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Perceptual objects often comprise of a visual and auditory signature, which arrives simultaneously through distinct sensory channels, and multisensory features are linked by virtue of being attributed to a specific object. The binding of familiar auditory and visual signatures can be referred to as semantic audiovisual (AV) integration because it involves higher level representations of naturalistic multisensory objects. While integration of semantically related multisensory features is behaviorally advantageous, multisensory competition, or situations of sensory dominance of one modality at the expense of another, impairs performance. Multisensory facilitation and competition effects on performance are exacerbated with age. Older adults show a significantly larger performance gain from bimodal presentations compared to unimodal ones. In the present thesis project, magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings of semantically related bimodal and unimodal stimuli captured the spatiotemporal patterns underlying both multisensory facilitation and competition in young and older adults. We first demonstrate that multisensory processes unfold in multiple stages: first, posterior parietal neurons respond preferentially to bimodal stimuli; secondly, regions in superior temporal and posterior cingulate cortices detect the semantic category of the stimuli; and finally, at later processing stages, orbitofrontal regions process crossmodal conflicts when complex sounds and pictures are semantically incongruent. Older adults, in contrast to young, are more efficient at integrating semantically congruent multisensory information across auditory and visual channels. Moreover, in these multisensory facilitation conditions, increased neural activity in medial fronto-parietal brain regions predicts faster motor performance in response to bimodal stimuli in older compared to younger adults. Finally, by examining the variability of the MEG signal, we also showed that an increase in local entropy with age is also behaviourally adaptive in the older group as it significantly correlates with more stable and more accurate performance in older compared to young adults.

Perceptual objects often comprise of a visual and auditory signature, which arrives simultaneously through distinct sensory channels, and multisensory features are linked by virtue of being attributed to a specific object. The binding of familiar auditory and visual signatures can be referred to as semantic audiovisual (AV) integration because it involves higher level representations of naturalistic multisensory objects. While integration of semantically related multisensory features is behaviorally advantageous, multisensory competition, or situations of sensory dominance of one modality at the expense of another, impairs performance. Multisensory facilitation and competition effects on performance are exacerbated with age. Older adults show a significantly larger performance gain from bimodal presentations compared to unimodal ones. In the present thesis project, magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings of semantically related bimodal and unimodal stimuli captured the spatiotemporal patterns underlying both multisensory facilitation and competition in young and older adults. We first demonstrate that multisensory processes unfold in multiple stages: first, posterior parietal neurons respond preferentially to bimodal stimuli; secondly, regions in superior temporal and posterior cingulate cortices detect the semantic category of the stimuli; and finally, at later processing stages, orbitofrontal regions process crossmodal conflicts when complex sounds and pictures are semantically incongruent. Older adults, in contrast to young, are more efficient at integrating semantically congruent multisensory information across auditory and visual channels. Moreover, in these multisensory facilitation conditions, increased neural activity in medial fronto-parietal brain regions predicts faster motor performance in response to bimodal stimuli in older compared to younger adults. Finally, by examining the variability of the MEG signal, we also showed that an increase in local entropy with age is also behaviourally adaptive in the older group as it significantly correlates with more stable and more accurate performance in older compared to young adults.

This study develops the water requirement factors for different thermo-chemical and biochemical biomass conversion pathways for production of biofuels and biopower. Twelve biomass conversion pathways based on six biomass feedstocks are assessed. For all these pathways integrated water and energy requirement factors are developed. The biomass feedstocks considered for bioethanol production are corn, wheat, corn stover, wheat straw, and switchgrass. The biomass feedstock considered for biodiesel production is canola seed. Three biomass feedstocks are considered for biopower generation using direct combustion of biomass and bio-oil produced from the feedstocks through fast pyrolysis. These three feedstocks are corn stover, wheat straw and switchgrass. The water requirement is also evaluated for biofuels production based on wheat, wheat straw and canola seed in Alberta. Agriculture residues based ethanol production pathways are water and energy efficient, consuming only 0.3 liters of water per MJ of net energy value (NEV), whereas biopower pathways consume about 1.2 1.5 liters of water per MJ of NEV due to their lower energy efficiency. The pathway for producing ethanol from switchgrass is the most energy efficient, but consumes 117 liters of water per MJ of NEV. Producing biopower through the direct combustion of switchgrass and from combustion of switchgrass based bio-oil consumes 278 and 344 liters of water per MJ of NEV, respectively. Wheat and corn based ethanol production pathways consume 653 and 409 liters of water per MJ of NEV, respectively. Canola seed based biodiesel production pathway consumes 176 liters of water per MJ of NEV. Water demand in Alberta due to biofuels production will be 12.7% higher than the projected demand in 2025, but it can be met using existing resources. / Engineering Management

Individualisation has become an ambiguous feature of late modern societies. It carries a sense of liberation, yet individuals are compelled to cope with a fragmented and pluralised social order largely by themselves. While the advance of individual freedoms is taken-for-granted, the seemingly unnoticed structural imposition to individually negotiate the boundaries between systemic and normative processes is portrayed as individual freedom and social integration. This thesis explores the ambiguities underpinning individualisation as they emerge from contemporary transformations of capitalism and work. As a result of a hyper-differentiated late modern social order the interface between functional and normative processes shifts from an institutional and organisational level to an individual one. Individualisation can no longer sufficiently be described as 'institutionalised individualism', either in respect to the realisation of a rather consistent normative infrastructure, or as mere individual responses to systemic dependencies. I argue that under the contemporary conditions of marketisation individuals increasingly become the focal point for the negotiation of systemic and normative processes. Substantiated by the theoretical argument of 'corporatisation' and the analysis of interviews with managers from international corporations, I contend that various workorganisational developments transform the subtle pressures to individually negotiate the demarcations between systems and lifeworld into an organising principle. I describe the emerging ambiguities with which individuals struggle, in particular at the workplace, as 'organised individualisation'. Individuals become 'active hubs' not only for the coordination but also for the reproduction of their own systemic dependencies which are organisationally pre-defined. While the responsibility to pseudo-negotiate systemic processes is put on individuals, the lack of opportunities to publicly debate and contest society's normative underpinnings generates deficiencies in social integration.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are becoming increasingly engaged in B2B interactions. The ubiquitousness of the Internet and the quasi-reliance on electronic document exchanges with larger trading partners have fostered this move. The main technical challenge that this brings to SMEs is that of business document integration: they need to exchange business documents with heterogeneous document formats and also integrate these documents with internal information systems. Often they can not afford using expensive, customized and proprietary solutions for document exchange and storage. Rather they need cost-effective approaches designed based on open standards and backed with easy-to-use information systems. In this dissertation, we investigate the problem of business document integration for SMEs following a design science methodology. We propose a framework and conceptual architecture for a business document integration system (BDIS). By studying existing business document formats, we recommend using the GS1 XML standard format as the intermediate format for business documents in BDIS. The GS1 standards are widely used in supply chains and logistics globally. We present an architecture for BDIS consisting of two layers: one for the design of internal information system based on relational databases, capable of storing XML business documents, and the other enabling the exchange of heterogeneous business documents at runtime. For the design layer, we leverage existing XML schema conversion approaches, and extend them, to propose a customized and novel approach for converting GS1 XML document schemas into relational schemas. For the runtime layer, we propose wrappers as architectural components for the conversion of various electronic documents formats into the GS1 XML format. We demonstrate our approach through a case study involving a GS1 XML business document. We have implemented a prototype BDIS. We have evaluated and compared it with existing research and commercial tools for XML to relational schema conversion. The results show that it generates operational and simpler relational schemas for GS1 XML documents. In conclusion, the proposed framework enables SMEs to engage effectively in electronic business.

Master of Science / Phylogenetic tree reconstruction is a prominent problem in computational biology. Currently, all computational methods have their limitations and work well only for simple problems of small size. No existing method can guarantee that trees constructed for real-world problems are true phylogenetic trees for large and complex problems mainly because the existing computational models are not very biologically realistic. It has become a serious issue for many important real-life applications which often desire accurate results from phylogenetic analysis. Thus, it is very crucial to effectively incorporate multi-disciplinary analyses and synthesize results from various sources when answering real-life questions. In this thesis, a novel web-based phylogeny reconstruction system with a real-time interactive environment, called Qphyl (short for quartet-based phylogenetic analysis) is introduced. The Qphyl system uses a new interactive approach to enable biologists to greatly improve the final results through effectively dynamic interaction with the computation, e.g., to move the computation back and forth to different stages so users can check the intermediate results, compare results from different methods and carry out certain manual refinements using their biological domain-specific knowledge in the decision making on how a tree should be reconstructed. Currently the alpha version of this web-based interactive system has been released and accessible through the URL: http://ww-test.it.usyd.edu.au/sogrid/qphyl/.

The overall, coordinated management of different operational tasks in a chemical plant can improve operational efficiency. These operational tasks can be hierarchically categorised, from the lowest to highest level, as: data acquisition; regulatory control; monitoring; data reconciliation; fault detection and diagnosis; supervisory control; scheduling; and planning. Although each of these tasks is responsible for a particular function, they are dependent on each other, which is why an approach wherein all the different tasks can be integrated into a single unified framework is desirable. While integration has important benefits such as a significant reduction in operator workload and improved decision making, its realisation presents considerable challenges. Few previous works have addressed this topic and even fewer have investigated recent computing paradigms which may greatly assist in the development of a unifying framework. Multi-agent systems were introduced and investigated in this study as a possible means for achieving integration of operational tasks in chemical plants. Multi-agent systems are the subject of a sub-field of computing research known as agent-based computing. Agent-based computing represents a relatively recent and powerful high-level computing paradigm. Initially, a number of software applications were developed for the purposes of this study to assist realisation of the operational tasks. To simplify the process of system development and provide guidance for those unfamiliar with multi-agent systems wishing to adopt the proposed technique, an extensive methodology was devised. The operational tasks were then integrated using the proposed methodology to form an integrated multi-agent system, with the pilot plant at Murdoch University being used as a test base for the solution. The results were positive and demonstrated that the proposed agent-based solution was able to effectively account for the pilot plant setting. It was concluded that, in addition to presently available integration techniques and base technologies, the agent-based approach to integration of operational tasks in chemical plants presents a viable alternative solution.

Köln, Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.