Purpose: To document the distribution of macular, retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) thickness and optic disc parameters, as measured using optical coherence tomography (OCT) in a population-based sample of young persons and to examine the relationship of these measurements to ocular variables (spherical equivalent refraction [SER] and axial length) and systemic variables (age, gender, anthropometry, ethnicity and birth parameters). Methods: A stratified random cluster sample of 6- and 12-year-old school students from across the Sydney metropolitan region were surveyed and examined using non-contact methods (including biometric measurements with the IOL Master and Canon RK-F1) to determine axial length and SER. The 3rd generation Optical Coherence Tomography instrument (Zeiss Stratus OCT, Dublin, CA, USA) was used to measure macular and RNFL thickness and major optic disc parameters in this sample. Ethnicity and birth parameters were derived using questionnaires. Anthropometric parameters, such as height and weight, were measured using standard methods. Results: The thickness of the foveal, central, inner macular, outer macular and macular volume parameters was normally distributed in both age cohorts. The temporal quadrant was thinner than all other quadrants at both the inner and outer macular regions. The central and inner macula was significantly thicker in boys than in girls, and in Caucasian than in East Asian children. The inner and outer macular regions were slightly, but significantly, thinner with increasing axial length, or myopic refraction. On the other hand, these corresponding regions were significantly thicker with more hyperopic SER. RNFL thickness and RNFLestimated integral were normally distributed in both age groups. RNFL thickness was thinnest for the temporal quadrant, followed by the nasal, inferior, and superior quadrants. RNFL average thickness was marginally greater in boys than in girls and in East Asian than in Caucasian children. The RNFL was thinner with both greater axial length and less hyperopic refractions. Optic disc, optic cup and neural rim parameters were also normally distributed in this young population. In analyses that adjusted for potential confounders, optic disc area increased significantly with axial length and refraction. Neural rim area increased with axial length. There were minimal gender differences in the two age groups. Most optic disc and optic cup dimensions were significantly larger in East Asian than in Caucasian and Middle Eastern children. The foveal minimum and overall RNFL thickness were similar in both age cohorts, while other retinal regions and optic disc size were slightly larger in the 12- than the 6-year-old children. Amblyopic eyes had greater foveal minimum thickness than the normal fellow eye of individual children and the right eyes of non-amblyopic children. Birth weight and head circumference were positively correlated with both RNFL and macular thickness. Conclusions: Macular thickness, RNFL thickness and optic disc parameters were normally distributed in these two age groups of children. Axial length and refraction were important ocular biometric determinants of macular thickness and RNFL thickness. Significant ethnic differences were also demonstrated. RNFL average thickness was also positively associated with optic disc area. Central macular thickness increased in amblyopia. These findings have implications for the interpretation of OCT measurements in research and clinical practice in both children and adult.

An increasing number of ebusiness projects are undertaken as voluntary collaborations of independent organizations. These projects are known as ‘ebusiness collaborative projects’. Industry sources estimate only about 20% of these projects achieve their stated objectives due partly to inadequate project management. The volunteer and virtual nature of the collaboration and relationships among the participating organizations means existing project management frameworks and methods are not appropriate because they assume project management has authority, or that projects occur within a single organization. This thesis investigates the nature of ebusiness collaborative projects to provide insight into management approaches that increase the likelihood of success. The research questions are: What concepts need to be addressed in a framework capable of supporting effective management and providing an understanding of ebusiness collaborative project outcomes? Is there an existing framework with this capability? Are the concepts supported by empirical evidence and a sound theoretical base? Can these concepts be used to form an integrated framework suitable for use by practitioners? A qualitative meta analysis of 6 published case studies identified characteristics that explained challenges specific to ebusiness collaborative project management. Empirical research identified concepts that need to be addressed in a management framework, namely: 3 organizational levels – organizations, teams and representatives; 3 stages of the eBusiness Collaborative Project Lifecycle© and; 4 management meta factors - motivation, capability, communication and coordination These concepts were supported by theory. In the absence of an existing framework, the concepts were used to develop the Integrated Framework for Managing eBusiness Collaborative Projects. Five additional case studies were used to evaluate the Integrated Framework and its usefulness for practitioners. Findings indicate the Integrated Framework is capable of supporting effective management and providing an understanding of the outcomes of ebusiness collaborative projects within the Australian context. This thesis contributes to knowledge by integrating and building on theory and existing research about project management, collaborations and virtuality and applying these findings to a real world environment. The Integrated Framework enhances industry best practice and may apply to all collaborative projects in which participating organizations volunteer to work towards an agreed objective or outcome.

This thesis constructs, principally from primary sources, a long term time series for house and land prices for Sydney and Melbourne, and house price and rental yield series for Australia. These new series span the period 1880-1965 and give an historical perspective beyond the period from 1970 for which existing house price time series begin for Australia and for most of the world. The price series indicates that the modern experience (i.e. since the 1970s) of a significant upward trend in real prices differs markedly from the experience in the first half of the 20th century when house prices moved very little. The thesis then takes several approaches to explaining the apparent shift in direction in the mid 20th century. The first approach examines house prices in terms of demand and supply variables. Urban theory says that demographic and income factors are critical. However, assessed over this long time span, these demand factors do not offer a satisfactory explanation. Additionally, it is found that there is no cointegrating relationship between prices and income. Rather, it appears that supply factors have probably been the pivotal influence in explaining the shift in direction, consistent with a growing literature which focuses on the role of regulation and other constraints on supply. In Australia???s case, government policies imposing capital contributions on the cost of land appear to be a major factor. The second approach taken is to view housing in terms of asset pricing as more typically applied to the equity market by Campbell and Shiller (1988) and others. A central debate is whether or not there has been a structural fall in the equity yield and given the parallel fall in the house yield, this question is posed for housing. The thesis finds that tax and other factors can explain a structural decline in the housing yield. The house rental yield appears to be a better predictor of future rental growth and a negative predictor of future returns.

This study investigates the relationship between learning approaches and the development of clinical reasoning ability. The main questions for the study were: Is there a statistically significant relationship between students??? learning approaches and development of clinical reasoning ability? If there is a relationship between approaches to learning and development of clinical reasoning ability, which students develop this ability faster? And How does learning approach change relate to the development of reasoning ability? The Revised Two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) was used in order to evaluate participants??? learning approaches and Diagnostic Thinking Inventory (DTI) to measure participants??? diagnostic thinking ability. In order to determine changes of learning approaches, the same students were invited to fill out the same questionnaires one year later. This quantitative study was followed by a qualitative inquiry including in-depth interviews aimed at exploring the association of a change in learning approach score with the development of clinical reasoning ability. These interviews also explored the factors influencing learning approaches of these students. Those students with the greatest change in R-SPQ-2F scores between the two surveys were selected for interview. Analysis of the findings of both the quantitative and qualitative phases of this research leads the researcher to conclude that; - there is a correlation between ongoing learning approaches and the development of clinical reasoning ability; this correlation is positive if the approach is deep and it is negative if the approach is surface, - progress towards either end of the learning approach continuum is associated with observation of experts, reasoning practice and/or feedback from experts, and - progress towards either end of the learning approach continuum seems an earlier and better indicator of developing reasoning ability than categorization of learning approach because both learning approach change and the factor causing this change were associated with the development of clinical reasoning ability. This study contributes to understanding of the importance of ongoing learning approaches and the development of clinical reasoning ability by encouraging deep learning approach characteristics. Factors affecting learning approaches are also associated with the development of clinical reasoning ability. Their effect is more than expected.

Flatness, levelness and plastic shrinkage cracks are three important parameters in the evaluation of the performance of concrete floor surfaces. The rapidly developing concrete floor industry overseas has resulted in a great deal of improvement in the methods for evaluation of surface flatness and levelness. This research encompasses a review of the development and evolution of codes in other countries, an evaluation of the current status in Australia, and reliable evaluation methods for concrete floors. The end result aims to present a comparison of the varying degrees of reliability of the different methods of measurement theoretically and demonstrates the feasibility of specified tolerance through the analysis of field data from actual projects. It also analyses the general assumption that concrete slabs exposed to hot weather conditions soon after casting is prone to plastic shrinkage cracking and its implications. Identifying factors influencing flatness, levelness and plastic shrinkage cracking of concrete slab surface and investigation of their effects are included in this research. Through statistical analysis, significant factors, such as the construction method, environmental conditions and the method of measurement are identified. In addition, sunlight intensity and capacity of concrete bleeding were factors investigated with regard to concrete surface evaporation rate. The monitoring of plastic shrinkage crack initiation and development is an important task in the research of concrete slabs. The research on plastic shrinkage cracking of the slab surface resulted in the development of a digital image analysis method. This method focuses on mapping cracks (MC) and measuring crack width (MCW). Other information such as crack growth over time can also be obtained based on MC and MCW. An accurate method for the measurement of crack width has been developed based on sliced crack image data. Therefore, this method can determine the location of the maximum crack width and measure it with a desired precision.

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) have received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners due to their potential advantages: quicker response to market changes, reduction in work-in-process (WIP), high inventory turnover and high levels of productivity. Two groups of problems in an FMS are of importance: (1) design problems and (2) operational problems. Operational problems can be effectively separated into 4 sub-problems: planning, grouping, machine loading problem (MLP) and scheduling. Problems from machine loading to scheduling and control of an FMS can be handled with neural networks approaches and simulation. The machine loading problem as a combinatorial optimization problem is actually a classic problem in operations research and is known to be NP-hard. MLP formulated as 0-1 integer programming problems has been solved by the methods of linearizing the nonlinear terms, branch and bound algorithm, and heuristic methods which have also been popularly applied. Hopfield Networks as a class of artificial neural networks have been adapted as an efficient method to solve the MLP, as these are able to find the solutions quickly through massive and parallel computation. Unfortunately, the quality of the solutions can occasionally be poor owing to the values of the weighting parameters in the energy function of the Hopfield Networks. One alternative approach used is to imbed mean field annealing into Hopfield Networks. The hybrid method of Hopfield Networks and mean field annealing can find near-optimal solutions as well as overcome the difficulties with decisions about the weighting of parameters in the energy function. The AGV scheduling problem can be regarded as the problem of selecting appropriate dispatch rules. Many dispatch rules have been introduced by a number of researchers. Even though vqarious formulations of the FMS scheduling problem can be presented, simulation methods are popular and often used. A solution methodology for MLP and AGV scheduling problems is proposed and specific models based on the literature are subjected to experimented through simulation. The proposed methodology can be also applied without difficulty to of breakdowns of machines and AGV. Results from simulation experiment s show that superior performance and capability of the proposed to existing methods are demonstrated by applying them to the test problems represented by simulation..

Genetically engineered insulin-producing cells, surrogate ?? cells, offer a solution to the shortage of ?? cells available for transplantation in individuals with Type 1 diabetes. Hepatocytes are a promising starting cell in the quest for surrogate ?? cells. However, achieving glucose-regulated insulin secretion in the genetically engineered liver cells is a difficult task as liver cells do not possess regulated secretory pathway. NeuroD, a pancreatic ?? cell transcription factor is involved in the differentiation of endocrine pancreatic cells and also directly regulates the expression of genes in the differentiated cells. However, little is known about the role of NeuroD in the glucose-regulated insulin secretion. The aim of this study was to investigate whether NeuroD induces glucose-regulated insulin secretion in the insulin-producing rat liver cell line, FAO-ins. The human NeuroD gene was stably expressed in FAO-ins cells. In the transfected cells (FAOins-Nd) the expression of genes encoding transcription factor Foxa2, L-type calcium channel subunits and secretory granule protein CgA was up-regulated. FAOins-Nd also showed greater intracellular insulin content and secretion as well as released insulin in a regulated manner to calcium stimulus. Further, growth factors namely betacellulin, activin A, nicotinamide and exendin-4 as well as insulin secretagogues such as theophylline, IBMX and carbachol were examined by static incubation in inducing glucose-regulated insulin secretion. Exendin-4 and insulin secretagogues stimulate insulin secretion in the presence of 1.5 mM glucose but the addition of 20 mM glucose had no further stimulatory effect. These results indicate that FAOins-Nd cells are sensitive to glucose and the release of insulin is non-glucose dependent. Overexpression of NeuroD and further treatment with exendin-4 or insulin secretagogues up-regulated insulin secretion but did not render these cells glucose-responsive. An attempt was made to generate transgenic NOD mice expressing large amounts of insulin in the liver using PEPCK promoter with SV40 poly adenylation sequence. Transgenic NOD mice were generated and the presence of insulin transgene was demonstrated. However, insulin mRNA and protein were not expressed in the liver of transgenic mice.

This research investigated if exogenous growth factors (GFs), in particular platelet derived growth factor (PDGF), has an in vivo effect on the healing response of normal healthy bone. The research was orientated to study whether a clinical beneficial effect could be demonstrated. To achieve this two animal models were utilised, namely, a rabbit tibial osteotomy model and an ovine tibial defect and porous implant ingrowth model. The rabbit model comprised of a unilateral V-shaped tibial osteotomy, stabilised with an absorbable intramedullary pin and figure-of-eight tension band suture, with a 3 week survival period. The GFs tested in this model were 3 concentrations of PDGF, a single dose of insulin-like growth factor binding protein (IGF-BP) and a combination of the two. Each osteotomy was injected with a single bolus of collagen (control) or collagen containing GF (treatment) during surgery. After sacrifice tibiae were CT-scanned in situ, harvested and subject to 4-point bend testing. The callus, underlying bone and contralateral bone's greyscales and mechanical testing results were used for comparative analysis. The ovine model consisted of implanting 6 small rectangular shaped titanium alloy porous implants and one empty defect bilaterally in sheep's tibiae, for 4 and 6 weeks. The sheep were injected with tetracycline bone marker at 2 week intervals. The model's characteristics and any positional effects were initially investigated. Followed by an investigation into the influence of various exogenous GFs on the healing response and ingrowth characteristics of bone into the porous implants. The GFs investigated were PDGF, IGF-BP and fibroblast growth factor impregnated into the porous implants in a collagen carrier. Comparative analysis was done on results from 3-point bend testing of the bone/implant interface, image analysis to quantify percentage of bone, from scanning electron microscopy images of implant sections and confocal microscopy images of tibial defect sections. Analyses indicate that the GFs investigated have a direct and quantifiable positive in vivo effect. The more significant finding is that the growth factors have a potent systemic effect. These results were confirmed by both the sheep porous bone plug model and the rabbit tibial osteotomy model used within this research.

Cultures in contact over a considerable period influence intellectual traditions, practices and habits relating to musical expression and the manner of teaching it. This study investigates the effects of different cultural contacts on Vietnamese student pianists, especially from Russian-style piano pedagogy and associated educational ideas and methods in music conservatoires. The purpose of this study was to compare various teaching approaches and learning styles, and the reactions of Vietnamese students to three different sources of training of piano teachers: Russia, Vietnam and England. Different sources of training affected piano pedagogy, and different musical traditions affected expression in piano performance, especially where students are from a cultural background different from that of their teacher. Observations of actual piano lessons were undertaken, and data were also obtained from interviews and questionnaires and analysed statistically. Results are reported and discussed in relation to four prominent features of the Russian piano school: achieving a powerful and substantial sound; the requirement for ???singing??? quality on the piano; the solid technical training which requires an enormous amount of practice time; and the necessity to play from memory. These are four prominent features of the Russian piano schooling. In addition, Vietnamese students??? problems regarding rhythmic accuracy highlight an inherent difference between the Vietnamese and Russian piano school. Major differences and similarities in teaching styles between Russian teachers and those from the UK and Vietnam were described and commented on under the following headings: use of mental practice; the role of listening; teacher demonstration; freedom for students in learning and making decisions (choice of repertoire; performance opportunities for students; students??? emotional reactions); the more liberal approach of the UK teachers; and the piano teaching styles at the Hanoi Conservatory that have been strongly influenced by the Russian piano school through Russian graduates??? teaching in Vietnam. These findings have important pedagogical implications. The more teachers control there was in lessons, the less a student would contribute to lessons actively. More liberal or less authoritarian approaches to teaching do not necessarily inculcate the discipline required for high achievement technically and expressively. There needs to be a balance between liberal approaches and encouraging the student to become autonomous in their efforts, and ensuring that they realize the importance of being disciplined in their practice habits.

This study is a comprehensive account of Indonesian foreign policy. It analyses the perceptions of the country???s foreign policy elite about other states and the manner in which these shape the decision-making process and determine policy outcomes. It demonstrates that the dynamics of Indonesian foreign relations in the reformasi period can be understood in terms of elite perceptions. Policy-makers??? perceptions are as important as realities, insofar as they shape their real actions. The balance-of-threat theory is the principal analytical tool used to examine elite perceptions. The study argues that the key realist balance-of-power theory lacks the power to explain past dynamics or to predict future direction of Indonesian foreign relations. The balance-of-threat theory is employed here as a predictor about how Indonesia will behave and whether it will implement policies intended to prevent other countries from endangering Indonesia???s national interests and security. The combined qualitative and quantitative research strategy is based on, but by no means limited to, archival study, content analysis of literature and official statements of relevant Indonesian policy-makers and the survey data. The latter approach draws on a series of 45 in-depth interviews with members of the Indonesian foreign policy elite. Indonesian relations with the United States and China are the highest concern of the elite. The leaders believe that, in the future, Indonesia will increasingly have to manoeuvre between the two rival powers. While the United States is currently seen as the main security threat to Indonesia, China is considered the main malign factor in the long run with power capabilities that need to be constrained and counter-balanced. The ambiguity, dichotomy and haphazardness that have characterized Indonesian foreign policy in the reformasi period are caused by four factors: first, the existence of a plurality of disparate views and attitudes among the contemporary Indonesian elite; second, the perceived complex security challenges on all fronts that are both internal and external in origins and traditional and non-traditional in nature; third, a low level of elite consensus about how to rank the external threats according to their urgency; and, fourth, a significant disparity between the elite???s present threat assessment and its long-term threat assessment.