Reviews

Review of The Closed Shop, Industrial Relations in Australia, Toil and Trouble: The Struggle for a Better Life in New Zealan

Programming Language Requirements for Human Communication Structures or Computer Conferencing

Our overall goal is to be able, simply and quickly, to construct computer conferencing systems for new requirements, applications, and even experimental ideas or fantasies. One way to view this requirement is as the creation of a highly parameterized conferencing system itself. Our view, however, is that of a programming language; i.e., an integrated notational system for the specification of communication structures and the associated actions or computation to be taken by the computer system hosting the structure. A communication structure consists of a group of people (and storage devices) each endowed with some characteristics, and some means of person-to-person communication. We view the expression of such structure as a set of rules, R (a,b,c), that expresses the actions to be performed in case a participant of characteristics -a sends a communication of type –b to a participant (or set) of characteristics -c. These rules and characteristics may change over time -- a dynamic structure. The new language to be developed must be able to express the formation of these rules (the details can be supported, of course, by existing coding systems). It must support the organization of such a scheme of dynamic rules. This Report details the consideration (and examples) for such a language that we have unearthed in our studies

Northwest Forest Plan The First 15 Years (1994-2008): Watershed Condition Status and Trend

We used two data sets to evaluate stream and watershed condition for sixth-field watersheds in each aquatic province within the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) area: stream data and upslope data. The stream evaluation was based on inchannel data (e.g., substrate, pieces of large wood, water temperature, pool frequency, and macroinvertebrates) we sampled from 2002 to 2009 (193 watersheds) as part of a repeating sample design. We just completed our first round of sampling, so only current condition was calculated for this data set. When condition scores for the inchannel data were grouped into categories, relatively few fell into the low (10 percent) and very low (1 percent) categories. The majority of inchannel attribute scores fell into the moderate (35 percent) and high (41 percent) condition ranges, with relatively few (12 percent) in the very high category. For low-scoring watersheds, water temperature was often the most influential factor. Aquatic invertebrate scores also appeared influential in producing the low scores. An evaluation of upslope and riparian (watershed-wide) conditions for all 1,379 sixth-field watersheds in the NWFP area with significant federal ownership was based on mapped data, including road metrics from U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management geographic information system road layers and vegetation metrics derived from satellite imagery. Watershed-wide condition scores were calculated for 1994 and 2008, and the difference between these scores was used to represent trend. Regarding status, the overall condition scores of the 1,379 watersheds mostly fell into the low (21 percent), moderate (27 percent), high (26 percent), and very high (22 percent) categories; relatively few watersheds scored in the very low (4 percent) category. The majority of watersheds (69 percent) had a positive change in condition scores (trend). Of those with larger positive changes, most were driven by both improvements in road (decommissioning) and vegetation (natural growth) scores. The greatest negative score changes were caused by the Biscuit Fire and other fires along the eastern side of the Cascades. Half of the fire-affected watersheds were in congressional reserves, 35 percent in late-successional reserves, and 15 percent in matrix (lands identified for timber production)

Common alerting protocol message broker for Last-Mile Hazard Warning System in Sri Lanka : an essential component

Meeting: Second International Workshop on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM-CHINA 2007), 26-27 August 2007, Harbin, CHAlso published in: Proceedings of the 2nd China ISCRAM Workshop (B. Van de Walle, Xiaodi Li, & Shuyu Zhang, eds.)Last-Mile Hazard Warning System (LM-HWS) is an Innovation aimed at providing the Communities in Sri Lanka a system to receive hazard information for early warnings. A major component of the LM-HWS is the Hazard Information Hub (HIH) disseminating CAP Message in the 3 national languages: Sinhala, Tamil, and English. These CAP Messages are sent to the Last-Mile Communities in the content-forms of audio and text. Reliability of the HIH performance must not be any less than a 95%. Such a high reliability is expected in order to give the Community First-Responders time to complete their Emergency Response Plans. The Live Exercises gave the HIH a Reliability score of 78%. For example an event such as the December 2004 Tsunami that had a minimal 90 minute duration between time of hazard starting and the time of impacting Sri Lanka; with a 78% Reliability, the function: Relaying of Message to the Last-Mile alone would take 20 minutes. Analysis also shows the Reliability to drop significantly when the combination of SISO relaying Applications increase. A MIMO Alerting Application such as a Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) Message Broker would increase the performance of the HIH and give the hazard impacting Communities additional time to execute their ERPs

Community-based hazard warnings in rural Sri Lanka : performance of alerting and notification in a last-mile message relay

The aim of the Last-Mile Hazard Warning System (LM-HWS) is to deploy and assess various alert and notification technologies intended to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to natural and manmade hazards in rural Sri Lanka. The project adopts an “all-hazards, all-media” approach designed around a set of five wireless communication technologies [2]. The pilot project involved deployment, training, and field-testing of the technologies, in various combinations, across 32 tsunami-affected villages, using Common Alerting Protocol for data interchange with content provided in three languages (English, Sinhalese and Tamil). This paper reports on findings from a series of field tests conducted in Sri Lanka to compare the reliability of the five ‘last-mile’ devices with their relative effectiveness in terms of alert and notification capabilities. Findings indicate that overall effectiveness of the alert and notification system is enhanced when a village is equipped with a technology combination that enhances complimentary redundancy in reliability and effectiveness. Further implications of these findings for planning and future research are discussed

Adapting to the Recession: Labour Force Changes and Labour Costs Reductions

This paper will examine two aspects of the labour market flexibility, namely the ability of the workplaces to adjust their workforce and to reduce their relative labour costs. The survey covers the period ending in May 1991 during which firms faced considerable economic uncertainty and financial pressure. As with the above studies it confirms that considerable flexibility existed in the New Zealand labour market prior to the Employment Contracts Act

Community-based hazard warning in Sri Lanka : miniaturization assessment of terminal devices in the last-mile link

Meeting: International Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Mitigation 2008The M=9+ earthquake in Sumatara, Indonesia, on December 26, 2004 at 00:59 GMT triggered destructive tsunami waves, which greatly affected Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, and Thailand. People were caught unawares as there was no warning system in place for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. Overall it is estimated that more than 250,000 in the region perished. The aim of the Last-Mile Hazard Warning System (LM-HWS) was to deploy various alert and notification wireless technologies intended to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to natural and manmade hazards in Sri Lanka. The project adopted an “all-hazards, all-media” approach designed around a set of five wireless communication technologies: Addressable Satellite Radios for Emergency Alerting, Remote Alarm Devices, Mobile Phones, Fixed Phones and Very Small Aperture Terminals. The pilot project entitled, “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination”, or the “HazInfo Project”, involved deployment, training, and field-testing of the technologies, in various combinations, across 32 tsunami-affected villages, using the “Common Alerting Protocol ” (CAP) for data interchange with content provided in three languages (English, Sinhalese and Tamil). The ultimate LM-HWS intentions are to introduce Alerting and Notification to improve the “situational awareness” of all-hazards in 15,000 Sarvodaya embedded Communities in the Island of Sri Lanka. While this paper discusses the overall performance of the LM-HWS its main purpose is to report on one aspect of the effectiveness measure - identifying the need for miniaturized terminal devices that not only can be used during hazard alert and notification but also during the response and recovery stages of the disaster management cycle. The measure introduced gives a set of guidelines for equipment manufacturers as well as a mechanism for planners to set a strategy when introducing terminal devices in to a Last-Mile warning system

Last-Mile Hazard Warning System in Sri Lanka : performance of WorldSpace Addressable Satellite Radios for Emergency Alerts

The WorldSpace Addressable Radios for Emergency Alerts (AREA) was developed to improve the “situational awareness” of all-hazards for communities at risk. The solution was field tested in Sri Lanka for the first time as part of the Last-Mile Hazard Warning System (HazInfo) research project. The HazInfo project realized that early warning via Information Communication Technology (ICT) had to be a point-to-multi-point application and was best accommodated by Information Communication Technologies [5]. The HazInfo Project further recognized the growing call for the use of a globally accepted content standard: Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) for all-hazards, all-media alert and notification. AREA satellite broadcast system adopts CAP version 1.1. HazInfo project established last-mile networking capability with the AREA sets for 16 tsunami-affected villages and 34 District Centers in Sri Lanka in order to study the suitability for a standards-based community hazard information system. Specific measures were devised to assess the reliability and effectiveness of the technology. Initial field tests indicate that core alerting functions need to be strengthened to improve reliability and usability, but, overall, WorldSpace delivery of alert can serve as a key component in a regional last-mile alerting system. The objective of the scoring system was not to decide whether the technology was a winner but to find out how it can be improved to perform reliably and effectively in the difficult conditions of rural Sri Lanka

Prophylactic antibiotic regimens in tumour surgery (PARITY): protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled study.

IntroductionLimb salvage with endoprosthetic reconstruction is the standard of care for the management of lower-extremity bone tumours in skeletally mature patients. The risk of deep postoperative infection in these procedures is high and the outcomes can be devastating. The most effective prophylactic antibiotic regimen remains unknown, and current clinical practice is highly varied. This trial will evaluate the effect of varying postoperative prophylactic antibiotic regimens on the incidence of deep infection following surgical excision and endoprosthetic reconstruction of lower-extremity bone tumours.Methods and analysisThis is a multicentre, blinded, randomised controlled trial, using a parallel two-arm design. 920 patients 15 years of age or older from 12 tertiary care centres across Canada and the USA who are undergoing surgical excision and endoprosthetic reconstruction of a primary bone tumour will receive either short (24 h) or long (5 days) duration postoperative antibiotics. Exclusion criteria include prior surgery or infection within the planned operative field, known colonisation with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus at enrolment, or allergy to the study antibiotics. The primary outcome will be rates of deep postoperative infections in each arm. Secondary outcomes will include type and frequency of antibiotic-related adverse events, patient functional outcomes and quality-of-life scores, reoperation and mortality. Randomisation will be blocked, with block sizes known only to the methods centre responsible for randomisation, and stratified by location of tumour and study centre. Patients, care givers and a Central Adjudication Committee will be blinded to treatment allocation. The analysis to compare groups will be performed using Cox regression and log-rank tests to compare survival functions at α=0.05.Ethics and disseminationThis study has ethics approval from the McMaster University/Hamilton Health Sciences Research Ethics Board (REB# 12-009). Successful completion will significantly impact on clinical practice and enhance patients' lives. More broadly, this trial will develop a network of collaboration from which further high-quality trials in Orthopaedic Oncology will follow