacy, Japan-LAC relations have undergone significant transformation in response to global geopolitical shifts, including the rise of China, challenges to multilateralism, and the reconfiguration of regional alliances.
The presentation examines Japan’s strategic pivot from a purely economic focus to a broader soft-balancing approach that incorporates political, legal, and security dimensions. Central to this shift are initiatives such as Juntos, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision, and the 2024 Diplomatic Initiative toward LAC, which emphasize rule-of-law-based engagement, connectivity, and shared democratic values. The lecture also analyses LAC’s varied responses—ranging from enthusiastic participation in hard-law instruments like FTAs and BITs to cautious hedging strategies—highlighting the region’s internal diversity and external pressures.
By integrating international relations theory and international economic law, the lecture offers a comprehensive framework for understanding Japan’s evolving role as a rule-maker and strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific context. It concludes by reflecting on the implications of Japan’s diplomacy for global governance, regional stability, and the future of Japan-LAC cooperation.</p
Drivers of the Austral Intertropical Convergence Zone Variability in Proxies and Models
No full textThe Indo-Pacific (IP) austral Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is related to the Australian Summer Monsoon (ASM), where the southern edge of the ITCZ is significantly correlated to ASM intensity (r=-0.71, p < 0.01; Melleuish 2021). External drivers, such as volcanic eruptions and total solar irradiance, and internal drivers, such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), are known to affect IP climate; however, it is unclear which of these factors drive the ITCZ southwards leading to the onset of the ASM. This study uses a sub-annually resolved Sr/Ca record measured in a stalagmite from caves near Katherine, Northern Territory, to reconstruct the ASM and a 505-year-long climate model simulation of the ITCZ to explore which driving factors have an influence on ITCZ migration over the Common Era. The model results show that ENSO, IPO and the IOD have a significant effect on the position and width of the ITCZ (and therein the ASM) and that the influence of internal drivers far outweighs that of external drivers, in contrast to model results for other monsoon regions (Fasullo et al. 2019; Zuo et al. 2019). The Sr/Ca record shows a non-stationary ENSO/IPO-ITCZ relationship from the 15th century onwards. These findings suggest that a shift from the current positive IPO to a negative IPO phase could lead to a major shift in rainfall patterns across northern Australia. By understanding the response of the ITCZ to driving in the past, this study can inform on possible responses of the ITCZ (and hence the ASM) into the future.</p