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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Revisiting An Information Infrastructure For Development: Exploring The Cost Of Information In Pacific Island Development, William J. Tibben
Revisiting An Information Infrastructure For Development: Exploring The Cost Of Information In Pacific Island Development, William J. Tibben
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been associated with development programmes for many decades. A theme of Lamberton's commentary on such initiatives focuses on the lack of attention given to information as a key factor in the development process. His writing reiterated a number of arguments that he saw as being fundamental to the application of an information perspective to development issues. With a focus on agricultural development policy in the Pacific region, the paper uses a number of propositions that are suggested by Lamberton to analyse contemporary development initiatives in Pacific Island agriculture. These propositions focus attention on information …
Vulnerability Analysis Of Hydrological Infrastructure To Flooding In Coastal Cities - A Graph Theory Approach, Robert Ighodaro Ogie, Tomas Holderness, Sarah Dunn, Etienne Turpin
Vulnerability Analysis Of Hydrological Infrastructure To Flooding In Coastal Cities - A Graph Theory Approach, Robert Ighodaro Ogie, Tomas Holderness, Sarah Dunn, Etienne Turpin
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
Hydrological infrastructure such as pumps and floodgates are invaluable assets for mitigating flooding in coastal cities. These infrastructure components are often vulnerable to damage or failure due to the impact of flood waters, thus exacerbating the flood hazards and causing significant loss of life and destruction to property worth billions of dollars. Hence, there is a growing need worldwide to enhance the understanding of flood vulnerability and to develop key metrics for assessing it. This study proposes an approach for measuring the vulnerability of hydrological infrastructure to flood damage in coastal cities. In this approach, a hydrological infrastructure flood vulnerability …
How To Attract Foreign Firms To Do Australian Infrastructure, Garry Bowditch
How To Attract Foreign Firms To Do Australian Infrastructure, Garry Bowditch
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
Australia's two biggest construction companies, Leighton and Lend Lease, control a significant share of construction - up to 75% in cases such as major rail projects. The recent Productivity Commission draft report on public infrastructure found their combined "market shares would appear sufficient to allow them to exercise market power to inflate prices and/or profits". At the same time, the Commission noted that no evidence exists to support such a proposition. A more important unanswered question remains - what conditions are necessary to attract foreign firms to help Australia deliver cheaper, faster and better infrastructure? Looking abroad for solutions can …
The Budget Will Be Big On Infrastructure But We Need More Than Just Roads, Garry Bowditch
The Budget Will Be Big On Infrastructure But We Need More Than Just Roads, Garry Bowditch
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
The Abbott government is preparing to give Sydney's WestConnex road project a A$2 billion boost in this week's federal budget, part of a broader $10 billion infrastructure package aimed at boosting productivity and private sector investment. Congestion in Sydney continues to escalate with gridlock on roads impacting passenger and freight logistics. The persistence of this situation reflects poorly on project selection and asset management processes, along with distortions that have arisen from poor interactions between the Commonwealth and the states. Reform is urgently needed where there is less focus on ribbon cutting and more use of well-targeted "pinch point" interventions. …
Should Users Pay The Toll For Australia's Infrastructure Problem?, Garry Bowditch
Should Users Pay The Toll For Australia's Infrastructure Problem?, Garry Bowditch
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
Australia spends more on infrastructure today than at any stage in its history. Yet governments are unable to meet demand and don't expect ever to do so. What can governments do to keep up with escalating demand and community expectations for infrastructure? Reserve Bank assistant governor Philip Lowe says tolls and levies could be the answer to more efficiently funding the transport infrastructure we need - infrastructure he says would boost productivity and improve living standards. Tolls are just one issue likely to be debated as part of the Productivity Commission's current inquiry into infrastructure costs, which is considering how …
Australia's Infrastructure Cost Conundrum, Garry Bowditch
Australia's Infrastructure Cost Conundrum, Garry Bowditch
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
Infrastructure is about the long-term growth and prosperity of a nation, but Australia will get very little of this benefit if the cost of building it continues to rapidly escalate. Australia is becoming increasingly uncompetitive in design and delivery of major projects. This is an unacceptable situation, and a newly commissioned multi-state inquiry by the SMART Infrastructure Facility will identify the key causes and make recommendations to help secure better value for taxpayers' money. Australian jurisdictions have experienced sharp rises in the cost of delivering mega-projects. In the pre-GFC mining construction boom period of the mid-2000s construction costs were 20-30% …
Rail Track Infrastructure For Enhanced Speed - Analysis Design And Construction Challenges, Buddhima Indraratna, Sanjay Shrawan Nimbalkar, Jayan Sylaja J S Vinod
Rail Track Infrastructure For Enhanced Speed - Analysis Design And Construction Challenges, Buddhima Indraratna, Sanjay Shrawan Nimbalkar, Jayan Sylaja J S Vinod
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
Rail is one of the largest transportation modes offering freight and passenger traffic in rapidly developing nations, including India. Conscious efforts to improve productivity, modernization and technology upgrading have led to an impressive growth in railways. Large-scale physical modeling, sophisticated numerical modeling and full-scale field monitoring often provide significant knowledge to better understand track performance and to extend the current state-of-the-art in design. A series of large-scale laboratory tests were conducted to establish relationships between (i) ballast breakage and train speed, (ii) ballast fouling and strength and (iii) interface strength and geogrids. Comprehensive field trials were carried out on instrumented …
A Bluetooth Wireless Network Infrastructure For Multimedia Guidebooks On Mobile Computing Devices, Matthew D'Souza, Montserrat Ros, Adam Postula, Neil Bergmann
A Bluetooth Wireless Network Infrastructure For Multimedia Guidebooks On Mobile Computing Devices, Matthew D'Souza, Montserrat Ros, Adam Postula, Neil Bergmann
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A
This paper describes the implementation of a Bluetooth Village Guide Book (VGB) scenario for use in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village located in Brisbane, Australia. An Information Point Station Network (IPSN) was developed, along with software for two types of mobile computing devices. The implementation consists of several Information Point Stations (IPSs) placed at locations of significance, with access to information items on a centralized server. Once registered, the user is given the opportunity to experience context-aware information on demand and in various multimedia formats. These information items are selected by the user, either by way of a menu system …