• Title/Summary/Keyword: Western Australia

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Information Systems Planning Problems in Not-for-Profit Organisations: The Case of Western Australia

  • Maka Siwale;John Venable
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.30 no.3
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    • pp.664-694
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    • 2020
  • Much has been written on Information Systems Planning in the for-profit organisations, but little is known about it in the Not-for-Profit sector, particularly in the Australian context. This paper has attempted to conceptualise the problem of Information Systems planning in the Not-for-Profit organisations. It provides insight into Information Systems Planning practices in Not-for-Profit-Organisations and the problems of current Information Systems Planning practices in Not-for-Profit-Organisations. The contribution of this paper is two folds, theoretically and for practitioners. Theoretically, it has provided a model that enables people to understand why or why not Not-for-Profit-Organisations do or do not conduct Information Systems Planning. Regarding practitioners, the factors identified in this study would help planners, managers and executives to understand the key areas and plan accordingly and for donors they would be able to understand where are their contributions needed the most and be able to follow up and ensure that their donations/contributions are utilised in the right areas hence increase Not-for-Profit-Organisations accountability with regards to planning for Information Systems.

Impact of National Culture on Service Quality Evaluations : Comparison of Korea and Anglo-Saxon Countries (국가문화가 서비스품질의 평가에 미치는 영향 : 한국과 영·미권 국가의 비교)

  • Nam, Sung-Jip
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.13 no.11
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    • pp.93-100
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    • 2015
  • Purpose - The objective of this research is to investigate whether national culture influences consumers' service evaluations. The services industry is receiving increasing attention from academia and practitioners as its position grows in global markets. Standardization or localization is a traditional managerial decision in global business. As the boundaries of services expand across national borders, firms are required to decide whether to standardize services or adjust to local needs. Though it is imperative to reflect global perspectives in marketing theories, these perspectives are mostly based on Western conceptualization of the world. Through a comparison of consumer groups from two culturally remote countries, service quality evaluation mechanisms are examined based on similar stimuli. The study tries to expand service marketing perspectives across national borders. Research design, data, and methodology - Eastern and Western countries are known to be culturally distinct. One Eastern and one Western country were chosen: an Anglo-Saxon country (the U.S., England, and Australia) and South Korea. In Hofstede's cultural dimensions, the differences between the two are pronounced. The Anglo-Saxon based countries share many similarities. Samples of the same sites are targeted. Questionnaires using a service quality scale (SERVQUAL) and a customer satisfaction scale were distributed. Utilizing Hofstede's typology of culture, the service evaluation mechanisms of the respondents from the two groups are evaluated. Three hypotheses are proposed from the review of the literature. These are service evaluation habits, importance of service quality dimensions for the individualistic/collectivistic countries, and strong/weak uncertainty avoidance cultures. Consumers from the individualistic countries are considered to care about themselves and demand a higher level of responsiveness and assurance. On the other hand, consumers from high uncertainty avoidance cultures are assumed to rely more on tangible questions of service quality, as these are the only predictable service quality indicators. A t-test and regression analysis are applied to validate the constructs. Results - The respondents from the Anglo-Saxon countries are more generous on service evaluations than Koreans. Researchers have indicated that Americans tend to give higher service evolution scores than European, Mexican, and Korean counterparts. The tendency is the same here. The sample from Anglo-Saxon countries demonstrated higher service evaluation scores on every dimension of SERVQUAL. For the second hypothesis, the respondents from the collectivistic culture rely less on core service dimensions (assurance and responsiveness) due to their tendency to place more value on group harmony than individual interest. However, the third hypothesis was not validated. Conclusions - The study attempted to expand the scope of service marketing to reflect cross-national perspectives. Service quality is known to have a strong influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty behavior. However, this research demonstrated that individuals from different cultural territories respond heterogeneously to the same stimuli. Scholars argue that national cultures are main factors in such deviated behavior. Scholars and global managers should be aware of differences in consumer value judgment mechanisms such as satisfaction, expectations, and perceptions.

Vehicle Ramming Terror Attacks and Physical Barriers as a Counterterrorism Policy (차량돌진테러와 물리적 방어물에 관한 연구)

  • Yun, Minwoo;Kim, Eunyoung
    • Korean Security Journal
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    • no.55
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    • pp.9-29
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    • 2018
  • Recently, it has been frequently reported there were rapid increase of vehicle ramming attacks in the Western countries, such as Europe, United States of America, Australia, and Canada. Vehicle ramming attacks happened in Western countries specifically targeted civilians and maliciously intented to attack as many victims as possible. and resulted in significant number of casualties and wounds. Experts in terrorism analyze the increase of terrors using vehicle is largely due to the change of terror strategy of Islamic extremest groups like ISIS which encouraging would-be terrorist to use vehicles as an effective killing weapons. Accordingly, The most of countries experienced vehicle terrorist attacks began to build physical barriers including ballards, fences, and obstacles on the main shopping streets, transportation facilities, and famous crowded places and buildings in order to prevent mass killing by terrorists' vehicle ramming attack. Contrary to such swift respond to be prepared attacks using vehicle as a weapon Western countries, there are still lack of interests in preparing this type of terrorist attacks among domestic policy makers and scholars. To fulfill the research gap, this study aimed to investigate important issues regarding physical barriers in South Korea. The contributions, implications of this study and suggestions for policy implications of this study findings were discussed in results and discuss.

Lupin Seed for Human Consumption (루우핀 콩의 식품이용)

  • Lee, Cherl-Ho
    • Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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    • v.18 no.5
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    • pp.398-405
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    • 1986
  • The food quality of lupin seed, i.e. soaking, cooking, sprout growing and mold growing for fermentation, was investigated by using the seed of Lupinus angustifolius harvested in Western Australia. A method to produce lupin seed protein concentrate (LPC) was developed, and the wage of LPC in Korean food system was investigated. The water soaking rate of lupin seed was faster than that of soybean, but the cooking rate of lupin seed was much slower compared to soybean. The thermal softening time, $D_{100}$, was 345 min for lupin seed and 84 min for soybean. A two-phase solvent extraction system consisting of haxane-alcohol-water could effectively remove the residual bitter taste, lipid and yellow pigments of lupin seed flour, and the resulting LPC contained over 50% protein and had bland flavor and milky white color. Treatment of LPC with carbohydrate decomposing enzymes resulted in a product of more soluble and higher concentration of protein. Methods to produce lupin seed vegetable milk and lactic beverages from LPC products were discussed.

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Analysis and design of demountable circular CFST column-base connections

  • Li, Dongxu;Wang, Jia;Uy, Brian;Aslani, Farhad;Patel, Vipul
    • Steel and Composite Structures
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    • v.28 no.5
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    • pp.559-571
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    • 2018
  • In current engineering practice, circular concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns have been used as effective structural components due to their significant structural and economic benefits. To apply these structural components into steel-concrete composite moment resisting frames, increasing number of research into the column-base connections of circular CFST columns have been found. However, most of the previous research focused on the strength, rigidity and seismic resisting performance of the circular CFST column-base connections. The present paper attempts to investigate the demountability of bolted circular CFST column-base connections using the finite element method. The developed finite element models take into account the effects of material and geometric nonlinearities; the accuracy of proposed models is validated through comparison against independent experimental results. The mechanical performance of CFST column-base connections with both permanent and demountable design details are compared with the developed finite element models. Parametric studies are further carried out to examine the effects of design parameters on the behaviour of demountable circular CFST column-base connections. Moreover, the initial stiffness and moment capacity of such demountable connections are compared with the existing codes of practice. The comparison results indicate that an improved prediction method of the initial stiffness for these connections should be developed.

Feeding Acacia saligna to Sheep and Goats with or without the Addition of Urea or Polyethylene Glycol

  • Krebs, G.L.;Howard, D.M.;Dods, K.
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.20 no.10
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    • pp.1551-1556
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    • 2007
  • The objective of the research was to investigate the effect of polyethylene glycol (PEG) or urea supplementation in sheep and goats fed a basal diet of Acacia saligna and wheat straw. The 3 dietary treatments were: (1) Control: ad libitum A. saligna+ 400 g/d wheat straw (95% DM) (basal diet); (2) Basal diet+50 g/d PEG 4000; and (3) Basal diet+1% (on a DM basis) urea sprayed onto the straw and A. saligna 30 min prior to feeding. All animals maintained live weight, regardless of the dietary treatment. All sheep readily consumed the A. saligna in preference to straw. In sheep both DMD and OMD were higher (p<0.05) where PEG was included in the diet compared to the other two treatments. Contrary to findings by other researchers there was no significant difference in DMI, DMD or OMD between sheep and goats in corresponding treatment groups. All animals were in positive N balance. For both sheep and goats, rumen ammonia concentrations were increased with the use of either urea or PEG. In these groups the maximum ammonia concentrations exceeded 50 mg/L, considered the minimum required to maximise microbial growth. This threshold, however, was exceeded only for a period of 8-11 h. Of those measured, rumen ammonia levels were generally the highest at 4 h post feeding. None of the measurements of rumen ammonia for the control group approached 50 mg/L. It is unclear how and why feed intake and live weight were maintained when rumen ammonia levels were often sub-optimal.

Optimized M9 Minimal Salts Medium for Enhanced Growth Rate and Glycogen Accumulation of Escherichia coli DH5α

  • Wang, Liang;Liu, Qinghua;Du, Yangguang;Tang, Daoquan;Wise, Michael J.
    • Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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    • v.46 no.3
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    • pp.194-200
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    • 2018
  • Glycogen plays important roles in bacteria. Its structure and storage capability have received more attention recently because of the potential correlations with environmental durability and pathogenicity. However, the low level of intracellular glycogen makes extraction and structure characterization difficult, inhibiting functional studies. Bacteria grown in regular media such as lysogeny broth and tryptic soy broth do no accumulate large amounts of glycogen. Comparative analyses of bacterial media reported in literature for glycogen-related studies revealed that there was no consistency in the recipes reported. Escherichia coli $DH5{\alpha}$ is a convenient model organism for gene manipulation studies with respect to glycogen. Additionally, M9 minimal salts medium is widely used to improve glycogen accumulation, although its composition varies. In this study, we optimized the M9 medium by adjusting the concentrations of itrogen source, tryptone, carbon source, and glucose, in order to achieve a balance between the growth rate and glycogen accumulation. Our result showed that $1{\times}M9$ minimal salts medium containing 0.4% tryptone and 0.8% glucose was a well-balanced nutrient source for enhancing the growth and glycogen storage in bacteria. This result will help future investigations related to bacterial physiology in terms of glycogen function.

Study on a Scheme to Increase Flood Reduction Effect of Washlands (강변저류지군의 홍수저감효과 개선방안에 대한 연구)

  • Baek, Chun-Woo;Byeon, Chen-Il;Kim, Do-Hyeon;Ahn, Tae-Jin
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.123-133
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    • 2010
  • Due to climate change and difficulty in construction of large dam, it is on the increase to use small hydraulic facilities such as washland for the flood control purpose. Since there can be many potential locations for washland in a basin, it is important for determination of optimal location to calculate flood reduction effect of washlands substantially and exactly. In this study, a new scheme to increase flood reduction effect of washlands is suggested. Suggested scheme uses sensitivity analysis of flood reduction effect depending on washland characteristics such as storage volume, spillway elevation and spillway width. The characteristics of the washland is determined by results of sensitivity analysis to maximize flood reduction effect at basin outlet and downstream of a washland. The methodology is applied to Anseong river basin to show its applicability and applied result is compared with those of another studies.

Establishment of a linear regression equation for quantification of beta-hemolytic Escherichia coli in different media and survival of hemolytic Escherichia coli after blending with three different media

  • Kim, Jae Cheol;Pluske, John R.;Yoo, Jaehong;Heo, Jung Min
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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    • v.41 no.2
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    • pp.135-139
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    • 2014
  • Pathogenic E. coli associated post-weaning diarrhea (PWD) and edema disease are common diseases in commercially-housed weanling pigs. An enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) oral challenge model has been used to mimic the physiological responses observed in commercial conditions. However, an oral challenge procedure has two major limitations: (1) the ETEC cell density is unknown at the point of oral inoculation, and (2) blending ETEC with traditional TSB (trypticase soy broth) is not palatable and hence decreases acceptability by piglets. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to (1) establish a regression equation that can be used for estimation of ETEC concentration in dilution media using the spectrophotometric measurement of cell density; and (2) examine survival of ETEC after blending either with TSB, sweetener or dextrose. A strain of ETEC (serogroup beta-hemolytic E. coli O149; K91; F4; toxins LT, STa, STb) was grown in TSB for 3.5 hours, centrifuged, the supernatant was discarded, and the ETEC pellet was then blended either with TSB (100 mL), sweetener (60 mL TSB + 40 mL fruit flavored concentrate), or dextrose (50 mL TSB + 50 mL dextrose; 0.5g/mL dextrose). Cell density was measured using the colorimetric method and also plated on a 5% sheep blood agar for counting of ETEC colony forming units at 0, 5, 35, 65 and 125 min after blending. The optical density at 600 nm explained 83% of ETEC colony forming units, indicating that the established linear equation (y= 6E+08x - 4E+07, P<0.004) can be used for robust quantification of ETEC cell density in TSB, sweetener and dextrose media. When ETEC was blended with sweetener and dextrose, survival of ETEC was decreased by 45% and 72% within 5 min post-blending. Therefore, further research is required to find out the suitable medium that has potential to improve palatability without compromising survival of ETEC.

Diagnosis, Pathology, and Taxonomy of Perkinsus sp. Isolated from the Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum in Korea

  • Choi, Kwang-Sik;Park, Kyung-Il;Cho, Moon-Jae;Soudant, Philippe
    • Journal of Aquaculture
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.207-214
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    • 2005
  • We report on the diagnosis, pathology, and taxonomy of Perkinsus sp. infection in Manila clams (Ruditapes philippinarum) from Korean waters. Amplimers were designed from internal portions of the non-transcribed spacer (NTS) of P. atlanticus for molecular diagnosis of Perkinsus infection. PCR-based identification methods and an in situ hybridization assay were developed for detection of Perkinsus sp. in live tissues as well as in histological preparations. Hybridization signals were observed around the nucleus of trophozoites. Positive results from PCR and in situ hybridization indicated that Korean Perkinsus sp. is genetically identical with P. atlanticus reported in Europe, which is currently synonymous with P. olseni reported from Australia. Microscopic morphological features of different lift stages of Perkinsus sp. appeared very similar to those of P. atlanticus. Severely infected clams often exhibited white nodules on their mantles and gills as a consequence of inflammation. In lightly to moderately infected clams, Perkinsus sp. was mainly found in gill tissues, whereas the protozoan parasites were found in digestive tracts, gonadal tissues, and foot tissues of heavily infected clams. It is likely that the gills are the portal of the infection and that P. olseni spreads to other tissues as the infection advances. In conclusion, by considering the taxonomic priority of P. olseni, Korean Perkinsus sp. is accepted as P. olseni. P. olseni appears to be common on tidal flats on the western and southern Korean coasts and is considered to be a pathogen capable of causing mass mortality of clams.