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A recent report by the Foundation for Young Australians that derived from an analysis of 4.2 million job advertisements in Australia from 2012 to 2015, revealed that the demand for professionals possessing creative problem-solving skills grew by 249%. This paper reflects on the successes of engineering educators in developing creative graduates and discusses the means to instil the skills of creative problem-solving. It considers research evidence of the suitability of heuristics (methods) for problem framing and idea generation that are sourced from the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) for enhancing the creative problem-solving skills of engineering students. Twelve TRIZ heuristics are considered. A repository of TRIZ educatinal materials (TRIZ Repository) is introduced. The outcomes of four studies from Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand that embedded educational materials offered by the TRIZ Repository into existing courses are presented. This paper concludes that TRIZ heuristics are suitable for embedding into courses that require students to tackle open-ended problems. As demonstrated by the studies, even one class devoted to a TRIZ heuristic can statistically significantly enhance students' creative problem-solving self-efficacy. The TRIZ Repository of educational materials may enable many engineering educators to instil creative problem-solving into their courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an elastic-viscoplastic (EVP) constitutive model in triaxial space and general stress space for isotropic clays. The EVP model is anchored in bounding surface theory along with the mapping rule and adopts a critical-state soil mechanics framework. It incorporates creep effects, and a nonlinear creep function is used in the model. The EVP deformation of clay is integrated considering a reference surface and loading surface. An image parameter is deduced to establish the image surface. The strain-rate tensor of the model contains an elastic-strain-rate tensor and viscoplastic-strain-rate tensor. The model formulation is capable of accounting for composite as well as single-surface ellipses. Parameters of the model can be extracted from conventional oedometer and triaxial tests. The model performance is validated by capturing the behaviors in creep tests, relaxation tests, strain-rate effect tests, and overconsolidation ratio effect tests on Kaolin clay, Hong Kong Marine Deposit clay, and Fukakusa clay. The model is also implemented in a finite-element (FE) code and used to predict the long-term performance of the Nerang Broadbeach Roadway embankment constructed in Australia. The long-term settlement prediction of this embankment is also compared with that obtained from the modified Cam clay (MCC) model. Pertinent details of the theoretical framework of the proposed EVP model along with its validation, FE implementation, and field application are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High quality education programs are essential for preparing the next generation of Chinese medicine (CM) practitioners. Currently, training in CM occurs within differing health and education policy contexts. There has been little analysis of the factors influencing the form and status of CM education in different regions. Such a task is important for understanding how CM is evolving internationally and predicting future workforce characteristics. This paper compares the status of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong across a range of dimensions: historical and current positions in the national higher education system, regulatory context and relationship to the health system, and public and professional legitimacy. The analysis highlights the different ways in which CM education is developing in these settings, with Hong Kong providing somewhat greater access to clinical training opportunities for CM students. However, common trends and challenges shape CM education in both regions, including marginalisation from mainstream health professions, a small but established presence in universities, and an emphasis on biomedical research. Three factors stand out as significant for the evolution of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong and may have international implications: continuing biomedical dominance, increased competition between universities, and strengthened links with mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: research in care home settings is often negatively focused, portraying life as sterile and devoid of meaningful experiences. Care homes have the potential to influence people's lives socially, physically and psychologically. It is important to understand what factors contribute to this.Objective: to conduct a systematic qualitative review of care home life and provide practical recommendations to enhance residents' quality of life.Methods: the following databases were searched: PsycINFO, Medline, Web of Science, EMBASE, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. References from appropriate journals and individual articles were checked. Papers that fitted our selection criteria were selected. Two independent reviewers assessed methodological study quality. Thematic analysis and meta-ethnographic methods were adapted to synthesise findings.Results: thirty-one studies were identified. People in care homes voiced concerns about lack of autonomy and difficulty in forming appropriate relationships with others. Four key themes were identified: (i) acceptance and adaptation, (ii) connectedness with others, (iii) a homelike environment, (iv) caring practices.Conclusion: positive experiences in care homes can occur and are important for residents' quality of life. The review supports literature highlighting the need for relationship-centred approaches to care and emphasises the importance of understanding the resident's attitude towards living in care homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong has been one of the early jurisdictions to adopt Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for delivering large public infrastructure projects. T he development of this procurement approach in Hong Kong has followed an intricate path . As such, it is believed that there are a number of areas which are interesting to unveil . As part of a comprehensive research study looking at implementing PPPs, interviews with experienced local industrial practitioners from the public sector were conducted to realize their perspective on the topic of procuring public works projects . Amongst these interviews, fourteen were launched government officials and advisers . The interview findings show that the majority of the Hong Kong and Australian interviewees had previously conducted some kind of research in the field of PPP. Both groups of interviewees agreed that "PPPs gain private sector's added efficiency/expertise/management skills" when compared to projects procured traditionally. Also, both groups of interviewees felt that projects best suited to use PPP are those that have an "Economic business case". The interviewees believed that "Contractor's performance" could be used as key performance indicators for PPP projects. A large number of critical success factors were identified by the interviewees for PPP projects; two of these were similar for both groups of interviewees. These included "Project objectives well defined" and "Partnership spirit/commitment/trust". Finally it was found that in-house guidance materials were more common in the organizations of the Australian interviewees compared to the Hong Kong ones. This paper studies the views of the public sector towards the topic of PPPs in Hong Kong and Australia, which helps to answer some of the queries that both academics and the private sector in these jurisdictions are keen to know. As a result the private sector can be more prepared when negotiating with the public sector and realise their needs better, academics on the other hand are provided a wider perspective of this topic benefiting the research industry at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) is being developed for the cross-cultural measurement of subjective wellbeing (SWB). This paper reports the findings of its utility with the Hong Kong Chinese and Australian populations. An item on affect, ‘satisfaction with own happiness’ was also investigated to determine whether it should be added to the index. Three-hundred and sixty participants (180 per country), with equal representation from groups aged 18–35, 35–64 and 65 years and above, were recruited from each country. The PWI demonstrated good psychometric performance in terms of its reliability, validity and sensitivity, which are comparable in both countries. The item ‘satisfaction with own happiness’ was found to contribute significantly to the scale’s psychometric performance in Australia but not in Hong Kong. Cultural differences in the perception of the concepts ‘satisfaction’ and ‘happiness’ were suggested as an explanation for this finding. The PWI data are also consistent with homeostasis theory, which proposes that each person’s SWB level is maintained within a limited positive range. For the Australian population, their mean SWB level fell within the established Western range of 70–80, on a scale from 0 to 100. The Hong Kong population, however, fell below this range. Cultural response bias was identified as a plausible explanation for the differences between the Hong Kong and Australian samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatio-temporal data fusion refers to the technique of combining high temporal resolution from coarse satellite images and high spatial resolution from fine satellite images. However, data availability remains a major limitation in algorithm development. Existing spatio-temporal data fusion algorithms require at least one known image pair between the fine and coarse resolution image. However, data which come from two different satellite platforms do not necessarily have an overlap in their overpass times, hence restricting the application of spatio-temporal data fusion. In this paper, a new algorithm named Hopfield Neural Network SPatio-tempOral daTa fusion model (HNN-SPOT) is developed by utilizing the optimization concept in the Hopfield neural network (HNN) for spatio-temporal image fusion. The algorithm derives a synthesized fine resolution image from a coarse spatial resolution satellite image (similar to downscaling), with the use of one fine resolution image taken on an arbitrary date and one coarse image taken on a predicted date. The HNN-SPOT particularly addresses the problem when the fine resolution and coarse resolution images are acquired from different satellite overpass times over the same geographic extent. Both simulated datasets and real datasets over Hong Kong and Australia have been used in the evaluation of HNN-SPOT. Results showed that HNN-SPOT was comparable with an existing fusion algorithm, the spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model (STARFM). HNN-SPOT assumes consistent spatial structure for the target area between the date of data acquisition and the prediction date. Therefore, it is more applicable to geographical areas with little or no land cover change. It is shown that HNN-SPOT can produce accurate fusion results with >90% of correlation coefficient over consistent land covers. For areas that have undergone land cover changes, HNN-SPOT can still produce a prediction about the outlines and the tone of the features, if they are large enough to be recorded in the coarse resolution image at the prediction date. HNN-SPOT provides a relatively new approach in spatio-temporal data fusion, and further improvements can be made by modifying or adding new goals and constraints in its HNN architecture. Owing to its lower demand for data prerequisites, HNN-SPOT is expected to increase the applicability of fine-scale applications in remote sensing, such as environmental modeling and monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]