Review of stone mastic asphalt as a high-performance ungrooved runway surfacing

Australian runways are typically surfaced with grooved Marshall-designed dense graded asphalt (DGA). Grooving is undertaken to avoid aircraft skidding incidents during wet weather, as well as satisfying regulatory requirements. Closure of these grooves is a common distress at Australian airports and increases the risk of aircraft hydroplaning. However, there are alternative surface materials to grooved DGA that are employed internationally on runways. Of these, stone mastic asphalt (SMA) has demonstrated comparable or better performance characteristics than DGA, and can satisfy regulated surface texture requirements without the need for grooving. Locally, SMA has been implemented successfully for heavy-duty roads, but use as an airport surface in Australia has been limited, with only two trials undertaken on taxiways and aprons. Further research is required to develop an SMA specification, based on experience on Australian roads, and the international experience on airfields. Verification is also required to confirm that SMA mixtures achieve the Australian airport asphalt performance requirements, as well as the regulated surface texture limits, to confirm suitability as an ungrooved runway surface for Australian airports

Cooperative Position Prediction: Beyond Vehicle-to-Vehicle Relative Positioning

No abstract available

Safety culture and power: Interactions between perceptions of safety culture, organisational hierarchy, and national culture

Practices that involve power dynamics are integral to maintaining organisational safety (e.g. speaking-up, challenging poor behaviour, admitting error, communicating on safety), and staff engagement in these is assumed to be shaped by perceptions of safety culture. These perceptions, in-turn, are associated with (1) positions within an organisational hierarchy (which makes power-related acts more or less threatening), and (2) societal values for power distance (e.g. challenging authority). With a sample of 13,573 of air traffic control staff (controllers, engineers, administrative, and management) from 21 national air traffic providers, we reconfirm the observation that managers perceive safety culture more positively than frontline staff (hypothesis 1), and that workers in countries with established values for hierarchy and power report safety culture as less positive than those from countries with low power distance (hypothesis 2). We then, for the first time, examine the interaction between these two factors, and establish that differences in safety culture perceptions between those higher in the hierarchy (management) and those lower in the hierarchy (air traffic controllers and administrative staff) are exacerbated by national contexts for large power distance (hypothesis 3). The study contributes to the literature by theorising the role of power in safety culture theory, and its influence upon safety culture perceptions. Moving forward, safety culture research and interventions may benefit from considering how power exists and manifests at the level of superior-subordinate dynamics

The performative textbook: writing Playing with Words

If you can’t write, then teach writing. If you can’t teach writing, write a book on how to teach writing. This paper explores the idea of a performative creative writing textbook, first by discussing how we wrote Playing with Words, a creative writing textbook that experiments with the discourse of textbook writing, written in several voices which dialogue with one another and with the reader in order to create an interactive reading and writing experience; secondly by examining other performative creative textbooks whose pedagogy is their practice and how they perform their premise; finally this paper argues that such performative textbooks are creative writing acts that should be counted as non-traditional research outputs

Preseason Body Composition Adaptations in Elite Caucasian and Polynesian Rugby Union Athletes

During pre-season training, rugby union (RU) athletes endeavour to enhance physical performance characteristics that are aligned with on-field success. Specific physique traits are associated with performance, therefore body composition assessment is routinely undertaken in elite environments. This study aimed to quantify pre-season physique changes in elite RU athletes with unique morphology and divergent ethnicity. Twenty-two Caucasian and Polynesian professional RU athletes received dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) assessments at the beginning and conclusion of an 11-week pre-season. Interactions between on-field playing position and ethnicity in body composition adaptations were explored, and the least significant change (LSC) model was used to evaluate variations at the individual level. There were no combined interaction effects with the variables position and ethnicity, and any body composition measure. After accounting for baseline body composition, Caucasians gained more lean mass during the pre-season than Polynesians (2425 ± 1303 g vs 1115 ± 1169 g; F=5.4, p=0.03). Significant main effects of time were found for whole body and all regional measures with fat mass decreasing (F=31.1–52.0, p<0.01), and lean mass increasing (F=12.0–40.4, p<0.01). Seventeen athletes (9 Caucasian, 8 Polynesian) had a reduction in fat mass, and 8 athletes (6 Caucasian, 2 Polynesian) increased lean mass. This study describes significant and meaningful physique changes in elite RU athletes during a pre-season period. Given the individualised approach applied to athletes in regards to nutrition and conditioning interventions, a similar approach to that used in this study is recommended to assess physique changes in this population

Alcohol and other drugs

Written to align with the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education, Teaching Health and Physical Education in Early Childhood and the Primary Years provides pre-service teachers and educators with a practical toolbox of strategies to teach Health and Physical Education (HPE) in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and primary school contexts. While many in the education profession recognise the importance of health and wellbeing, there is a lack of understanding about why this is important for children, how this can be taught effectively in ECEC settings and schools and also what quality HPE looks and feels like. This practical, evidence-based text is written by a wealth of chapter authors, who are specialists in their field, giving pre-service teachers expert voices on being successful in teaching such an important curriculum area that is essential to developing active and healthy futures. [Book Synopsis

Associations of built environment attributes with bicycle use for transport

An increasing number of studies have examined neighbourhood built environment attributes associated with cycling. Some of them suggest non-linear relationships between built environment attributes and cycling. This study examined the strength and shape of associations of cycling for transport with objectively measured built environment attributes. Data were from 9146 Australian adults who took part in the 2009 South-East Queensland Travel Survey. Participants (aged 18–64 years) completed a 24-hour travel survey, in which they reported modes of travel. Residential density, Walk Score and a Space Syntax measure of street integration were calculated at a neighbourhood level using geographic information systems. Multilevel logistic regression analyses examined associations of bicycle use with each built environment attribute, which was modelled continuously and categorically. All continuous measures of the built environment attributes were associated with bicycle use. Each one-decile increment in residential density, Walk Score, and street integration was associated with 13%, 16%, and 10% higher odds of bicycle use, respectively. However, the associations appeared to be non-linear, with significant odds ratios observed only for the higher categories of each built environment attribute relative to the middle category. This study found that adults living in high-density neighbourhoods with more destinations nearby and well-connected streets were more likely to cycle for transport. However, medium-level density, access to destinations and street connectivity may not be enough to facilitate bicycle use. Further studies are needed to investigate urban design threshold values above which cycling can be promoted

Quality and quantity of genetic relatedness data affect the analysis of social structure

Kinship plays a fundamental role in the evolution of social systems and is considered a key driver of group living. To understand the role of kinship in the formation and maintenance of social bonds, accurate measures of genetic relatedness are critical. Genotype-by-sequencing technologies are rapidly advancing the accuracy and precision of genetic relatedness estimates for wild populations. The ability to assign kinship from genetic data varies depending on a species' or population's mating system and pattern of dispersal, and empirical data from longitudinal studies are crucial to validate these methods. We use data from a long-term behavioral study of a polygynandrous, bisexually philopatric marine mammal to measure accuracy and precision of parentage and genetic relatedness estimation against a known partial pedigree. We show that with moderate but obtainable sample sizes of approximately 4235 SNPs and 272 individuals, highly accurate parentage assignments and genetic relatedness coefficients can be obtained. Additionally, we subsample our data to quantify how data availability affects relatedness estimation and kinship assignment. Lastly, we conduct a social network analysis to investigate the extent to which accuracy and precision of relatedness estimation improve statistical power to detect an effect of relatedness on social structure. Our results provide practical guidance for minimum sample sizes and sequencing depth for future studies, as well as thresholds for post hoc interpretation of previous analyses

A Smallholder-Based Seedling Production System to Improving Forest Restoration Outcomes in the Philippines

No abstract available

Our votes set kids' futures

No abstract available