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This paper explores human, soil, compost and food waste interactions in a community composting initiative in Australia. Drawing on an ethnographic study in 2 Australian cities – Sydney and Canberra, this paper identifies the emergence of a “composting ethic” among participants that is animated by three forms of learning and doing: (1) noticing and attending, (2) embodying and (3) experimentation. Fieldwork analysis is contextualised in relation to literature from the environmental humanities, discard studies and learnings from First Nations Australians and their ontologies. By bringing these empirics, key literature and ontologies together, this paper aims to deepen understanding of the opportunities and challenges of community composting to reduce negative environmental impacts and support anti-colonial practices of discard. It does this by identifying the characteristics of a composting ethic and the contexts and skills capable of nurturing its emergence. Attention is also paid to what may limit realisation of such an ethic. Overall, this paper aims to generate further applied academic understanding about the unique role – and possibilities – of efforts to revitalise and grow city soils and advance anti-colonial food waste management through community composting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the first observations of early-season colony development of Ropalidia plebeiana in Canberra, Australia. The growth pattern of three R. plebeiana nests was measured during weekly observations from October 2006 to January 2007 and showed that nests steadily increase in size over the early summer to approximately 50 cells when the nest is newly established and to approximately 170 cells when nests from the previous season are re-used. A first generation of adult females is produced by December, and the bimodality of the curves of egg, larval and pupal numbers indicates that these three developmental stages last approximately 2–3 weeks each. The nesting cycle of R. plebeiana in Canberra commences approximately 2 weeks later than in coastal Australia, the shorter summers in this inland region restricting the length of the active season. R. plebeiana did not form dense nesting aggregations in Canberra as described elsewhere, with only small colonies consisting of a single or just a few nests. Characteristic comb-cutting behavior of the species was observed but this did not result in complete nest division as recorded from coastal populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic historians researching other countries, Australian economic historians employed outside Australia (but retaining links with home), and well-known non-Australian economic historians, who spent some of their careers in Australia, are afforded comparatively little attention. I Australian Economic History i is very much an appeal to universities and policy-makers - not to mention historians and economists - to recognise the role that economic history can play in solving the big challenges of our time. A somewhat peculiar dimension of Wright's account is its emphasis on Australian-based economic historians working primarily on Australian economic history. [Extracted from the article]

Australia's most recent White Papers on foreign and defence policy and the 2020 Defence Strategic Update demonstrate the determination of Australian policy planners to do what it takes to strengthen American resolve in the Indo-Pacific. Cuffe pushes back against claims that Australia's Asia-Pacific policy reflected "naive loyalty or toadying to Britain and the US" (201). Too often, as Cuffe says, strategy and diplomacy are viewed as 'high politics and the true work of foreign policy while trade and economic policy are considered "low politics"'(6-7). [Extracted from the article]

Black, White and Exempt: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lives under Exemption: Edited by Lucinda Aberdeen and Jennifer Jones. The racism ingrained in Australian popular consciousness often denied exempted Aboriginal people rental properties, a seat at the pub and participation in many other aspects of social life, despite gaining a legal right of access. Leonie Stevens' chapter documents how the Northern Territory exemption system emerged and evolved in response to political action by Aboriginal people in Darwin, supported by communists and trade unionists. [Extracted from the article]

Oral and written sources are now commonplace in both library and archival collections. Such sources provide for a wider range of voices to be added to the historical record, and in an artistic context, allow for the capture of at least an element of the creative process. This article discusses the National Gallery of Australia's James Gleeson oral history collection, related collections of personal papers, and their role as primary sources in the National Gallery's Research Library. It highlights their uses as evidence for researchers interested in the history of the National Gallery's art collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the theory of change model (Kotter in Harv Bus Rev 2:59–67, 1995; Moore et al. in Viet Nam J Public Health 1(1):66–75, 2013) to describe the pathway that lead to Australia's first pill testing/drug checking services in Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory. The paper takes each step of the model and illustrates the key activities that largely occurred over an approximately 24 month period resulting in the service being operational on 29 April 2018. The paper demonstrates that leadership, advocacy and activism are key components, alongside evidence, to bringing about public policy change. It provides a unique insight to the extensive efforts undertaken to achieving the first legally sanctioned pill testing at festivals in Australia and provides a positive case study for those seeking to introduce contested harm reduction services in the drug and alcohol field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the collection of Henry Handel Richardson papers in the National Library of Australia. Problems encountered by the library in the acquisition of the papers; Correspondence between the library and Olga Roncoroni.

Rockbursts are hazardous phenomena of sudden and violent rock failure in deep underground excavations under high geostress conditions, which poses a serious threat to geotechnical engineering. The occurrence of rockbursts is influenced by a combination of factors. Therefore, it is necessary to find an efficient method to assess rockburst grades. In this paper, we propose a novel method that enhances the VIKOR method using a novel combination of weight and generalized weighted Mahalanobis distance. The combination weights of the evaluation indicators were calculated using game theory by combining subjective experience and objective data statistical characteristics. By introducing the generalized weighted Mahalanobis distance, the VIKOR method is improved to address the issues of inconsistent dimensions, different importance, and inconsistent correlation among indicators. The proposed method can deal with the complexity of the impact factors of rockburst evaluation and classify the rockburst intensity level. The results show that the accuracy of the improved VIKOR method with the distance formula is higher than that of the unimproved VIKOR method; the evaluation accuracy of the improved VIKOR method with the generalized weighted Mahalanobis distance is 91.67%, which outperforms the improved VIKOR methods with the Euclidean and Canberra distances. This assessment method can be easily implemented and does not depend on the discussion of the rockburst occurrence mechanism, making it widely applicable for engineering rockburst evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing cars is a highly difficult task due to the wide variety in the appearance of cars from the same car manufacturer. Therefore, the car logo is the most prominent indicator of the car manufacturer. The captured logo image suffers from several problems, such as a complex background, differences in size and shape, the appearance of noise, and lighting circumstances. To solve these problems, this paper presents an effective technique for extracting and recognizing a logo that identifies a car. Our proposed method includes four stages: First, we apply the kmedoids clustering method to extract the logo and remove the background and noise. Secondly, the logo image is converted to grayscale and also converted to a binary image using Otsu's method. Thirdly, the Daubechies wavelet with DCT transforms is applied to extract a feature vector for each image. Finally, the Canberra distance is used to match the tested image's feature vector to all feature vectors in the database. The test results indicate the highest CRR, accuracy, and precision at 99.37%, 99.39%, and 99.80%, respectively. This system is applicable to intelligent surveillance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the hydrological imperative and engineering capacity for change, concrete storm water infrastructure remains obdurate in the urban waterscape. This obduracy manifests both as an unwillingness to remove existing infrastructure and the continuing construction of new infrastructure in locations previously free of these systems. This paper identifies four critical socio-political values underlying the obduracy of concrete storm water infrastructure and the resultant urban stream syndrome. Following a brief critique of reactive storm water management frameworks to manage this syndrome, this paper articulates four common values of Indigenous science(s) that are well placed can contribute to improve storm water management. Supporting this argument is an example of Indigenous science(s) changing the form and function of a reach of an extant concrete storm water channel in Canberra, Australia. While these interventions will be assessed primarily from water quality perspectives, they contribute to a greater range of environmental processes than purely hydrological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Opportunity exists to expand serradella (Ornithopus spp.) use onto heavier, duplex soil types in permanent pasture environments of south-eastern Australia. This requires cultivars with appropriate flowering times and flowering-date stability (i.e. flowering at the same date in spring regardless of timing of the autumn break). Aim: This work examined evidence of variation in flowering date and flowering-date stability in the NSW southern tablelands for a widely-used French serradella (O. sativus) cv. Margurita. Methods: Seed (sourced from a commercial supplier) was sown 21 March 2019 (Canberra, ACT) and 231 individual plants were monitored for time to first flower. A subset of plants exhibiting 'early' or 'late' flowering were identified and their seeds collected. In 2020, seed from ~15 plants from each selection was sown in Canberra in late March and early May to represent an 'early' and a 'later' break of season (n = 3). Key results: In the early-sown treatment, 'early-flowering' selections typically reached the median date of first flower (50%-flowering) from mid- to late August, while 'late-flowering' selections reached 50%-flowering early- to mid-September. When sown later, the 'early-flowering' selections began flowering from mid- to late September, while the 'late-flowering' selections flowered mid-September to early October. The 'early' selections exhibited greater flowering-date instability than 'late' selections and flowered particularly early when sown early. This indicated diversity within cv. Margurita for flowering-time control (e.g. vernalisation and/or photoperiod requirements). Implications: Evaluating cultivars of serradellas for flowering date and flowering date stability in their target environment(s) is essential to ensure cultivars are suitably adapted to these environments. Serradellas (Ornithopus spp.) are a novel legume option for the permanent pasture environments of south-eastern Australia. This paper investigated evidence of variation in flowering time characteristics within a widely used cultivar of French serradella. We recommend that new cultivars of serradellas be evaluated for flowering time characteristics in their target environment(s) to assess whether the cultivars are suitably adapted to these environments. This is essential to maximise production, feeding value and facilitate effective grazing management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived threats to sovereignty stemming from trade exposure to China have led to calls for the Australian government to embrace the concept of 'trusted trade'. This involves using policy levers to drive trade towards markets that have capitals more geopolitically aligned with Canberra and finds practical expression in forms such as 'friend-shored' supply chains. A theme of 'trusted trade' advocacy is the conscription of existing security-oriented partnerships, including the ANZUS alliance, the Quad grouping and the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement, to take on economic dimensions. While holding superficial appeal, this paper details why pursuing this policy path would be to learn the wrong lessons from Beijing's campaign of trade disruption that began in May 2020, and make Australia both poorer and less secure. Three key data points are highlighted that collectively support an assessment that the Australian government's traditional trade policy approach, emphasising open regionalism, remains overwhelmingly fit for purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An overview of the submission provided by the Defence Reserves Association (DRA) to the Defence team conducting the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) into Australian Defence Force (ADF) is described in this paper. The DRA has long advocated for a better resourced and more integrated Reserve component to boost ADF capacity, both in current and contingency operational tasks. The effectiveness of the Reserve in recent regional deployments and in domestic disaster relief operations has often been acknowledged and praised, but no one would contend that resourcing of the Reserve or integrated planning for their optimisation has been a priority at the strategic centre in Canberra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of a firestorm, many survivors will spend time with the ruins of their homes, fossicking through the rubble or simply being present with the transformed space. Through a series of oral history interviews with survivors of the 2003 Canberra firestorm in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), this paper investigates ruined homes as spaces imbued with memory – of the fire itself, of life before the fires, and of a once imagined future. By examining the first hours and days after the firestorm, we explore the complex temporalities and spatial meanings at play in spaces that are simultaneously understood as both home and ruins. We argue that the unmaking of home by fire is a gradual process. In resistance to the rapid destruction of fire, and before the clearing of ruins by demolition crews, many firestorm survivors enact a slow and embodied process of unmaking. This enactment allows both a coming to terms with the fire's material impacts and a careful engagement with the space's mnemonic resonances. It provides important lessons for a 21st century where more frequent and intense disasters will continue to result in engagement with home-in-ruins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Shading is one of the cases that has effectivity on the household energy consumption. Shadings can be used either in horizontal or vertical form adjacent to the building's window in order to control the sunlight. In this paper, a multi‐objective optimization is conducted to simultaneously reduce the annual electricity consumption and augment the electricity production with the application of photovoltaic shadings installed over the building window. To initiate the multi‐objective optimization, four design variables based on the positioning and geometry of photovoltaic shading are selected and test samples are simulated through EnergyPlus software. The model is three‐floor building located in Tehran, Iran. Next, the Morris sensitivity analysis (MSA) is implemented to calculate the extent to which each design variable affects the objective functions. Afterwards, the relation between the design variables and objective functions is extracted through the regression modeling using GMDH type‐ANN and the equations extracted are then utilized as inputs for genetic algorithm to conduct a Pareto‐based optimization. The results demonstrate that the maximum sunlight reception is attributed to the PV shading in southern direction of the building and its optimal tilt angle is 19.6 considering an annual period. There are slight changes to the tilt angle while seasonal period is considered for the calculations. The results also show that the use of solar shadings can reduce electricity consumption by approximately 4 to 11, 1 to 4, and 10 to 22% for an annual period, winter and summer season, respectively. At the end, the numerical data for the city of Tehran is compared to the cities of Canberra and Macapa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual-purpose cropping (sowing crops with the intention of both grazing them during vegetative growth and harvesting grain thereafter) has become a widespread farming practice in southern Australia. This synopsis paper integrates research from a multi-institutional research project conducted at three nodes located near Hamilton (south-western Victoria), Wagga Wagga (southern NSW) and Canberra (ACT), and sets out 11 principles for the effective utilisation of dual-purpose crops in meat production systems to increase profit and manage risk. Dual-purpose crops can be used to overcome feed quality gaps in late summer–autumn or feed quantity gaps in late autumn/winter. They provide large quantities of high-quality forages for grazing in summer, autumn and winter and can provide a substantial contribution to the annual number of grazing days on a farm. Utilisation of the high-quality dry matter provided by dual-purpose crops is most effective when directed at young growing stock for sale or future reproduction rather than reproducing adult ewes. For example, sale weight of yearlings per ewe was increased by 16% in systems at the Canberra node when dual-purpose crops were prioritised for grazing by weaners. Wool production was also increased in systems that included grazing of dual-purpose crops. Grazing crops in winter does not necessarily reduce supplementary feeding costs for winter or spring lambing. Modelling suggests that inclusion of dual-purpose crops does not substantially change the optimum time of lambing for sheep meat systems. Financial analysis of the experimental data from the Canberra node showed that although cash expenses per hectare were increased in the crop-grazing systems, the overall profitability of those systems over the life of the experiment was greater by AU$207/ha.year than that of the pasture-only system. Factors driving improved profitability included income from grain, higher income from meat and wool, and lower supplementary feeding costs. However, increasing the area sown to crop from 10% to 30% of the farm area in this Southern Tablelands system appeared to increase risk. In south-western Victoria, spring-sown canola carried risk similar to or less than other options assessed to achieve ewe-lamb mating weight. It is likely that at least part of the reduction in risk occurs through the diversification in income from the canola produced as part of the system. It was concluded that the grazing of cereal and canola crops for livestock production can be profitable and assist in managing risk. 'Step changes in meat production systems from dual-purpose crops in the feedbase' was a multi-institutional research program funded by Meat & Livestock Australia. This special issue of Animal Production Science includes key papers from that research program. This synopsis paper integrates research findings across the three nodes of the project and draws out 11 principles for the effective utilisation of dual-purpose crops in meat production systems to increase profit and manage risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Encouraging existing plasma donors to donate more frequently is a key objective for blood collection organizations committed to improving plasma self‐sufficiency through voluntary non‐remunerated donations. The aim of this paper is to present results from a pilot trial testing whether an in‐centre discount voucher reward could increase retention and donation frequency among new and repeat plasma donors. Materials and Methods: A sample of n = 1242 new and repeat plasma donors who presented to donate at the Civic Plasma Donor Centre in Canberra, Australia, over a 14‐week period participated in the trial. Of this group, n = 253 were offered a discount voucher for a local cafe (intervention group) and n = 989 received the business as usual approach in the donor centre (control group). The subsequent donation behaviour of participants was monitored over three months. Results: Overall, 69·6% accepted the discount voucher, with 18·2% of those redeeming it. Those who accepted the voucher were younger and less experienced plasma donors. The intervention did not significantly increase the likelihood of return to donate compared to the control group; however, it did reduce the time to return to donate plasma. The overall rate of donation within 3 months was also significantly higher for donors who were offered the incentive than for the control group. Declining the offer did not negatively impact donors' return behaviour. Conclusion: This paper provides new insights around strategies to increase plasma donation frequency, as well as donor response to introducing a discount voucher reward within a voluntary non‐remunerated donation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the Australian capital city of Canberra's representation through official, government-sponsored, Australian documentary films made between 1900 and 1945. Through a small sample of selected films, that are well preserved and held in the national film archives, we discuss their filmic intention, form, technical production and reception. In these forty plus years which end prior to the advent of technicolour, there was a progression in technical sophistication of the genre from silent to sound, and from newsreel-style reportage of pomp and ceremony towards more informal, aspirational pictures that attempt to conjure how everyday lives could be lived in the fledgling city of Canberra. We suggest that these kinds of films, that might be dismissed as mere propaganda, are useful in adding to our understanding of how documentaries became a tool in the representation and communication of a rapidly shifting national identity, that was advanced concurrently through the planning and building of a new capital city and the evolution of documentary films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outsourcing of Electronic Health Records (EHR) on cloud infrastructures has enabled medical data sharing among several healthcare applications. The blockchain offers security by authenticating users with encryption methods. The collaboration with the cloud provides better management but poses threats to the privacy of the patient. This paper devises a novel blockchain-assisted framework for effective data sharing and retrieval using cloud platforms. Here, the data protection model is devised in EHR application for secure transmission. The entities in the cloud platform include data user, data owner, smart agreement, transactional blockchain, and Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS). Here, the data owner includes a data protection model to secure EHR in which secured EHR is transferred to IPFS before sharing with the data user. The data protection is done by preserving data privacy using Tracy-Singh product and proposed Conditional Autoregressive Value at risk (CAViaR)-based Bird swarm algorithm (CAViaR-based BSA) combination of BSA and CAViaR for generating optimal privacy-preserving coefficients. The objective function is newly devised considering privacy and utility. The proposed CAViaR-based BSA outperformed other methods with minimal responsiveness of 251.339 s, maximal genuine user detection of 32.451%, maximal privacy of 96.5%, and minimal information loss of 3.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science indicates that cities are central to society's capacity to avoid catastrophic and irreversible climate change, that rapid transitions to climate wise practices are needed and that transition steps will face implementation challenges. Lessons learned from reform experience can build understanding of the knowledge, policy and practices required for further transitions. This paper identifies lessons learned from renewable energy and resilience reforms in the city of Canberra, Australia. It finds that attention to science-policy-practice interfaces contributes important insights for the design of planned transitions and for integrative and implementation-focused reforms needed to overcome local barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Joe Biden's assertion that "America is back" and will embrace "strategic competition" with the People's Republic of China has been welcomed in Australia as a sign that the United States is returning to a "normal" grand strategy after the turbulence of the Trump administration. This article argues, however, that this is a problematic assumption as it ignores the question of how American grand strategy choices are made and articulated. Here, Australians need to be much more cognisant of the competing political cultures of statecraft (Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, and Jacksonian) at play in American grand strategy. The article argues that each presents a "historical repertoire" that provides multiple narratives for leaders or strategists to draw upon to guide particular grand strategy choices and demonstrates their significance through an analysis of the approaches to American grand strategy of both the Obama and Trump adminstrations and an initial assessment of the role of the political cultures of statecraft in shaping the emergent grand strategy approach of the Biden administration. The paper concludes that a focus on interpreting the grand strategy preferences of the United States fundamentally challenges the bipartisan assumption upon which current Australian strategic policy rests: that the United States maintains not only the capability but also the will to sustain its position of primacy in international affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the experiment on the Sun conducted by Trevor Ireland and his colleagues at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They studied the Sun by peering closely at microscopic metal gains grains collected from the Moon and they got results that contradict to theories of how the Solar System is formed.

This paper explores the history of a proposal for an ideas-based museum of ecological concepts, a 'National Biological Centre' for Canberra in 1965, and its successors.2 The background to the proposal came from changing ideas about zoos in the 1960s, and the emerging discipline of human ecology. The mission of the centre was to explore the relations between humans, other life-forms and their physical environment through what its chief protagonist, Stephen Boyden, called a comprehensive 'bionarrative'.3 The centre was to facilitate the understanding of biophysical and social worlds as interrelated dynamic systems. The Biological Centre was conceived as a 'major cultural institution' for the nation, reflecting relations between science and society, and informing culture with science.4 Unlike traditional natural history museums and zoos, collections of objects (or animals) were not its primary mission. This paper considers how the 1965 proposal for the Biological Centre anticipated later 'museums of ideas', and reviews its relevance to new twenty-first-century museums of the Anthropocene, and how museums and related institutions can shed light on the role of science in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The Canberra distance presents the most relevant maps in the analysis of the observed satellite features. • The effect of adding Planet Nine's moon has a significant impact on the output of the visualisation techniques. • The Planet Nine and Satellite X disclose an important character in reducing the spread of emerging clusters. This paper studies the characteristics of the large natural satellites in the solar system using clustering techniques. A variety of distances such as the Canberra, Arc-Cosine, Jaccard, Euclidean, Lorentzian and Manhattan are used to unravel the relationships between the moons emerging from their attributes. In a first phase, 19 large moons are selected and measured under the light of 9 orbital and physical characteristics. Two visualisation methods, namely the hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling, are used to analyse the observed satellite features. The Canberra distance presents a superior performance and leads to the most relevant maps. In a second phase, the influence of adding the hypothetical Satellite X, that is proposed to orbit Planet Nine, is examined. The effect of adding Planet Nine's moon has a significant impact on the output of the two visualisation techniques. Adding this speculative object leads to a better discrimination of the clusters. Finally, the case of mixing some planets (including Planet Nine) with satellites (consisting of Satellite X) is tested leading to identical conclusions. Indeed, the numerical results reveal that including Planet Nine and its moon decrease the spread of emerging clusters in comparison with the case of their exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthy development in early childhood is a predictor of success in later life. As such, monitoring the development of young children and, where appropriate, intervening to support that development is of critical importance. However, resources available to support early childhood development are limited and must be allocated in the most efficient way possible. In this paper, we discuss the role of spatial targeting in the allocation of those resources. We compare two Australian cities, Greater Sydney and Canberra, and explore the clustering of areas of high and low developmental vulnerability. We find that while spatial targeting may be appropriate in some areas, in others, differences in the spatial clustering of developmental vulnerability may mean that other targeting strategies would be more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Generalization of the periodic table of elements. • Inclusion of fractional order elements. • 2- and 3-dimensional maps of elements organized accordingly to their features. This paper combines the synergies of three mathematical and computational generalizations. The concepts of fractional calculus, memristor and information visualization extend the classical ideas of integro-differential calculus, electrical elements and data representation, respectively. The study embeds these notions in a common framework, with the objective of organizing and describing the "continuum" of fractional order elements (FOE). Each FOE is characterized by its behavior, either in the time or in the frequency domains, and the differences between the FOE are captured by a variety of distinct indices, such as the Arccosine, Canberra, Jaccard and Sørensen distances. The dissimilarity information is processed by the multidimensional scaling (MDS) computational algorithm to unravel possible clusters and to allow a direct pattern visualization. The MDS yields 3-dimensional loci organized according to the FOE characteristics both for linear and nonlinear elements. The new representation generalizes the standard Cartesian 2-dimensional periodic table of elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A detailed assessment of energy performances of BIPV/T-DSF was performed. • Three types of PV glazing and three types of ventilation modes were assessed. • The model with a naturally-ventilated air cavity showed the lowest consumptions. • The façade with Perovskite cells has the highest conversion of solar radiation. • Both DSFs with natural and mechanical ventilation collect useful thermal energy. Being the interface between indoor and outdoor, building envelope significantly influences indoor heating and cooling loads and thus affects building energy consumption. This paper presents the results of numerical simulation for the performance prediction of building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal double-skin facade (BIPV/T-DSF). Different BIPV materials (amorphous silicon PV, dye-sensitized solar cell and Perovskite based solar cells) were considered as the exterior cladding of a North-facing facade of an office building located in Australia. The performance assessment involved the selection of three climates in Australia, represented by the cities of Darwin, Sydney and Canberra. The air cavity created between the outer skin and the inner one were alternatively assessed in the non-ventilated, naturally-ventilated and mechanically-ventilated modes of operation, while a full sensitivity analysis was performed in order to assess the influence of different design parameters, such as internal skin's thermal transmittance, cavity depth, ventilation louvres' opening ratio and cavity ventilation rate. By comparing the different operational modes and BIPV technologies, it was found that naturally-ventilated DSF integrating the Perovskite-based solar cell could be the optimal configuration achieving the highest savings. Total annual energy savings of 34.1%, 86% and 106% annual were reached respectively in Darwin, Sydney and Canberra, in comparison to conventional technologies. In addition, this façade technology could further reduce the building's heating and cooling loads by harvesting thermal energy generated within the air cavity. The study finally demonstrated that the harvested electrical and thermal energy from the façade could cover a significant share of building's energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classification of the meteorites is very complex, but in general all meteorites can be divided into three groups: stony, iron and stony-iron. Ordinary chondrites are the most numerous group among stony meteorites. In this paper, we present short review of the methods of classification of ordinary chondrites. The classical method for the classification of ordinary chondrites is based on the determination of the content of fayalite in olivine and of the content of ferrosilite in pyroxene with the use of electron microprobe. This method was proposed in 1967. Studies on the application of Mössbauer spectroscopy to classification of ordinary chondrites were carried out since early 2000 in four Mössbauer laboratories. Mössbauer groups from Kanpur, Ekaterinburg and Canberra suggested qualitative methods of classification of ordinary chondrites. Warsaw group created quantitative method called the "4M method". This name derives from following words: meteorites, Mössbauer spectroscopy, multidimensional discriminant analysis, Mahalanobis distance. In this publication, we describe the use of 4M method for reclassification of meteorite Goronyo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates Integrated-Demand Responsive Transport (I-DRT) as a solution to the challenges faced by traditional public transport (PT) systems in low-demand urban areas. The study investigates the implications of replacing local PT with I-DRT in low-demand urban areas. A multi-objective model, incorporating operational cost, environmental impact, passengers' travel time, and inequity is used to simulate the I-DRT performance. The analysis compares the performance of I-DRT and existing local bus lines in Belconnen, Canberra, Australia, based on number of utilised vehicles, operational cost, fuel consumption, average travel time, individual passenger travel time, delay, and inequity in delay distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Bifacial solar modules on rooftops offer up to 22.6% energy yield gains. • Rooftop reflectivity plays a crucial role in maximizing the bifacial potential. • Higher optimal tilt angles for bifacial modules, influenced by rooftop reflectivity. • Parallel intra-module interconnection supports achieving high bifacial yield gains. • Module-level optimizers enhance bifacial energy generation potential by up to 1.4% Bifacial solar modules have emerged as a promising technology in utility-scale photovoltaic systems, experiencing significant growth and capturing a substantial market share worldwide, as reported by the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaic (ITRPV) 2023. Despite this progress, the potential of bifacial modules in rooftop applications remains largely unexplored. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap by conducting a comprehensive study utilizing Monte Carlo Ray Tracing techniques coupled with detailed electrical modelling. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the viability of implementing bifacial solar modules on rooftops by examining the potential energy yield gains. By conducting a detailed analysis on a representative rooftop in Canberra, Australia, real-world conditions, and variations are incorporated, providing a more accurate assessment of the energy yield gains achievable in such settings. The simulation results reveal that the implementation of bifacial solar modules on rooftops within Australia can result in energy yield gains of up to 22.6%. These findings demonstrate the considerable potential of bifacial technology in maximizing solar energy production in rooftop applications. The analysis shows significant implications of module and system design on the potential gain. For example, electrical optimisation of individual modules in a system accounted for 1.4% of the bifacial gain. The analysis considers full annual time-step simulation, typical mechanical mounting components, installation orientations and module characteristics, ensuring practical relevance and reliability of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community gardens are often considered to be therapeutic landscapes capable of supporting wellbeing and recovery particularly for members of vulnerable or disadvantaged groups such as refugees. This is regularly identified as resulting from the capacity for communal garden activities to enable realisation of self-efficacy, the formation of social connections and the assumed benefits of "being" in nature. These approaches tend to privilege anthropocentric perspectives that perpetuate conceptions of a human/nature binary. As such, existing literature has paid little attention to the role in refugee recovery of the visceral, affective force of matter encountered in the embodied act of gardening. By adopting such an approach, this paper aims to tease out the particularities of how bodies in these places engage with the ecological experiences of their new homes. Such encounters are never simply harmonious. They can reinforce dislocation while concurrently providing sites where gardeners are able to strengthen their adaptive capabilities via experimentation. To understand the utility of community gardening to support refugee recovery we argue it is necessary to not only attend to human participants and issues of design, infrastructure, and garden management, but also to the impact of particular forms of human and more-than-human entanglements that emerge in these spaces. In so doing we suggest that the notion of community and belonging in these settings should be broadened to more deeply engage with the more-than-human. To explore this, we focus on a small-scale, in-depth case study of a food-producing garden established for Burmese refugees in Canberra, Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Digital pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) of scintillator detectors has gained popularity as an efficient technique for the discrimination between different types of particles. In this paper, we have investigated the use of simple distance metrics for digital PSD of neutron and gamma-rays in liquid scintillator detectors. The distance metrics are commonly used in the field of pattern recognition and offer the advantage of a simple and effective performance. Our method is based on quantifying the difference between a sampled detector pulse and an ideal step pulse. For this purpose, some of the common distance metrics including Euclidean, City-block, Canberra, root mean square (RMS) and Hellinger were experimentally examined through the discrimination of neutrons and gamma-rays in a liquid scintillator detector and their performances were compared to that of the conventional charge-comparison method. It was found that the City-Block distance metric exhibits a very simple and effective PSD approach by producing a figure-of-merit (FOM) of 0.72 against a FOM = 0.54 for the charge-comparison method in the very low light output range of below 160 keVee (electron equivalent energy) and a mean FOM value of 1.23 over the whole examined light output range of 60–1000 keVee. Highlights • Distance metrics are proposed for digital discrimination of neutrons and gamma-rays. • Five metrics of Euclidean, City-block, Canberra, RMS and Hellinger were experimentally examined. • The City-Block distance metric exhibits a very simple and effective PSD approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we compare two seemingly very similar instances in which individuals and organizations within the borders of the global North have memorialized the deaths of irregular migrants at sea: the SIEV X memorial in Australia's national capital Canberra, and the Giardino della memoria (Garden of Remembrance) on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Unlike ephemeral manifestations of grief, potentially these memorials have effects that reach well beyond their creation. We relate the differences between the memorials to the contexts within which they were created: an immediate local response involving people directly affected by the disaster's aftermath, on the one hand, and a delayed nation-wide response involving people removed from the deaths at sea, on the other. We also discuss the difference between a memorial that names and thereby individualizes victims, and one that does not, and between one that celebrates an alternative, hospitable society, and one that does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Review of the most commonly used distance measures in machine learning • Analysis of their main properties, applications and key aspects to consider • The similarity analysis shows a high degree of correlation between all the measures • Evaluation of classification and clustering performance, noise tolerance and runtime • Canberra distance shows the best overall performance and the highest tolerance to noise Many machine learning and data mining tasks are based on distance measures, so a large amount of literature addresses this aspect somehow. Due to the broad scope of the topic, this paper aims to provide an overview of the use of these measures in the most common machine learning problems, pointing out those aspects to consider to choose the most appropriate measure for a particular task. For this purpose, the most recent works addressing the subject were reviewed and seven of the most commonly used measures were analyzed, investigating in detail their main properties and applications. Different experiments were carried out to study their relationships and compare their performance. The degradation of the results in the presence of noise was also considered, as well as the execution time required by each measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT), network advancement has significantly influenced the increasing number of devices and advanced enhancements linked with it. Indeed the increasing number prevalence and sophistication of emerging cyber-attacks have highlighted the necessity for designing robust security application. In this paper, the Remora-based Deep Maxout Network model is Proposed. Here, the input data is acquired and forwarded to the pre-processing phase, wherein the missing value imputation approach is employed for creating a complete dataset. Later, the pre-processed data is then subjected to dimension transformation from the transformed data; the Convolutional Neural Network features are extracted, followed by feature selection based on Canberra distance. Here, detection is carried out using a Deep Maxout Network whose weights and training parameters are modified using the Remora Optimization Algorithm. However, the proposed model has delivered superior results with a high testing accuracy of 0.945 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper scrutinizes criticisms of Mark Oliphant and his quest to build a cyclo-synchrotron in Canberra in the 1950s by analysing various portrayals of him, paying particular attention to the ways these portrayals, despite being written in different decades, are teleologically driven and reinforce a perception of failure. It addresses the key criticisms levelled at Oliphant: his 'difficult' personality, his perceived political naïveté and his inability to adjust to the new technological paradigm of Big Science. It questions whether these portrayals represent legitimate criticism or ideological positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1991 a large bush meeting was held at Rugan in the East Kimberley, organised by the Kimberley Land Council and attended by more than 500 Aboriginal people from across the Kimberley.1 This meeting is looked upon as one of the most significant expressions of pan-Kimberley identity in the post-settlement era and generated considerable discussion at a regional level. This event, which has since become known as 'Crocodile Hole', occurred in the shadow of the failure of land rights to be passed in Western Australia in the mid-1980s, and the impending Mabo decision. This paper attempts to track the idea of a regional governance structure in the Kimberley since the time of Crocodile Hole and how this idea has articulated with wider political and policy trends in the region and beyond. It notes that principles identified by the Crocodile Hole meeting remain as core ideals for Aboriginal leadership within the Kimberley, yet the form and structure by which regional governance is being attempted has altered significantly over time. In a contemporary context, it concludes that such a structure would require particular characteristics to be deemed acceptable by Aboriginal groups across the Kimberley and to be engaged with by government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal ethics committee in Australia's Capital, Canberra, underwent a major revision in the last three years based on changes debated in the literature. Committee or Board structure varies widely; regulations determining minimum size and membership differ between countries. Issues such as the effectiveness of committee management, consumption of paper, timelines for review, and causes of delay were key issues for im.provement. Several new practices were adopted, the first being a subcommittee to manage the review of low or minimal risk projects, successfully relieving the workload of the main committee. Adoption of electronic processes and documentation resulted in less paper, more streamlined review and sharing of applications. Effective time management for meeting schedules, electronic coordination of meeting agenda items and protocol distribution for review successfully reduced delays in reviews. Assigning lead members for all ethical reinews strengthened committee fiinction by sharing out agenda items, allowing committee members to focus on specific protocols. Ready communication with researchers is an intrinsic and highly successfid part of committee practice. There appears to be advantage in central allocation of projects for review, but the local input from boards or committees brings great value. The rebuilding of the ACT committee has improved both process efficiency and relationships with researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an edited and expanded version of a public lecture given at the Emeritus Faculty of the Australian National University (ANU) on 16 March 2011. Based on the work of German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, the author explores the notion of wisdom as a possible point of contact between science and theology. After laying out some specific challenges common to both disciplines, the paper intimates that the interwoven complexity of existence points to oneness in the underlying fabric of reality. Provided science and theology enter the interdisciplinary space Moltmann calls "wisdom", the intellectual resources of the two disciplines can enrich each other, although this has not been the popular perception for the last 150 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of a school kitchen garden in the lives of its volunteers. The garden, located at the Majura Primary School in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Australia, is the first Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden (SAKG) in the ACT. Since its launch on 25 March 2010, it has acted as the demonstration site for SAKG in the ACT. While other schools in the ACT have kitchen gardens, they do not operate under the management of a formal programme such as the SAKG scheme. Literature on school kitchen gardens provides some empirical evidence on the benefits of school kitchen gardens for children (primarily from the pedagogical, environmental and health perspectives), but there is scant literature on the various ways in which a kitchen garden may affect the various stakeholders involved in its community. These stakeholders include parents and volunteers associated with the establishment and ongoing support of the school kitchen garden. This paper begins to address this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of adult volunteers associated with the Majura Primary School kitchen garden. A key finding was that volunteers experienced unexpected benefits, as well as challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although children of parents with an alcohol or other drug (AOD) issue appear to assume a range of caring responsibilities within their families they have, until recently, been excluded from the growing body of young-carer research, policy and practice. This is problematic, as this group may experience greater levels of social exclusion whilst experiencing similar negative impacts of care as their caring peers. This paper discusses the findings of an exploratory qualitative research project conducted in Canberra, Australia which attempted to further understand these young people's experiences and to consider how they might best be supported. The paper challenges the way that young caring has been conceptualised and suggests that unless a number of conceptual, structural and organisational changes are made, young people caring for a parent with an AOD issue may remain relatively unsupported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides our first forensic quartz grain surface texture analysis of soils from the southern hemisphere. Sediment and soil samples were collected from a simulated crime reconstruction in the environs of Canberra, Australia, which comprised a murder site, an alibi site and a body deposition site. Following the successful application of quartz grain surface texture analysis from many case locations in England1 and more recently in Switzerland2, this paper examines the potential for the application of this technique from areas around Canberra. The very specific geological history of the Australian continent provides new challenges for forensic reconstruction techniques. The quartz grain surface textural analysis undertaken indicates that clear differences between the three locations can be identified, enabling the successful differentiation of samples taken from the three distinct sites. This provides a means of undertaking exclusionary analysis and disproving an alibi location as being a possible source for material derived from the murder site or the body deposition site. These findings indicate that this form of geoforensic analysis has great potential for crime scene investigation of mixed-source physical trace geoforensic evidence in Australia. It also has the potential to provide an independent line of enquiry to other well established geoforensic techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]