Bureaucratic politics and the demise of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission

In the early 1980s the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission functioned as a relatively independent, self­-directed policy arena within the Commonwealth bureaucracy. Policy outputs tended to be consistend and coherent over time. During the last three or four years, however, a number of federal departments succeeded in gaining control over aspects of tertiary education policy. This development was due partly to a changed economic environment which encouraged the growth of cross­sectoral programs, and partly to administrative reforms introduced by the Hawke government which fostered increased inter-departmental competition. The outcome was the fragmentation of the tertiary education policy process. The removal of CTEC and the creation of the Department of Employment, Education and Training is an attempt to reimpose a greater degree of coordination and integration upon tertiary education policy procedures

Modelling and Refinement in CODA

This paper provides an overview of the CODA framework for modelling and refinement of component-based embedded systems. CODA is an extension of Event-B and UML-B and is supported by a plug-in for the Rodin toolset. CODA augments Event-B with constructs for component-based modelling including components, communications ports, port connectors, timed communications and timing triggers. Component behaviour is specified through a combination of UML-B state machines and Event-B. CODA communications and timing are given an Event-B semantics through translation rules. Refinement is based on Event-B refinement and allows layered construction of CODA models in a consistent way.Comment: In Proceedings Refine 2013, arXiv:1305.563

Recent Migration Patterns in Rural and Small Town Canada

Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital,

Can an Evaluation of Students’ Stress Levels Help us Manage Anxiety During OSCEs and Other Assessment Modalities?

With an increased awareness of mental health issues, in both the student population and the veterinary profession in general, it is important that we obtain a greater understating of the stress experienced by students so as to better prepare them to deal with stress and ameliorate any negative effects it may have on performance. This study aims to characterise various measurements of stress (e.g. HRV, EEG, cortisol, self-report questionnaire) in students within the School of Veterinary Medicine in familiar test modalities, focussing on OSCE assessment. We would also investigate how performance is impacted and what potential factors may influence stress levels. Ultimately, our aim would be to evaluate intervention strategies to assess if students stress levels and performance can be improved

Superphosphate deficiency raises pasture oestrogens

A recent field experiment on established pastures at Esperance Downs Research Station has demonstrated a relationship between superphosphate application, pasture oestrogens and oestrogenic response in sheep. Results of the experiment indicate that on phosphate deficient soils carrying oestrogenic clovers, the levels of oestrogenic materials in the pasture are increased if superphosphate applications are below those recommended for healthy pasture growth

Annotating UI Architecture with Actual Use

Developing an appropriate user interface architecture for supporting a system's tasks is critical to the system's overall usability. While there are principles to guide architectural design, confirming that the correct decisions are made can involve the collection and analysis of lots of test data. We are developing a testing environment that will automatically compare and contrast the actual user interaction data against the existing user interface architectural models. This can help a designer more clearly understand how the actual tasks performed relate to the proposed architecture, and enhances feedback between different design artifacts

Oriented marine cores: A description of new locking compasses and triggering mechanisms

While core-orientation data are becoming more and more necessary for marine sedimentological studies, there are no rugged, inexpensive, or convenient compasses that are insensitive to the ambient pressure, the inclination of the corer, and the bottom impact. This paper describes some instruments designed in an attempt to overcome these problems. A hemispherical compass, a free-floating spherical compass, an inexpensive compass smasher, and some proposed simplified models of these are described...