Advancing Ehealth Education for the Clinical Health Professions

This is the final report of a project that aimed to encourage and support program coordinators and directors of Australian undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs in all allied health, nursing and medical professions to address the need for Ehealth education for entry-level clinical health professionals

The XFM view adaptation mechanism: An essential component for XML data warehouses

In the past few years, with many organisations providing web services for business and communication purposes, large volumes of XML transactions take place on a daily basis. In many cases, organisations maintain these transactions in their native XML format due to its flexibility for xchanging data between heterogeneous systems. This XML data provides an important resource for decision support systems. As a consequence, XML technology has slowly been included within decision support systems of data warehouse systems. The problem encountered is that existing native XML database systems suffer from poor performance in terms of managing data volume and response time for complex analytical queries. Although materialised XML views can be used to improve the performance for XML data warehouses, update problems then become the bottleneck of using materialised views. Specifically, synchronising materialised views in the face of changing view definitions, remains a significant issue. In this dissertation, we provide a method for XML-based data warehouses to manage updates caused by the change of view definitions (view redefinitions), which is referred to as the view adaptation problem. In our approach, views are defined using XPath and then modelled using a set of novel algebraic operators and fragments. XPath views are integrated into a single view graph called the XML Fragment Materialisation (XFM) View Graph, where common parts between different views are shared and appear only once in the graph. Fragments within the view graph can be selected for materialisation to facilitate the view adaptation process. While changes are applied, our view adaptation algorithms can quickly determine what part of the XFM view graph is affected. The adaptation algorithms then perform a structural adaptation to update the view graph, followed by data adaptation to update materialised fragments

Commissioning adiabatic oven testing - an inter-laboratory comparison

Adiabatic oven testing for spontaneous combustion assessment has been a primary method used by the Australian and New Zealand coal industries for input to the development of Principal Hazard Management Plans for mining operations. Consistency of results is important to ensure that the ratings obtained are accurate and reliable for maintaining the integrity of the database used to compare between mines and for obtaining site specific relationships. This paper presents the results from commissioning tests of four new adiabatic ovens at two different laboratories, which show the high level of reproducibility and repeatability needed for confidence in planning of future mining operations. The results cover a range of coal self-heating rates to show the validity of the testing and the reliability of the adiabatic ovens

RISKGATE and Australian coal operations

The major Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) project, RISKGATE has now completed three years of knowledge capture and system development. The body of knowledge for risk management of tyres, collisions, fires, isolation, strata underground, ground control open cut, explosions, explosives underground, explosives open cut, manual tasks and slips/trips/falls was launched in December 2012. Recently, the project added knowledge about outbursts, coal bumps and bursts, human-machine interface, tailings dams, occupational hygiene and inrush to the original 11 topics. In 2014, the project plans (pending ACARP funding approval) to focus on issues around Fitness for Work. RISKGATE provides an environment for knowledge capture and knowledge exchange to drive innovation and cross industry sharing of current practice in the identification, assessment and management of risk. By capturing operational knowledge from industry experts, RISKGATE provides a cumulative corporate memory at a time of high personnel turnover in the coal industry. RISKGATE is the largest single ACARP Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) initiative to date. This paper presents an overview of the first seventeen topics, topic structures, and contrasts and inter-relationships between topics. The second part of the paper discusses some early steps that companies are taking to integrate RISKGATE into their operations; and conclude with some thoughts on where RISKGATE can go in the future

Comparative analysis of coal fatalities in Australia, South Africa, India, China and USA, 2006-2010

Coal mining (especially underground) is considered one of the most hazardous industries, and as a result considerable focus is applied to eliminating or mitigating hazards through careful mine planning, equipment selection and certification, and development of management systems and procedures. Regulatory agencies have developed in-house methods for reporting, classification and tracking of fatalities and other incidents according to the type of event, often including consideration of different hazard types. Unfortunately, direct comparison of mining safety statistics between countries is confounded by considerable differences in the way that individual countries classify specific fatalities or incidents. This paper presents a comparative analysis of coal mining fatality data in Australia, South Africa, India, China and the United States from 2006 to 2010. Individual classification definitions are compared between the five countries, and methods presented to normalise each country’s hazard definitions and reporting regimes around the RISKGATE framework of seventeen different priority unwanted events (or topics). Fatality data from individual countries is then re-classified according to the different RISKGATE topics, thereby enabling a comparative analysis between all five countries. This paper demonstrates the utility and value of a standard classification approach, and submits the RISKGATE framework as a model for classification that could be applied globally in coal mining. RISKGATE is the largest health and safety project ever funded by the Australian coal industry (http://www.riskgate.org) to build an industry body of knowledge to assist in managing common industry hazards. A comprehensive knowledge base has been captured for risk management of tyres, collisions, fires, isolation, strata underground, ground control open cut, explosions, explosives, manual tasks and slips/trips/falls. This has been extended to outburst, coal burst and bumps, interface displays and controls, tailings dams and inrush

Is carbon monoxide sensing an effective early fire detection option for underground coal mines?

The ability of carbon monoxide (CO) sensing to detect early stage smouldering of fixed plant fires in underground coal mines was recently assessed as part of an ongoing fire detection research project. Experiments were carried out to record the level of CO concurrent at the time of alarm activation of a Video Based Fire Detection (VBFD) system. The tests were carried out under simulated mine conditions within the SIMTARS facility at Redbank, Queensland. The experimental setup initially located the CO sensors in the positions at where they would typically be installed underground. On testing the experimental setup, it was found that the amount of CO produced from simulated overheating conveyor belt bearing housings did not display a reading on the CO sensors. The VBFD system however detected smoke and alarmed on each of the trial tests. To enable the experiments to proceed and a comparison to be made, the CO sensors were moved considerably closer to the weak pyrolysis fire source. The question of CO sensor capability in typical operational mine positions was highlighted as a result of this experiment. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling was used to estimate the fire size required to activate CO sensors under typical mining conditions. This modelling reinforced the limitations in using CO detectors on fixed plant. As such, the study presented here indicates that CO sensing may not be the most effective early fire detection option available, and that further research and development work with VBFD should be undertaken

Optimisation of waste-dump lift heights for pre-strip operations

The optimisation of waste dump design parameters is a vital aspect that has the potential to significantly influence operational costs within mining operations. This research study investigates the effects waste dump lift height has on a truck-shovel coal mining operation. The analysis focusses upon simulating various dump lift heights in a truck-shovel operation in order to determine the optimal overall dump lift height. The dump lift height is the height to which each dump level or lift is constructed. The optimal height will therefore be determined by plotting the simulated cost results for each height and undergoing a comparative study. Additional factors incorporated within the simulation results include the cost of haulage, and ancillary equipment works (dozers, graders and water cartsto maintain the dump and construct haul roads to each new dump lift. Generating results from the research analysis to closely resemble real world applications, current mine data is incorporated within each simulation, including dig, dump and equipment data obtained from King 2 North pit of the Meandu mine located in Queensland

Measuring the public health impact of vaccines: disease burden, vaccine coverage, safety and effectiveness

This thesis has eight chapters describing inter-relationships between work in 66 papers published between 1999 and 2020 relevant to the over-arching topic of public health impact of vaccines: measurement of disease burden, vaccine coverage, safety and effectiveness Chapter 1 outlines the key data sources used: 1. routinely collected administrative data (disease notifications, ICD coded hospitalisations and mortality data) and 2. additional data sources the author had a key role in developing (National Serosurveillance. Paediatric Active Enhanced Surveillance (PAEDS). In chapter 4, development of analysis and reporting of data from the Australian Immunisation Register and in chapter 6 development of platforms for vaccine safety evaluation are described. In Chapter 5, how this work culminated in pilot initiatives to link data sources relevant to public health impact of vaccines in a birth cohort from New South Wales and Western Australia, with the aim of demonstrating the potential for an all-age national capacity, is outlined. Chapter 2 focuses on disease due to Bordetella pertussis and research under the headings of measuring prevalence and severity of pertussis, the effectiveness and impact of pertussis vaccines and clinical trials conducted to evaluate the immunogenicity and safety of acellular pertussis vaccine given within 4 days of birth. Chapter 3 focuses on disease due to Streptococcus pneumoniae and research measuring pneumococcal disease, effectiveness and impact of pneumococcal vaccines and a randomised trial comparing immune responses to pneumococcal conjugate and polysaccharide vaccines in the frail elderly. Chapter 7 includes studies of vaccine impact against Hepatitis B, varicella, meningococcal C disease, mumps and Q fever and Chapter 8 includes four major international reviews of vaccine programs and impact