Is the social agenda driving sustainable property development in Melbourne, Australia?

Purpose &ndash; Sustainable property development has increased in market share over the past two to three years globally and locally. This research aims to analyze the drivers and barriers to sustainable property development in Melbourne using the triple bottom line (TBL) theoretical framework. The TBL posits that sustainability has social, economic and environmental aspects to fulfil. Design/methodology/approach &ndash; A questionnaire was sent out to 190 developers in Melbourne who promoted sustainable property development to ascertain their views about the drivers and barriers. Findings &ndash; This research indicates that in the 2007 Melbourne market the drivers were social rather than economic. The data reveal that social reasons are considered more than economic arguments for incorporating sustainability into developments. The business case, or the economic drivers for sustainability alone do not convince developers. Research limitations/implications &ndash; The questionnaire survey informed us about developers\u27 views but not why they have these views. The sample was limited to Melbourne. Practical implications &ndash; More developments are required for developers to become convinced of the benefits. The relatively low price of energy undermines the business case for sustainability in property here and needs to be fully costed. Originality/value &ndash; This paper illustrates that whilst the theoretical framework cites three key areas for sustainability, the reality is that developers are currently driven by social and environmental factors primarily and the business case is not accepted by the majority of developers.<br /

Lanthanum Oxyhalide Monolayers: An Exceptional Dielectric Companion to Two-Dimensional Semiconductors

Two-dimensional (2D) layered dielectrics offers a compelling route towards the design of next-generation ultimately compact nanoelectronics. Motivated by recent high-throughput computational prediction of LaO$X$ ($X$ = Br, Cl) as an exceptional 2D dielectrics that significantly outperforms HfO$_2$ even in the monolyaer limit, we investigate the interface properties between LaOX and the archetypal 2D semiconductors of monolayer transition metal dichacolgenides (TMDCs) $M$S$_2$ ($M$ = Mo, W) using first-principle density functional theory simulations. We show that LaO$X$ monolayers interacts weakly with $M$S$_2$ via van der Waals forces with negligible hybridization and interfacial charge transfer, thus conveniently preserving the electronic properties of 2D TMDCs upon contact formation. The conduction and valance band offsets of the interfaces exhibit a sizable value ranging from 0.7 to 1.4 eV, suggesting the capability of LaO$X$ as a gate dielectric materials. Based on Murphy-Good electron emission model, we demonstrate that LaOCl/MoS$_2$ is a versatile dielectric/semiconductor combinations that are compatible to both NMOS and PMOS applications with leakage current lower than $10^{-7}$ Acm$^{-2}$, while LaO$X$/WS$_2$ is generally compatible with PMOS application. The presence of an interfacial tunneling potential barrier at the van der Waals gap further provide an additional mechanism to suppress the leakage current. Our findings reveal the role LaO$X$ as an excellent dielectric companion to 2D TMDC and shall provide useful insights for leveraging the dielectric strength of LaO$X$ in the design of high-performance 2D nanodevices.Comment: 10 pages, 4 Figures, 3 Table

An alternating direction method for solving convex nonlinear semidefinite programming problems

An alternating direction method is proposed for solving convex semidefinite optimization problems. This method only computes several metric projections at each iteration. Convergence analysis is presented and numerical experiments in solving matrix completion problems are reported

DAAM1 Is a Formin Required for Centrosome Re-Orientation during Cell Migration

BACKGROUND: Disheveled-associated activator of morphogenesis 1 (DAAM1) is a formin acting downstream of Wnt signaling that is important for planar cell polarity. It has been shown to promote proper cell polarization during embryonic development in both Xenopus and Drosophila. Importantly, DAAM1 binds to Disheveled (Dvl) and thus functions downstream of the Frizzled receptors. Little is known of how DAAM1 is localized and functions in mammalian cells. We investigate here how DAAM1 affects migration and polarization of cultured cells and conclude that it plays a key role in centrosome polarity. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using a specific antibody to DAAM1, we find that the protein localizes to the acto-myosin system and co-localizes with ventral myosin IIB-containing actin stress fibers. These fibers are particularly evident in the sub-nuclear region. An N-terminal region of DAAM1 is responsible for this targeting and the DAAM1(1-440) protein can interact with myosin IIB fibers independently of either F-actin or RhoA binding. We also demonstrate that DAAM1 depletion inhibits Golgi reorientation in wound healing assays. Wound-edge cells exhibit multiple protrusions characteristic of unpolarized cell migration. Finally, in U2OS cells lines stably expressing DAAM1, we observe an enhanced myosin IIB stress fiber network which opposes cell migration. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This work highlights the importance of DAAM1 in processes underlying cell polarity and suggests that it acts in part by affecting the function of acto-myosin IIB system. It also emphasizes the importance of the N-terminal half of DAAM1. DAAM1 depletion strongly blocks centrosomal re-polarization, supporting the concept that DAAM1 signaling cooperates with the established Cdc42 associated polarity complex. These findings are also consistent with the observation that ablation of myosin IIB but not myosin IIA results in polarity defects downstream of Wnt signaling. The structure-function analysis of DAAM1 in cultured cells parallels more complex morphological events in the developing embryo

Inferring Transportation Mode and Human Activity from Mobile Sensing in Daily Life

In this paper, we focus on simultaneous inference of transportation modes and human activities in daily life via modelling and inference from multivariate time series data, which are streamed from off-the- shelf mobile sensors (e.g. embedded in smartphones) in real-world dynamic environments. The transportation mode will be inferred from the structured hierarchical contexts associated with human activities. Through our mobile context recognition system, an ac- curate and robust solution can be obtained to infer transportation mode, human activity and their associated contexts (e.g. whether the user is in moving or stationary environment) simultaneously. There are many challenges in analysing and modelling human mobility patterns within urban areas due to the ever-changing en- vironments of the mobile users. For instance, a user could stay at a particular location and then travel to various destinations depend- ing on the tasks they carry within a day. Consequently, there is a need to reduce the reliance on location-based sensors (e.g. GPS), since they consume a significant amount of energy on smart de- vices, for the purpose of intelligent mobile sensing (i.e. automatic inference of transportation mode, human activity and associated contexts). Nevertheless, our system is capable of outperforming the simplistic approach that only considers independent classifications of multiple context label sets on data streamed from low energy sensors

Semimetal Contacts to Monolayer Semiconductor: Weak Metalization as an Effective Mechanism to Schottky Barrier Lowering

Recent experiment has uncovered semimetal bismuth (Bi) as an excellent electrical contact to monolayer MoS$_2$ with ultralow contact resistance. The contact physics of the broader semimetal/monolayer-semiconductor family beyond Bi/MoS$_2$, however, remains largely unexplored thus far. Here we perform a comprehensive first-principle density functional theory investigation on the electrical contact properties between six archetypal two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) semiconductors, i.e. MoS$_2$, WS$_2$, MoSe$_2$, WSe$_2$, MoTe$_2$ and WTe$_2$, and two representative types of semimetals, Bi and antimony (Sb). As Bi and Sb work functions energetically aligns well with the TMDC conduction band edge, Ohmic or nearly-Ohmic $n$-type contacts are prevalent. The interlayer distance of semimetal/TMDC contacts are significantly larger than that of the metal/TMDC counterparts, which results in only weak metalization of TMDC upon contact formation. Intriguingly, such weak metalization generates semimetal-induced gap states (MIGS) that extends below the conduction band minimum, thus offering an effective mechanism to reduce or eliminate the $n$-type Schottky barrier height (SBH) while still preserving the electronic structures of 2D TMDC. A modified Schottky-Mott rule that takes into account SMIGS, interface dipole potential, and Fermi level shifting is proposed, which provides an improved agreement with the DFT-simulated SBH. We further show that the tunneling-specific resistivity of Sb/TMDC contacts are generally lower than the Bi counterparts, thus indicating a better charge injection efficiency can be achieved through Sb contacts. Our findings reveal the promising potential of Bi and Sb as excellent companion electrode materials for advancing 2D semiconductor device technology.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Oriented Object Detection in Optical Remote Sensing Images using Deep Learning: A Survey

Oriented object detection is one of the most fundamental and challenging tasks in remote sensing, aiming at locating the oriented objects of numerous predefined object categories. Recently, deep learning based methods have achieved remarkable performance in detecting oriented objects in optical remote sensing imagery. However, a thorough review of the literature in remote sensing has not yet emerged. Therefore, we give a comprehensive survey of recent advances and cover many aspects of oriented object detection, including problem definition, commonly used datasets, evaluation protocols, detection frameworks, oriented object representations, and feature representations. Besides, the state-of-the-art methods are analyzed and discussed. We finally discuss future research directions to put forward some useful research guidance. We believe that this survey shall be valuable to researchers across academia and industr

Pengajaran dan pembelajaran bahasa Cina dalam menggalakkan interaksi pelajar berbilang kaum

Kebanyakan pelajar yang mempelajari bahasa Cina sebagai bahasa kedua di Institusi Pengajian Tinggi Awam Malaysia adalah kaum Melayu, diikuti oleh kaum India dan bumiputera lain (Lau, Ng & Lee, 2011). Didapati bahawa pelajar-pelajar yang berlainan etnik jarang berinteraksi antara satu sama lain. Justeru, penyelidikan ini dijalankan untuk mengkaji kaedah-kaedah pengajaran dan pembelajaran bahasa Cina sebagai bahasa kedua yang membolehkan interaksi antara pelajar-pelajar yang berlainan etnik di universiti awam tempatan. Soal selidik diedarkan kepada pelajar-pelajar bukan Cina yang mempelajari bahasa Cina di lima buah universiti awam Malaysia. Tujuannya adalah untuk mengenal pasti cara-cara pembelajaran yang membolehkan mereka berinteraksi dengan pelajar-pelajar etnik lain dalam proses mempelajari bahasa Cina. Selain itu, 10 orang pensyarah dan guru bahasa Cina di Institusi Pengajian Tinggi Awam juga ditemu bual untuk mengenal pasti cara pengajaran dan penilaian yang digunakan untuk menggalakkan interaksi antara pelajar-pelajar berlainan etnik. Maklum balas responden dianalisis dengan menggunakan kaedah kuantitatif. Didapati bahawa kaedah penilaian kursus seperti meminta pelajar bukan Cina merakamkan perbualan mereka dengan pelajar Cina serta kaedah ujian lisan yang melibatkan pelajar yang berlainan etnik kerap digunakan untuk mewujudkan interaksi. Selain itu, aktiviti main peranan, permainan bahasa, tugasan kumpulan, sistem pembimbing-dibimbing dan juga aktiviti-aktiviti di luar kelas juga membolehkan pelbagai etnik berinteraksi antara satu sama lain