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Investigating The Dispersal Of Homo Sapiens Into Wallacea And Sahul, Kasih Norman

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

There is an increasing body of evidence to suggest Homo sapiens emerged from Africa episodically with at least one of these early dispersals reaching Southeast Asia and Australia; however our understanding of how, when and where this took place is still evolving. Multiple fossil sites place H. sapiens in Southeast Asia and Sunda (the Pleistocene continent now comprising the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and Bali) by Marine Isotope Stage 4 (MIS 4, 71–57 ka). Archaeological evidence for an MIS 4 human presence in Sahul (the Pleistocene continent now comprising Australia and New Guinea) exists at sites in a restricted …

Personalising The Student First Year Experience – An Evaluation Of A Staff Student Buddy System, Nick Fewster-Young, Paul A. Corcoran

Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice

A student’s transition into higher education or a new learning environment can set the foundation for the remainder of their study, both in perception and academic ability. Mentoring is a transition intervention strategy and most types of these interventions are student peer to peer. However, there is a growing interest in academic involvement in mentoring and consequently this paper is an investigation into the effective implementation of assigning students with an academic staff buddy or mentor in the transition period of their first year of higher education i.e. the Staff Student Buddy System (SSBS). The analysis focusses on using two …

Blue Carbon Opportunities For The Lower Shoalhaven River, Ryan Cope

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

Blue Carbon Ecosystems (BCE) play an important role as profound carbon reservoirs and have the potential to sequester more carbon in an area than any other ecosystem. This has sparked interest in these ecosystems and their potential for use in climate mitigation strategies and more specifically, carbon abatement. BCEs can be restored in areas which have been tidally modified through anthropogenic interventions. One such location which has experienced anthropogenic tidal regime modification is the Lower Shoalhaven River region - a region that has a broad floodplain with many floodgates separating rivers, creeks, and associated tributaries from the tidal influences of …

Connecting The Docks: Investigating The Effects Of Overwater Structures Across Multiple Life History Stages Of Estuarine Fish, Mitchell Karhapaa

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

Estuaries are well renowned as some of the most productive and ecologically diverse ecosystems on the planet. As a result, fish across all life history (larval to adult) often inhabit estuaries due to their suitable biotic and abiotic conditions. However, not only do they house high abundances of fish species but their ability to provide ecosystem services for humans has quickly made them one of the most urbanised ecosystems on the globe. To accommodate these higher population densities boating infrastructure such as overwater structures (OWS) have proliferated throughout estuaries globally. The presence of these structures can lead to seagrass loss …

A 3d Ground Surface Model Of Mount Ousley Road: Modelling The Interface Of Quaternary And Bedrock Material Underneath A Major Highway Mountain Pass, Ethan Tsingos

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

The geology that underlies highway mountain passes is a significant factor that should be considered in the construction, maintenance, and monitoring schedule of infrastructure that exists within these areas. This thesis focuses on 3D mapping of the geology beneath Mount Ousley Road, a major road corridor that links Wollongong and Sydney. This project paid particular emphasis on mapping the boundary between unconsolidated Quaternary alluvium and colluvium, and underlying geological units. The 3D model was constructed within the ArcGIS Pro and IPM-MOVE software packages. The 3D model was developed using existing geological maps, and constructing geological cross-sections that incorporated borehole logs …

Lasting Impact: Fire-Affected Mangrove Regeneration In The Clyde River Estuary, Batemans Marine Park, Miranda James

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

The 2019-20 bushfire season impacted a range of ecosystems across Australia, including several coastal vegetation types that have not been subject to burning historically. In the Clyde River estuary of southern New South Wales (NSW), mangrove species Avicennia marina and Aegiceras corniculatum were burnt in the Black Summer bushfires. The slow recovery of these poorly fire adapted species reflects the lasting impacts of the event. This study aimed to quantify the ongoing processes, patterns, and capabilities of post-fire mangrove regeneration for both species in the Clyde River estuary. Assessments of fire-affected mangroves were undertaken through field data collection and analysis …

Assessment Of Potential Rooftop Solar Pv Electricity At A Suburban Scale, And A Comparative Analysis Based On Topographical Obstruction And Seasonality, Alok Singh

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

Long-term climate change mitigation calls for a switch from the current global non-renewable energy system to low greenhouse gas (GHG) emission energy solutions. Many nations have started adopting energy-efficient technology as part of their climate change programs and the built environment has been identified as a key lever for reducing emissions linked to energy efficiency. Building rooftop photovoltaic (PV) system is an effective technology to reduce emissions through the use of solar energy. In recent years, rooftop PV systems have become the main source of solar-generated energy, and forecasting their output is critical when assessing a site's PV energy potential. …

Investigation On Design And Development Methods For Internet Of Things, Yazeed Al Zahrani

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

The thesis work majorly focuses on the development methodologies of the Internet of Things (IoT). A detailed literature survey is presented for the discussion of various challenges in the development of software and design and deployment of hardware. The thesis work deals with the efficient development methodologies for the deployment of IoT system. Efficient hardware and software development reduces the risk of the system bugs and faults. The optimal placement of the IoT devices is the major challenge for the monitoring application. A Qualitative Spatial Reasoning (QSR) and Qualitative Temporal Reasoning (QTR) methodologies are proposed to build software systems. The …

Monitoring The Post-Fire Recovery And Regeneration Of Mangrove Communities In Batemans Marine Park, Annabel Green

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

The Black Summer Bushfires of 2019-2020, was the worst bushfire season on record for New South Wales, with 5.5 million hectares of land burnt. These fires were so extreme that many areas never before affected by fires were impacted. This included mangrove communities, previously believed to be too moist to catch fire. Little is known about the response of mangroves to bushfires and very few studies have been undertaken to investigate this topic. This event provided a rare opportunity to study fire-affected mangroves and how they respond to fire events in the short-term. This study assessed the recovery and regeneration …

Structural Analysis Of The Lengguru Fold And Thrust Belt, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, Taylor A. Baker

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

The Lengguru Fold and Thrust Belt is a unique region of western Irian Jaya, Indonesia that has undergone several deformation events over the past 5 million years due to crustal movement between the Australian, Caroline, and Pacific tectonic plates. Controversy exists on how or if the westernmost part of Irian Jaya (the Bird's Head Peninsula) travelled to its present-day location due to plate tectonic movements. It is possible that this movement is recorded in the structural geology of the Lengguru Fold and Thrust Belt. Thus, the primary objective of this project was to determine and measure the minimum amount of …

Perceptions Of Value And Risk: Sea-Level Rise And Adaptation At Greenwell Point, Jacob Lia

Social Sciences - Honours Theses

Sea-level rise poses a looming risk for Australia’s low-lying coastal regions. Many coastal communities are expressing uncertainty and resistance to adaptation because it is perceived as a greater risk than temporally distant sea-level rise. This thesis seeks to investigate how place values and risk perceptions inform community perspectives towards sea-level rise and adaptation in the form of a levee. A novel qualitative-GIS value-risk analysis is performed using photo-mapping interviews and landscape value-mapping with five research participants in Greenwell Point, NSW.

The results chapters reveal that residents valued Greenwell Point for its diverse environments and experiences. Two primary value groupings emerged, …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Travel Pattern – Evidence From Opal Card Data Analysis In New South Wales Australia, Tianyang Qu

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed people’s daily travel. This research aims to analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s travel pattern using public transport data and other COVID-19 relevant information (e.g., the daily number of new cases and travel restrictions). A case study in New South Wales, Australia is conducted by analysing Opal card data provided by Transport for NSW and other complementary data. The study area includes the Greater Sydney and the Illawarra regions, which consist of inter-city and intra-city trips based on multi-modal public transport systems like buses, trains, light rail and ferries. The analysis …

3d Geological Mapping Of Fracture Networks In The Hawkesbury Sandstone And Their Implications To Groundwater Flow, Rebecca Chapple

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

Throughout history, there has been extensive research performed on the Hawkesbury Sandstone, however, little has been done within academic literature on the fracture networks throughout it, specifically on their influence on groundwater flow and storage. The regional deformation is also believed to be due to basement control, with little research performed on alternate theories of deformation. This study aims to develop a better understanding of the fracture networks in the Hawkesbury Sandstone and how fractures may contribute to the flow pathways between underground and groundwater systems. It also aims to determine the possibility of an alternate theory for regional deformation, …

Post-Fire Vegetation Recovery At Monga National Park: Vegetative Composition, Fire Response Traits And Eucalypt Response To Fire, Madeline Surya Newbery

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

Wildfires are prevalent across Australian landscapes and their effects on plants are highly variable. Climate change has already caused an extensive fire season in 2019-20 in eastern Australia and frequency and intensity of fires is predicted to further increase into the future. These dynamic changes in the fire regime places plant species, even those with fire-adapted traits, at risk of population decline or extinction. A fundamental aspect of fire-plant relationships is understanding the plant-responses and processes that cause change when related to fire. This hinges on the species, size and age specifics of individual plants. Plants can be broadly categorised …

Towards A Flexible And Resilient Power Grid With Distributed Energy Resources, Ghulam Mohy Ud Din

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

Distributed energy resources (DERs) are growing rapidly due to their potential to avoid massive infrastructure transform, state incentivized policies, climate change targets, and customer-centric investment and services. However, this influx of the DERs has changed the power paradigm, and is disrupting the traditional markets and operation models of the power grids. The work reported in this thesis aims to harness flexibility and resilience for the power grid, providing solutions to the challenges involved in the management of the increasing DERs. To achieve these aims, this thesis proposes end-to-end solutions to plan, coordinate, model, monitor, forecast, and ultimately control and dispatch …

Remote Sensing Of Mangroves And Their Biomass, Maria Rafaela Braga Salum De Abreu

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

Mangroves provide many ecosystem services, including shoreline protection, habitat, and nutrient cycling. The need to mitigate climate change has focused attention on the ability of mangrove forests to sequester atmospheric carbon within biomass and store carbon for long periods within substrates. Traditional approaches for quantifying mangrove above-ground biomass relied upon destructive sampling and subsequent development of allometric equations. These equations related mangrove structural parameters, such as height and diameter at breast height, to their biomass and were used to estimate biomass by measuring mangrove forest structural parameters. Measuring mangrove structural parameters and developing allometric equations takes considerable effort and is …

Out In The Open: A Geoarchaeological Approach To Open-Air Surface Archaeology In The Semi-Arid Interior Of South Africa’S Western Cape, Natasha Phillips

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

Southern African research into the behavioural evolution of Late Pleistocene human adaptability, flexibility, and innovation is typically pursued through the lens of rock shelter deposits. However, rock shelters only cover a very small, geographically specific area of the subcontinent, distorting our understanding of change in human-environment interaction and demography. While still under-represented and under-explored in regional syntheses, more studies are looking to open-air archaeology to fill this geographic void in Late Pleistocene research. These studies either pursue a landscape approach that prioritises spatial coverage, or site-bound excavation to maximise temporal control. However, few investigate the depositional and erosional phenomena involved …

An Exploration Of Iot Platform Development, Mahdi Fahmidehgholami, Didar Zowghi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

IoT (Internet of Things) platforms are key enablers for smart city initiatives, targeting the improvement of citizens' quality of life and economic growth. As IoT platforms are dynamic, proactive, and heterogeneous socio-technical artefacts, systematic approaches are required for their development. Limited surveys have exclusively explored how IoT platforms are developed and maintained from the perspective of information system development process lifecycle. In this paper, we present a detailed analysis of 63 approaches. This is accomplished by proposing an evaluation framework as a cornerstone to highlight the characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of these approaches. The survey results not only provide insights …

The Potential Of Carbon Sequestration In Trees On The University Of Wollongong Campus As A Means Of Offsetting Emissions, Nicholas James Agostino

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

As anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise exponentially the need for effective carbon mitigation strategies is becoming increasingly important. Carbon farming represents a relatively low cost option for businesses to offset their emissions and is quickly becoming more achievable with carbon accounting methods and carbon credits being specifically designed to benefit both the business and landholder. The primary goal of this study is to quantify carbon storage through sequestration in trees on the University of Wollongong (UoW) main campus in order to be able to inform on a carbon strategy which best utilizes carbon farming as an offsetting strategy. …

Mid-To Late-Holocene Coastal Evolution And Multi-Hazard Analysis Of Papamoa Beach, New Zealand, Reilly Pearce

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

Coasts are important as they are dynamic and one of the most prone environments to the impacts of climate change. Sea level rise is one of the most significant issues of the present day and it will continue to evolve as a more critical issue in the future. Therefore, it is of utmost importance and urgency for coastal environments to be properly managed to best mitigate the effects on coastal hazards such as storms, sea level rise and occasionally tsunami. The successful management of coasts requires knowledge on how these hazards have affected environments in the past. Studying prograded barriers …

A Multi-User Mobile Gis Solution For Documenting Large Surface Scatters: An Example From The Doring River, South Africa, Christopher J.H. Ames, Matthew Shaw, Corey O'Driscoll, Alex Mackay

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: Part B

This article discusses the development and implementation of a mobile GIS catch-and-release system for documenting large surface artifact scatters along the Doring River in South Africa. An integrated, cloud-based mobile GIS solution was built using a suite of ESRI ArcGIS applications with an aim to maximize the speed and breadth of techno-typological data capture, while minimizing data collection errors and post-processing requirements. The system was successfully implemented during the 2019 field season of the Doring River Archaeological Project. With the ability for project-specific customization and interchangeable hardware components, the system transcends geographic region and temporal focus. Moreover, the system accommodates …

Oceanographic Characteristics Of Alluvial Estuaries, North-West Arabian/Persian Gulf, Qassim M. F Al-Aesawi

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

A morpho-sedimentological and morphodynamic assessment of recent changes in the dominant physical processes in Shatt Al-Arab estuary in Iraq and their dynamic effects is an utmost necessity. Shatt Al-Arab is the main freshwater resource into the Arabian/Persian Gulf, and to southern Iraq and the surrounding agricultural areas. It also has a significant position in the economy for international ship transport, and in its geopolitical setting as it forms the border with Iran for 110 km. Contemporary human advancements have influenced the physical processes by increasing global warming and anthropogenic changes in the feeder catchment, the mouth of the river and …

The Proximal Drivers Of Large Fires: A Pyrogeographic Study, Hamish Clarke, Trent Penman, Matthias Boer, Geoffrey Cary, Joseph Fontaine, Owen F. Price, Ross A. Bradstock

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: Part B

© Copyright © 2020 Clarke, Penman, Boer, Cary, Fontaine, Price and Bradstock. Variations in global patterns of burning and fire regimes are relatively well measured, however, the degree of influence of the complex suite of biophysical and human drivers of fire remains controversial and incompletely understood. Such an understanding is required in order to support current fire management and to predict the future trajectory of global fire patterns in response to changes in these determinants. In this study we explore and compare the effects of four fundamental controls on fire, namely the production of biomass, its drying, the influence of …

Coastal Wetland Mapping Using Ensemble Learning Algorithms: A Comparative Study Of Bagging, Boosting And Stacking Techniques, Li Wen, Michael Hughes

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: Part B

Coastal wetlands are a critical component of the coastal landscape that are increasingly threatened by sea level rise and other human disturbance. Periodically mapping wetland distribution is crucial to coastal ecosystem management. Ensemble algorithms (EL), such as random forest (RF) and gradient boosting machine (GBM) algorithms, are now commonly applied in the field of remote sensing. However, the performance and potential of other EL methods, such as extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and bagged trees, are rarely compared and tested for coastal wetland mapping. In this study, we applied the three most widely used EL techniques (i.e., bagging, boosting and stacking) …

End-Of-Life Cancer Care Resource Utilisation In Rural Versus Urban Settings: A Systematic Review, Jessica Cerni, Joel J. Rhee, Hassan Hosseinzadeh

Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities - Papers

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Background: Despite the advances in End-of-life (EOL) cancer care, disparities remain in the accessibility and utilisation of EOL cancer care resources. Often explained by socio-demographic factors, geographic variation exists in the availability and provision of EOL cancer care services among EOL cancer decedents across urban versus rural settings. This systematic review aims to synthesise mortality follow-back studies on the patterns of EOL cancer care resource use for adults (>18 years) during end-of-life cancer care. Methods: Five databases were searched and data analysed using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and …

Climate Change Considerations Are Fundamental To Management Of Deep-Sea Resource Extraction, Lisa Levin, Chih Wei, Daniel Dunn, Diva Amon, Oliver Ashford, William Cheung, Ana Colaco, Carlos Dominguez-Carrio, Elva Escobar, Harriet R. Harden- Davies, Jeffrey Drazen, Khaira Ismail, Daniel Jones, David Johnson, Jennifer Le, Franck Lejzerowicz, Satoshi Mitarai, Telmo Morato, Sandor Mulsow, Paul Snelgrove, Andrew Sweetman, Moriaki Yasuhara

Faculty of Business and Law - Papers

Climate change manifestation in the ocean, through warming, oxygen loss, increasing acidification, and changing particulate organic carbon flux (one metric of altered food supply), is projected to affect most deep-ocean ecosystems concomitantly with increasing direct human disturbance. Climate drivers will alter deep-sea biodiversity and associated ecosystem services, and may interact with disturbance from resource extraction activities or even climate geoengineering. We suggest that to ensure the effective management of increasing use of the deep ocean (e.g., for bottom fishing, oil and gas extraction, and deep-seabed mining), environmental management and developing regulations must consider climate change. Strategic planning, impact assessment and …

The Influence Of Intra-Seam Coal Character Variation On Outburst Risk Potential, Patrick Booth, Jan Nemcik, Ting Ren

Resource Operators Conference

Effective quantification and management of risk associated with sudden gas release during mining (outburst) is reliant on coal and gas properties measurement bases being representative of the local geological and operational conditions. Contemporary gas emission calculation techniques often inappropriately generalise, or neglect, known site-specific extraction geometry, geological conditions, or heterogeneity and anisotropy within the working seam. Over 5000 coal core gas sample results, obtained from two Southern Sydney Basin Bulli Seam underground coal mines, plus coal samples collected from multiple locations at one studied mine, have been analysed in various geospatial and mining process-based context. Analysis has focused on the …

Role Of Area-Level Access To Primary Care On The Geographic Variation Of Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Distribution: A Multilevel Analysis Of The Adult Residents In The Illawarra—Shoalhaven Region Of Nsw, Australia, Renin Melkias Baby Selvi Toms, Xiaoqi Feng, Darren J. Mayne, Andrew D. Bonney

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Background: Access to primary care is important for the identification, control and management of cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRFs). This study investigated whether differences in geographic access to primary care explained area-level variation in CMRFs. Methods: Multilevel logistic regression models were used to derive the association between area-level access to primary care and seven discrete CMRFs after adjusting for individual and area-level co-variates. Two-step floating catchment area method was used to calculate the geographic access to primary care for the small areas within the study region. Results: Geographic access to primary care was inversely associated with low high density lipoprotein (OR …

Data-Driven Approach For Highlighting Priority Areas For Protection In Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, Morgan Visalli, Benjamin Best, Reniel Cabral, William Cheung, Nichola Clark, Cristina Garilao, Kristin Kaschner, Kathleen Kesner-Reyes, Vicky Lam, Sara Maxwell, Juan Mayorga, Holly Moeller, Lance Morgan, Guillermo Crespo, Malin Pinsky, Timothy White, Douglas Mccauley

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

2020 The Authors One of the aims of the United Nations (UN) negotiations on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is to develop a legal process for the establishment of area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, in ABNJ. Here we use a conservation planning algorithm to integrate 55 global data layers on ABNJ species diversity, habitat heterogeneity, benthic features, productivity, and fishing as a means for highlighting priority regions in ABNJ to be considered for spatial protection. We also include information on forecasted species distributions under climate change. We found that …

Illuminating Dark Fishing Fleets In North Korea, Jaeyoon Park, Jungsam Lee, Katherine Seto, Timothy Hochberg, Brian Wong, Nathan Miller, Kenji Takasaki, Hiroshi Kubota, Yoshioki Oozeki, Sejal Doshi, Maya Midzik, Quentin A. Hanich, Brian Sullivan, Paul Woods, David Kroodsma

Faculty of Business and Law - Papers

2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing threatens resource sustainability and equity. A major challenge with such activity is that most fishing vessels do not broadcast their positions and are "dark" in public monitoring systems. Combining four satellite technologies, we identify widespread illegal fishing by dark fleets in the waters between the Koreas, Japan, and Russia. We find >900 vessels of Chinese origin in 2017 and >700 in 2018 …