From Research to the Real World

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where former student Kevin Moore from General Dynamics Mediaware is talking about Commercialising Research: Real-world Applications and Challenges of Digital Video. His company's applications include processing video from the US Predator UAV aircraft used by the US military in Afghanistan and sport video at the Beijing Olympics.

Dr. Moore is discussing how an idea from a research project becomes a commercial product. He pointed out that licensing the intellectual property from a research organisation may take years and require a share of the company or licensing fees . Mediaware obtained government and defence start-up grants, but even so the founders did not take salaries initially and the company started out in a very modest office. The company moved from selling consumer vdeo software to "prosumers". Customers were not just the usual home video market, but also lawyers and professionals. The company is modestly successful, with 90% of the revenue from outside of Australia. In 2008 the company was purchased by General Dynamics, but still operates out of Canberra.

Dr. Moore suggested not "chasing the market" but instead concentrate what real customers need. He used the example of the product InStream. The market was for regioanl TV broadcasters who needed to insert local advertisments into TV content for new HD TV. Existing prodycts ere designed for capital city stations and not affordable for small stations. The traditional was to implement this would be to decode the MPEG video, insert the ads and recode. Mediaware produced a software based system to insert the ads.

From prototype to product took 18 months. This was used by Prime for the Beijing Olympics and won an award. Despite this success, the product still does not have another customer. One problem is that potential customers do not believe that such a product is technically possible and therefore there is not a demand.One obvious use I can see for this technology is to insert information into the video stream from UAV surveillance aircraft.

Dr. Moore then showed examples of JPEG2000 for Wide Area Airborne Surveillance. Military manned and unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan are recording very large amounts of video data over wide areas. This is creating a large data management problem. Mediaware are working on systems to manage this. He commented on the difficulty of collecting requirements from users where the application is highly classified. Another issues is to adjust the quality of the video to suit the avialable military bandwidth.

Dr. Moore then invited the ANU students to apply for a job.

Processing Predator UAV Video

Kevin Moore from Canberra company General Dynamics Mediaware will talk at the ANU in Canberra today about how they compress video, in: Commercialising Research: Real-world Applications and Challenges of Digital Video. Applications include processing video from the US Predator UAV aircraft used by the US military in Afghanistan and the Beijing Olympics. Mediaware hires ANU students to work on software.

Seminar Details
Commercialising Research: Real-world Applications and Challenges of Digital Video
Kevin Moore (General Dynamics Mediaware)
COMPUTER VISION AND ROBOTICS SERIES

DATE: 2010-02-25
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: RSISE Seminar Room, ground floor, building 115, cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU
CONTACT: Jochen.Trumpf@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT:
MPEG video compression and transmission standards are a major enabling technology driving the digital broadcast and distribution industries. Digital television, IPTV DVDs and Blu-ray Discs all use variants of MPEG to transmit and display content. General Dynamics Mediaware is a Canberra company that has been engaged in research and implementation of MPEG technologies for over ten years, and has emerged as a leading global developer and supplier of compressed digital video processing solutions to the Broadcast and Defence industries.

In this presentation, we will introduce Mediaware's unique compressed-domain frame-accurate MPEG repurposing technologies, whose commercial applications include

- Real-time splicing systems deployed by Prime TV across the Australia's East Coast, facilitating the HD TV broadcast of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games;

- Stream capturing, analysing, annotation, editing software integrated in General Dynamics Multi-Int Analysis and Archive System, and in General Atomics Predator ground station.

We will describe MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, the standard used in HD TV, Blu-ray DVD and by services such as YouTube and iTunes, and present some of the technical challenges of compressed-domain editing given its computational complexity.
BIO:
Dr Kevin Moore is the Chief Technology Officer of General Dynamics Mediaware and is responsible for identifying and developing Mediaware's product and technology strategic vision.

Joining Mediaware in 1998 shortly after it was founded, Kevin was part of the engineering team responsible for the development of Mediaware's core capabilities in native MPEG and H.264/AVC editing, compressed domain scene change detection, video playback, stream capture, and helped build the first two generations of desktop editing products.

Prior to joining Mediaware, Kevin spent 7 years as a Research Scientist at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, working on a range of image processing and scientific data visualization projects. Kevin has BSc and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the Australian NationalUniversity, and a broad background in video and image processing, high performance computing and software engineering.

Climate Change and Development Panel

Greetings from the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University in Canberra. For a free panel on "Crises in human development: Climate Change: What does Copenhagen mean for the world’s poor?" The event did not start well, with a representative of ActionAid making an attack on western neo-liberalism. I didn't think would help with climate change or development.

Guest panellists:

• Dr Lorraine Elliott, Senior Fellow in International Relations, The Australian National University: Dr Elliott asked what forum should be used for climate change negotiation. She said the G20 was not suitable as it is not a formal legal international forum, concentrates on financial issues. The UN FCCC process is flawed but is deliberative and inclusive, or superior.
  
• Annemarie Watt, Negotiator, Department of Climate Change: Ms. Watt suggested we need to fundamentally change the way we are looking at the problem and come up with new solutions. She pointed out how complex and demanding the negotiation process is, with multiple streams and limited skilled negotiators. She noed that a the Copenhagen meeting the cohesiveness of the developing nations block broke down. She has an extensive background in environmental issues in government, but curiously I could find no mention of her on the Climate Change Department web site.
  
• Mr Phan Van Ngoc, Country Director ActionAid Vietnam: Mr. Van Ngoc argues that the Copenhagen agreement was for and by the rich. This may be true, but is not a useful observation. Obviously rich and powerful nations will act in their own interests. The question is how the interests of others can also be promoted. A more useful observation was that most of the negotiations were closed and by a small group of countries. His view, which I share, is that the negotiations had no useful outcome and were a waste of resources and effort. He pointed out the effect climate change will have on Vietnam and that the country has strategies to address this. This was useful for pointed out that this is not just an abstract political problem and that nations are taking action.
  

At question time I proposed that ANU help the Australian Government provide an online forum to assist future climate change negotiations. The panel pointed out that some developing nations had only limited Internet access and that face to face meetings were needed, particularly where high level political leaders are involved. But there seemed to be some support for the idea. Ms. Watt pointed out that Department for Climate Change makes extensive use of video conference, but are concerned by the limitations of the technology particularly for large groups and with technical glitches.

Negotiate Post Copenhagen Climate Change Online

Greetings from the Australian National University, in Canberra where "Post Copenhagen: Where Do We Go Now?" was just held. The event is also streamed live online.

Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute hosted. More than 50 ANU staff and students attended the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. They provided insights on what happened.

Some insights:

• One Russian spokesperson make commitments one day and a different one explained these were not going to be commitments the next day,
• Developing nations argued for financial help to mitigate climate change. There were allegations that this was being used to gloss over the lack of progress. There were also issues as to if any funding would be new and would actually be paid.

The Australian Government's Climate Change Ambassador will be speaking
at ANU tomorrow. My suggestion is that ANU should host online forums on behalf of the Australian Government to provide a low emission high efficiency place to negotiate the Copenhagen Climate Change global agreement. This could include training in how to negotiate efficiently as well as how to use online technology to do it.

Energy research in India

Professors S. Iniyan and L. Suganthi from Anna University (Chennai, India) will talk on energy and research modelling at the Australian National University in Canberra, 24 February 2010.

Seminar on energy and research modelling from two highly regarded researchers from Anna University (Chennai, India)

• 11:00–11:30 Prof. L. Suganthi – Macroeconomic energy modelling
• 11:30–12:00 Prof. S. Iniyan – Energy research at Anna University
  

11:00–12:30 Wednesday 24 February
Seminar Room R214, Engineering Building 32, ANU, North Road, Canberra

Professors Iniyan and Suganthi are visiting as part of a partnership with the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems. They are collaborating on the project Technical and economic assessment of improved Solar Photovoltaic Linear Concentrators and determination of market potential in India, funded by the Australia–India Strategic Research Fund.

Professor S. Iniyan is Professor and Director of the Institute for Energy Studies. He is a mechanical engineer, with a PhD on an optimal renewable energy mathematical model for India. Professor Iniyan has published over 130 papers, including over 25 in international journals.

Professor L. Suganthi is Professor & Head of the Department of Management Studies. She researches Energy Modelling and Energy Optimisation, as well as general management areas such as information systems, forecasting, and quality management. She has coauthorred the book “Total Quality Management” and published over 160 papers.

Post Copenhagen Climate Change Event Online

The ANU Climate Change Institute will host a free event on climate change strategies "Post Copenhagen: Where Do We Go Now?" at the Australian National University , in Canberra, 12.00 pm to 1.20 pm, 23 February 2010. The event will also be streamed live online.

Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute will host a post COP 15 Climate Change Conference public event.Get the inside story of what went on at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.

Take the opportunity to engage with ANU students and researchers who attended the Conference. Internet live streaming will be available for people unable to make it to ANU on the day. The event is free. Students and the general public are most welcome. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and internet participants can interact through a live web forum. ...

World standard work for Australia

Greetings from the newly refurbished engineering lecture theatre at the ANU in Canberra (has clever technology to give every seat an inconspicuous power point). The Dean is briefing the faculty on where the university is heading. I have just been at consultations with Standards Australia on their future strategies and there are some common themes. These are to maintain world class standards by better managing resources, work with international partners. Both ANU and SA are directly funded by the Australian Government and do not have to compete for funds in the same way other organisations have to do. These organisations therefore need to have the discipline to use those resources wisely and be seen to achieving results for the community.

SA have issued consultation papers about future processes and invited input. I have been very critical of what as proposed, but at least there is a consultation process. In contrast ANU is consulting internally, as for example the briefing I am at, but is less good at consulting the wider community.

ANU aims to grow at the student postgraduate level, aiming for 50% postgraduate with 25% PHDs.ANU already engages with government , business and the community (you can't tune into SBS news without seeing an ANU Professor), but can't take this for granted. As part of this ANU has an Alumni (which includes the Prime Minister).

A challenge for ANU is to balance teaching with research. This involves performance management of people and recruitment. The business processes needed to run an organisation may be foreign to people selected for their teaching and research skills. So ANU is gradually introducing such processes and editing staff along the way.

There are some common challenges for both ANU and SA. An obvious one to me, because i is what I work on, is the Internet and the web. Like teaching and research, standards development and publishing are moving online. ANU are a leader at researching how to and applying the Internet to research and teaching. Significant resources have been put into reequipping teaching and research facilities and training staff in their use. An example of this is the Engineering ‘Hubs and Spokes’ Project in collaboration with the University of South Australia. But there has been less process at applying this to business processes.

Some of the problems with reaching out, and particularly online, can be subtle. As an example, ANU runs "Summer Schools". However, this is a location specific term. Someone from the northern hemisphere, with seasons at opposite times of the year, will not realise that "Summer" means a different time of year. This would be particularly confusing if the vent is run at a northern hemisphere campus.

SA are still struggling with how to apply the Internet to standards development and publishing, do not currently have a viable plan. Better application of the Internet will enhance ANU and faulre to address it threatens the existence of SA.

Publishing round table National Library of Australia

Greetings from the National Library of Australia. Colin Steele organised a round table with Richard Charkin, Executive Director of Bloomsbury Publishing, London. There were 26 people present, about one third from the library, a third from the ANU and the rest from federal government agencies and universities.

Richard, who I met in the library's cafe on the way in, is talking at forums in Melbourne and Sydney. Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research talked at the forum yesterday. In his speech "THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION: PUBLISHING IN THE 21ST CENTURY". He announced a book industry support group. The group has not been set up and its composition and role is unclear. Richard commented that the Minister seemed to be making it up as he was speaking.

Richard talked about Bloomsbury's role in publishing educational and scientific materials with "Bloomsbury Academic". He talked about the tradition business model of publishing, with the separate roles of publishers and book stores. Publishers became more specialised an online delivery became available twenty years ago with Dialog and the like. There were also early CD-ROM books, such as the BBC Domesday Project. The point of this was that e-publishing is not new. One example was the spell check program based on a traditional paper dictionary. One large e-publishing effort was the Oxford English Dictionary.

Large digital scholarly publishing started around 1993 and was largely complete in five years. Scientific journals were traditionally published as a record: to be written, not read. Computer based systems allow the material to be easily searched. The science publisher's staff were scientifically trained and so comfortable with computers. Because the publisher had rights to re-purpose the material allowed for new databases, which Richard argued was a good thing (although in other ways publishers may have too much power). The last link in the chain were the university librarians, who were comfortable with digital materials.

Richard commented that scientific publishing has been very profitable for hundreds of years. The profit was an enabler for digitising publishing. Also university library budgets for subscriptions is a source of funds. He claimed that scientific publishing is now 99% digital. For leading journals, such as "Nature" all submissions are now digital. The print journal is now a sideline.

Book publishers are now being sucked into the maelstrom of electronic publishing. Book publishing is incredibly complicated (something I discovered recently with my new book "Green Technology Strategies").

Unlike scientific papers, format matters for scholarly books and there are many different complex formats. The rights to books are very complex, with rights for different territories and in different languages. Some of the rights are unclear, as for example, is Hong Kong an "Open Market". A publisher might have the paper rights, but not digital rights, or may have the rights, but have agreed a royalty. This makes the metadata for the rights difficult to encode. Calculating royalties can be difficult when the book is available in different formats and modes, such as subscription.

Richard commented that the fear of book piracy may be more of an issue than piracy itself. There is also a fear of e-book sales cannibalising paper book sales. He also commented on the Macmillan verses Amazon.com pricing issue. With Amazon Kindle e-books, he commented that the commercial arrangements were confidential (I see this as similar to software licences).

Richard said that many Kindle book sales are to regional areas and less developed nations. He speculated this was a new market of people who previously had difficulty getting access to books. There is a large market for English language books outside English speaking countries. I assume this is particularly the case for technical and scientific works, where English is the language of the discipline (such as Computer Science).

There are frustrations and delays with e-publishing still. This will require new systems and clarification of rights. Richard used the example of the Kindle edition of my book of what is possible, which took only 12 hours to be distributed.
There is needed a new emphasis on marketing of material. Also global agreements on copyright is needed. Richard argued copyright is workable and Creative Commons is an example of how it can be adapted to new needs.

He suggested that academic publishers need to de-specialise, so they find a new wider market.

Post Harry Potter, Richard decided to build Bloomsbury's academic publishing, with Bloomsbury Academic. He commented that a fiction book goes through 25 intermediaries before publishing, making it difficult to make a profit. The academic publishing process has many fewer steps.

Bloomsbury set up " Bloomsbury Academic" which has adopted the Creative Commons licence, with "vanilla text" versions online for free, as well as selling e-book and print editions. I was surprised that a credible publisher had taken this innovative step and more surprised that I had not heard about it. I had a quick browse and found at least one book of interest ("Net Neutrality" by Christopher Marsden). But Bloomsbury need to improve their web site, as I could not find a web page about the book. He aims to publish a few hundred titles in five years, an at least break even. He accepts that this new initiative will not appeal to academic authors as much as prestige publishers, but will be attractive as the books will be much widely read and have the potential to become popular. The production process has traditional editors and quality controls.

The floor was then open for questions.

The first question was about Print On Demand (POD), such as the Espresso Book Machine at University Bookshop and Melbourne University Library. Like me, Richard has doubts about the current machines, but they have potential for the near future (next year or so). Someone then commented that US publishers don't allow POD outside the US, because the US market is so large in itself and they do not have to try too hard. Richard also commented that due to the "thirty day rule" many books are now printed in Australia (unfortunately I could not find a web pages explaining the 30 day rule).

The next question was about markets and demographics. Ricahrd commented there was little science in trade publishing and it as more a matter of passion and reading the book. It occurred to me that the sort of data you get from web sites using tools like Google Analytics could be of use.

The next question was about the ability to produce large print books on demand. It was commented that this was very useful, but expensive from Amazon POD (but an exclusive arrangement will not be used). I produced a large print edition of my latest book, simply by increasing the paper size. he Apple iPad also got a positive mention.

The next question was composite textbooks, made from chapters out of different works. Richard responded that US style textbooks are an outdated "Oldsmobile 1996" style of working, with a long production time and large costs. He doesn't think "chunking" (taking chapters from different works) is an interesting approach. The lecturer's notes are more interesting. Textbooks are bought by students in shops, whereas digital materials are bought by libraries. He suggested university libraries might buy a e-textbook site licence and then obtain reimbursement from students. Last year at ANU I selected an e-textbook available through the library for COMP2410 and this worked fine (we aren't charging the students extra for this).

The next question was why English and Dutch academic paper publishers think they can make money, but others can't. Richard's reply was that if you subsidise the publishing it will never make money. He argued that academic publishing can make money and university should not subsidise their presses.

One question was why aren't students demanding e-textbooks? One comment was that the text is no integrated into the course and students may never read the text, electronic or on paper. Richard replied that teaching English was producing the most sophisticated e-learning systems. Another comment was that the Australian Government's new publishing intuitive did not include educational institutions, who are a large source of the content, as well as consumers. It occurred to me that the e-learning initiatives funded by the federal education department for universities (Education Network Australia: edna ) and TAFEs (Australian Flexible Learning Framework) could be usefully combined with the publishing initiative.

Richard commented that "printers" were not now seen as a significant part of the publishing business, but with POD this could become important again: "desperate industries tend to be ahead of the curve".

Another comment was about "Learn on Demand" rather than "Print on Demand". Students want to be able to select components of courses and texts in different formats as required. It seems a shame that the publishing people in this room did not know about all the excellent work being done on exactly this by people who probly a few doors down the corridor from them.

Richard expressed doubts that Google Books would earn significant advertising revenue and was likely done out of idealism. I am trying it out, by making my book avialable on Google Books.

One person commented that academic publishing online was still largely in the format of traditional books. Also better measures than citation index was needed. It occurs to me that some of the sophisticated measures available to web publishers could be applied.

Richard commented that the business model for Apple iPad was still not clear. He also amusingly commented that the market for e-books did not seem to be mobile younger business people as expected, but actually older people who wanted to read in bed without disturbing their partner. He also commented that the limiting factor in selling books was bookshelf space at home and there may be more shelf space in India (haing seen the book store at Bandglore airport and the public library in Panjim, Goa, I can agree). There were also comments about the iPad and Knidle being too big. In 1996 I predicted a passport size (b7) PADD device, much like the Apple iPad.

There was then a discussion of the disposable nature of mass market paperbacks, particuarly romance novels.

Richard said how he saw no books in the canteen of the British Library, only laptops. He also said how good the canteen is. This I found surprising, as on my one and only visit as a reader at the BL, I found the food at the cafe very poor (along with the poor state of maintenace of the technology in the BL, poor customer relations and poor building design).

There was then a discussion of how quickly books go out of print and general agreement that e-publishing would eliminate this.

Richard asked if books could be e-published in 12 hours, why couldn't peer review be made faster. In fact with electronic support for publishing, this can be done. The systems automatically track how ling reviewers are taking, send them reminders and monitor their performance.

One comment was that books only count slightly more than journal articles for the Australian research ranking system. So a smart academic will chop their book into about five papers to maximise their ranking.

I commented that my e-learning course ended up being a printed book as well. Richard replied that several initiatives at Nature which started out purely electronic later produced print versions which were popular.

One audience member asked that if the academic author does all the production work, then what is the publisher for? Richard responded that authors always feel there publishers are not doing enough, but they do provide production, marketing and distribution services, as well as "love". One of the audience commented that the film industry has a different arrangement. It occurred to me that the modern publisher is more like a holywood studio, which actually does little of the film production.

Bloomsbury created qfinance.com for the Qatar government. Also is creating Bloomsbury Qatar Publishing Foundation for publishing educational materials and Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals (couldn't find their web site) to do institutional repository with open access for Education City's research output. These are non profit actives established by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned (موزة بنت ناصر المسند‎), chairperson of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.

Climate Change and Development

Ms Louise Hand, Australian Ambassador for Climate Change will be part of a free panel on "Crises in human development: Climate Change: What does Copenhagen mean for the world’s poor?" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 24 February 2010.

Guest panellists:

• Dr Lorraine Elliott, Senior Fellow in International Relations, The Australian National University
• Ms Louise Hand, Australia ’s Ambassador for Climate Change
• Mr Phan Van Ngoc, Country Director ActionAid Vietnam

Speaker/Host: Actionaid and Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy
Venue: APCD Lecture Theatre, Hedley Bull Centre ANU
Date: Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Website: http://apcd.anu.edu.au
Enquiries: Frederique Blanc on 02 9565 9119, Andrea Haese on 02 6125 7983

Demolish Lecture Theatres to make Room for Students

It is time for Australian universities to demolish their obsolete lecture theatres to make room for modern teaching and student accommodation. In 2006 I suggested we celebrate Canberra's centenary by investigating the construction of low cost, high quality, environmentally efficient modular housing. The ACT Government did not take up this idea, but the Australian National University built a student block from shipping containers, modelled on the Keetwonen project in Amsterdam (as highlighted in my proposal). Other Australian universities are following this lead, but are still short of student accommodation. What campuses do have are old large obsolete lecture theatres, which I suggest be demolished to make room for modern education and accommodation facilities.

Old large lecture theatres are no use for modern educational techniques. These spaces are now mostly empty, as few students attend traditional lectures. New, smaller, computer equipped teaching spaces are needed. There is no efficient way to convert the old lecture theatre buildings to the new use. These buildings should be demolished and replaced with new ones. As well as new smaller teaching spaces, this space can be used for more student accommodation. The distinction between accommodation and teaching building can also be lessened, with more teaching done close to the accommodation (Oxbridge style).

New building can be designed to be easily re-purposed for teaching, administration, commercial space and accommodation. These buildings can be built using environmentally efficient modular techniques and rapidly constructed.

Green ICT Job at ANU

The Australian National University is advertising for a Green ICT Project Officer. ANU Green previously arranged projects for my Green Information Technology Strategies students to do. So the content of that course will give some idea of what the job involves.

Green ICT Project Officer

• Facilities and Services
• Fixed Term of 14 Months

We are seeking a qualified, highly organised person with excellent communication and problem solving skills to undertake research to investigate the current size and makeup of the Universitys computer fleet. The project will identify ways to reduce the carbon footprint of ICT and work towards the installation of energy efficient technology that reduce ITs environmental impact.

The project is funded for fourteen months and will have specific milestones to be achieved through the life of the project. The appointee will be required to provide progress reports to the Associate Director, F&S and the Director DOI.

The position will also establish and maintain a public website to inform the ANU community of the progress of the Green ICT Project.

Contact: Bart Meehan T: 02 6125 4148 E: Bart.Meehan@anu.edu.au

To be eligible to apply for this position you must have an appropriate Australian or New Zealand work visa.

Contemporary Art Exhibitions in Canberra

Free exhibitions of Glass, Painting, Print media, Drawing, Ceramics, Textilesl, Gold, Silversmithing and Furniture are being held at the ANU Gallery in Canberra, from 3 February to 26 March 2010. "NEOLOGY" showcases the work of the ANU School of Art.

School of Art Gallery Program

NEOLOGY│GRADUATE SEASON 2010 │ 3 February - 26 March

A series of exhibitions showcasing works produced by candidates for the PhD, Master of Philosophy, Master of Arts (Visual Arts), and the Graduate Diploma of Art.

SEASON ONE

Glenn Carter (MVA, Glass)
Diana Johnstone (Grad Dip, Painting)
Jill Loupekine (MAVA, Printmedia and Drawing)

EXHIBITION ends Friday 12 February
_____________________________________________

SEASON TWO

Craig Edwards (Grad Dip, Ceramics)
Keven Francis (Grad Dip, Ceramics)
Nicole Muniz (MAVA, Glass)
Arion Siu Man Lam (MDA, Textiles)

RECEPTION Wednesday 17 February at 6.00pm

EXHIBITION ends Friday 26 February
_____________________________________________

SEASON THREE

Dean Allison (MAVA Glass)
Cinnamon Lee (MPhil, Gold and Silversmithing)
Kenichi Sato (MDA, Furniture)

RECEPTION Wednesday 3 March at 6.00pm

EXHIBITION ends Friday 12 March
_____________________________________________

SEASON FOUR

Nicola Dickson (PhD, Painting)
Suzanne Moss (PhD, Painting)

RECEPTION Wednesday 17 March at 6.00pm

EXHIBITION ends Friday 26 March

Controlling robots via the Internet

Professor Sandra Hirche will talk on "Human-oriented telerobotic control over the Internet" at the ANU in Canberra, 16 February 2010:

SYSTEMS AND CONTROL SERIES

Human-oriented telerobotic control over the Internet

Prof. Sandra Hirche (Technical University of Munich (TUM))

DATE: 2010-02-16
TIME: 11:00:00 - 12:00:00
LOCATION: RSISE Seminar Room, ground floor, building 115, cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU

ABSTRACT:
Packet switched communication networks, as e.g. the Internet, are very attractive for the transmission of haptic information between the operator and the teleoperator side in a telerobotic systems. As a result of the haptic coupling a global control loop is closed through the packet switched communication network with the human and the environment being part of it. Without further control measures the intrinsic communication unreliabilities render the haptic telepresence system unstable. Similar challenges arise in the closely related field of networked control systems~(NCS), however, in haptic telepresence systems extended stabilization methods are required due to the largely unknown human/environment dynamics. Human factors play a major role in the evaluation of the control performance in terms of transparency.

This talk focuses on the stability and transparency of haptic telepresence systems in packet switched communication networks. Conjointly control theoretic, communication related, and human haptic perception aspects are considered. Based on the passivity framework methods to stabilize the system with time delay, packet loss and haptic data compression are introduced. The transparency for all the considered control approaches is evaluated by an extended transparency measure taking into account human haptic perception. The obtained results are validated in experimental user studies.

BIO:
Sandra HIRCHE (*1974) is professor and director of the Information-Oriented Control Laboratory associated with the Institute of Automatic Control Engineering in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. She received the diploma engineering degree in mechanical engineering and transport systems in 2002 from the Technical University Berlin, Germany, and the Doctor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering in 2005 from the Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. Being awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) she has been a PostDoc at Fujita Lab, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan from 2005 to 2007. Her research interests include networked and distributed control systems, cooperative control, human-robot interaction, multimodal telepresence systems, and perception-oriented control.

Detecting Bombs in Air Cargo

Dr Yi Liu described the CSIRO Air Cargo Scanner and its Development and Commercialization at ANU today. Surprisingly this is developed by a group of researchers who previously worked on analysing minerals in mines and processing plants. This used neutrons, X-rays and other techniques to discover the chemical composition and shape of minerals at a distance. This experience was applied to detecting bombs and illicit materials in air cargo. This is more difficult than for normal airport luggage, as the cargo containers are much larger and can have a clutter of different materials. The work started in 2002 and prototype was produced in 2005, with the produce now commercialised by Nuctech.

Neutrons can be used to detect the composition of material , but not density or precise shape (20mm x 20mm resolution). X-rays can be used for density and more precise shapes (5 mm x 5 mm) but not composition. A combination of scanning techniques are therefore used to identify both the shape and composition of materials.

The Mark II scanner is at Brisbane Airport. The device has a concrete shield for safety. Cargo containers travel trough the scanner on a conveyor. The system produces a combined false colour image. In a demonstration image the rubber of a motorcycle seat shows as red and the oil in the sump as green, while the metal is black. The operator sits an a normal office desk and views the images on a computer LCD display. The unit is not intended for people or animals, but even so the radiation is at a safe level.

The commercial version from Nuctech works essentially the same as the prototype, but has improvements with a quasi-3D display, dual energy X-ray system and a water radiation shield. The unit has 960 fixed neutron detectors (levels are too low to use a moving detector). The ray system has two detectors at 9 degrees for each x-ray source to provide some three dimensional information.

Future work is on automatic highlighting of suspicious objects in the container, use for sea and land containers and better neutron sources and detectors.

One suggestion I made at the seminar was automatic matching of the manifest to the material detected. Modern manifests are in machine readable format, so the computer system could work out what proportion of materials should be in the container and compare this to what is detected by the scan. The computer system could also look for suspicious similarities between different containers, even those entering at different ports. Also air containers have transparent sides. An optical scanner could also be used (perhaps using infrared). A high resolution optical scanner could be used to recognise any writing on the contents and use this in automated or manual analysis. Analysis could include use of open source analysis, such as information from the web.

Electronic warfare and radar imaging aircraft

Professor Chris Baker talked on "Aspects of imaging radar" at The Australian National University, 28 January 2010. He pointed out that high performance computers now allow synthetic radar images to be created on-board aircraft, where previously hours of processing on a ground station would be required. It occurs to me that this could be applied to the Super Hornet EA-18G Growler aircraft the Australian government has ordered. These aircraft could then be used in conditions not suitable for the Boeing Wedgetail.

The EA-18G Growler is designed for electronic warfare. What the Australian Government has ordered is twelve Super Hornet aircraft to be fitted with extra wiring to allow radio transmitters and receivers to be attached to the aircraft. The receivers detect transmissions from enemy communications and radar. The transmitters then send false signals to confuse the enemy. However, Australia has not ordered any electronic warfare equipment for the aircraft, just the wiring. It is likely the USA will not permit Australia to have the most sophisticated equipment for the aircraft, nor allow Australia to modify the software and equipment for local conditions. It is likely that DSTO will develop local equipment for the aircraft.

As the EA-18G aircraft will be equipped with radar frequency transmitters and receivers, these could also be used to provide 360 degree radar coverage around the aircraft. Australia has ordered four Boeing Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft with very large radars and processing capacity. But these are modified airliners and so are slow and vulnerable to attack. The EA-18G is much smaller and faster, but would not normally be considered for a flying radar picket, due to limited space for antennas and processing computers. But as Professor Baker pointed out in his talk, processing power can now be fitted into a much smaller space and can overcome many limitations of the antenna size. High performance computers can be built from video game chips and podcasting can be used to send the resulting images directly to troops on the ground.

CSIRO Air Cargo Bomb Scanner

The "CSIRO Air Cargo Scanner" is a new device for detecting illicit and dangerous cargo. This combines gamma ray and neutron scanning to detect combinations of metallic and organic compounds, including bombs. There will be a seminar on the CSIRO Air Cargo Scanner Development and Commercialization at ANU, 2pm, 1 February 2010:

COMPUTER VISION AND ROBOTICS SERIES

CSIRO Air Cargo Scanner Development and Commercialization

Yi Liu (CSIRO Process Science and Engineering)

DATE: 2010-02-01
TIME: 14:00:00 - 15:00:00
LOCATION: RSISE Seminar Room, ground floor, building 115, cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU

ABSTRACT:
CSIRO has developed world first technology combining neutrons and X-rays to present and detect the composition as well as the shape and density information of objects in air cargo. This technology will help Customs to detect contraband and threats hidden in consolidated air cargo more easily.

The presentation will briefly introduce the principles of the technology and the scanner system development. The scanner has been successfully commercialised with a Chinese security equipment specialist - Nuctech Company Ltd.

BIO:
Dr Yi Liu obtained a B.Sc. degree in Applied Mathematics from Zhongshan (Sun Yatsen) University, Guangzhou, China in 1982. He then worked at the Control Theory Research Laboratory, Institute of System Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (in Beijing) for 3 years before moving to Australia for further education. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Systems Engineering from the Australian National University, Canberra in 1989. After a short stay in the Mathematics Department, University of Western Australia as a research officer, he joined CSIRO in 1990 working in the areas of On-line Analysis and Control.

Dr Liu's main research interests have been in the areas of signal processing, artificial intelligence, process modelling, control and optimisation and their applications for mineral and energy industries. And more recently, he has been working in the areas of image processing and pattern recognition and their applications to air cargo security scanning. The CSIRO Air Cargo Scanner has been successfully commercialised with a major overseas security company.

Dr Liu was a co-recipient of the IEE (London) Kelvin Premium best paper award in 1989, the CSIRO Medal for research achievement in 2006, and the Eureka Prize for outstanding science in support of defence or national security in 2009.

Imaging radar seminar

Chris J Baker will talk on "Aspects of imaging radar" 28 January 2010 at The Australian National University. Prior to becoming Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at ANU, Chris Baker held the Thales chair of intelligent radar systems at University College London.

APPLIED SIGNAL PROCESSING SERIES

Aspects of imaging radar

Chris J Baker (The Australian National University)

DATE: 2010-01-28
TIME: 11:00:00 - 12:00:00
LOCATION: RSISE Seminar Room, ground floor, building 115, cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU



ABSTRACT:
Improving the resolving ability of a radar systems leads to an increase in information content in the received echo. Perhaps the clearest example of this is two dimensional SAR imaging which provides a map like picture of the surface of the earth. As resolution is increased still further it becomes possible to identify smaller and smaller objects. This seminar begins by exploring the concept of resolution and then goes on to examine techniques for generating high resolution in radar systems including imaging radar. Subsequently, the topic of automatic target classification is introduced very much from a practical systems perspective, reviewing techniques and outlining the current state of the art. Throughout real world examples exploiting data derived from advanced experimental systems are used to demonstrate actual radar and classification performance.

BIO:
Chris Baker is the Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University (ANU). Prior to this he held the Thales-Royal Academy of Engineering Chair of intelligent radar systems based at University College London. He has been actively engaged in radar system research since 1984 and is the author of over two hundred publications. His research interests include, Coherent radar techniques, radar signal processing, radar signal interpretation, Electronically scanned radar systems, natural echo locating systems and radar imaging. He is the recipient of the IEE Mountbatten premium (twice), the IEE Institute premium and is a fellow of the IEE. Until 2008 he was the chairman of the IEE Radar, Sonar and Navigation systems professional network. He is a visiting Professor at the University of Cape Town, Cranfield University, University College London and Adelaide University.

Making teaching a systematic process

Michael Sankey, Director of the Learning and Teaching Support Unit at University of Southern Queensland gave a brief talk at the ANU in Canberra today on the way that USQ undertakes course development. USQ has a very systematic process for Learning and teaching design. USQ use Moodle, Mahara and other tools common to the ANU. What is different is the priorities of the two institutions, with the ANU having an emphasis on research, rather than teaching.

Michael mentioned that USQ have found audio enhanced slide shows the most popular delivery method with students, particularly overseas students with English as a second language. Formative quizzes are also popular. Some of the reading I have done suggests that while these are popular, they may not provide any better teaching than plain text. But it might still be need to to keep the students happy, or spend a lot of time convincing them it is not needed.

USQ student alumni can keep their Mahara e-portfolio online after finishing their courses.

USQ see Moodle 2 as being used for core activities and then
referring students out to external social networking/web app/web 2 sites. They also have some "Second Life" islands (which I am sceptical of the value of).

Copenhagen Climate Change Challenge

Greeting from the Professor Roel Snieder, Colorado School of Mines, who is talk on "The Global Energy Challenge" at the Australian National University. He is the author of A Guided Tour of Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences and The Art of Being a Scientist. The talk is part of the Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series 2009, which is timely as John Ward mentioned in his introduction, the Prime Minister launched Toyota's Australian made hybrid Camry last week. Professor Snieder talked about another car, the Tata Nano, now being made in India, which while it will use less fuel than a larger vehicle, it will still use a large amount in the numbers predicted to be sold. He made the point that this fuel was created over millions of years and is being used up. Exactly when the rate of oil production will peak is debatable, but it will peak within a few decades.

Professor Snieder discussed alternatives to oil for fuel. Ethanol can be used, but currently competes with food crops for feedstock. If cellulose can be converted to fuel this would allow non-food plants to be used, but this requires scientific breakthroughs. Conversion of shale oil or coal to fuel is feasible, but will produce CO2 emissions.

Ironically at this point someone called me from the Copenhagen climate change summit so I had to nip out of the talk and missed a bit. When I returned Professor Snieder was talking about the effect of the loss of ice. Sea level rises will result in the loss of parts of Florida, Holland and Bangladesh. He pointed out that the people effected are not necessarily those who caused the problem.

Professor Snieder then presented the "good news": 60% of energy in the US is wasted. This is good news, as it provided the opportunity for energy efficiency to reduce carbon emissions, as well as fossil fuel use. He used the example of a hotel he stayed in recently where both the room heater and air conditioner were on at the same time. Energy saving measures will save money in the long term. Government incentives can help with this and create jobs at the same time.

Professor Snieder quoted Michele Tolela Myers: "I think we have a responsibility to insist that education is more than learning job skills, that it is also the bedrock of a democracy (from "A Student Is Not an Input" NY Times, March 26, 2001). He argued that there is a role of students to push for energy conservation and they can do projects about it. However, I would argue that green job skills can also be incorporated in courses, as I do in teaching "Green Information Technology Strategies" (COMP7310) to masters students at the ANU.

The Professor ended by inviting anyone to read and download the slides from his presentation. He welcomed reuse and changed of the slides, but asked if they were changed to please change the attribution.

At question time he pointed out that carbon sequestration was the most expensive option.

Professor Snieder is also conducting a short course for research students at ANU and will gie a talk on carbon sequestration at ANU on Thursday at 4pm.

Global Energy Challenge

Professor Roel Snieder, Colorado School of Mines, will talk on "The Global Energy Challenge" at the Australian National University at 6pm.

Public Lecture
The Global Energy Challenge

This lecture will be introduced by Mr Jon Ward, Manager, Environmental Policy, Toyota Motor Corporation Australia.

A stable and sustainable energy supply is one of the major issues of this Century. World-energy demand is expected to increase by about 70% in the coming 20 years, while the production of petroleum — our main source of energy — is likely to peak in this period. The combination of rising demand and declining production of conventional oil raises the question: What is the plan?

In the absence of a plan for a sustainable energy supply, coal and non-conventional oil are likely to become the main source of energy. These energy sources lead to much higher CO2 emissions per unit energy than the sources currently used. Combined with the expected increase in energy use, this aggravates global warming. We face the challenge to develop a strategy to develop a sustainable energy system with acceptable environmental impact.

In his presentation Professor Snieder will give examples what one can do as a teacher, student, consumer, businessman and as a citizen to make progress towards a more sustainable energy system.

Professor Roel Snieder holds the Keck Foundation Endowed Chair of Basic Exploration Science at the Colorado School of Mines. He received in 1984 a Masters degree in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Princeton University, and in 1987 a PhD in seismology from Utrecht University. In 1993 he was appointed professor of seismology at Utrecht University, where he was Dean of the Faculty of Earth Sciences from 1997-2000. In 1997 he was a visiting professor at the Center for Wave Phenomena.

Snieder served on the editorial boards of Geophysical Journal International, Inverse Problems, and Reviews of Geophysics. In 2000 he was elected as Fellow of the American Geophysical Union for important contributions to geophysical inverse theory, seismic tomography, and the theory of surface waves.

He is author of the textbooks A Guided Tour of Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences and The Art of Being a Scientist published by Cambridge University Press. Since 2000 he has been a fire-fighter in Genesee Fire Rescue. Professor Snieder is an International Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU College of Physical Sciences.

This lecture is presented by the Research School of Earth Sciences and is part of the ANU Visiting Fellow Series and Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series 2009.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Please register attendance with ANU Events. Enquiries: T: 6125 4144 or E: events@anu.edu.au

Speaker/Host:	Professor Roel Snieder, WM Keck Distinguished Professor, Colorado School of Mines
Venue:	The Finkel Theatre, The John Curtain School of Medical Research, Building 131, Garran Road
Date:	Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Time:	6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Enquiries:	ANU Events on 6125 4144

Engineering Education Hubs and Spokes Project

The ‘Hubs and Spokes’ Project is a Australian National University and University of South Australia collaboration for teaching engineering in a blended mode. My course about solving climate change with ICT features on the new web site for the project.

Chancellor Gareth Evans

Today the Australian National University appointed Gareth Evans to replace Ambassador Kim Beazley as Chancellor. Mr Evans was Foreign Minister and President of the International Crisis Group. In a fictional future history "Canberra 2020: World Information Capital" I made Mr. Evans the UN Secretary General, which caused him some amusement.

GARETH EVANS TO BE NEW ANU CHANCELLOR

Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has been appointed Chancellor of The Australian National University by the University Council today.

Mr Evans will succeed Professor Kim Beazley, who has been named Australian Ambassador to the United States.

Mr Evans, President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group, Co-Chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament and Honorary Professorial Fellow at Melbourne University, will take up the appointment early in the New Year.  Mr Evans has had a long career in public life, including 21 years in the Australian Parliament and 13 years as a Cabinet Minister.

A Rhodes Scholar, Mr Evans was academic lawyer and barrister prior to entering parliament.

ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Chubb said Mr Evans was an eminent Australia who would make an important contribution to the University.

"Gareth Evans has made an outstanding contribution to Australian life and international affairs over his long career. His national and international standing makes him a perfect fit for ANU," Professor Chubb said.

"A hallmark of Gareth's career has been the academic rigour and energy he has brought to each role. His output of books and articles over the course of his career is substantial and admirably so given his roles and responsibilities in his professional life.  His links with, and contributions to, universities and like institutions around the world means he has special empathy with the academic enterprise in many of its forms. "

"Kim Beazley has been an excellent Chancellor for ANU. He has had a life-long association with the University and will always be welcomed warmly back to the campus. The loss for ANU, however, is tempered by the gain for the nation. He brings enormous gravitas and a deep understanding of the United States to the role of Ambassador," Professor Chubb said.

Professor Kim Beazley said. "Gareth Evans is a great Australian of international renown. His advocacy and advice will be invaluable within the University and formidable in public forums in Australia and globally.

A full CV of Mr Evans can be found at
http://www.gevans.org/biography.html

For further information or to arrange interview: Jane O'Dwyer 02 6125 5001 or 0412 555 895

Students as Scholar not Customers

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Professor Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive of the UK Higher Education Academy, is discussing changes to the way universities plan courses and reward teaching staff. Professor Ramsden's paper "The Future of Higher Education - Teaching and the Student Experience" is available online, along with appendices and bibliography. He will give another talk tomorrow.

Much of what Professor Ramsden discusses is applicable to Australia. Professor Ramsden commented that the Australian response to the Bradley Report was more radical than its UK equivalent. He asserted that students need to feel part of a community of scholars, rather than just customers of service delivery. He went on to show a graph from the Bradley Review which showed that Australian students were much less satisfied with what they get from education than UK students. This is worrying particularly where Australian universities are relying on international students who can choose to go to another country.

Professor Ramsden asserted that a revolution in education was needed. One area for improvement was better description of course and more relevant assessment. Traditional descriptions of degrees are of little value, as are transcripts. He propose a higher education achievement report. None of this seems new or radical to me after having to prepare a golbally accredited professional course for the ACS which is described in terms of a standard set of skills for the profession.

Professor Ramsden pointed out that for many years teaching was seen as important but little had been done about it. However, apart from saying this was worrying, he did not appear to have any solutions to propose.

Professor Ramsden described overspecialisation in curriculum as a "disease". He called for more cross disciplinary work. He also argued for an international perspective. This seems like a solved problem to me, as I have international students in my Green ICT course. Some of these students are in Australia, others online around the world.

Professor Ramsden said that UK students have the expectation unviersity will be like school, with a spoon-fed program with lots of staff contact, whereas they should expect to learn to read and research themselves. He commented that he was worried by Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), which may reduce the scope for student input into courses.

Open University Green ICT Course

Open Universities Australia is now offering my Green ICT Strategies course (ACS25). This is through the Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society. The course is available to students of Curtin University, Griffith University, Macquarie University, Monash University, RMIT University, Swinburne University and the University of South Australia.

The course uses the same materials as COMP7310, in the Graduate Studies Select program of the Australian National University (first run July 2009). The course materials are published as "Green Technology Strategies: Using computers and telecommunications to reduce carbon emissions".

Open Universities Australia
2010 Unit Profile

Unit Code ACS25
Unit Title Green ICT Strategies
Provider Australian Computer Society
Unit Type PGD
Level of Study Postgraduate
EFTSL 0.0
Delivery Method Fully Online

Unit Overview
The unit is offered in response to an explosion of interest in climate change and sustainability, including a growing realisation of the high contribution of ICT. This unit investigates the contribution of ICT to carbon emissions and how technology can reduce those emissions. The
topics are drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors internationally.

Topics

1. Introduction to Green ICT
2. The Global ICT Footprint
3. Enabling ICT
4. Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment
5. Materials Use
6. Methods and tools
7. Business process improvement
8. Improving Data Centre Energy Efficiency
9. Enterprise Architecture
10. Procurement
11. Energy Star Program and Quality Management
12. Compliance audit
13. Review and discussion for assignment 2
...

Examiner's meetings for E-learning courses

My students have completed the first COMP7310 Green ICT course at ANU. Their marks have been allocated. At this point the university requires that the person running the course and a "second examiner" agree the marks. The results are then presented to an examiner's meeting where others examine the marks. This was an experience I did not look forward to. In effect now I have finished assessing the students, my peers were going to assess me and see if the course and the results were credible.

The experience turned out to be not as bad as I was expecting. There were about six people present for the School of Computer Science (SOCS) masters meeting. A senior academic chaired the meeting and an assistant operated a laptop connected to a projection screen. This displayed course details stored in a bespoke system created by Bob Edwards at SOCS called "FAculty Information System" (FAIS) .

Each course was considered in turn. The results for all students were displayed on screen for a course, sorted in descending order by mark. The system displays the raw mark of each student, any scaling applied and the resulting grade. Also displayed is the average mark, standard deviation and frequency of each grade. Group members then ask to see details of particular students, usually those on the boundary between one grade and the next. The grades for all courses in Computer Science for this student can be displayed, to see if the mark for the course in question is consistent.

In the case of my own course I was worried that I had been too generous with the marks.; So I scaled them to the notional ANU average (65/100). My colleagues reassured me that it was up to me to decide if the marking reflected the correct result, not some statistical measure. The scaling was adjusted to make it less harsh. This is done by entering a PHP function into the system, at which point all of the marks are rescaled and the statistics recalculated. The group found the result acceptable and along with the second examiner, I was able to sign off on the results.

This process worked well and I have suggested that this functionality be added to the ANU's Moodle system (called "Wattle"). There may well be some Moodle add-on which already does this (some is covered in Daniel Servos' Google Summor of Code project: " Student projects/Animated grade statistics report. Also Dr. Eric McCreath has also produced a Marker program which could also be added to Moodle. In addition the system could be sued for analysis of overall student progress trends and for specific topics.

It should be noted that the information from the examiner's board is then entered into the student administration system. So some way to transfer marks from Moodle to the ANU Student Administration System would be useful. ANU uses PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration software, and PeopleSoft claim to be able to do some Moodle integration. Also it would be useful to be able to extract information from the PropleSoft system for the examiner's board (as Moodle will only have information on recent courses).

The administrative processes will also need to be adjusted slightly to allow for flexible learning. The current process assumes that all staff can attend a meeting in person. Where courses are designed and delivered flexibly, the staff involved my not be on the campus. The obvious solution would be a meeting by video conference with the web based marking system being able to support this well. However, a real time meeting would still be inconvenient for people is different time zones and an alternative form based approach should be feasible.

More future of higher education in the UK and Australia

Professor Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive of the UK Higher Education Academy, will discuss changes to the way universities plan courses and reward teaching staff at the Australian National University, 2.30pm, Wednesday, 2 December 2009 in Lecture Theatre 1, HW Arndt Building (RSVP: Deborah Veness). This is in addition to the previously scheduled talk, 3 December 2009.

Living Tomorrow

"Living Tomorrow" by media artist Linda Wallace will be exhibited in the CSIT building N101 seminar room, 19th and Friday 20th November 2009, The Australian National University. In late 2004 she was awarded a doctorate from the Australian National University (completed on scholarship from the Advanced Computational Systems Co-operative Research Centre).

LivingTomorrow is a database-driven video archive installation work produced as artist-in-residence at Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Amsterdam. It was launched on March 11 2005.

e-Book on Research Integration

David McDonald, Gabriele Bammer & Peter Deane will launch their new book "Research Integration Using Dialogue Methods" 26 November 2009 in Canberra. The whole book is already available online for free as a very well formatted set of web pages, for mobile devices (scoring a very good 80/100 on the W3C Mobile OK Test) , in PDF chapter by chapter and as one file. It is also available as a conventional printed paperback.

As to the content, these are techniques which could be applied from areas ranging from planning what sort of weapons systems to buy, to how to deal with natural disasters. I have used such automated tools at the Defence Department in considering systems and the Sahana open source disaster management system project is planning to incorporate Large Groups Making Decisions In Extreme Events.

Invitation

University Co-operative Bookshop Limited

The ANU Co-op Bookshop and the ANU E Press wish to invite you to
the launch of David McDonald, Gabriele Bammer & Peter Deane’s book
Research Integration Using Dialogue Methods.

Date: Thursday, 26th November 2009

Time: 5pm for a 5:30pm start

Location: The Co-op Bookshop, Bldg 17, Union Court, Canberra, ACT 0200
The book will be launched by Professor Ted Lefroy, Director of the Centre for Environment at the University of Tasmania. Ted is also a Director of Land & Water Australia.

Dr Michael Robinson, CEO of Land & Water Australia, will officiate.
The launch is co-sponsored by Land & Water Australia and the Drug Policy Modelling Program, which funded the research underpinning the book.
RSVP: anu@coop-bookshop.com.au or (02) 6249 6244 by 24th November 2009.

Colleagues & guests welcome. Refreshments will be served.

Research Integration Using Dialogue Methods

Research Integration Using Dialogue Methods

David McDonald, Gabriele Bammer, Peter Deane

ISBN 9781921536748 $24.95 (GST inclusive)
ISBN 9781921536755 (Online)
Published August 2009

Research on real-world problems—like restoration of wetlands, the needs of the elderly, effective disaster response and the future of the airline industry—requires expert knowledge from a range of disciplines, as well as from stakeholders affected by the problem and those in a position to do something about it. This book charts new territory in taking a systematic approach to research integration using dialogue methods to bring together multiple perspectives. It links specific dialogue methods to particular research integration tasks.

Fourteen dialogue methods for research integration are classified into two groups:

1. Dialogue methods for understanding a problem broadly: integrating judgements

2. Dialogue methods for understanding particular aspects of a problem: integrating visions, world views, interests and values.

The methods are illustrated by case studies from four research areas: the environment, public health, security and technological innovation.

Table of Contents

List of Tables

Acknowledgments and author contributions

1. Introduction

2. Using the dialogue methods in this book

Identifying and classifying the dialogue methods

I. Dialogue methods for understanding a problem broadly: integrating judgments:

II. Dialogue methods for understanding particular aspects of a problem: integrating visions, world views, interests and values:

Applying the dialogue methods in this book

Flexibility

Preparing to use a dialogue method

Areas not covered in this book

How to read this book

3. Dialogue methods for understanding a problem broadly: integrating judgments

Citizens’ jury

Consensus conference

Consensus development panel

Delphi technique

Future search conference

Most significant change technique

Nominal group technique

Open space technology

Scenario planning

Soft systems methodology

4. Dialogue methods for understanding particular aspects of a problem

Introduction

Integrating visions

Integrating world views

Integrating interests

Integrating values

Appreciative inquiry: integrating visions

Strategic assumption surfacing and testing: integrating world views

Principled negotiation: integrating interests

Ethical matrix: integrating values

5. Differentiating between the dialogue methods

Comments

6. Conclusions

Learning from failure

Other research areas

An invitation to contribute

Appendix 1

Gabriele Bammer

Rationale for developing I2S

The four cornerstones of I2S

Focusing on integrating disciplinary and practice (stakeholder) knowledge

Conclusion

Appendix 2

Tool kits that include dialogue methods

Appendix 3

References

Chapter 1: Introduction

Research integration is the process of improving the understanding of real-world problems by synthesising relevant knowledge from diverse disciplines and stakeholders. Methods for undertaking research integration have not, however, been well developed or explained. Here, we show how 14 methods developed for dialogue can be useful for research integration. What makes this book unique is that we tease apart components of research integration and match them to particular methods.

Research integration is essential for effectively investigating real-world problems. Such investigation requires bringing together the insights of different disciplines. For example, examination of the impacts of the encroachment of housing on farm and bushland on the fringes of cities can benefit from the expertise of ecologists, economists, hydrologists, sociologists, soil scientists, demographers and so on. Similarly, to comprehensively model the impact of the covert release of an infectious disease agent on a major city requires input from, among others, communicable disease epidemiologists, statistical modellers, urban geographers, psychologists and legal experts....

From:Research Integration Using Dialogue Methods, byDavid McDonald, Gabriele Bammer & Peter Deane, ANU Press, 2009