Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Implementing Namebers Using Microchip Implants: The Black Box Beneath The Skin, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The use of electronic-based physical access cards to secure premises such as government buildings and large corporate offices has been in operation since the inception of bar code and magnetic-stripe cards in the 1970s. Over time, for secure access control, these first generation card technologies based on optical character recognition (OCR) and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) were replaced by more sophisticated technologies such as smart cards and biometrics, containing encrypted data and techniques which were more difficult to dupe or to replicate \cite{michael2003a}.

An employee today wanting to gain access to their place of work, typically carries a photo …

Satellite Evidence For A Large Source Of Formic Acid From Boreal And Tropical Forests, T Stavrakou, J F. Muller, J Peeters, A Razavi, L Clarisse, C Clerbaux, P Coheur, D Hurtmans, M De Maziere, C Vigouroux, Nicholas Deutscher, David Griffith, Nicholas Jones, Clare Paton-Walsh

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Formic acid contributes significantly to acid rain in remote environments1, 2. Direct sources of formic acid include human activities, biomass burning and plant leaves. Aside from these direct sources, sunlight-induced oxidation of non-methane hydrocarbons (largely of biogenic origin) is probably the largest source3, 4. However, model simulations substantially underpredict atmospheric formic acid levels5, 6, 7, indicating that not all sources have been included in the models. Here, we use satellite measurements of formic acid concentrations to constrain model simulations of the global formic acid budget. According to our simulations, 100–120 Tg of formic acid is produced annually, which is two …

The Social And Behavioral Implications Of Location-Based Services, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The social and behavioral implications of location-based services (LBS) are only now beginning to come to light in advanced markets where the services have been adopted by just a little over half the market (Microsoft 2011). Depending on one’s definition of what constitutes location-based services, statistics on the level of adoption differ considerably. While it is helpful to provide as broad a list of applications as possible in what constitutes LBS (e.g. everything from in-vehicle navigation systems to downloading a map using a computer), it can also cloud the real picture forming behind this emerging technology. Emerging not in the …

Monitoring People Using Location-Based Social Networking And Its Negative Impact On Trust: An Exploratory Contextual Analysis Of Five Types Of “Friend” Relationships, Sarah Fusco, Katina Michael, Anas Aloudat, Roba Abbas

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Location based social networking (LBSN) applications are part of a new suite of social networking tools. LBSN is the convergence between location based services (LBS) and online social networking (OSN). LBSN applications offer users the ability to look up the location of another “friend” remotely using a smart phone, desktop or other device, anytime and anywhere. Users invite their friends to participate in LBSN and there is a process of consent that follows. This paper explores the potential impact of LBSN upon trust in society. It looks at the willingness of individuals to share their location data with family, friends, …

Sparse Signal Decomposition For Ground Penetrating Radar, Wenbin Shao, Abdesselam Bouzerdoum, Son Lam Phung

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

In this paper, we present an adaptive approach for sparse signal decomposition, in which each GPR trace is decomposed into elementary waves automatically. A sparse feature vector is extracted from the decomposition and used for classification of railway ballast. The experimental results show that the proposed approach can represent the GPR signals efficiently, and effective features can be extracted for pattern classification.

Power Line Enhancement For Data Monitoring Of Neural Electrical Activity In The Human Body, Ahmed M. Haidar, Sridhathan C, Abdulsalam Hazza, Ahmed Saleh

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Distance and real-time data monitoring are the necessary condition that makes any system in good working order. Recent advancements in micro-electronics and wireless technology enable the application of wireless sensors in both industry and wild environments. However, Long-distance wireless communication has several drawbacks like limited bandwidth, considerable costs and unstable connection quality. Therefore, Power Line Communication (PLC) using pre-established Power Lines (PL) becomes more attractive for high data transmission technology. This paper reviews the existing distance data monitoring systems and presents a case study for data transferring of temperature and heart beat measurement. The simulations were carried out on the …

A Method For Evaluating Bias In Global Measurements Of Co2 Total Columns From Space, D Wunch, P O. Wennberg, G C. Toon, B J. Connor, B Fisher, G B. Osterman, C Frankenberg, L Mandrake, C O'Dell, P Ahonen, S C. Biraud, R Castano, Noel Cressie, D Crisp, N M. Deutscher, A Eldering, M L. Fisher, David W. Griffith, M Gunson, P Heikkinen, G Keppel-Aleks, E Kyro, R Lindemaier, Ronald Macatangay, J Mendonca, J Messerschmidt, C E. Miller, I Morino, J Notholt, F A. Oyafuso, M Rettinger, J Robinson, C M. Roehl, R J. Salawitch, V Sherlock, K Strong, R Sussmann, T Tanaka, D R. Thompson, O Uchino, Thorsten Warneke, Steven C. Wofsy

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

We describe a method of evaluating systematic errors in measurements of total column dry-air mole fractions of CO₂ (XCO₂) from space, and we illustrate the method by applying it to the v2.8 Atmospheric CO₂ Observations from Space retrievals of the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (ACOS-GOSAT) measurements over land. The approach exploits the lack of large gradients in X_CO2 south of 25S to identify large-scale offsets and other biases in the ACOS-GOSAT data with several retrieval parameters and errors in instrument calibration. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method by comparing the ACOS-GOSAT data …

Disaster Communication Governance And Public Trust: The Case Of Tepco, Akemi Takeoka Chatfield, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

The International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) Risk Governance Framework identifies five inter-dependent phases, of which the final phase, Communication, is of the utmost importance because effective communication is the key to creating public trust in disaster risk management. Extant government reports on the 2005 Hurricane Katrina and the 2009 Victoria bushfires in Australia (2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission 2010) provide evidence that disaster communication governance deficits contribute to the slow disaster response and recovery operations and the erosion of public trust in government disaster management.

The Application Of Microsimulation To Threat Modelling, Tony Green, Nicola Davies, Chris Flaherty, Ian Piper, Daniel Keep, Rachel Bunder

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

This paper summarises the current research on the use of microsimulation and its use for understanding behaviour in modelling threat in society. The motivation for this project was to develop simulation tools that could be used to model human behaviour and overlay that behaviour with a full spectrum of threats to understand how alternative ways for undertaking prevention, protection and response could be used to reduce the risk from a threat. The basic simulation engine - Simulacron, and its associated modules are briefly described. A number of applications to biological infection, including single vector infectious disease spread, biological weapon placement …

Application Of Microsimulation Towards Modelling Of Behaviours In Complex Environments, Daniel Keep, Rachel Bunder, Ian Piper, Anthony Green

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

In this paper, we introduce new capabilities to our existing microsimulation framework, Simulacron. These new capabilities add the modelling of behaviours based on motivations and improve our existing non-deterministic movement capacity. We then discuss the application of these new features to a simple, synthetic, proof of concept, scenario involving the transit of people through a corridor and how an induced panic affects their throughput. Finally we describe a more complex scenario, which is currently under development, involving the detonation of an explosive device in a major metropolitan transport hub at peak hour and the analysis of subsequent reaction.

Theory Of Gaussian Variational Approximation For A Poisson Mixed Model, Peter Hall, J T. Ormerod, M P. Wand

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Likelihood-based inference for the parameters of generalized linear mixed models is hindered by the presence of intractable integrals. Gaussian variational approximation provides a fast and effective means of approximate inference. We provide some theory for this type of approximation for a simple Poisson mixed model. In particular, we establish consistency at rate m^−1/2 +n⁻¹, where m is the number of groups and n is the number of repeated measurements.

Modelling Of Behaviours In Response To Terrorist Activity, Daniel Keep, I. Piper, A. Green, R. Bunder

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

In this paper we present an approach to the modelling of human interaction in complex environments and its application to a security related scenario; the evacuation of a railway station subsequent to the detonation of an improvised explosive device. The intent of the experiments reported in this paper is to investigate the application of our existing software capabilities to the proof-of-concept scenario described above.Our simulation framework, Simulacron, allows the development of multiple interacting modules which address matters such as motivation, scheduling and movement, controlled both by internal goals and external influences. The ability to integrate this interaction modelling with our …

Editorial: The Social And Behavioural Implications Of Location-Based Services, Katina Michael, M G. Michael

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

The social and behavioral implications of location-based services (LBS) are only now beginning to come to light in advanced markets where the services have been adopted by just a little over half the market (Microsoft 2011). Depending on one's definition of what constitutes location-based services, statistics on the level of adoption differ considerably. While it is helpful to provide as broad a list of applications as possible in what constitutes LBS (e.g. everything from in-vehicle navigation systems to downloading a map using a computer), it can also cloud the real picture forming behind this emerging technology. Emerging not in the …

The Fallout From Emerging Technologies: Surveillance, Social Networks And Suicide, Katina Michael, M G. Michael

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) [1] one of the most revered doctors of the ecclesia catholica, might not have been so highly esteemed had he fl ourished centuries afterwards in a world of uberveillance [2]. One of the unique aspects of Augustine's life that endeared him to the community of the faithful, both past and present, was his rising up from the "fornications" [3] and the "delight in thievery" [4] to become a paradigm for both the eastern and western churches of the penitent who becomes a saint.

Emerging Forms Of Covert Surveillance Using Gps-Enabled Devices, Roba Abbas, Katina Michael, M G. Michael, Anas Aloudat

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

This paper presents the real possibility that commercial mobile tracking and monitoring solutions will become widely adopted for the practice of non-traditional covert surveillance within a community setting, resulting in community members engaging in the covert observation of family, friends, or acquaintances. This paper investigates five stakeholder relationships using scenarios to demonstrate the potential socio-ethical implications that tracking and monitoring people will have on society at large. The five stakeholder types explored in this paper include: (i) husband-wife (partner-partner), (ii) parent-child, (iii) employer-employee, (iv) friend-friend, and (v) stranger-stranger. Mobile technologies such as mobile camera phones, global positioning system data loggers, …

Toward The Regulation Of Ubiquitous Mobile Government: A Case Study On Location-Based Emergency Services In Australia, Anas Aloudat, Katina Michael

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Mobile alerts and notifications and location-based emergency warning systems are now an established part of mobile government strategies in an increasing number of countries worldwide. In Australia the national emergency warning system (NEWS) was instituted after the tragic Black Saturday Victorian Bushfires of February 2009. NEWS has enabled the provision of public information from the government to the citizen during emergencies anywhere and any time. Moving on from traditional short message service (SMS) notifications and cell broadcasting to more advanced location-based services, the paper explores the major issues faced by government, business and society at large, toward the realization of …

Statistical Analysis Model Predicting Computer Use In Mathematics, Rebecca Hudson, Anne Porter, Mark Nelson

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

This paper is a report of a doctoral thesis that investigated the factors that were associated with the use of computers in secondary mathematics teaching, the choices made by teachers and learning theories guiding their teaching. Mixed methods approaches were used to triangulate the results of the study. The study was divided into three stages, the first a questionnaire completed by 114 teachers, the second was examination of current accredited courses in teacher preparation for mathematics teaching to identify what learning theories were included in subjects, and the third were interviews with 8 teachers in training and 6 experienced teachers. …

Generalised Morphisms Of K-Graphs: K-Morphs, Alex Kumjian, David Pask, Aidan Sims

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

In a number of recent papers, (k+l)-graphs have been constructed from k-graphs by inserting new edges in the last l dimensions. These constructions have been motivated by C*-algebraic considerations, so they have not been treated systematically at the level of higher-rank graphs themselves. Here we introduce k-morphs, which provide a systematic unifying framework for these various constructions. We think of k-morphs as the analogue, at the level of k-graphs, of C*-correspondences between C*-algebras. To make this analogy explicit, we introduce a category whose objects are k-graphs and whose …

Drug Diffusion From Polymeric Delivery Devices: A Problem With Two Moving Boundaries, Mike Hsieh, Scott Mccue, Timothy J. Moroney, Mark I. Nelson

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

An existing model for solvent penetration and drug release from a spherically shaped polymeric drug delivery device is revisited. The model has two moving boundaries, one that describes the interface between the glassy and rubbery states of the polymer, and another that defines the interface between the polymer ball and the pool of solvent. The model is extended so that the nonlinear diffusion coefficient of drug explicitly depends on the concentration of solvent, and the resulting equations are solved numerically using a front fixing transformation together with a finite difference spatial discretisation and the method of lines. We present evidence …

An Analysis Of An Activated Sludge Process Containing A Sludge Disintegration System, Mark I. Nelson, Easwaran Balakrishnan

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

A continuous flow bioreactor is a well-stirred vessel containing microorganisms (X) through which a substrate (S) flows at a continuous rate. The microorganisms grow through the consumption of the substrate, producing more microorganisms and products. The products will typically contain carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water and other species, including biological compounds, specific to the process under consideration. The nature of these products is unimportant in this study. Unused substrate, microorganisms, and products flow out of the reactor. The use of a continuous flow bioreactor to treat sewage or industrial wastewaters is known as the activated sludge process. One drawback associated with …

Asymptotic And Numerical Results For A Model Of Solvent-Dependent Drug Diffusion Through Polymeric Spheres, Scott Mccue, Mike Hsieh, Timothy J. Moroney, Mark I. Nelson

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

A model for drug diffusion from a spherical polymeric drug delivery device is considered. The model contains two key features. The first is that solvent diffuses into the polymer, which then transitions from a glassy to a rubbery state. The interface between the two states of polymer is modeled as a moving boundary, whose speed is governed by a kinetic law; the same moving boundary problem arises in the one-phase limit of a Stefan problem with kinetic undercooling. The second feature is that drug diffuses only through the rubbery region, with a nonlinear diffusion coefficient that depends on the concentration …

Sums Of Exponentials Approximations For The Kohlrausch Function, R S. Anderson, Maureen P. Edwards, S A. Husain, R J. Loy

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

The mathematical foundation of many real-world problems can be quite deep. Such a situation arises in the study of the flow and deformation (rheology) of viscoelastic materials such as naturally occurring and synthetic polymers. In order to advance polymer science and the efficient manufacture of synthetic polymers, it is necessary to recover information about the molecular structure within such materials. For the recovery of such information about a specific polymer, it is necessary to determine its relaxation modulus G(t) and its creep modulus J(t). They correspond to the kernels of the Boltzmann causal integral equation models of stress relaxation and …

A Spatial Analysis Of Multivariate Output From Regional Climate Models, Stephan Sain, Reinhard Furrer, Noel A. Cressie

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Climate models have become an important tool in the study of climate and climate change, and ensemble experiments consisting of multiple climate-model runs are used in studying and quantifying the uncertainty in climate-model output. However, there are often only a limited number of model runs available for a particular experiment, and one of the statistical challenges is to characterize the distribution of the model output. To that end, we have developed a multivariate hierarchical approach, at the heart of which is a new representation of a multivariate Markov random field. This approach allows for flexible modeling of the multivariate spatial …

An Ontology-Mediated Validation Of Software Models, Antonio Lopez Lorca, Ghassan Beydoun, Leon Sterling, Tim Miller

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

When errors in software modelling activities propagate to later phases of software development lifecycle, they become costlier to fix and lower the qual-ity of the final product. Early validation of software models can prevent rework and incorrect development non-compliant with client’s specification. In this paper we advocate the use of ontologies to validate and improve the quality of software models as they are being developed, at the same time bridging the traditional gap between developers and clients. We propose a general ontology-mediated process to validate software models that can be adapted in a broad range of software de-velopment projects. We …

P2cp: A New Cloud Storage Model To Enhance Performance Of Cloud Services, Zhe Sun, Jun Shen, Ghassan Beydoun

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

This paper presents a storage model named Peer to Cloud and Peer (P2CP). Assuming that the P2CP model follows the Poisson process or Little’s law, we prove that the speed and availability of P2CP is generally better than that of the pure Peer to Peer (P2P) model, the Peer to Server, Peer (P2SP) model or the cloud model. A key feature of our P2CP is that it has three data transmission tunnels: the cloud-user data transmission tunnel, the clients’ data transmission tunnel, and the common data transmission tunnel. P2CP uses the cloud storage system as a common storage system. When …

Using Ontologies To Synchronize Change In Relational Database Systems, Waqas Ahmed, Muhammad Ahtisham Aslam, Antonio Lopez Lorca, Jun Shen, Ghassan Beydoun, Debbie Richards

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Ontology is a building block of the semantic Web. Ontology building requires a detailed domain analysis, which in turn requires financial resources, intensive domain knowledge and time. Domain models in industry are frequently stored as relational database schemas in relational databases. An ontology base underlying such schemas can represent concepts and relationships that are present in the domain of discourse. However, with ever increasing demand for wider access and domain coverage, public databases are not static and their schemas evolve over time. Ontologies generated according to these databases have to change to reflect the new situation. Once a database schema …

Measuring The Feedback Parameter Of A Semiconductor Laser With External Optical Feedback, Yanguang Yu, Jiangtao Xi, Joe F. Chicharo

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Feedback parameter (the C factor) is an important parameter for a semiconductor laser operating in the regime of external optical feedback. Self-mixing interferometry (SMI) has been proposed for the measurement of the parameter, based on the time-domain analysis of the output power waveforms (called SMI signals) in presence of feedback. However, the existing approaches only work for a limited range of C, below about 3.5. This paper presents a new method to measure C based on analysis of the phase signal of SMI signals in the frequency domain. The proposed method covers a large range of C values, up to …

Recovering The Absolute Phase Maps Of Two Fringe Patterns With Selected Frequencies, Yi Ding, Jiangtao Xi, Yanguang Yu, Joe F. Chicharo

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Phase unwrapping is an important and challenging issue in fringe pattern profilometry. In this Letter we propose an approach to recover absolute phase maps of two fringe patterns with selected frequencies. Compared to existing temporal multiple frequency algorithms, the two frequencies in our proposed algorithm can be high enough and thus enable efficient and accurate recovery of absolute phase maps. Experiment results are presented to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

A Voxel-Based Octree Construction Approach For Procedural Cave Generation, Juncheng Cui, Yang-Wai Chow, Minjie Zhang

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Procedural content generation is becoming an increasingly popular research area as a means of algorithmically generating scene content for virtual environments. The automated generation of such content avoids the manual labour typically associated with creating scene content, and is extremely useful in application areas such as computer graphics, movie production and video games. While virtual 3D caves are commonly featured in these virtual environment applications, procedural cave generation is not an area that has received much attention among researchers to date. This paper presents a procedural approach to generating 3D cave structures. Other than the development of a method to …

Procedural Generation Of 3d Cave Models With Stalactites And Stalagmites, Juncheng Cui, Yang-Wai Chow, Minjie Zhang

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

The increasing popularity of computer graphics applications in video games and movie production has resulted in a growing demand for the development of virtual environments with rich visual scene content. As such, the use of procedural content generation techniques is an attractive solution that can avoid the manual effort involved in the creation of highly complex scenes, by automating the generation of scene content. However, while there is much research on procedural content generation techniques, the procedural generation of 3D cave models is relatively unexplored. The focus of our research is on procedural cave generation, and this paper presents a …