False Beliefs About Asylum Seekers to Australia: The Role of Confidence in Such Beliefs, Prejudice, and the Third Person Effect

There has been much controversy about the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia in recent years, with the Australian Government continuing to enforce a very hard-line stance on asylum seekers who arrive to Australia by boat. The present study examined attitudes towards asylum seekers using 164 Australian community members during June 2015 by way of questionnaire. Our primary research question involved how five variables predicted false beliefs about asylum seekers. Specifically, we measured prejudice, the third-person effect, and confidence in the answers given to false beliefs about asylum seekers. Regression results indicated that the main predictors of false beliefs were right-wing political orientation, prejudice, confidence in espousing false beliefs, and the third-person effect (politicians). Furthermore, most of our community participants accepted a large number of false beliefs as being true, with approximately two-thirds of our participants scoring above the midpoint. This reflects similar findings over the last decade or so. Our results indicate that, if one believes in bottom-up change, a more nuanced approach needs to be undertaken with community anti-prejudice interventions

Including Material Cost and Strength Constraints in Heat Exchanger Design

This project extends analysis of heat exchanger design tradeoffs in response to two emerging trends: 1) demands for increasing thermal performance while reducing material costs are beginning to raise structural issues; and 2) new manufacturing technologies are enabling designs that lie outside the envelope of existing empirical databases and performance correlations. Optimization methods are used to explore both conventional and unconventional designs in this broader parameter space, dealing explicitly with material- and manufacturing-related constraints. New semi-empirical correlations for heat transfer and friction factor are developed and used for analyzing flat- and round-tube plain fin heat exchangers. The role of structural constraints is illustrated by focusing on condenser optimization using a residential air conditioning model, but the analysis yields insights that applicable to other components and applications. Ways of avoiding some of these constraints are discussed in some detail.Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Project 18

Designing Systems to Use Simpler Expansion Devices

This report analyzes a broad spectrum of strategies for actively or passively controlling the inlet state of fixed-geometry expansion devices such as capillary and orifice tubes, to match compressor mass flow rates with minimal performance degradation in an efficient R410A a/c system. A TXV system was selected as the baseline for an exhaustive series of design options, including from heat exchanger sizing to use of receivers, internal heat exchangers, bladder accumulator and simple air flow modulation. Results yielded insights that can be generalized to other refrigerants and systems. Orifice tubes were found to produce higher efficiency than capillary tubes across the entire range of operating conditions, although the difference can be mitigated by proper choice of the latter???s length and diameter. Only one configuration appears to be capable of matching TXV system performance across a wide range of operating conditions: a short tube orifice with low side receiver and internal heat exchanger.Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Project 18