Digital Commons Network^™

Mad About The Boy, Debra Mayrhofer

Research outputs pre 2011

The media coverage of an out-of-control teenage party in the Melbourne suburb of Narre Warren on 12 January 2008, and its construction of the protagonist who threw the party, has highlighted once again the inequitable treatment of youth, particularly adolescent males, in the Australian media. This paper examines the coverage in terms of the discursive strategies used by the mainstream Australian media to legitimise and naturalise the denigration and humiliation of the boy involved. It will discuss the ongoing demonisation of young males in general, and the concomitant ‘panics’ about their degeneration into moral lassitude, as well as the particular …

A Review Of The Evaluation Of Healthway Sponsorships, Michael Rosenberg, Christina Mills, Joanna Granich, Renee Ferguson, Sarah French, Lisa Wood

Research outputs pre 2011

This study reviewed the methods used by Healthway to assess sponsorship implementation/value and to explore complimentary or alternative evaluation measures...

Interview questions related to sponsorship activities, procedures, requirements and evaluation. Suggestions for practical and alternative ways of assessing sponsorship implementation and conducting evaluations were also asked. In addition, the perceived value of sponsorship investments to Healthway and satisfaction with the existing evaluation framework were also sought...

Review Of The Social And Emotional Wellbeing Of Indigenous Australian Peoples, Darren Garvey

Research outputs pre 2011

The first case of diabetes among Indigenous people was recorded in Adelaide in 1923. Records prior to this time showed that Indigenous people were fit, lean, and did not suffer from any form of metabolic condition, which were largely believed to be a characteristic of European populations. The earliest detailed studies investigating the development of diabetes in Indigenous populations were not undertaken, however, until the early 1960s. These and subsequent studies found a significant correlation between the development of a ‘westernised’ lifestyle and the levels of type 2 diabetes in the Indigenous population.

Since that time, type 2 diabetes has …

The Third Generation Acd Model : A Semiparametric Approach, Pipat Wongsaart, Jiti Gao, David E. Allen

Research outputs pre 2011

Having concluded that thus far the question about the most appropriate type of nonlinear ACD model has not been satisfactorily answered, we intend to develop a novel ACD modelling methodology based on an iterative estimation algorithm and a semiparametric autoregressive process that not only allows the data to speak for itself, but also is robust across datasets without relying on some computational factors, such as the hypothesis about the probability density function of the standardised durations. We propose in this paper the Semiparametric ACD (SP-ACD) model, which can be considered a starting point of such a development. To address the …

Transforming Schooling With Support From Portable Computing, Christopher Newhouse

Research outputs pre 2011

For over two decades educators have hailed the possibility of harnessing the capabilities of portable computing to transform Australian schools into places where students experience powerful learning environments, relevant to the 21st Century. For some schools in Australia this journey is well into its second decade with the use of networkable portable computing devices to provide anywhere-anytime learning opportunities. While some of the potential has been realised invariably the finding has been that using the technology to create powerful learning environments in real school setting is not a trivial matter and needs to consider a range of factors. So when …

Retirement Savings Investment Strategy : Member Choices And Performance, Paul Gerrans, Marilyn Clark-Murphy, Craig P. Speelman

Research outputs pre 2011

Three crucial ingredients influence how much individuals will have to fund retirement income needs: how much they contribute to savings, how long they save for, and the performance of these savings. This paper focuses on the issue of performance, and how individuals perform when they are given the choice of making their own investment strategy for their retirement savings contributions. An empirical examination using a large sample gathered from four Australian superannuation funds is utilised and finds that on average members underperform their own fund’s default option both in raw returns and on a riskadjusted basis. For trustees and regulators …

An Intelligent Model To Control Preemption Rate Of Instantaneous Request Calls In Networks With Book-Ahead Reservation, Iftekhar Ahmad, Joarder Kamruzzaman, Daryoush Habibi, Farzana Islam

Research outputs pre 2011

Resource sharing between book-ahead (BA) and instantaneous request (IR) reservation often results in high preemption rate of on-going IR calls. High IR call preemption rate causes interruption to service continuity which is considered as detrimental in a QoS-enabled network. A number of call admission control models have been proposed in literature to reduce the preemption rate of on-going IR calls. Many of these models use a tuning parameter to achieve certain level of preemption rate. This paper presents an artificial neural network (ANN) model to dynamically control the preemption rate of on-going calls in a QoS-enabled network. The model maps …

How To Measure And Report Growing Conditions For Experiments In Controlled Environments., M. P. Fuller, J. Franklin, L. D. Incoll

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Cost Structures In Defined Contribution Systems: The Case Of Singapore's Central Provident Fund, Benedict S. K. Koh, Olivia S. Mitchell, Joelle H. Y. Fong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Retirement systems are increasingly asked to do an ever-better job of enhancing the performance of pension investments. The Singaporean Central Provident Fund permits pension system participants to keep their money in a government-run investment pool, or if they wish, they may select professionally managed unit trusts for their retirement accumulations. Opting for investment choice also exposes members to additional investment costs not charged by the government-managed account. This paper explores the charges levied by the private fund managers and we show that foreign ownership, active style of management and equity/balanced funds tend to be most expensive. We conclude with a …

Firm Diversification And Earnings Management: Evidence From Seasoned Equity Offerings, Chee Yeow Lim, Tiong Yang Thong, David K. Ding

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Popular press suggests that diversified firms are more aggressive in managing earnings than non-diversified firms. We examine this claim in the seasoned equity offering (SEO) setting, where firms have been shown to have the incentive to manage earnings upwards. Using the cross-sectional modified Jones [(1991) J Accounting Res 29:193–228] model to measure discretionary current accruals, we find that discretionary current accruals are higher among diversified firms than in non-diversified ones. Our evidence is consistent with the view that the extent of firm diversification is directly related to the degree of earnings management. We further show that diversified issuers with high …

A Trust-Based Consumer Decision-Making Model In Electronic Commerce: The Role Of Trust, Perceived Risk, And Their Antecedents, Dan J. Kim, Donald L. Ferrin, H. Raghav Rao

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Are trust and risk important in consumers' electronic commerce purchasing decisions? What are the antecedents of trust and risk in this context? How do trust and risk affect an Internet consumer's purchasing decision? To answer these questions, we i) develop a theoretical framework describing the trust-based decision-making process a consumer uses when making a purchase from a given site, ii) test the proposed model using a Structural Equation Modeling technique on Internet consumer purchasing behavior data collected via a Web survey, and iii) consider the implications of the model. The results of the study show that Internet consumers' trust and …

P1: Effect Of Age, Oestradiol Levels And Endometrial Thickness On Determining Success Of Frozen Embryo Transfers, Alfred Murage, Maybeth Jamieson, Robin Yates, Isabel Traynor, Helen Lyall, Scott Nelson

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East Africa

Introduction: Frozen-thawed embryo transfer (FET) is a widely used technique, with replacement of embryos during natural menstrual cycles or in cycles constructed by exogenous steroids having similar outcomes in many series. Multiple factors have been proposed to have a positive influence on the success rate of FET, including increased endometrial thickness, younger maternal age and lower circulating oestradiol. The impact of these variables in the context of constructed cycles, using GnRH agonists to facilitate suppression of ovarian function prior to exogenous steroid administration, is not known. The aim of this study was to determine the predictive ability of these indices …

Successful Pregnancy Outcome Following Laparoscopic Myomectomy: Case Report, R. B. Parkar, Sikolia Wanyonyi, W. J. Kamau, D. Otieno

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East Africa

Laparoscopic myomectomy is now widely used as an alternative to laparotomy in the management of symptomatic uterine fibroids. The advantages of this minimal access approach outweigh those of the open techniques. The pregnancy outcomes between the two methods have been studied and are comparable, but there still exists a lot of scepticism locally concerning this. It is against this background that we present a 31 year old nulliparous lady who had a two year history of primary infertility secondary to multiple uterine fibroids, the largest being fundal and measuring 6.6cm. She underwent a successful laparoscopic myomectomy in November, 2006 and …

Emulsification And Dispersant Properties Of Sugar Ester Glycolipid In Water In Oil And Oil In Water Emulsion., Azrah Abdul Aziz

Student Works (2010-2019)

The influence of different dispersing agent on the rheological behaviors of paraffin oil-water emulsion with addition of TiO2 for uv-protect and moisturizing active ingredient was studied. While making creams with minimal structural defects and longer storage stability, it is important that preparation conditions be optimized. Settle volume properties, Zeta potential, effective diameter and settle volume of TiO2 suspension were studied in the presence of glycolipid (DDM and Carrageenan), nonionic (PEG 10,000 and Brij 35P) as well as anionic surfactants (sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS). In the experiments, the higher concentration of dispersing agents shows higher settle volume percentage, higher zeta potential …

Participation In Sports, Arts And Racing And Its Relationship To Message Literacy And Health Behaviours, Christina Mills, Michael Rosenberg, Sarah French, Jenna Mitchell, Lisa Wood

Research outputs pre 2011

The purpose of this study was to assess health message awareness and health behaviours by participation/non participation in sport, arts and racing (SAR) in Western Australia. In this study a 'participant' was defined as someone who was (1) a member of a SAR organisation, group or club; and/or (2) having attended a SAR event as a spectator or audience member in the last 12 months. A 'non participant' was someone who did not participate in any SAR events as a member and/or spectator and/or audience member in the last 12 months.

Converging Voice, Video And Data In Wlan With Qos Support, Hushairi Zen, Daryoush Habibi, Justin Wyatt, Iftekhar Ahmad

Research outputs pre 2011

Providing quality of service (QoS) for converging traffic in wireless local area network (WLAN) is still a major issue for the researchers and industries. Due to the limited bandwidth and exposure to unpredictable interferences in a wireless environment, efficient management and optimization of the access protocols are essential to provide acceptable QoS for real-time traffic and fairness to best-effort traffic. In this paper, we investigate the throughput and delay performance of the legacy IEEE 802.11 and the 802.11e when carrying converging data in WLAN. We evaluate our recently proposed protocol known as wireless token network protocol (WTN) and show that …

Realized Volatility Uncertainty, David E. Allen, Michael Mcaleer, Marcel Scharth

Research outputs pre 2011

The presence of high and time-varying volatility of volatility and leverage effects bring additional uncertainty in the tails of the distribution of asset returns, even though returns standardized by (ex-post) quadratic variation measures are nearly gaussian. We argue that in this setting modeling shocks to volatility is more relevant for applications than extracting more precise predictions of the variable, as point forecasts differences are swamped by the size of the volatility of volatility and rendered less informative by the nongaussianity in the ex-ante distribution of returns. Using S&P 500 data, we document that this volatility of volatility is subject to …

13c And 15n Translocation Within And Among Shoots In Two Posidonia Species From Western Australia, Patricia Prado, Catherine Jane Collier, Paul Lavery

Research outputs pre 2011

Translocation of 13C and 15N was investigated at the spatial scales of within-shoot (i.e. the seagrass clonal unit including leaves and associated vertical rhizome) and among-shoots in a mixed meadow of Posidonia sinuosa and P. australis. Incubation with 13C and 15N was conducted in either the oldest leaf of a shoot (i.e. within-shoot scale) or in the first shoot on the 4th or 5th branch of the main axis (i.e. among-shoots scale) and collected several times within a 1 mo period. We tested the following hypotheses: (1) developmental features in P. australis such as thicker and more open vascular system, …

Bots Trained To Play Like A Human Are More Fun, Bhuman Soni, Philip Hingston

Research outputs pre 2011

Computational intelligence methods are well-suited for use in computer controlled opponents for video games. In many other applications of these methods, the aim is to simulate near-optimal intelligent behaviour. But in video games, the aim is to provide interesting opponents for human players, not optimal ones. In this study, we trained neural network-based computer controlled opponents to play like a human in a popular first-person shooter. We then had gamers play-test these opponents as well as a hand-coded opponent, and surveyed them to find out which opponents they enjoyed more. Our results show that the neural network-based opponents were clearly …

Cultural Factors Affecting Smoking Intentions In Sri Lankan Immigrant Adolescents: An Exploratory Study, Raguragavan Ganeshasundaram, Nadine Henley

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper reports a small exploratory investigation into smoking intentions amongst Sri Lankan immigrant adolescents living in Perth, Western Australia. Four focus group discussions were conducted to explore how cultural values are expressed in this group's beliefs and attitudes towards smoking and non-smoking and how these values may influence their smoking-related behaviour. Females and males attached similar negative values to smoking per se. However, generally, males saw peers' smoking as a way to be cool and popular while females saw peers' smoking as a way to solve stress and other personal problems. Males had strong positive associations with their favourite …

Fast Evaluation Of The Square Root And Other Nonlinear Functions In Fpga, Stefan Lachowicz, Hans-Joerg Pfleiderer

Research outputs pre 2011

The paper presents a novel method of evaluating the square root function in FPGA. The method uses a linear approximation subsystem with a reduced size of a look-up table. The reduction in the size of the lookup table is twofold. Firstly, a simple linear approximation subsystem uses the lookup table only for the node points. Secondly, a concept of a variable step look-up table is introduced, where the node points are not uniformly spaced, but the spacing is determined by how close to the linear function the approximated function is. The proposed method of evaluating nonlinear function and specifically the …

Research Criteria For The Diagnosis Of Alzheimer's Disease: Genetic Risk Factors, Blood Biomarkers And Olfactory Dysfunction, Jonathan Foster, Hamid Sohrabi, Giuseppe Verdile, Ralph Martins

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Supporting Component Selection With A Suite Of Classifiers, Valerie Maxville, Chiou Peng Lam, J Armarego

Research outputs pre 2011

Software selection involves the assimilation of information and results for each candidate to enable a comparison for decisions to be made. The processes and tools developed assist with software selection to enhance quality, documentation and repeatability. The CdCE process aims to retain and document the information used in selection to assist decisions and to document them for reference as the system evolves. This paper describes the CdCE process and our approach to assist the shortlisting of candidates through a suite of classifiers. The application of the suite is illustrated using a selection and evaluation case study. Applying this approach helps …

Dancing Between Diversity And Consistency: Refining Assessment In Postgraduate Degrees In Dance, Maggie Phillips, Cheryl Stock, Kim Vincs

Research outputs pre 2011

Guidelines for best practice in Australian Doctoral and Masters by Research Examination, enc;ompassing the two primary modes of investigation, written and multi-modal theses, their distinctiveness and their potential interplay.

You've Got Mail: Accountability And End User Attitudes To Email Management, Mark Brogan, Susan Vreugdenburg

Research outputs pre 2011

In a pioneering ethnographic study of end user responses to the problem of ‘information overload’ Whittaker and Sidner (1996) found that the design of systems primarily as methods of asynchronous communication, posed significant information management problems for users. In another contemporaneous study, David Bearman (1993) extended understanding of the implications of end user email management behavior by identifying significant accountability implications for organizations arising from the use of email. Recent case studies in the United States and Australia (Leopold, 2008; Raleigh Chronicle, 2008; Strutt, and Taylor, 2007) have once again focused attention on the accountability consequences for Government of email …

Photography After The Incidents: We're Not Afraid, Panizza Allmark

Research outputs pre 2011

This article will look at the use of personal photographs that attempt to convey a sense of social activism as a reaction against global terrorism. Moreover, I argue that the photographs uploaded to the site “We’re Not Afraid”, which began after the London bombings in 2005, presents a forum to promote the pleasures of western cultural values as a defence against the anxiety of terror. What is compelling are the ways in which the Website promotes, seemingly, everyday modalities through what may be deemed as the domestic snapshot. Nevertheless, the aura from the context of these images operates to arouse …

Estimating The Dynamics Of Mutual Fund Alphas And Betas, Harry Mamaysky, Matthew Spiegel, Hong Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article develops a Kalman filter model to track dynamic mutual fund factor loadings. It then uses the estimates to analyze whether managers with market-timing ability can be identified ex ante. The primary findings are as follows: (i) Ordinary least squares (OLS) timing models produce false positives (nonzero alphas) at too high a rate with either daily or monthly data. In contrast, the Kalman filter model produces them at approximately the correct rate with monthly data; (ii) In monthly data, though the OLS models fail to detect any timing among fund managers, the Kalman filter does; (iii) The alpha and …

Less Than Equal: Secularism, Religious Pluralism And Privilege, Anne Aly, Lelia Rosalind Green

Research outputs pre 2011

In its preamble, The Western Australian Charter of Multiculturalism (WA) commits the state to becoming: “A society in which respect for mutual difference is accompanied by equality of opportunity within a framework of democratic citizenship”. One of the principles of multiculturalism, as enunciated in the Charter, is “equality of opportunity for all members of society to achieve their full potential in a free and democratic society where every individual is equal before and under the law”. An important element of this principle is the “equality of opportunity ... to achieve ... full potential”. The implication here is that those who …

Optimized Wlan Mac Protocol For Multimedia Applications, Hushairi Zen, Daryoush Habibi, Alexander Rassau, Iftekhar Ahmad

Research outputs pre 2011

In this paper we propose an optimized WLAN MAC protocol for multimedia applications. The proposed MAC protocol consist of 3 main optimizing architectures, traffic segregation, specific service interval (SI) for voice and video traffic and smaller contention window (CW). Traffic segregation segregates real-time traffic from best-effort traffic while specific service interval provides voice and video traffic with the SI based on its mean arrival rate. In the contention time frame, the CW is made smaller to reduce delay and increase throughput. Ns2 is used as a simulating tool to compare the results of our proposed protocol with the legacy 802.11 …

Diversity: A Longitudinal Study Of How Student Diversity Relates To Resilience And Successful Progression In A New Generation University, Adrianne Kinnear, Mary Boyce, Heather Sparrow, Sharon Middleton, Marguerite Cullity

Research outputs pre 2011

This project used the voices of diverse cohorts of students to describe their learning journeys as they progressed through the later years of their degree and into the workforce. The project combined quantitative data from a large student sample with qualitative data from a series of case study narratives to document the students’ perceptions about their learning experiences, the factors underpinning progression in their studies and their transition into the workplace. The project has attempted to answer the question: does diversity matter? Do students of different diversities progress differently, and are there differences in the factors enhancing progression and developing …