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Corporate Manslaughter in the UK: Lessons for Australia
Get PDFPrior to, and since the passage of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2008 (CMCHA) in the United Kingdom (UK), prosecutions for serious workplace health and safety offences have been mostly underwhelming. Australia has now followed the UK in legislating for industrial manslaughter within the various workplace health and safety laws across many of its states and territories. The aim of this paper is to explore the industrial manslaughter legislation across Australia and discusses the lessons which may be learned from the UK. An analysis of the CMCHA was undertaken to determine whether it has lived up to expectations and if there may be lessons to be learned for Australia as it embarks on its post-harmonization journey. A review of publications found that the CMCHA had fallen short of expectations within its first decade of existence in the UK in both the number of successful prosecutions and in the severity of the punishments handed down. The purported deficiencies in the prosecutorial success of the United Kingdom's CMCHA provides an opportunity for Australia to heed and avoid these deficiencies
The Role of Local Governments in Environmental Globalization
Get PDFThe global environmental challenges suggest that a new approach needs to be taken to address a cross-scale and multi-level issue of environmental risk reduction. Environmental problems stretch across scales of geographic space and require action at multiple levels of jurisdictions. But the suggested approaches face difficulties in policy coordination created by the plurality of stakeholders and also attended with organizational complexity. In this context much of the scholarly work to date tends to overlook the role of sub-national governments. Sub-national governments occupy a strategic position to act as intermediate agents to reconnect local action with national policy and turn global strategies into local action for problem-solving. The author argues that policy coordination and leadership is much easier where there are environmental benefit-recipients with real needs at the local level. This chapter sets out to examine how such a framework might be identified to support the future shape of Japan’s environmental policy and governance
Advances in bi-reforming of methane: Syngas production for low-carbon energy solutions
No full textSyngas, composed mainly of H2 and CO, is a key intermediate for the synthesis of chemicals and fuels. Traditionally, syngas is produced from steam methane reforming (SMR), a well-established but carbon-intensive process. With increasing global decarbonization efforts and high carbon footprint associated with SMR process, novel syngas production methods such as bi-reforming of methane (BRM) have gained attention. BRM, which utilizes CO2 aside from methane and steam as the feedstocks, offers significant potential for low-carbon syngas production. This review critically examines key process parameters (i.e., temperature, pressure, GHSV, feedstock composition) and their impact on BRM performance. In addition, emerging advanced techniques and reaction kinetic models of BRM are discussed comprehensively. The economic and environmental viability of BRM for syngas production are also scrutinized from various techno-economic analysis (TEA) and environmental impact assessments. This paper provides new perspectives especially on the advanced BRM techniques driven by electric/solar and presents new insights of the economic feasibility of BRM integrated with downstream processes such as chemicals production (e.g., methanol, FT fuels, dimethyl ether). A comprehensive Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (S.W.O.T.) analysis is then provided, outlining the challenges and opportunities for the commercial deployment of BRM, with a particular focus on its role in achieving sustainable industrial practices. The findings and insights from this review highlight the state-of-the-art and identify the current gaps and outlook which could assist in accelerating the maturation of BRM as a feasible low-carbon syngas production route worldwide. Overall, key factors such as catalyst development, optimization of BRM reaction conditions (e.g., temperature, pressure, GHSV, feedstock composition, reactor design) and process integration (from CO2 capture, conversion to syngas, and downstream chemical synthesis) are critical for the advancement of this technology as a more holistic solution, whereas execution of carbon tax incentives/policies and premium for low-carbon products would greatly expedite the deployment of this technology
A Combination of Classification Robust Adaptive Kalman Filter with PPP-RTK to Improve Fault Detection for Integrity Monitoring of Autonomous Vehicles
Get PDFReal-time integrity monitoring (IM) is essential for autonomous vehicle positioning, requiring high availability and manageable computational load. This research proposes using precise point positioning real-time kinematic (PPP-RTK) as the positioning method, combined with an improved classification adaptive Kalman filter (CAKF) for processing. PPP-RTK enhances IM availability by allowing undifferenced and uncombined observations, enabling individual observation exclusion during fault detection and exclusion (FDE). The CAKF reduces FDE computational load by using a robustness test instead of traditional FDE methods, improving precision and availability in protection level estimation. Epoch-wise weighting adjustments in the robustness test create a more accurate stochastic model, aided by an adaptive unit weight variance (UWV) calculated with a sliding window, achieving a 7–28% UWV reduction. Three test scenarios with up to four simultaneous faults in code and phase observations, ranging from 1 to 200 m and 0.4 to 20 m, respectively, demonstrated successful identification and de-weighting of faults, resulting in maximum positioning errors of 6 mm (horizontal) and 11 mm (vertical). The method reduced FDE computational load by 50–99.999% compared to other approaches
A review of Returned and Services League venues operating electronic gambling machines in Victoria, Australia and the level of funding contributed to veterans.
Get PDFObjective: Globally, funding ‘good causes’ is a legitimation tactic for gambling operations. This research aimed to determine if an Australian
system allowing tax concessions to not-for-profits (NFPs) meets its primary intention of funding community purpose.
Methods: Not-for-profit (NFP) venues operating electronic gaming machines (EGMs) in the state of Victoria must submit records to the
gambling regulator showing contribution to community purposes. The community benefit statements (CBS) of licensed Returned and Services
League (RSL) venues were analysed, with an initial survey of the years 2010-19 and a more detailed analysis of the years 2017-19.
Results: Veteran support constituted less than 10% of the total community contributions claimed, or 1.5% of electronic gaming machine (EGM)
user losses. On average, business expenses exceeded the claims for veteran support by 12:1. Contributions for addressing gambling-related
harm represented less than 0.002% of recorded claims.
Conclusions & Implications for public health: This research demonstrates that the provision of charitable services derived from gambling
revenue is very modest amongst Australia’s principal veteran’s organisation. Deficiencies in harm prevention and minimisation reinforce the
need for changes to community benefit schemes. Regulatory reforms emphasising the vulnerability of veterans to gambling harm are required
to ensure that this population is better protected
Quality Monitoring of Real-Time Precise Satellite Orbit and Clock Corrections for Generating Health Indicators
No full textThe Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Precise Point Positioning (PPP) service provides real-time high precision positioning worldwide. It is essential to monitor precise satellite orbit and clock product quality for
early alerts to GNSS users. This paper introduces a server-side method to generate Health Indicators (HI) for
satellite corrections. Phase residuals from historical data are modeled as a Residual Hemisphere Map (RHM) to
establish monitoring thresholds based on satellite elevation and azimuth. A satellite subset separation scheme is used to identify all faulty satellites by comparing real-time phase residuals with the corresponding thresholds.
Tests using data from 30 IGS stations show that the RHM-derived thresholds effectively bound residuals under
fault-free conditions. Moreover, the method detects single satellite faults over 5 cm immediately and ramp errors
of 1 cm/epoch within 5 epochs, as well as multiple simultaneous faults. The HI generated can be broadcast to users for excluding faulty satellites
Accuracy degradation rate of LEO satellite-predicted orbits using different POD methods
Get PDFTo achieve high-accuracy positioning and timing in real time using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) navigation signals, the precision of the orbital products is of high necessity. Reduced-dynamic LEO satellite Precise Orbit determination (POD) can nowadays provide near-real-time orbits with an accuracy of centimeters, and real-time users can rely on broadcast LEO satellite ephemeris based on short-term prediction. However, in the case of experiencing observation data problems or satellite manoeuvers that are not performed as planned, large orbital errors or residuals could hamper the orbits from passing the self-check, and accordingly reduce their availability to users. In such a case, the kinematic POD delivers a redundant option. This study assesses the degradation rate of accuracy and integrity of the predicted orbits by applying different POD methods. It supports the selection of the best orbital type for real-time ephemeris fitting based on their near-real-time POD accuracy and the degradation rate of the prediction accuracy with the prediction time, assuming that different types of orbits might be generated at various times and thus require different prediction times for real-time applications. In this contribution, using 6 days of GPS and GPS/Galileo-combined dual-frequency phase and code observations tracked onboard Sentinel-3B (orbital altitude of about 810 km) and Satellite-6A satellites (about 1340 km), three types of predicted orbits are assessed. The degradation rates of the Orbital User Range Errors (OUREs) are calculated for predicted reduced-dynamic (RP), batch least-squares kinematic (KP), and filter-based kinematic (TP) orbits under different scenarios. The prediction rates for the three approaches amount to 4.2, 8.2, and 3.1 cm/h, respectively, for Sentinel-3B, and 2.6, 5.0 and 4.0 cm/h, for Sentinel-6A under the best-case scenario. Moreover, the integrity is analyzed using the 68.3%, 95.5% and 99.9% percentile lines. Within the 1 h of prediction time, the RP option exhibits the smallest OUREs, with maximum values of 6.7 cm (68.3% CL), 13.4 cm (95.5% CL), and 18.9 cm (99.9% CL), respectively, for Sentinel-3B, and 4.7, 10.1 and 15.6 cm, respectively, for Sentinel-6A. Overall, the RP method demonstrates the best precision and integrity under the same prediction period and normal near-real-time POD accurac
Barriers to Homeownership Among Young People in Australia: Unpacking Competing Hypotheses
Get PDFThe homeownership prospects of young people are declining globally. There have been widespread public concerns regarding barriers posed by unaffordable housing markets and tighter borrowing constraints, but equally a recognition that parental assistance can overcome these constraints. At the same time, public commentary often suggests that young people exhibit behaviours that are not conducive to saving for home purchase. This paper tests the relative importance of competing hypotheses regarding the barriers to homeownership among young people using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. We find strong evidence that affordability constraints in the form of unaffordable housing markets and binding borrowing constraints are key barriers to homeownership. These constraints can be mitigated in the presence of intergenerational support as receipt of parental transfers in excess of AU$5000 quadruples the odds of achieving ownership. Poor saving habits, short-term financial planning and labour market precarities have negative impacts on homeownership prospects, but they are relatively less important drivers of homeownership attainment than affordability constraints and parental transfers
