Sender Policy Framework as a tool for SPAM reduction

A brief presentation on the Sender Policy Framework as a tool for SPAM reduction given to a community of higher education IT practitioners

Fault tolerance in digital controllers using software techniques

Microprocessor based systems for controlling gas supplies require very high levels of reliability for safety reasons. Non-redundant systems are considered to be inadequate, and an alternative approach is necessary. in digital systems, transient faults are as much as fifty times more common than permanent faults. Therefore mechanisms which allow for recovery from transients will provide large Improvements in reliability. However, to enable effective design of recovery mechanisms it Is necessary to understand failure modes. The results from practical interference tests, designed to simulate transient faults, are presented. They show that corruption to the correct flow of program execution is a common failure, and that subsequent instruction fetches can be performed from any of the memory locations. Under these conditions any value of operation code can be Interpreted as an instruction, including those undeclared by the manufacturers. Four commonly used microprocessors are investigated to establish the functions of the undeclared codes, and other undeclared operations are revealed. Analyses on the sequence of events following a random jump into the four main memory types of data, program, unused and input areas, are presented. Recovery from this type of execution can be achieved by the addition of restart codes into the areas, so that execution can transfer to a recovery routine. The effect of this mechanism on the recovery process is investigated. Finally, some methods of testing systems, to check the levels of reliability improvement obtained by these techniques, are considered

Postgraduate teachers\u27 commitment to teach Aboriginal studies in Australian schools

This study was commissioned by the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) under its Education Innovation Program (EIP). The project goals were supported by the NSW Teachers Federation, NSW Primary Principals\u27 Association; NSW Department of Education and Training (NSW DET); NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Inc.; the Aboriginal Studies Association; and the Australian Council of Deans of Education. This paper presents the findings emanating from the qualitative component of the study. The qualitative component of this project followed and elaborated on the quantitative study which aimed to: a) critically evaluate the impact of preservice primary teacher education Aboriginal Studies courses on practising teachers\u27 self-perceived abilities to appreciate, understand and effectively teach Aboriginal Studies, Aboriginal perspectives, and Aboriginal children in Australian schools; b) compare and contrast the self-perceptions of teachers who had undertaken a core or elective course in Aboriginal Studies in their initial teacher education course with the self-perceptions of teachers who had not undertaken such courses; c) characterise participating teachers\u27 initial teacher education courses in relation to the Aboriginal Studies content covered; and d) identify teachers\u27 perceptions of useful structure and content to consider including in future teacher education courses. The responses from telephone interviews with teachers in schools and responses to open-ended questions in surveys are discussed. The findings identify congruence and dissonance in the areas of: the contribution of preservice teacher education; benefits of preservice Aboriginal Studies for students in schools; the place of Aboriginal Studies in schools and the curriculum; Aboriginal Studies and student ethnicity; strategies for teaching Aboriginal Studies; and the content of preservice courses.<br /

Teaching the teachers Aboriginal studies : illuminating successful strategies

The study was commissioned by the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) under its Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Programme (IESIP). The project goals were supported by the New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Inc.; New South Wales Teachers Federation, New South Wales Primary Principals\u27 Association; New South Wales Department of Education and Training (NSW DET); the national Aboriginal Studies Association; and the Australian Council of Deans of Education. This paper reports on the qualitative component of the study (Craven, Halse, Marsh, Mooney &amp; Wilson-Miller, in press a, in press b). The qualitative component of the project consists of in-depth interviews with Heads of Schools, Directors of Aboriginal Education Units and teacher educators and includes three Case Studies. Fifteen institutions in Australia offer Aboriginal Studies as a core, perspective or elective program in Primary Teacher Education Courses in Australia. Of these institutions seven institutions from four States responded to the invitation to participate in the study. From these institutions three were engage to submit a case study of their institution as they had demonstrated that they had successfully introduced core Aboriginal Studies teacher units in their course. This paper presents the findings and discusses teaching Aboriginal Studies, its inclusion in curriculum and its worth for fostering reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians within universities, schools and the wider community.<br /

Demand-side management of internet bandwidth

Presentation on the demand-side management of Internet bandwidth, using Rhodes University as a case study, as presented at the DITCHE national techie event in September 2008

Novel approaches to the monitoring of computer networks

Traditional network monitoring techniques suffer from a number of limitations. They are usually designed to solve the most general case, and as a result often fall short of expectation. This project sets out to provide the network administrator with a set of alternative tools to solve specific, but common, problems. It uses the network at Rhodes University as a case study and addresses a number of issues that arise on this network. Four problematic areas are identified within this network: the automatic determination of network topology and layout, the tracking of network growth, the determination of the physical and logical locations of hosts on the network, and the need for intelligent fault reporting systems. These areas are chosen because other network monitoring techniques have failed to adequately address these problems, and because they present problems that are common across a large number of networks. Each area is examined separately and a solution is sought for each of the problems identified. As a result, a set of tools is developed to solve these problems using a number of novel network monitoring techniques. These tools are designed to be as portable as possible so as not to limit their use to the case study network. Their use within Rhodes, as well as their applicability to other situations is discussed. In all cases, any limitations and shortfalls in the approaches that were employed are examined

Bandwidth management with the Squid caching proxy server

Presentation on the use of the Squid caching proxy server as a tool for bandwidth management. This formed part of the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications' Bandwidth Management and Optimisation Open Source Tools and Solutions project, being a series of workshops conducted throughout the developing world

Decide : how much superphosphate

* A 400 per cent increase in ihe price of superphosphate has reduced the economic optimum rates of super for crops and pastures in 1975. * Many factors, both biological and economic, must be taken into account in determining the rate of superphosphate to apply. • DECIDE, a model developed by CSIRO and the Department of Agriculture, provides a formal system in which all these factors can be considered. • DECIDE is based on the results of all research on superphosphate carried out in Western Australia. However, each farmer\u27s own knowledge of his farm, the soils, crops and animals is used to adapt the experimental results to get the best, easily available estimate of how much super should be applied to give maximum returns on superphosphate expenditure. Information about DECIDE is available from all District Offices of the Department of Agriculture

Correspondence between 3D ear depth information derived from 2D images and MRI: Use of a neural-network model

There is much interest in anthropometric-derived head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) for simulating audio for virtual-reality systems. Three-dimensional (3D) anthropometric measures can be measured directly from individuals, or indirectly simulated from two-dimensional (2D) pinna images. The latter often requires additional pinna, head and/or torso measures. This study investigated accuracy with which 3D depth information can be obtained solely from 2D pinna images using an unsupervised monocular-depth estimation neural-network model. Output was compared to depth information obtained from corresponding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) head scans (ground truth). Results show that 3D depth estimates obtained from 2D pinna images corresponded closely with MRI head-scan depth values