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24 July 2008

Message from the Rector

On Tuesday I attended Rowland Sammut’s funeral.  It was a very sad affair attended by many of his UNSW colleagues.  On behalf of all staff I have passed on our deepest condolences to his family.

I am pleased to announce that the Global Accreditation Centre for Project Management (GAC), have conferred GAC Accreditation status upon the following schools at UNSW@ADFA.  The  School of Business, The School of Aerospace, Civil and Mechanical Engineering, and the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. 

The following courses have received Accreditation:
Master of Engineering Science in Project Management (MEngSc);
Master of Management Studies in Project Management (MMgtStud
Master of Management Studies in Defence Capability Development and Acquisition (MMgtStud)

I would like to acknowledge the effort that was expended on this distinctive accomplishment.  Information will be available shortly on plans and locations for the presentation of the plaques of accreditation to each institution.

I would like to congratulate Dr Sameer Alam of ITEE, who is one of sixteen early career researchers chosen to feature in Fresh Science last month.  Fresh Science is a national competition that identifies new and interesting research being done by early-career scientists around the country.  Sameer is a graduate of UNSW@ADFA, and a member of the team developing the Air Traffic and Operations Management Simulator (ATOMS).

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of welcoming delegates to the 2008 Safeguarding Australia Summit.  I have had the pleasure of delivering a welcoming address to this conference in the past, and I am very glad to see that this conference moves from one success to another. The Safeguarding Australia conference series is an important place for specialists facing the challenges of national security to meet and exchange ideas.

Preparations for the Canberra Careers Market on 6-7 August, and the Open Day on 30 August, are moving full steam ahead and we are hoping to attract more talented undergraduate and postgraduate students for the next year.

Best Wishes

Professor John Baird
Rector

NEXT PUBLISHED CAMPUS NEWSLETTER
7 August 2008

Got a story?

If you have something you would like to contribute, please forward your submission as a word document to newsletter@adfa.edu.au

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STAFF BULLETINS

As you will be aware, the Vice-Chancellor has launched a $300,000 post-graduate scholarship fund to develop skills vital to rebuilding China's earthquake-devastated Sichuan province. The fund will provide an opportunity for ten Chinese students to study a range of one-year Masters by Coursework programs at UNSW, in fields deemed crucial to the redevelopment of the Sichuan province.

A campaign has been organised by UNSW Foundation to provide stipends of $18,000 each to the scholarship winners, to help with living expenses. A web page has been set up to facilitate donations to the campaign; I would be grateful if you could place the attached web button on the home page of your websites, linking to this page:
http://www.unsw.edu.au/alumni/pad/sichuanreliefscholarship.html

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Library News

To All Staff and Students

The Academy Library is introducing a new Inter Library Loans and Document Delivery service called Ask4it.

Due to unexpected circumstances there is a slight delay to the implementation

The service will be implemented on 28th July 2008.
 
In order to cut over to the new system, the Inter Library Loans and Document Delivery service will be suspended from COB on 4th July 2008 until 28th July 2008.  If you require a request urgently during that time, please email ill@adfa.edu.au and your request will be processed.

The new software will enable the Library to process requests more efficiently and also provide staff and students with enhanced tracking of their requests.

You will need to register to use the new service (even if you are a user of the existing service). If you would like to register before the 28th July 2008 please use this link to the new registration form: http://www.lib.adfa.edu.au/forms/ill_patron_reg.htm

If you need further information please contact Edith Hackworthy, ILL Supervisor, on x88120 or email: ill@adfa.edu.au. Thank you for your co-operation.

Over the mid-year break the Library has implementated some changes

There has been a major change in the way the Library's computers are to be used. You now login to the multi-purpose computers using your ADFAPAss (also ensuring you logoff or others will be able to access your account).

Printing from the multi-purpose computers is now managed via a online account. All students and staff now have a free quota of 30 pages per academic session and may recharge their account at the Library Service Desk.

We have also introduced 'Catalogue only' workstations.

For more information on services that have changed, please see: http://www.lib.adfa.edu.au/handout.pdf
Please don't hesitate to ask the Library staff for assistance

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ABC Radio National’s Perspective program

On 9 July Dr Brett Bowden a Senior Lecturer with HASS recorded an op-ed style monologue for ABC Radio, details can be found at:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/stories/2008/2296712.htm

Associated with the topic of this broadcast is an “in conversation” event Dr Bowden is doing at Gleebooks in early August.

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Women in Leadership - Hosts MAJGEN Liz Cosson

The Women in Leadership on Campus Network is hosting a presentation by MAJGEN Liz Cosson, Head National Operations Division, Department of Defence

Time: 2.00 - 4.00 pm
When: Wed 6 August, 2008.
Where: Executive Conference Room

The presentation will feature MAJGEN Cosson's leadership journey and will focus on the theme "Leadership is Women's Business".

Registration is open to all female staff at both ADFA and ADC campuses. RSVP's are required to Melinda Varley on melinda.varley@defence.gov.au by Fri 1 Aug.

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STAFF DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

For Academics - http://www.unsw.edu.au/learning/pve/developmentschedule.html

Learning & Teaching @ UNSW is continuing the series of UNSW Network in Learning and Teaching (UNILT) workshop.  UNILT provides a framework within which you can engage in learning and teaching focused discussions through the sharing of experiences, ideas and strategies among colleagues to develop your teaching practice. The next workshop is:

Engaging students in Large Class Teaching

Time: Friday, 1 August, 10am-1pm
Location: Kensington Campus, Matthews Building, Level 4, Learning & Teaching Workshop room (416)
Facilitated by: Professor Alan Crosky (Faculty of Science) & Dr Susan Keen (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences)

Presentations from academics teaching large first-year classes in Social Science and Materials Engineering will show how they have taken a creative approach to structuring their courses and lectures with the aim of improving student engagement. You will have the opportunity to discuss issues arising from this and to relate it to your own experience, to explore how you may be able to improve student engagement in your teaching context.

Register by going to the Workshop and events registration page (http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/event_rego/events.cfm). For more information contact Debbie Owen at d.owen@unsw.edu.au

For General Staff - http://www.hr.unsw.edu.au/osds/Training.html

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LECTURES AND SEMINARS

ITEE Seminar

Time: Friday 25th July 2008, 11am
Location: Room 152, Building 15
Presenter: Aleks Davidovic, ITEE
Title: Stochastic Resonance - 'With a Little Help from Some Noise'

Abstract: From how paddlefish detect their prey, to how our brains process information, from Earth's climatic changes, all the way down to the quantum world, stochastic resonance is a phenomenon registered in numerous fields.

Although not as famous as its older cousin, chaos theory, stochastic resonance is another phenomenon coming from the realm of nonlinear systems. Its signature behaviour is counterintuitive - an increase in noise level in a system causes the system to perform better. In other words, under certain conditions, the parameters describing the system's performance will peak as the noise is increased, and in signal processing or transmission systems, the quality of the output signal can even exceed that of the input signal for a certain level of noise.

In this seminar we will look at this phenomenon from when it was first discovered to the present day, and outline where it can be found in nature, science and engineering. We shall also look at practical applications, their requirements and limitations that make stochastic resonance a dynamic subject of inquiry.

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School of HASS Seminar

Date:           Thursday 7 August
Time:           9.00-10.00am
Venue:         School of HASS, Seminar Room, Building 29-106
Speaker:      Dr Debbie Lackerstein, Lecturer in History, HASS

Liberation of the Camps

In the last months of the Second World War—in April and May 1945—the liberation of the German camps in Western Europe exposed the full horror of Nazi genocide and crimes against humanity. Those months changed human consciousness irrevocably. Place names such as Bergen-Belsen and Dachau immediately came to define, however inaccurately, both why the Allies fought and the nature of the Holocaust. But the story of liberation is much more complex, especially when seen in the context of the end of the war and from the different perspectives of the liberator and the liberated. In this seminar, I will explore these perspectives and raise some of the questions that will shape the analysis of my new research topic. The British and American military forces were unprepared for what they discovered in the camps: why and what impact did this have on military personnel and on the home fronts? The reactions of victims to their survival and their experiences at the end of the war and in the Displaced Person camps are aspects of liberation that have largely been ignored, so how does the inclusion of their perspective influence our understanding of genocide and the end of the war?

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CONFERENCE

Home and Away - Writing About Place

Date:         Friday and Saturday, 24–25 October 2008
Venue:      The National Library of Australia, Canberra.

The colloquium is held in honour of Bruce Bennett, Emeritus Professor at the University of New South Wales at ADFA and is sponsored by UNSW and the National Library of Australia.

For further information follow the link http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/hass/conferences/home_and_away.html

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RESEARCH MATTERS

Engineering – ADFA International Research Collaboration Initiative

Allocations have been made for the Engineering – ADFA International Research Collaboration Initiative for funding in 2008 - 2009.  The Scheme provides seed funding of up to $30,000 per project to promote research collaborations between researchers from Engineering and ADFA and to enable these researchers to develop their research to be competitive nationally in terms of quality and/or ability to attract external funding.  In 2008, this initiative also seeks to promote international collaboration with universities in the Asia-Pacific region in order to build upon the International Research Workshop held at UNSW in February.

The following seven projects totalling $192,238 were approved for funding in this round:

Dr Matt Garratt (ACME), Prof R.G. Parker (UNSW Eng), A/Prof Hemanshu Pota (ITEE), ‘High-fidelity Modelling and Measurement of Main Rotor Flapping for Control and Simulation’, $22,400.

Dr Laura Gladkis (PEMS), Prof Bruce Milthorpe (UNSW Eng), Dr Heiko Timmers (PEMS), ‘Bioactivity of polyethylene wear particles’, $30,000;

Dr Samsung Lim, Dr Hye-Young Paik (Inha University, South Korea), Dr Henry Larkin (ITEE), Dr Geunsik Jo (Inha), ‘Context-aware computing for personalised location-based services’, $28,384;

Dr Jong-Leng Liow (ACME), Dr Gary Rosengarten, Dr Robert Ernest Norden (UNSW Eng), A/Prof N-T Nguyen (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), ‘Development of a blood purification device by study of multiphase flow structure in micro-channels’, $28,973;

Dr Andrew Neely (ACME), Prof Edward Leonardi, Dr Victoria Timchenko (UNSW Eng), Dr Abd. Rahim Abu Talib (Universiti Putra, Malaysia), ‘Measurement of heat transfer in dimpled channels using thermochromic liquid crystals’, $29,925;

A/Prof Hemanshu Pota (ITEE), Dr R Eaton, Dr J Katupitiya (UNSW Eng), Prof Debasish Ghose (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore), ‘Kinematic and Dynamic Control with Trajectory Planning for Mobile Platforms with Side-slip’, $21,000;

Dr Jingling Wang (UNSW Eng), Dr Matt Garratt (ACME), Dr Andrew Lambert (ITEE), Prof A Shibasaki (University of Tokyo), ‘Vision Aided Multi-sensing for Airborne Navigation and Terrain Following’, $30,000.

Terrorism and the Liberal Party

Dr Frank Cain, of the School of HASS, presented an invited paper to the 14th Biennial National Conference of the Australian Historical Association on Locating History conducted at the University of Melbourne on Tuesday 8 July.  Dr Cain's paper was on 'Terrorism in Australia and the Liberal Party Governments in the 1960s and 1970s'.

Faculty Seminar, August 12, Professor Michael Frater

Following on from the mind-boggling success of Associate Professor Ravi Sood’s introduction to astrophysics (see the Research website for the presentation) on the first of this month, the next Faculty Seminar will be given by Professor Michael Frater.  Prof Frater is the Head of the School of ITEE (Information Technology and Electrical Engineering), and is an expert on communication networks.

The Faculty Seminar will be held in SL1 (Bld 21).  Refreshments will available in the ACME/PG student lounge from 3:15 and the seminar will commence at 3:40pm.  After the presentation, time will be available for questions and feedback.  All staff and research students are encouraged to attend as Faculty Seminars provide a great opportunity for networking across all Schools at UNSW@ADFA.

Please RSVP to Vera Berra: e.berra@adfa.edu.au by cob Friday 8 July.

Belated recognition, part II

The May 1 edition of this publication contained mention of Dr Raja Gnanendran’s Gordon J Samuels Fellowship, with the aid of which he was able to spend last November at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver.  We learn of another excessively modest civil engineer, Ms Khin Soe, who was awarded a scholarship to attend Concrete 07, the Concrete Institute’s biennial conference, held in Adelaide from 18 to 20 October of last year, purely on the basis of the quality of the paper she submitted to the conference.  Khin is a PhD student in the School of ACME.

UNSW@ADFA researcher featured in Fresh Science

Dr Sameer Alam of ITEE is one of sixteen early career researchers chosen to feature in Fresh Science last month.  Fresh Science is a national competition that identifies new and interesting research being done by early-career scientists around the country.  Their stories will be released to the media before, during and after National Science Week in August.  The sixteen were selected from more than 80 nominations.  They were flown to Melbourne for a day of media training after which they presented their work to the media, school students, the general public, scientists, government and industry over the course of three days in what is described by some as “a boot camp in science communication”.

Sameer is a graduate of UNSW@ADFA, and a member of the team developing the Air Traffic and Operations Management Simulator (ATOMS).  ATOMS is a 4D and 5 degrees-of-freedom based air traffic simulator which provides an experimentation environment for rapid prototyping and evaluation of present and advanced air traffic management concepts.  It has a dedicated emission & noise module which provides a graphic interface for analysing environmental impact (emission and noise) of air traffic procedures.  The aim is to reduce aircraft emissions and noise through better air traffic control.

For more information on Fresh Science, go to: http://www.scienceinpublic.com/sciencenow/.

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CLASSIFIEDS

For Sale

Proteas (Pink Ice). Fresh cut and long-lasting. $2.00 each. Discounts for larger quantities (20 or more). Contact Mike Harrap on x88266 or m.harrap@adfa.edu.au

Ritchies Recycled Bricks - Canberra Red Bricks and other recycled pavers and bricks - delivery can be arranged - good rates - Small to medium paving and landscaping jobs - call Richard on 6241 1018 or 0414 688 581.

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