Inside QUT

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Pedestrian visibility under review

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http://www.corpcomm.qut.edu.au/insidequt 2 George Street Brisbane 4000 Telephone (07) 3864 2111 Registered by Australia Post – Publication No. QBF 4778

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Outstanding Alumni Award winners for 2001

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Queensland University of Technology Newspaper • Issue ... • Month, 1999 Queensland University of Technology Newspaper • Issue 216 • August 7-27, 2001

Crowds check out Course &

Careers Day

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Lights, cameras ... Creative Industries

by Toni Chambers

T

here were celebrations around the city of Brisbane last week to officially launch QUT’s new Creative Industries Faculty.

More than 300 guests packed into The Gardens Theatre and were treated to an all-student performance of dance, music and a video presentation.

To highlight the new faculty’s emphasis on technology, guests at the theatre were linked to the premises of industry partner Toadshow, to a communication design lab at Kelvin Grove and to the Brisbane Powerhouse where more than 100 alumni and third- year students gathered for a simultaneous celebration.

Special guests included Premier Peter Beattie, State Development Minister Tom Barton and Britain’s Consul- General Steve Hiscock.

The State Government has committed $15million towards the Creative Industries Precinct.

QUT’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Dennis Gibson thanked all those w h o h a d b e e n i n v o l v e d i n t h e launch, including the Dean of the C r e a t i v e I n d u s t r i e s F a c u l t y Professor John Hartley.

Also last week, QUT Carseldine was officially launched. It will house the School of Humanities and Human Services as well as courses from Business, Information Technology, Science and Health.

Mr Beattie – a former member of QUT Council – congratulated the university on its bold move in establishing Creative Industries.

“What you are doing is core business for the future of Queensland. If we don’t innovate we stagnate,” the Premier said.

He said that creative input was an important ingredient in developing Queensland as the Smart State.

“The development of this exciting precinct not only highlights my Government’s commitment to the Smart State but also represents enormous potential for growth and diversification of the Queensland economy,” he said.

Mr Beattie added that Queensland needed to broaden its economic base.

“We have great industries, but we still have a narrow economy. That’s why we are so supportive of innovation.”

Mr Beattie said the new Creative Industries Faculty would allow QUT to bring together its high-quality programs in design, visual and performing arts, professional writing and multimedia “and place them squarely in the new economy”.

Professor Hartley said there were many challenges and opportunities ahead as QUT sought to explore, exploit and explain creative industries to the nation.

Professor Gibson also announced Hassel-MGT as the design consortium which will develop phase one of the Kelvin Grove Creative Industries

precinct (see full story on page 5). Student Michael Ross sings his original song Astro Girl while QUT dancers and student band Simulation perform in front of an audience, including Premier Peter Beattie and industry leaders.

Expert predicts new economic base for Queensland

The British Government’s advisor on the internet and the new economy predicts the time is increasingly approaching where what we most value in economic terms will come out of our heads rather than out of the ground.

Charles Leadbeater flew into Brisbane last week to help QUT launch the new Creative Industries Faculty and its research arm, the Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre.

Mr Leadbeater addressed a breakfast of businesspeople and politicians and briefed State Cabinet and the Brisbane City Council during his stay.

Traditional Queensland industries such as mining and agriculture, he said, would cease to be the largest economic earners in the future.

“More and more of what we do is to sell one another our intelligence so, if

you pick up a mobile phone, in effect, you’re picking up the intelligence of people at Nokia who made it, and it’s embodied in the phone,” he said.

“Similarly, it’ll be the way we add value to physical things, to services or to cultural products like television programs through our creativity that will make them stand out.”

He said further advances in technology would fuel a need for creative content.

“We’re now able, through digital technologies, to create content more easily, but also store it more easily, retrieve it, disseminate it and manipulate it,” he said.

“High-quality content will be able to play across all these different platforms, whether it’s a computer game that might become a television program or a film (as) in the case of Lara Croft.

“It might be a computer animation on the internet that becomes a television series like South Park or Big Brother which isn’t just a television program, it’s something you interact with on your mobile phone and on the internet.”

The term “creative industries” was first coined in the United Kingdom.

But Mr Leadbeater said even the UK had not embarked on a project as bold as QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct.

He predicted cities that did not take part in the creative industries would miss a large piece of the future economy.

“This is doing for the arts what the sciences have long done – which is create places where knowledge in universities can be spun out for greater economic benefit,” he said.

– Toni Chambers Premier Peter Beattie talks to Charles Leadbeater, the Blair

Government’s advisor on the new economy and the Internet. Mr Leadbeater is a keen supporter of QUT’s push into the creative industries and was invited to brief a State Cabinet meeting.

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From the Vice-Chancellor

From the Inside by David Hawke

When speech research facilities around the world were recently benchmarked, the QUT’s Speech Research Laboratory was ranked number one.

The director of QUT’s Research Concentration in Speech, Audio and Video Technology, Professor Sridha Sridharan, said the international benchmarking exercise was undertaken by a large United States-based agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which reviewed 12 such research facilities around the globe.

“NIST has conducted an annual benchmarking competition in the area of speaker recognition technology each year since 1996 in an aim to drive technology forward, measure the ‘state-of-the-art’ and to find the most promising approaches around the world in the area of speaker recognition,” Professor Sridharan said.

“Last year’s winner of this competition was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”

Professor Sridharan said that QUT’s achievement in attaining the number one position in the latest benchmarking round was the first time that an Australian institution had achieved the best performance in the NIST speaker recognition task.

Speaker recognition has many applications and important uses, including suspect identification by

QUT laboratory wins top spot in global speech recognition exercise

Professor Sridha Sridharan and PhD student Jason Pelecanos from QUT’s Research Concentration in Speech, Audio and Video Technology in the university’s state-of-the-art speech-recognition laboratory.

by Margaret Lawson

The work of 26 QUT students to improve the landscape design of the Brisbane River’s northbank will go on public display later this month.

During the first semester of this year, the graduate diploma students worked on designs to revitalise the “wasteland area” beside the river from Gardens Point to North Quay.

Their proposals – which include suggested changes to accessibility, safety, lighting and use of the space – will go on show from August 27 t o 2 9 f o r p u b l i c v i e w i n g a n d comment.

The exhibition will be held in room D106 at QUT’s Gardens Point campus.

Design and built environment senior lecturer Glenn Thomas said the students’ work had the potential to leave a lasting impression on the northbank of the Brisbane River.

“The challenge for landscape architecture – in collaboration with architecture and visual arts students – is to regain northbank as a significant part of central Brisbane that is worthy of its importance in the history of this city,” Mr Thomas said.

“If there is a positive public response to these designs, they could help inform the Brisbane City Council’s decisions regarding the future of the area.”

Landscape design student Julia Watson said her design group had interviewed users of the northbank area to learn how they used the space and how it could be improved.

“We quickly learned that there is no right answer,” Ms Watson said.

“You just go over options to find better and better solutions to the problem.”

Ms Watson said her group’s final design used the principle of “terrain vague”, which aimed to integrate rather than hide visually unappealing elements of the landscape such as the South-East Freeway.

“You don’t want to get rid of things, you want to include them in a way that allows fluidity of design,” Ms Watson said.

“We’ve tried to include patterns that reflect the river, linking the river and the northbank through spirals and eddies, as well as incorporating environmentally responsible designs.”

Ms Watson was part of a group of four students who presented a paper about the project at an academic conference in July.

The postgraduate students’ proposed masterplans will be on display during Brisbane’s Riverfestival.

Design postgrads keen to revamp city ‘wasteland’

voice, over-the-phone person verification for access to databases, speaker tagging of recorded data, electronic signatures using voice, verification of a speakers’ presence at a remote location as well as secure access to buildings and facilities.

Professor Sridharan said his team at QUT had been involved in the field for the past 10 years.

His PhD student Jason Pelecanos has worked on the speaker recognition project over the past three years, producing the

“outstanding” result that he detailed to a NIST workshop in Maryland, US, in May.

“Our research has been supported by substantial funding awarded by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) of Australia for the past three years,” Professor Sridharan explained.

The head of the DSTO’s intelligence section, Dr Richard Price, said the benchmarking exercise proved his organisation had access to the best technology in the world.

“It is in our interests to support and encourage its maintenance and further improvement,” Dr Price said. “I am looking forward to a number of years of fruitful research collaboration with QUT.”

Professor Sridharan said joint c o m m e r c i a l i s a t i o n o f t h e technology with DSTO as a partner was being planned.

by Leanne Bensley

Recent car accident research from QUT challenges the claim that bigger vehicles are safer on the road.

According to Associate Professor Richard Tay from QUT’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety (CARRS-Q), there is a misplaced emphasis on how a motor vehicle protects its occupants in crash conditions and not enough focus on the damage it inflicts on others.

New research conducted by CARRS-Q demonstrates that this emphasis has led to the dangerous misconception that bigger is better when it comes to road safety.

“The conventional approach to vehicle safety regulation has tended to focus more on the crashworthiness of a vehicle and its occupant protection, and less on a vehicle’s ‘non-aggressiveness’,”

Professor Tay said.

“The problem is that engineers can crash a car into a wall and measure the damage to the occupants of the car.

“The thing that they forget to measure is how much damage it does to the wall.

“Vehicles on the streets don’t crash into a wall, they crash into pedestrians, cyclists, motor-cyclists and occupants in other cars.”

Professor Tay said that while some media headlines have said “big is safe” or suggested “play it safe – drive a 4WD”, crash evidence suggested that the neglected measure (of non-aggressiveness) was more important in determining the overall road trauma than the “often-promoted measure of occupant protection”.

He said it was widely accepted that, in a collision between a 4WD and a small car, the 4WD would inflict great damage to the small car while incurring little damage itself.

Professor Tay said that there would be a significantly lower fatality rate if policy makers encouraged a greater number of small cars on the road.

Bigger not always better on the road

Masterplans designed by (from left to right) James Radice, Heather Mackay, Jen Petrie and Julia Watson will go on show this month.

Sunday July 29 was one of those perfect Brisbane winter days that reminds us why international students choose to study here.

It was also the day QUT held its annual Course and Careers Day, our major recruitment event for undergraduate students.

For local students the beautiful weather is taken for granted at this time of year – and they came in droves.

This day was our most successful ever, with more than 15,000 people coming to see the displays and attend the variety of excellent seminars held on the day.

The Gardens Point campus was at its best, the staff were friendly, and overall it was a great day for QUT.

Course and Careers Day is a day out for prospective students and their families, designed to give them a taste of campus life at the same time as supplying them with a range of information to help them to decide on

Seminars, demonstrations and campus tours all blend with a variety of entertainment, such as live bands, student performances and beach volleyball.

A number of feature presentations were particularly well attended, including one on the new Faculty of Creative Industries, which is attracting an enormous amount of attention.

The seminar on "survival" for parents of Year 12 students was also obviously much needed, and drew a good crowd.

Of course, the day would not be possible without the massive effort put in behind the scenes by staff and students from every faculty and division.

The co-ordination of an event of this scale requires a huge amount of co-operation and collaboration, before, during and after.

From what I saw, this collaboration was positive and strong, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who worked together towards

Effort rewarded

with record crowds

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Pedestrians in the dark about night road safety

the vehicle must be able to see them just as easily,” Dr Tyrrell said.

“I have asked volunteers to walk in front of a stationary car to the point where they believed they were just visible to the driver, and in most cases their estimates were greater than the true visibility distance.”

Dr Tyrrell is part of a ground- breaking QUT study being conducted to determine precisely how much pedestrians overestimate their visibility and what methods work to make them visible to motorists.

A team from the university’s Centre for Eye Research – in partnership with Queensland Transport – is using the facilities at the Mount Cotton Driver Training Centre south of Brisbane to test a variety of pedestrian scenarios.

“Drivers are given tasks to perform while driving the course, including

reading out road signs and pressing a button when they recognise a pedestrian,” Dr Tyrrell said.

“Pedestrians are asked to press a button when they notice the car and when they think the driver has noticed them.”

Dr Tyrell said previous research showed that simply wearing lighter colours could markedly improve a pedestrian’s visibility to motorists.

“We are hoping to identify specifically which clothing colours best aid visibility at night, and also evaluate reflective safety clothing to determine which configurations of reflective material are most effective,” he said.

Dr Tyrrell said digital camcorders and a special measuring system were being used to collect data which would provide an accurate, quantitative model of pedestrian visibility.

The sea is calling alumni – including past and present QUT staff – for an adventure through the islands off northern Queensland.

QUT’s School of Design and Built Environment is hosting two island cruises in October of this year that will follow the paths of Australia’s early explorers.

The In the Paths of the Navigators tours will offer those who sail the opportunity to join a full ship’s crew which will include among its number a cook, the tour co- ordinator, the boat’s owner and its captain.

In two separate tours – one from Cairns to Townsville and the other the return journey – the boat will sail along the Great Barrier Reef past tropical islands such as Dunk, Hinchinbrook, Palm and Magnetic.

Berths beckon on adventure tour to map our northern coastline

Dr Sue Buzer, the expedition’s co- ordinator, will be conducting an on-deck geographical research project during the tour.

According to Dr Buzer, crew members will be invited to participate in compiling a comparative history on the original surveys of James Cook, Matthew Flinders and Philip Parker King, based on original logs and documentation.

“It’s living history,” Dr Buzer said.

“Expedition members will form the crew and assist with sails, navigation and general boat handling.

“With plenty of time for swimming, snorkelling, fishing and exploring the islands, the week at sea offers expedition members a unique learning holiday, combining relaxing island life with

exploration, research and the opportunity to learn ocean-going skills.”

Dr Buzer said the ship would sail by day and be anchored by night and no sailing experience would necessary for passengers.

Along with the fully qualified captain, both the boat’s owner and Dr Buzer are capable of sailing the boat.

Dr Buzer said the first tour would depart Cairns on October 13 and sail to Townsville, arriving October 21, with the second tour departing Townsville on October 23 and arriving in Cairns on October 31.

Accommodation will be available for 10 to 14 people on each trip and, at a cost of $1,000, the fare will include all food. For details, see http://alumni.qut.edu.au/alumnitravel or call Dr Sue Buzer on (07) 3203 7451.

by Elise Fraser and Margaret Lawson

More than 12 per cent of the nation’s young people do not feel they are very Australian, according to surprise findings from a QUT research study.

In the survey of 721 people aged 12 to 16, learning and development senior lecturer Dr Nola Purdie found that one in eight rated themselves below 60 per cent on a scale of “Australianness”.

Dr Purdie said she was surprised to find that a significant proportion of respondents ranked themselves at 30 per cent or below.

“These are children who grew up in Australia, with Australian parents, going to Australian schools,” Dr Purdie said.

“Our best guess at the moment as to why this could be is that the feeling of Australian identity is somehow linked with issues of performance and achievement.”

Dr Purdie’s preliminary study, which originally set out to examine the effects of outdoor challenge programs on adolescents, found a significant correlation between gains in self- confidence, academic and athletic performance and the sense of Australian identity.

She said she was hoping to conduct further research to examine the phenomenon more closely.

Australian identity

lost on nation’s teens

“We know the feeling of ‘low Australianness’ is linked to low performance in some areas, but we are not sure whether underachievement leads to identity problems or vice versa,”

Dr Purdie said.

“It does seem to be contrary to the popular belief that Australians shy away from being tall poppies.”

Dr Purdie said the findings highlighted the need to better understand issues impacting on young Australians’ identities and the influence of patriotic sentiments on general wellbeing and achievement.

“I think generally in society, and even politically, it is important we have an understanding of what young people think it means to be Australian,” she said.

“These children are the country’s future leaders and their self-perception greatly influences the type of Australia they will one day create.

“These findings are also important in terms of school curricula and how teachers are presenting Australia to their students as well as the type of images being promoted to students as being Australian.”

Dr Purdie said her research also found that sporting identities were commonly seen as role models by the 12 to 16 year age group.

One in every 10 Queensland students awarded the Australian Students Prize for 2000 is now studying at QUT.

A total of 103 Queensland students were awarded the prize on the basis of their Year 12 results.

The prize – which includes a certificate of excellence and $2000 – is awarded by the Commonwealth Government on the basis of recommendations from state and territory ministers for education.

Winning students study at QUT

The most popular course of study for four of the students – Amos Choy, Benjamin Miller, Paul Stevens and Ian Yates – involved Information Technology, two are Faculty of Business Corporate Partners in Excellence scholarship holders Katie Gardner and Rowan James te Kloot, with Fiona Parsonson (medical science), Erin Rayment (biotech innovation), Alison Saunders (optometry) and Claire Simpson (accountancy).

A volunteer group that used its initiative and own resources to rebuild a dangerous section of isolated road in its community has received a top road safety award.

State Transport and Main Roads Minister Steve Bredhauer recently presented the Bellthorpe Road Safety Council in the Caboolture Shire with a Queensland Road Safety Award for its outstanding community project.

Awards given to State’s top road safety initiatives

Two in three pedestrian fatalities occur in the evening, but light clothes make people more visible.

The Bellthorpe organisation was among five winners of major trophies for community, industry, media and local government road safety projects.

The Queensland Road Safety Awards are organised and sponsored by the RACQ and QUT’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland (CARRS-Q).

CARRS-Q director Professor Mary Sheehan said the judges had been

impressed by the high standard of entries in the competition, which was designed to boost public involvement in the battle against road deaths and injuries.

“A key aim of the awards is to encourage greater commitment to the road safety cause by individuals, organisations and companies,” she said.

“The awards are only in their second year but, if the calibre of entries in this

year’s competition is a guide, then there is plenty of evidence that this commitment is growing.”

Conondale State School received the other major award in the community category for a second year with its ongoing SafeST (Safe School Travel) program.

Kellyanne Macarone, a student at Craigslea High School in Chermside, won the media category award for her

individual anti drink-driving short film, Death of an Innocent.

The industry category award went to the AAMI Skilled Drivers Course – a free, one- day awareness program for young drivers.

And the local government award was won by the Gold Coast City Council’s “Go over, you’re gone” which deploys trailers displaying speeds travelled by passing motorists in an effort to reduce speeds on local streets.

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Designs on the future … QUT’s Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering recently honoured a number of its prize-winning students, including its Dean’s Bursary recipients for 2001. These bursaries, each valued at $2,000, are awarded to up to a dozen OP 1 or OP 2 students in their first year of undergraduate study.

Pictured above, from left, are four of this year’s Dean’s Bursary recipients, Elizabeth Dunn (built environment), Victoria Goldsmith (built environment), Bradley Spencer (aerospace avionics) and

Faculty celebrates prize winners

Winning alumnus wages war on IT code secrets

2001 Chancellor’s Outstanding Alumnus and Information Technology Faculty winner Cristina Cifuentes ...

delighted to come back to Brisbane to collect her award.

• Health Judith Magub Bachelor of Business (Health

Administration), BCAE, 1988 Judy Magub has distinguished herself in three separate fields

since graduating. She has been a local government councillor for the Brisbane City Council ward of Toowong since 1994, has also had a long and successful career in nursing and mental health administration, and has served her community extensively in a variety of roles. Over the past decade she has been an active Rotarian with the Brisbane club and a member of Women of Substance. During 2000-2001, she was District Governor of Rotary for the region including Queensland, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

• Law Paul Chartrand Bachelor of Laws, second- class honours, QIT, 1980 Paul Chartrand has been involved in aboriginal and

indigenous issues in Canada for 15 years. From 1991 to 1995 he was a commissioner of the Canadian Royal Winners for each of QUT’s seven other

faculties were announced at the Outstanding Alumni Award ceremony on August 1, including:

• Built Environment

& Engineering Jim McKnoulty Bachelor of Applied Science (Surveying), QIT, 1980 Mr McKnoulty is a leading consultant in the development industry and has

been chairman of Pike Mirls McKnoulty since 1992. He is also vice-president of Greening Australia in Queensland and is a member of the faculty advisory committee of the School of Design and Built Environment, where he is an adjunct professor.

• Business John Martin Bachelor of Business (Management), QIT, 1976 Mr Martin’s contribution to the

banking and finance professions is extensive. First working for ABN AMRO

Wallace received a special excellence award for professional excellence.

• Education Dr Jean Calder Teachers’ Certificate, Queensland Teachers’

Training College, 1954

Ms Calder has made

outstanding contributions to the fields of education and physical rehabilitation as well as academia, devoting her life and career to assisting and improving the lives of disabled children and developing services for the disabled in Australia and the Middle East.

She attained six further qualifications between 1957 and 1979, winning numerous scholarships and fellowships, culminating in a PhD from Pennsylvania State University in the field of recreation for special populations. She built a solid research career, has written two books on children’s motor performance and been an active member of a range of organisations and agencies. Employed by the Palestine Red Crescent Society since 1981, she is based in the Gaza Strip and has overseen many developments in rehabilitation services for the disabled. Ms Calder received a special excellence award for her contribution to the community.

Devising tools that deal with increasingly nasty computer viruses, de-bug computer programs and make incompatible systems talk to one another, the Chancellor’s Outstanding Alumnus for 2001, Dr Cristina Cifuentes, has forged a stellar career.

Having obtained her PhD from QUT in 1995, Cristina has already made an indelible mark on her profession.

Born in San Francisco in 1967, Cristina grew up in the Colombian capital of Bogota, speaking Spanish. She enrolled in a university computer engineering course and was more than three years into a five-year degree when her family decided to move to Australia.

At the same time as Cristina was mastering English, she completed her final year of study in QUT’s Faculty of Information Technology.

She was encouraged to do an honours year and then a PhD through the Programming Languages and Systems Centre under Professor John Gough (then head of the centre and the School of Computing Science and now dean of the faculty) who is an acknowledged world leader in computer programming languages.

“I was looking for a challenge and Professor Gough and another colleague, Professor Bill

Caelli, who then headed the Information Security Research Centre, were talking about using an old technique from the 1970s called ‘decompilation’

to understand what viruses, Trojan horses, etc., were doing,” Cristina explained.

Not simply the reverse of compilation, decompilation seeks to work out what pieces of information have been discarded in the process of compiling a program.

“That missing information might be programmer’s instructions, comments or the names of variables which describe what action has been taken,” Cristina explained.

After her PhD studies were complete, Cristina moved to the University of Tasmania for two years and then spent three years at the University of Queensland.

During this time, the concentration of her research moved to binary translation, which allows a program written for one platform to be translated or migrated to a new platform.

“There’s so much you can do at a university, but the process of commercialising the research, seeing it work for industry, is not as easy,”

Cristina admitted.

So she took what was to be a year-long sabbatical at Sun Microsystems in Palo Alto, California to have greater interaction with industry, further explore commercialisation of her research and develop “retargetable” binary translation tools for a range of machines.

Two years later she is still there.

“I chose Sun Microsystems because it is one of the only companies in the world where you can have software and hardware research going on in the one laboratory,” she said.

“That gives us access to all levels which impact on the user, from operating systems and hardware to language and applications.”

Recently appointed the chair of the Reverse Engineering and Re-engineering Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Cristina is modest about her achievements.

But, as for the real importance of her work, Professor Caelli said it could not be understated.

“In today’s age of ‘information warfare’, we’re seeing nasty stuff spread by hackers, criminal elements, during security and intelligence breaches and even by rogue states,”

Professor Caelli said.

“These rogue states are beginning to wage what one senior defence intelligence person recently described as ‘asymmetric warfare’, where they use cheaper information technology attacks in place of more expensive traditional weaponry.

“So Cristina’s work has become increasingly important and the tools that she has developed can analyse these nasties and help us understand what is happening,” he explained.

– Trina McLellan

Bank in Sydney, he moved to Amsterdam in 1984 to specialise in energy finance, a field in which he developed worldwide experience and standing. Now based in London, Mr Martin is managing director and head of integrated energy. An active member and former president of Australian Business in Europe, he is also chairman of the City of London Branch of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

• Creative Industries Anne Wallace Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) 1990 Since graduating, Ms Wallace has built a highly successful career

as a leading Australian contemporary artist.

She has won several prestigious awards, including the Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship (1993) and the Melville Nettleship Award from the Slade School of Fine Art in London (1995). A gifted and creative artist, she has exhibited her work widely in Australia and taught art at university level.

She is known for her highly original works,

“tough” paintings that challenge viewers to interpret many layers of meaning. Ms

Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

Prior to that, he was a law lecturer at several colleges and universities, including QIT (1981-82) and the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg (1983-1997). He has consulted on international and comparative areas around the globe.

• Science Keith Harrison Bachelor of Applied Science, QIT, 1973

Master of Applied Science, QIT, 1983

Reproductive science and ethics have been the focus of Keith Harrison’s career.

He was one of the first researchers in Australia to recognise and research the effects of maternal smoking on unborn children. Working with the Queensland Fertility Group as its scientific director since 1984, he supervised and provided support for much of the scientific work behind the Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer (GIFT) procedure introduced in 1986. A prolific researcher and publisher, he has also provided valuable input to QUT’s Faculty of Science Advisory Committee.

BHP Billiton chief slams local tax ‘bias’

QUT honours 2001’s outstanding alumni

Australian companies with overseas operations were being prevented from competing by the ‘inherent bias’ in Australia’s tax system, BHP Billiton chairman Don Argus told the QUT’s Business Leaders’

Forum on August 2. Mr Argus said that successful Australian companies, like BHP, had to take

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Colourful crowds enjoy QUT’s annual Course and Careers Day

QUT’s Gardens Point campus was host to more than 15,000 visitors recently for its annual Course and Careers Day.

Along with detailed information on a wide range of course options, the colourful Course and Careers Day on Sunday, July 29, offered

p r o s p e c t i v e s t u d e n t s a n d t h e i r families the opportunity to talk to lecturers and students about their choices, face-to-face.

QUT staff conducted seminars, demonstrations and campus tours throughout the day.

There were also special seminars for parents and partners of prospective students.

Feature presentations explained the new Creative Industries Faculty, offered a survival guide for parents of year 12 students, gave details about

mature-age and overseas entry, as well as new courses for 2002 and special programs for high achievers.

E n t e r t a i n m e n t i n c l u d e d l i v e b a n d s , s t u d e n t p e r f o r m a n c e s , interactive displays and a beach volleyball competition.

Two Hewlett-Packard Pavilion computers supplied by Leading Solutions were on offer as part of a special online Course and Careers Day competition, with winners to be announced soon.

– Leanne Bensley

Current student Beth Carlisle spends time with Liz Banks and Krista Woodman during Course and Careers Day.

Jason Kuhne tries his hand at spinning QUT’s popular Course and Careers Day giveaway.

Action aplenty with eager visitors and students enjoying a friendly game of volleyball while spectators enjoyed their antics as well as the sounds of Creative Industries performers on stage at the other end of Kidney Lawn.

Happy crowds of prospective students and their families pack Main Drive at Gardens Point during Course and Careers Day.

QUT is planning two major campus developments designed to keep pace w i t h f u t u r e g r o w t h i n t h e burgeoning faculties of information technology and creative industries.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Dennis Gibson last week announced the two consortia selected as the successful design consultants for the Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove projects.

The successful bids were:

• South-East Precinct at Gardens Point A joint venture between Brisbane-based Powell Dods & Thorpe and Melbourne firm Denton Corker Marshall. The designers will now be asked to prepare detailed concept plans for a three-phase project for the new precinct which overlooks the South-East Freeway entry to Brisbane’s CBD.

• Creative Industries at Kelvin Grove A consortium made up of national firm Hassell and Sydney-based MGT. The group was successful with their innovative and creative approach to parts of the Creative Industries Precinct for development within the new Kelvin Grove Urban Village.

Design teams appointed for major developments

Several consortia were asked to make submissions for the two developments and the winning teams submitted proposals which were bold yet sensitive to their environments, Professor Gibson said.

The successful Gardens Point design team was appointed after a lengthy selection process which included the display of the three shortlisted designs at the QUT Art Museum for public viewing.

QUT’s associate director of major projects Ruth Woods said more than 80 comments were received from members of the public.

“There was a lot of support for the winning scheme,” Ms Woods said.

The south-east aspect of the campus – comprising buildings from the late 1960s to early 1970s known as L, P, I and Y Blocks – is to be redeveloped in stages over the next decade.

Professor Gibson said the prominence of the site demanded the best design solution from a public perspective, as well as functionality for the university.

“This is a landmark project for Brisbane, adjacent to the Gardens

Riverstage, Old Government House and the city access to the new pedestrian bridge,” he said.

“At a functional level, the Information Technology Faculty is overflowing on campus; specialist space is required to teach engineering and to accommodate

our growing research activity; and our student services like the refectory are in dire need of an upgrade.

“The preliminary design takes into account the need for additional space for information technology while envisaging a precinct which will provide a campus

heart that reinforces QUT’s role in this important cultural corridor,” he said.

Stage one of the precinct is estimated at $35million which will fund the development of the IT and community facilities.

The Creative Industries development at Kelvin Grove was awarded to the Hassell-MGT consortium after a similar competition open to shortlisted firms of architects, Ms Woods said.

QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct will act as a focus for development of new media industries in Queensland.

This precinct will house teaching and research facilities from QUT’s new Creative Industries Faculty, an enterprise support centre and co- located private businesses.

The precinct is a key component of the Kelvin Grove Urban Village initiative of QUT and the Department of Housing.

The Department of State Development is contributing $15 million towards the Creative Industries precinct while QUT’s contribution to phase one is an estimated $30million.

The South-East Precinct at Gardens Point, shown at left, is planned for development in three stages over the next 10 years and will feature a modern facade similar to the one, shown at right, designed by Powell Dods & Thorpe/Denton Corker Marshall.

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The judging committee for this year’s Outstanding Contribution Awards for QUT General Staff was impressed by the uniformly high standard of achievement of staff nominated, according to committee chair and university registrar Ken Baumber.

This year’s 16 nominations equalled the highest ever received and the six awards presented represented an increase of 50 per cent compared with the four awarded last year.

The aim of the awards is to recognise exceptional contributions by general staff members to the university’s mission and goals through outstanding achievement or innovation through service.

Mr Baumber said several of the group nominations involved people drawn

Outstanding general staff capture awards

from across divisions or faculties and not just from particular units. Other nominations crossed the boundaries between divisions.

“This is a good reflection of the way the university is now ‘breaking down the barriers’ for the benefit of the university as a whole,” Mr Baumber said.

This year, there were three individuals and three team awards presented at a ceremony in the middle of last month.

The Division of Information and A c a d e m i c S e r v i c e s w a s w e l l represented, taking two of the three individual awards.

These awards went to Sonja de S t e r k e , a p h o t o g r a p h e r i n t h e

Teaching and Learning Support Services Unit, and Barbara Ewers a community services librarian.

Ms de Sterke’s photography has won her professional awards and distinctions as well as accolades from her colleagues throughout QUT.

Her work incorporates imagination and sensitivity to go beyond the surface image and enhance both individuals and the university.

Ms Ewers’ nomination for the award reflects her contribution far beyond her librarian duties.

A number of her activities of special mention include her organisation of the International IATUL Conference 2000 and her work on the History of QUT project.

Database administrator in the t e c h n i c a l s e r v i c e s a r e a o f t h e Information Technology Faculty W a y n e D u x b u r y w a s t h e o t h e r individual award winner.

A QUT employee since 1992, Mr Duxbury has constructed an assignment-tracking system which records from submission to return of the work to students.

The new system has reduced problems associated with the handling of assignments to almost zero.

D i v i s i o n o f A d m i n i s t r a t i v e Services’ Career and Employment s t a f f m e m b e r s S u e S w e e t a n d Cassandra Sceresini were one of three g r o u p s t o r e c e i v e a w a r d s f o r outstanding team contributions.

O t h e r s u c c e s s f u l t e a m s w e r e Facilities Management’s Health and S a f e t y C o m m i t t e e w o r k a r e a representatives, (David Drury, Peter Bentley, Frank Harris, Peter Shea, Frank Milanesi, Malcolm Smith, Paul Anderson and Tony Smith), a n d A d m i n i s t r a t i v e S e r v i c e s ’ C a l l i s t a I m p l e m e n t a t i o n t e a m , ( M a r i j a M a l e t i c , T o n y W a l s h , Bassam Bali, Martine Beattie, Gary Jackson, Linda Haberkern, Mary Clowes and Marilyn Parker).

Award winners received a Commemorative Plaque and a Certificate of Recognition and a grant to individual winners of $3,000 and up to $10,000 for work groups.

– Noel Gentner Left:

Faculty of Information Technology’s Wayne Duxbury with his individual Outstanding Contribution Award for QUT General Staff.

Below:

Busy community services librarian and individual award-winner Barbara Ewers at her workplace.

Right:

Accomplished and imaginative Teaching and Learning Support Services Unit photographer Sonja de Sterke.

Every day, some staff go to great lengths, – quite literally – to work at QUT.

Like more than 60km in the case of senior HR officer Glenys Drew.

Ms Drew and her husband Richard recently left the near-city convenience and relatively short commute from their home at Sherwood to live on 40 hectares just south of Beaudesert.

It is a choice that means a three-hour trip each day, but it is one that is becoming more popular among QUT staff looking for the best of two worlds.

“Some of my family and friends treat me to a calculation of just how many days, weeks and months of my life I could spend travelling,” she quipped.

“But the peace amid a busy work and family life is definitely a factor in trying to distil why we like to live where we live.”

Ms Drew recently negotiated a nine-day fortnight and a fortnightly w o r k - f r o m - h o m e d a y w i t h h e r department to make her travelling schedule slightly easier, but she still admits “they are long days”.

“Living there obviously means a lot of travel for us,” she said.

B u t M s D r e w ’ s t r i p f r o m Beaudesert is a “mere hop, skip and a j u m p ” f r o m G a r d e n s P o i n t , according to property economics course co-ordinator Stuart Ross who travels from Widgee, 25km west of Gympie, every day he has to be on campus.

It is a total journey of three hours –

Distance the price of dedication for some personnel

“Why do I do it?” he pondered. “I guess it’s the lifestyle. I’ve only ever wanted two things in life, and one of them was to have a farm.”

Mr Ross and his wife Cindy sold their home in suburban Carindale last year and moved to the small rural community so they could live their dream of owning a horse property.

Their home is on 100 undulating hectares at the site of the original Widgee homestead, amidst the native blue gums.

With a dam and its own creek, it is the perfect place for Mr Ross’s hobby- come-business of breeding English riding ponies and charolais stud cattle.

“Travel six hours a day? No way.”

In January, Mr Gunstone bought a flat in Victoria Park Road right across from QUT Kelvin Grove.

He estimated that there was no way that he could live any closer to QUT.

“The really funny thing was that right after I had settled, I was transferred to Carseldine for the semester,” he laughed.

“I’m back at Kelvin Grove this semester, which is great.”

Mr Gunstone said his choice of home – like that of Stuart Ross and Glenys Drew – was all about having a better lifestyle.

“I save on petrol because I can walk to uni, and then walk home at lunch for a proper meal,” Mr Gunstone said.

“I also like Kelvin Grove as a place because it’s so close to the city, which is great for going out and only having a

But there is a downside to being so close to campus, according to South Bank-dweller Andrew Salleh.

“I’m always the first person to be called on to volunteer for careers events and other duties because I live the closest to work,” joked the busy IT lecturer.

Mr Salleh said the advantage of being so close was that it was easy to access the university at any time to squeeze in some extra work or research.

“But I guess it really depends on the individual.”

Glenys Drew agrees.

“Inner city life does beckon, but I’m not sure I’d trade it for those changing colours of fields, mountains and expanse of sky and exquisite sunsets,” she said.

“But, whether you are down the street or 200km away, I suppose it is ultimately about your lifestyle and what While the he and his wife both

work full-time, Mr Ross said it was worth the 4am starts to have the lifestyle they wanted.

“It’s the weekends when we get pleasure out of the property.

“I can’t honestly say there’s a lot of pleasure in getting up at 3.45am, but it’s definitely worth it.”

Mr Ross said a typical week saw him coming to work three or four out of five days, leaving home at 4.15am to be at work by 7.15am.

He said it was a decision that was g r e e t e d w i t h “ a c o n s i d e r a b l e amount of disbelief and shaking of h e a d s ” a m o n g h i s f r i e n d s a n d colleagues, but with understanding by his supervisor.

“Fortunately, I have a boss who is focused on outcomes and not simply attendance, which allows me to do much of my administrative work from home,”

he explained.

“But I come from London where it is not unusual to take one and half hours to drive 6km, so I am used to long travel times.”

The worst part, he said, was driving about 1,600km a week and refuelling his car daily, at more than $20 a time.

“But I just keep going back to my dream, and I know it’s worthwhile.”

Meanwhile, at the other extreme is Oodgeroo unit lecturer Andrew Gunstone who couldn’t imagine living more than five minutes away from work.

“The great thing about being close is that you can just duck home if you Construction management

lecturer Stuart Ross contemplates his 1,600km+

weekly commute and the

Oodgeroo Unit lecturer Andrew Gunstone only has to travel across the road to work at QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus each day.

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A technique to grow new and perfectly compatible corneal tissue for victims of eye injuries is being developed by researchers at QUT.

As a result, people with serious burns or chemical injuries to the surface of the eye could suffer less of the inflammation and agony often associated with these injuries.

The technique – being developed by life sciences researchers in QUT’s Tissue Engineering Group – uses a patient’s own stem cells to grow new corneal tissue.

Researcher Dr Damien Harkin said this method, which he believed had never been used in Australia, would allow “skin grafts for the eye” which had a better chance of success than traditional techniques.

“The cornea is basically specialised skin and the traditional solution to serious injuries to the eye surface – where the patient’s own healing stem cells from the limbus have been badly damaged – is a corneal graft from a donor,” Dr Harkin said.

Dr Harkin said the failure rate for such grafts was about 40 per cent over 10 years.

“The effect of this condition on the victim is loss of vision, as well as redness to the eye and extreme discomfort as the normally smooth eye surface is irritated every time they blink,” he said.

“The advantage in what we’re doing is that we’re using the person’s own cells, so the chance of compatibility and a long-term solution is much better.”

Dr Harkin said the technique involved removing a small piece of tissue including stem cells from the patient’s healthy eye and culturing it in the laboratory.

“In time you have a sheet of cells that hopefully contain cells that retain the healing properties and can then be grafted onto the surface of the eye,” he said.

The QUT team has been working with the help of the Queensland Eye Bank to perfect this method of growing corneal tissue in the laboratory.

Their findings were published in the June edition of Clinical and Experimental

Researchers bring new hope to patients with eye injuries

Opthamology, and Dr Harkin said they were poised to begin clinical trials in collaboration with Dr Andrew Apel of the Royal Brisbane Hospital later this year.

“If this is successful, we would like to make the technique available so it can help as many people as possible - probably a few hundred across Australia every year,” he said.

“Our aim is to stabilise the eye’s surface and to ease the discomfort, pain and suffering of people with this problem. If they had any improvement in vision, which is a possibility, that would really be a bonus.”

Involvement in a national design c o m p e t i t i o n s p o n s o r e d b y t h e Australian Government has been a great experience, according to QUT student Laith Wark.

A b u i l t e n v i r o n m e n t d e g r e e graduate who is now studying for a Graduate Diploma in Urban Design, Mr Wark was a member of a team which received a commendation last

National design competition proves great experience

month for its entry to design a large area in the Parliamentary precinct in C a n b e r r a t o b e d e s i g n a t e d a s

“Reconciliation Place”.

Mr Wark said his involvement in the design competition had given his team the opportunity to work with p r o f e s s i o n a l s f r o m v a r i e d b a c k g r o u n d s o n a h i g h - p r o f i l e , national-level project.

“It also enabled me to work with Indigenous people to develop a better understanding of what reconciliation means,” Mr Wark said.

He said the QUT team’s entry had as its central feature sculptural elements in the form of a stand of vertical ceremonial spears, each bearing the name of an Indigenous language.

Also included in the theme, Mr Wark said, was a wide band of native g r a s s e s a n d a r a m p f r o m C o m m o n w e a l t h P l a c e e n t e r i n g Reconciliation Place across a notional

“bridge” which was signified through banded paving that portrayed the power of walking together with a shared vision.

– Noel Gentner

QUT reps tackle Bridge to Brisbane

Around 40 QUT staff and students competed in last weekend’s 12km Bridge to Brisbane Fun Run.

The event, sponsored by The Sunday Mail and Suncorp-Metway, attracted a record number of QUT participants who joined thousands of other runners with a computerised chip in their running shoes that recorded their start/finish times.

To participate in future teams events such as fun runs, triathlons, etc., contact QUT Wellness Co-ordinator Sheree Richmond at [email protected]

Record bike team proves a winner

The MS Society has awarded two trophies to QUT for its efforts in the recent Brissie to Bay Bike Ride.

QUT Wellness Co-ordinator Sheree Richmond said the awards were for entering the largest team (26 staff and students) and raising the most funds in the Uni Challenge section of the race, held in May.

Nominations sought for upcoming

events

With three national university sporting events coming up in September, the QUT Student Guild sports department is seeking nominations for a wide range of sports.

The National University Games will be held in Sydney from September 23 to 29.

Individual and team nominations are still being sought for these games in areas including athletics, taekwondo, kendo, judo, fencing, cycling, swimming, women’s waterpolo, men’s and women’s rowing, men’s and women’s volleyball, men’s baseball, men’s badminton, men’s hockey, men’s rugby union and mixed touch football.

Meanwhile, the national AUS surfing championships are to be held at Torquay in Victoria from September 24 to 26.

And the AUS Snow Sports Championships are to be held at Thredbo from September 3 to 7.

Nominations for any of these events should be directed to Karen Bucholz at the QUT Student Guild via email on [email protected], phone (3864 3708) or by dropping in to the fitness centres at either Gardens Point or Kelvin Grove or the Student Guild Help Desk at Carseldine.

Sports News

Top: A cross-section of the human eye, showing the limbus.

Above: A snapshot of cultured tissue with stem cells

highlighted.

Right: Dr Damien Harkin at work.

Students and staff have been invited to nominate academic staff for the upcoming Outstanding Academic Contribution awards.

Academics working in the areas of research and scholarship, teaching performance and leadership, academic leadership and professional leadership are eligible for the eight awards.

Nominations are to be lodged with the nominee’s head of school by August 17.

The awards will be conferred by the Vice-Chancellor with a grant of

$10,000 awarded to each recipient.

For details or nomination forms contact Tina van Eyk in Human Resources at [email protected] or call 07 3864 4079.

Outstanding academics sought

An online news service run by QUT journalism students for East Timor will be transferred to full control from Dili later this y e a r a s a r e s u l t o f a Q U T community service grant worth more than $14,000.

The East Timor Press Web Project – a joint effort of QUT and Queensland Newspapers – was set up for the Timor Post and other media outlets last year.

C h a i r o f t h e p r o j e c t ’ s advisory committee, journalism lecturer Sharon Tickle, said that f o r t h e p a s t t w o s e m e s t e r s , s t u d e n t s f r o m t h e C r e a t i v e Industries Faculty’s journalism, m e d i a s t u d i e s a n d c r e a t i v e

Community service grant helps East Timor news service reach maturity

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writing disciplines had worked hard on the internet news site for East Timor and that they would continue to do so during this semester.

Ms Tickle said that the QUT community service grant would make it possible to fund the training of East Timorese journalists/editors in Dili to manage the site – which is currently located at http://

www.easttimorpress.qut.edu.au – as well as the first six months of the site’s maintenance.

She said the grant would provide enough funding for two part-time East Timorese web content managers to be appointed.

– Noel Gentner

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About your newspaper

Inside QUT is published by QUT’s Corporate Communication Department. Our readership includes staff, students and members of the QUT community.

This paper is also circulated to business, industry, government and the media. Each story has been checked with the source prior to publication.

Letters to the editor are welcome via email [email protected] or mail (Editor, Inside QUT, Corporate Communication Department, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Qld, 4001). Inside QUT is located in Room 5.01, Level 5, M Block, at Gardens Point.

Opinions expressed in Inside QUT do not necessarily represent those of the university or the editorial team.

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by Leanne Bensley

A 3-D computer animation system has been developed to help prevent injuries to surf lifesavers who use inflatable rescue boats or “rubber duckies”.

The new computer modelling software – developed by QUT’s Centre for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering – simulates a crewed

Computer simulation designed to prevent surf lifesaving injuries

inflatable rescue boat going over a wave.

This new tool allows experts to investigate potential leg and other injuries sustained by surf lifesavers in the IRBs.

With questions being raised increasingly over crew safety, IRBs have been banned from use in surf carnivals because they have been responsible for a large number of injuries recently.

QUT academics were approached by Surf Life Saving Queensland around three years ago to investigate this problem and undertook the project in collaboration with experts from the Queensland Institute for Medical Research.

Senior lecturer in biomedical engineering Dr Tim Barker said the simulations were as close as the team could represent an actual event.

“The crewmember has been modelled on a car crash test dummy but modified for surf conditions,” Dr Barker said.

“This model has enabled us to look at a range of different scenarios and examine things like the position and type of foot straps used in the boat, different types of foam lining and how the dummy falls in these alternative conditions.”

The project has largely been the work of PhD student Justin Ludcke, with the support of his supervisory team from the centre, which includes Professor Mark Pearcy and Professor John Evans.

“What has been created is a unique software application and a valuable tool in injury prevention,”

Dr Barker explained.

“Other applications (to be developed) might include jet skis, larger boats and off-road bikes.”

IRBs were responsible for a large number of accidents at the National Titles held in Western Australia last month, including a lacerated spleen, one shoulder fracture, two knee and ligament injuries and at least one fractured ankle.

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Dr Tim Barker and PhD student Justin Ludcke take an inflatable rescue boat for a ‘virtual’ ride.

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