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Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only disrupting industries and businesses, particularly the ones have fallen behind the adoption, but also significantly impacting public life as well. This calls for government authorities pay attention to public opinions and sentiments towards AI. Nonetheless, there is limited knowledge on what the drivers behind the public perception of AI are. Bridging this gap is the rationale of this paper. As the methodological approach, the study conducts an online public perception survey with the residents of Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and explores the collected survey data through statistical analysis. The analysis reveals that: (a) the public is concerned of AI invading their privacy, but not much concerned of AI becoming more intelligent than humans; (b) the public trusts AI in their lifestyle, but the trust is lower for companies and government deploying AI; (c) the public appreciates the benefits of AI in urban services and disaster management; (d) depending on the local context, public perceptions vary; and (e) the drivers behind the public perception include gender, age, AI knowledge, and AI experience. The findings inform authorities in developing policies to minimise public concerns and maximise AI awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and evaluating the implications of photovoltaic solar panels (PVSPs) deployment on urban settings, as well as the pessimistic effects of densely populated areas on PVSPs efficiency, is becoming incredibly valuable. Thus, the deployment of low-efficiency, low-cost, and widely available PVSPs may diminish total solar reflectance, raising the risks of PVSPs-based urban heating, particularly during the summertime heatwaves. This study employs and assesses physical parameterizations that account for the impact of PVSPs on Sydney's urban environment in the context of the mesoscale model weather research and forecasting (WRF). To account for the impacts of PVSPs, the parameterization presented in this paper assumes that PVSP arrays are parallel, detachable from roofs, and consist of a single layer. Results showed that increasing PVSPs can raise peak summer ambient temperatures by up to 1.4 °C and surface temperatures by up to 2.3°C at city-scale. Temperature variability was found between the city's eastern and western parts due to the presence of PVSPs. In addition, local warming effects of PVSP were observed at urban district-scale as well. The large-scale deployment of PVSPs at local district-scale of the Sydney during a typical hot day caused air temperature to rise by 1.5 °C during the daytime and decrease by 2.7 °C at nighttime. The patterns of the city's ambient temperature distribution were found to be strongly dependent on synoptic meteorological conditions and advection flow strength. The maximum increases in sensible heat flux and latent heat flux were 245.5 Wm−2 and 11.5 Wm−2, respectively. Wind speed may be raised by up to 1.2 ms−2 due to regional low effect over city domain. As a result, large-scale deployment of PVSPs promotes advective flow between the city and its environs. Modification of the PVSPs in Sydney results in an increase in planetary boundary layer (PBL) heights of up to 537.9 m above the city and may lower pollutant concentrations at ground level. The advent of sea breeze in the city's eastern parts, which reduces the temperature of the coastal zone, along with inland westerly winds, which heat the city's western zones, lessened the intensity of the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon induced by PVSPs warming. The findings of this study can be used to help policymakers make informed decisions about the use of PVSPs systems. PVSPs with a high solar reflectance in wavelengths that do not convert solar energy to electricity can be considered as an alternative solution to reduce local warming in urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The positive effects that Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is envisioned to have on transport can only be reaped if people are using MaaS. Yet, the understanding of the user perspective on MaaS is incomplete and primarily based on experiments with non-users. To address this shortcoming, this paper reports user experiences from a trial of a high-level MaaS service in Sydney, Australia. Based on questionnaires and interviews, it analyses who participated in the trial and why, and whether the trial experience satisfied their motives. The contribution to the literature on MaaS is three-fold. Firstly, most of the people that participated in the trial were frequent users of both public transport and private cars. This supports the notion that multi-modal travellers are likely early adopters of MaaS and contradicts the fear that MaaS does not appeal to private car users. Secondly, a desire to contribute to innovation and curiosity about MaaS were the main motives for signing up for the trial, which highlights the important role an inviting setting for experimentation, such as a trial, can play in stimulating MaaS adoption. Thirdly, many participants struggled with making the trialled service work for them and on average they seemed to value the support and feedback functions higher than other service features. This underscores the novelty of MaaS, compared to existing service models, and reiterates the notion that more than an app and a few subscription plans is needed to make MaaS useful for users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and evaluating the implications of photovoltaic solar panels (PVSPs) deployment on urban settings, as well as the pessimistic effects of densely populated areas on PVSPs efficiency, is becoming incredibly valuable. Thus, the deployment of low-efficiency, low-cost, and widely available PVSPs may diminish total solar reflectance, raising the risks of PVSPs-based urban heating, particularly during the summertime heatwaves. This study employs and assesses physical parameterizations that account for the impact of PVSPs on Sydney's urban environment in the context of the mesoscale model weather research and forecasting (WRF). To account for the impacts of PVSPs, the parameterization presented in this paper assumes that PVSP arrays are parallel, detachable from roofs, and consist of a single layer. Results showed that increasing PVSPs can raise peak summer ambient temperatures by up to 1.4 °C and surface temperatures by up to 2.3°C at city-scale. Temperature variability was found between the city's eastern and western parts due to the presence of PVSPs. In addition, local warming effects of PVSP were observed at urban district-scale as well. The large-scale deployment of PVSPs at local district-scale of the Sydney during a typical hot day caused air temperature to rise by 1.5 °C during the daytime and decrease by 2.7 °C at nighttime. The patterns of the city's ambient temperature distribution were found to be strongly dependent on synoptic meteorological conditions and advection flow strength. The maximum increases in sensible heat flux and latent heat flux were 245.5 Wm−2 and 11.5 Wm−2, respectively. Wind speed may be raised by up to 1.2 ms−2 due to regional low effect over city domain. As a result, large-scale deployment of PVSPs promotes advective flow between the city and its environs. Modification of the PVSPs in Sydney results in an increase in planetary boundary layer (PBL) heights of up to 537.9 m above the city and may lower pollutant concentrations at ground level. The advent of sea breeze in the city's eastern parts, which reduces the temperature of the coastal zone, along with inland westerly winds, which heat the city's western zones, lessened the intensity of the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon induced by PVSPs warming. The findings of this study can be used to help policymakers make informed decisions about the use of PVSPs systems. PVSPs with a high solar reflectance in wavelengths that do not convert solar energy to electricity can be considered as an alternative solution to reduce local warming in urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outdoor thermal comfort is influenced by people's climate expectations, perceptions and adaptation capacity. Varied individual response to comfortable or stressful thermal environments results in a deviation between actual outdoor thermal activity choices and those predicted by thermal comfort indices. This paper presents a passive activity observation (PAO) method for estimating contextual limits of outdoor thermal adaptation. The PAO method determines which thermal environment result in statistically meaningful changes may occur in outdoor activity patterns, and it estimates thresholds of outdoor thermal neutrality and limits of thermal adaptation in public space based on activity observation and microclimate field measurement. Applications of the PAO method have been demonstrated in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, where outdoor activities were analysed against outdoor thermal comfort indices between 2013 and 2014. Adjusted apparent temperature (aAT), adaptive predicted mean vote (aPMV), outdoor standard effective temperature (OUT_SET), physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and universal thermal comfort index (UTCI) are calculated from the PAO data. Using the PAO method, the high threshold of outdoor thermal neutrality was observed between 24 °C for optional activities and 34 °C for necessary activities (UTCI scale). Meanwhile, the ultimate limit of thermal adaptation in uncontrolled public spaces is estimated to be between 28 °C for social activities and 48 °C for necessary activities. Normalised results indicate that city-wide high thresholds for outdoor thermal neutrality vary from 25 °C in Melbourne to 26 °C in Sydney and 30 °C in Adelaide. The PAO method is a relatively fast and localised method for measuring limits of outdoor thermal adaptation and effectively informs urban design and policy making in the context of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue for an expansion of the role of assemblage analysis in understanding daily life in nineteenth-century working-class neighborhoods. The close and systematic examination of quality manufacture of nineteenth-century domestic goods offers a material link to consumer decision-making. This is demonstrated in a study of material culture from working-class sites in Sydney and London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer observation partnerships can help teachers improve their teaching practice, transform their educational perspectives and develop collegiality (Bell ). This paper describes the peer observation model used in the tutor development program in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney, and reports on the effectiveness of this exercise using quantitative and qualitative data from five sources. Results from 32 peer observations reveal both the common strengths and the areas in which tutors need to develop their teaching practice. Ninety four percent of participants found the exercise valuable and 88% said that they would change their teaching as a result of the exercise. This model can be applied in academic development programs in any discipline and suggestions for augmentation and improvement are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract??This paper takes an air mass approach to investigating the influence of weather on pollen concentrations in the atmosphere in Sydney, Australia, by producing a synoptic classification of pollen concentrations measured in the Sydney Basin. This synoptic classification has been produced using multivariate statistical techniques including principal component analysis and cluster analysis, to assign days into meteorologically homogenous categories. Surface and upper air meteorological data for warm months (October?March) over a 10-year period were used as input into the statistical analyses. Eleven synoptic categories were found in Sydney during the warm months. Pollen concentrations for the total pollen load and five individual families measured over a 3.5-year period have been investigated for each of the synoptic categories. High pollen concentrations during the warm months in Sydney are found to be influenced by the presence of a region of low surface pressure located to the south of the continent, bringing fast dry westerly gradient winds to Sydney. It is envisaged that these results will be important from a pollen forecast and associated public health perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces articles in this special double issue, which consists of a selection of papers presented at the Ninth World Congress of Comparative Education, held at the University of Sydney, Australia, in July 1996, on the theme of ?Tradition, Modernity and Post-modernity in Comparative Education?.