Robust particle outline extraction and its application to digital on-line holography

Peer reviewedPostprin

Open research data: Report to the Australian National Data Service (ANDS)

Main points Research data are an asset we have been building for decades, through billions of dollars of public investment in research annually. The information and communication technology (ICT) revolution presents an unprecedented opportunity to ‘leverage’ that asset. Given this, there is increasing awareness around the world that there are benefits to be gained from curating and openly sharing research data (Kvalheim and Kvamme 2014). Conservatively, we estimate that the value of data in Australia’s public research to be at least $1.9 billion and possibly up to$6 billion a year at current levels of expenditure and activity. Research data curation and sharing might be worth at least $1.8 billion and possibly up to$5.5 billion a year, of which perhaps $1.4 billion to$4.9 billion annually is yet to be realized. Hence, any policy around publicly-funded research data should aim to realise as much of this unrealised value as practicable. Aims and scope This study offers conservative estimates of the value and benefits to Australia of making publicly-funded research data freely available, and examines the role and contribution of data repositories and associated infrastructure. It also explores the policy settings required to optimise research data sharing, and thereby increase the return on public investment in research. The study’s focus is Australia’s Commonwealth-funded research and agencies. It includes research commissioned or funded by Commonwealth bodies as well as in-house research within research-oriented agencies wholly or largely funded by the Commonwealth. Government data or public sector information is a separate category of publicly-funded data – although there is some overlap at the margins (e.g. Commonwealth Government funding for Geoscience Australia). Main findings For the purposes of estimation, we explore a range of research funding and expenditure from total Australian Government funding support for research to the sum of government and higher education expenditure on research by sector of execution. The lower bound estimates are based on the labour-cost share of research funding and expenditure ($4.3 billion to$6.4 billion per annum), and upper bound estimates on total research funding and expenditure ($8.9 billion to$13.3 billion per annum)

Gastric emptying and plasma glucose response in men following ingestion of milk from different species : thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Nutritional Science at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The 13 C Octanoic acid breath test (OABT) was used to measure the rate of gastric emptying of whole goat's milk (WG), whole cow's milk (WC), goat's milk infant formula (GIF) and cow's milk infant formula (CIF) in healthy, adult men. Prior to the gastric emptying study, the integrity of the vacuum in two commonly used gas collection tubes was tested. The experiment showed that the Exetainer® brand of tube was more suitable for collecting expired air compared to the Vacutainer® brand based on the fact that it had less residual dead-space which could dilute expired air samples. Fifteen healthy men were given one of the four test milks containing 100μg 13 C octanoic acid after an overnight fast. Breath samples were collected at regular intervals for four hours. Following analysis by ratio isotope mass spectrometry, gastric emptying parameters were calculated. The gastric emptying half time (t 1/2 ) of CIF was significantly shorter (P<0.05) than that of GIF (120 min vs. 159 min), but there were no differences in the rate of emptying between WC (141 min) and WG (150 min). There were no significant differences between either of the infant formulas and the whole milks. Blood samples were taken concurrently with the expired air samples. The samples were analysed to determine plasma glucose concentration. The results of showed that the timing of the peaks of plasma glucose levels and subsequent drop to below baseline concentration may be associated with the rate of gastric emptying. The manner in which the four test milks coagulated was also tested. Milks were incubated in vitro at 37.5°C after acidification with l molar HCl (to gastric pH 3) and addition of the enzyme pepsin. Vastly different coagulation properties were observed. The WC formed large curds with a clear separation between the whey-containing liquid and the curd whereas the WG and GIF were more homogenous with finer curds and considerably less clear fluid. The CIF exhibited very fine curds. Differences in composition between whole goat's milk and whole cow's milk did not appear to be sufficient to elicit different rates of gastric emptying. Thus any nutritional differences between milk from the two species may not be related to the rate at which they are emptied from the stomach

Investigation of ducts as a “radar pinhole” for detecting objects through a wall

There is a continuing interest in the through-the-wall capabilities of radar. It has been found that walls behave as a low-pass medium, and therefore through-the-wall radar has been restricted to frequencies in the low GHz range. Unfortunately at these lower frequencies the resolution of the radar system is sacrificed. This thesis investigates the possibility of using a duct as a means of detecting objects through a wall. Ducts have been extensively studied in the past; however there has been limited research of ducts with two open ends. In this thesis the difference between an open-ended duct and a duct with two open ends is investigated through measurement and simulation. For simulation an approximate method is used that treats the duct as a waveguide. It is found that a significant amount of power is transmitted through a duct with two open ends. It is then shown that an object can be detected through a wall by using a duct that has been inserted into the wall. Then the two-way insertion loss of a duct with two open ends is determined through measurement and simulation. It is shown that a duct behaves as a high-pass medium and can be used as a propagation channel through a wall. The insertion loss due to the duct and the insertion loss through a concrete wall are comparedElectrical and Computer Engineerin

Strategy as Learning: Capturing Emerging Knowledge

The process of strategy making presents a multi-faceted debate, with the ‘Learning School’ of strategic management being one of the main approaches to conceptualise strategy formation. This approach suggests that strategy making is a process of emergent learning over time, where strategy makers critically reflect on past experience, experiment in new competitive conditions and adapt their strategies accordingly. The premises of the Learning School are similar to the premises of action learning, and yet, the action learning paradigm appears to have made little or no impact in strategic management literature and practice. This paper proposes that implementing an action learning methodology into the process of strategy making could make an important contribution to strategy makers by capturing, harnessing and developing organizational learning and knowledge

Patents, productivity and market value: evidence from a panel of UK firms

Patents citations are a potentially powerful indicator of technological innovation. In this paper we describe the IFS-Leverhulme patents dataset that we have constructed by combining information from the US Case-Western Patent database with UK company accounts and share price information from the London Stock Exchange. Patents citations like patentc ounts, arehighly skewed and have a modal lag of four years. Analysing data on over 200 major British firms since 1968, we show that patents have an economically and statistically significant impacton firm-level productivity and market value. Patent citations contain more information than simple counts. A doubling in the stock of citation-weighted patents is associated with a four percent increase in (total factor) productivity and an eight percent increase in market value. As expected patenting and citation information feeds into market values immediately but appears to have some additional lagged effects of productivity suggesting gradual takeup of new technologies.Patents, productivity, market value