Let\u27s Get It Write! Principles of Writing Construction Specifications and Special Provisions

The purpose of this presentation is to assist project managers and designers in preparing the necessary information required for Department contracts with regard to the Standard Specifications and Special Provisions. Attendees will be provided examples of both the right and wrong ways to present a Unique Special Provision, as well as things to avoid and questions to ask in order to adhere to legal, moral, and ethical construction standards

Principles of Writing Construction Specifications and Special Provisions

This presentation will help project managers and designers prepare the necessary information required for department and local public agency contracts with regard to the Standard Specifications and any necessary special provisions. Attendees will be provided examples of the proper way to present a Unique Special Provision, including things to avoid and questions to ask, in order to adhere to legal, moral, and ethical construction standards

Optimising self-directed funding for the long-term disabled: briefing document

People with long-term disabilities have become increasingly frustrated with the inadequate support services provided by the disability sector. In particular, people with long-term disabilities want to have support services which met their needs as well as greater choice and control in the decisions around them. Over the last five years the popularity of self-directed funding has increased significantly. In 2011/12 the Australian Government made a commitment to implement a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) as advised through an inquiry by the Productivity Commission to have full rollout country wide by 2018. Self-directed funding is used as a mechanism to promote self-determination and empowerment in people with long-term disabilities and to facilitate their living in the community independently. Self-directed funding can be provided by an individual package held by a provider, by an individual budget held by the person to spend through providers or by direct payments to spend on the open market. The implementation of self-directed funding models has been implemented in various forms over the past couple of decades, including the piloting of small scale programs and the introduction of larger scale programs by government bodies or departments in specific disability groups.  Self-directed funding models are strongly established in the UK, USA and Western Australia. The inclusion of infrastructure supports such as independent brokers, financial intermediaries and ongoing support for clients are beneficial features of established models, particularly for people with complex needs. Despite their popularity, there is a lack of evidence about the effectiveness of self-directed funding models in practice, and no evidence comparing different models.  No single model has been demonstrated to be superior to another, likely in part because the cultural and political context in which a scheme is introduced has a strong influence on its design, implementation and outcomes. Despite this, there are consistent indications that offering flexible and creative options within models is the best approach for ensuring people with more complex and potentially unmet needs, have an opportunity to take up self-directed funding successfully. There are limited studies of the feasibility and impact of self-directed funding for people in the compensable sector with catastrophic injuries. Qualitative studies using interviews or questionnaires reveal that, generally, people with long-term disabilities recognise that self-directed funding should be one option among the range of options for receiving necessary support services; however, there is variability in the stated willingness to take on self-directed funding themselves. A lack of awareness of what is involved in self-directed funding and how it can be managed has been reported. In addition, it has been suggested that not all people have the skills, education or experience to manage self-directed funding, hence training and information sessions that are understandable and comprehensive are likely to be necessary in order to encourage uptake.  This NTRI Forum aims to consider the factors which influence the uptake of self-directed funding by the long-term disabled. Two questions were identified for deliberation in a Stakeholder Dialogue: 1. What are the barriers and facilitators to optimal implementation and uptake of self- directed funding in Australia and New Zealand? 2. How can knowledge of barriers and facilitators be used to address these challenges

A Bibliometric Study of Authorship and Collaboration Trends Over the Past 30 Years in Four Major Musculoskeletal Science Journals

This study explored changes in bibliometric variables over the last 30 years for four major musculoskeletal science journals (BONE®), Calcified Tissue International® (CTI®), Journal of Bone and Mineral Research® (JBMR®), and Journal of Orthopaedic Research® (JOR®), with a specific focus on author gender. Bibliometric data were collected for all manuscripts in 1985 (BONE®, CTI®, JOR®), 1986 (JBMR®), 1995, 2005, and 2015; 2776 manuscripts met inclusion criteria. Manuscripts from Europe were more often published in BONE® or CTI®, while those from North America in JBMR® or JOR®. All journals demonstrated an increase over time in the number of authors (3.67–7.3), number of countries (1.1–1.4), number of institutions (1.4–3.1), and number of references (25.1–45.4). The number of manuscript pages increased (6.6–8.9) except for JOR® which showed a decline. CTI® had the lowest number of authors (4.9 vs. 5.6–6.8). There was a change in the corresponding author position from first to last for all journals; this change was highest for CTI® (35%) and lowest for BONE® (14.0%). All journals demonstrated an increase over time in female authors; however, CTI® was the highest amongst these four journals. The percentage of female first authors rose from 24.6 to 44.3% (CTI® 29.1–52.3%). The percentage of corresponding female authors rose from 17.5 to 33.6% (CTI® 22.9–40.0%). The proportion of female authors is increasing, likely reflecting the increasing number of women obtaining doctorates in science, medicine, and engineering

The divine Marquis' ethical project: Sade and the "turn to religion" in postmodernist philosophy

This thesis argues that Sade’s work constitutes a transgressive ethical project that cannot escape Christian ethical categories. According to the logic of transgression Sade must invoke and reinstate those limits and categories – such as good/evil, vice/virtue, sacred/profane – that he destroys. I do not argue that Sade employed a theory of transgression but, following Bataille and Foucault, who base their concept of transgression on Sade’s work, I use transgression as a philosophical lens through which to reread him

The Impact of Material Lifespan on Carbon Analysis

Carbon impact estimation software programs have simplified the processes for evaluating the carbon contribution of proposed buildings and can be relatively accurate down to building assembly. However, the simplifying assumption that a building’s embodied carbon is entirely a function of the production and installation, while a building’s carbon-in-use is the province of a building’s operational life can lead to misleading results, and hence, faulty decisions, when the lifespans of a building’s individual materials differ greatly from the building’s lifespan. The primary study became a way to point out those disparities between material life expectancy and carbon impact by studying the impact of three alternative roof assemblies

Facilitating the Flow of Information on Tree Farming Policies For Smallholder Farmers in Leyte

Experiences from the previous Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)−funded research project on Smallholder Forestry suggest that improving the uptake of forestry particularly by smallholders requires increased financial returns from their tree farms. In order for smallholders to realize attractive financial returns they should have better access to markets of their tree farm products. Philippine smallholder tree farmers are governed by Department of Environment and Natural Resources policies and regulations which require them to register their trees before harvest and transport of tree farm products. Research findings, however, indicate that most smallholder farmers lack an awareness and understanding of the policies on tree registration, harvesting, transport and marketing. It was also found that Community Environment and Natural Resource Officers have varying ways of policy implementation due to the differences in their understanding and interpretation of the tree registration policy. Participants of a workshop conducted as part of the community survey study of Emtage et al. (2004), and those attending a number of policy workshops, suggested the need to improve the flow of information to establish a clear and common understanding of tree registration and associated policies. Researchers in the ACIAR-funded project on Improving Financial Returns of Smallholder Tree Farmers in the Philippines have developed the Primer on Tree Registration, Harvesting, Transport and Marketing in Private Lands to improve awareness and understanding of the policies among the smallholder tree farmers and plantation owners, Department of Environment and Natural Resources personnel and other stakeholders. The development of the Primer followed a participatory process and was done in a well-organized fashion to ensure that the concerns of all stakeholders were taken into consideration. This paper presents the details of the processes involved in the development of the Primer. New and more aggressive methods of dissemination for piloting are also presented to effectively improve the flow of information on tree farming policies among smallholders and other stakeholders. Other schemes of disseminating information that were perceived by the smallholder farmers and other stakeholders to make a difference to their awareness and understanding of the tree farming policies are also discussed. As action research activity, the undertaking also involves monitoring activities to assess what impact the Primer has on smallholders’ attitude towards tree registration in particular, and the promotion of small-scale forestry in general

The community mental health team fidelity scale: A measure of program fidelity of social networks interventions for severe mental illness

Open dialogue (OD) is a multi-component therapeutic and organizational intervention for crisis and continuing community mental health care with a therapeutic focus on clients’ social networks. The development and implementation of this model of care in the United Kingdom requires considerable contextual adaptations which need to be assessed to support effective implementation. Program fidelity–the extent to which core components of an intervention are delivered as intended by an intervention protocol at all levels–is crucial for these adaptations. Aims: To develop, pilot, and implement a program fidelity measure for community mental health services providing OD and ‘treatment as usual’ (TAU) or standard NHS crisis and community care. Methods: Measure structure, content, and scoring were developed and refined through an iterative process of discussion between the research team and OD experts. Measure was piloted in the 6 OD and 6 TAU services participating in a large-scale research program. Results: Initial data suggests that the Community Mental Health Team Fidelity Scale (COM-FIDE) is a potentially reliable and feasible measure of the fidelity of community mental health services and specific OD components of such services

Waist to hip ratio and trunk to extremity fat (DXA) are better surrogates for IMCL and for visceral fat respectively than for subcutaneous fat in adolescent girls

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Increased visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and intramyocellular lipids (IMCL) are associated with increased metabolic risk. Clinical and DXA body composition measures that are associated with VAT are generally even more strongly associated with subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) reflecting general adiposity, and thus are not specific for VAT. Measures more strongly associated with VAT than SAT (thus more specific for VAT), and predictors of IMCL have not been reported.</p> <p>Subjects/Methods</p> <p>We studied 30 girls 12-18 years; 15 obese, 15 normal-weight. The following were assessed: (1) anthropometric measures: waist circumference at the umbilicus and iliac crest (WC-UC and WC-IC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), (2) DXA measures: total fat, percent body fat (PBF), percent trunk fat (PTF), trunk-to-extremity fat ratio (TEFR), (3) MRI and 1H-MRS: VAT and SAT (L4-L5), soleus-IMCL.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><b><it>Group as a whole: </it></b>WC, trunk fat and PBF were more strongly associated with SAT than VAT; none were specific for VAT. In contrast, PTF and TEFR were more significantly associated with VAT (r = 0.83 and 0.81 respectively, p <0.0001 for both) than SAT (r = 0.77 and 0.75, p < 0.0001 for both). Strongest associations of S-IMCL were with WHR (r = 0.66, p = 0.0004). <b><it>Subgroup analysis: </it></b>In obese girls, WHR and WHtR were more strongly correlated with VAT (r = 0.62 and 0.82, p = 0.04 and 0.001) than SAT (r = 0.41 and 0.73, p not significant and 0.007), and for DXA measures, PTF and TEFR were more significantly associated with VAT (r = 0.70 and 0.72, p = 0.007 and 0.006) than SAT (r = 0.52 and 0.53, p = 0.07 and 0.06). In controls, PTF and TEFR were more strongly correlated with VAT (r = 0.79, p = 0.0004 for both) than SAT (r = 0.71 and 0.72, p = 0.003 for both). WHR was associated with IMCL in obese girls (r = 0.78, p = 0.008), but not controls.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Overall, WHR (anthropometry), and PTF and TEFR (DXA) are good surrogates for IMCL and for visceral fat respectively in adolescent girls.</p

Propagation of uncertainty through the hazard chain

DSTL wish to explore methods for propagating uncertainty through a succession of linked models. The Study Group have looked at the particular example of casualty estimation from airbourne dispersion and suggested two different potential solutions. If the structure of the models is sufficiently simple, and the number of degrees of freedom relatively small, a semi-analytical approach based on Bayes’ theorem can be used. In the more general case, intelligent sampling methods can be used to gradually build a picture of likely outcomes