Defence Signals Directorate Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), opened in January 2010 and depicted staffed by civilians. 
The
other photo was of personnel in ADF uniforms in the "Air Operations Centre in Canberra". Table of contents
Minister’s foreword 3
Executive summary 4
Section A: Accountability in Queensland Government ICT 8
Section B: Action plan 17
Objective 1: Effective digital services for our clients 18
Strategic focus area 1: Improving customer experience of government services 18
Strategic focus area 2: Digital economy 22
Strategic focus area 3: Information management 27
Strategic focus area 4: Open data 32
Strategic focus area 5: Information security and privacy of individuals 35
Strategic focus area 6: Digital archiving 39
Objective 2: Efficient digital services for government 42
Strategic focus area 7: Contestability and ICT strategic sourcing 42
Strategic focus area 8: ICT as-a-service 46
Strategic focus area 9: ICT innovation 50
Strategic focus area 10: Significant and at-risk ICT asset stabilisation 54
Objective 3: Transformed and capable workforce 58
Strategic focus area 11: A capable and competent workforce 58
Strategic focus area 12: Portfolio, program and project management 62
Glossary of terms 66
Acronyms 67
Attachment 1: Links and inter-dependencies 69
Table of Contents
Introduction
- About this Book
- Why Sahana Eden?
- What Does Sahana Eden Do?
- Who Uses Sahana Eden?
- Technical Overview
- Planning a Deployment
Getting Started
Administration
Extending Sahana Eden
Meeting The Sahana Community
Evolutionary Pressures on Enterprise Data Management
Andy Peyton (Data Management Association)
COMPUTER SCIENCE SEMINAR Relational Databases
DATE: 2013-09-02
TIME: 11:00:00 - 11:45:00
LOCATION: CHEM T1
CONTACT: mohammad.yamin@anu.edu.au
ABSTRACT:
The amount of data collected and maintained by enterprises is increasing at near exponential rates. Traditional approaches to the management of data are unlikely to be able to support the enterprise requirements. As a result there are significant shifts occurring in database technologies, data management, and data-oriented careers. However the end-state is not really understood as we are yet to master the data volumes expected to be managed. The security of data is becoming increasingly important to large enterprises and government. A recent US investigation estimates that over $300 billion worth of intellectual property is lost each year as a result of theft, and much of that intellectual property is simply enterprise data that has been copied. Cloud computing has its implications for managing the data storage explosion, but for government agencies there are important considerations of possible third party access to data that should remain under strict access control. The Australian Government places a very high priority on the security of citizensa data that it holds. This presentation will address all the above issues in the context of large Australian enterprises for whom data is a key asset of the organisation.
BIO:
Andy Peyton has over 35 years experience as an IT Professional. He started his career developing software for military aircraft, radar systems, and naval weapon systems. He then moved into the consulting field where he supported broad range of government departments designing computer systems, assessing data quality problems, running IT projects, and designing large databases. He is currently a senior solutions architect at IP Australia which is the Australian Government agency that administers intellectual property rights and legislation relating to patents, trade marks, designs, and plant breeder rights. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Sydney, and a Master of Management Economics from the University of NSW. He is currently President of the Canberra Chapter of the Data Management Association (DAMA) and was formerly Chairman of the Canberra Branch of the Australian Computer Society (ACS).
Towards Practical Private Data Integration and Analysis
Assoc Prof Bradley Malin (Vanderbilt University, Nashville)
CECS SEMINAR SERIES
DATE: 2013-08-26
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101
CONTACT: peter.christen@anu.edu.au
ABSTRACT:
Over the past decade, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that data devoid of explicit identifiers can be linked back to the identities of the individuals from which it was derived. This has made organizations increasingly apprehensive about sharing person-specific information. Yet, with the dawn of the big data age upon us, it is imperative that data sharing proliferate to ensure that researchers can validate published research findings, combine datasets to discover novel associations, and comply with open data initiatives. In this talk, I will review recent research on privacy preserving data integration strategies that are efficient, effective, and obscure personal identities in the process. This talk will further illustrate how such integration can enable biomedical association studies while obfuscating the identities of the corresponding participants.
BIO:
Bradley Malin, Ph.D., is the Vice Chair for Research and an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the School of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. He is also an Associate Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and is Affiliated Faculty in the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society. He is the founder and current director of the Health Information Privacy Laboratory (HIPLab), conducts technologies that enable privacy in the context of real world organizational, political, and health information architectures. Dr. Malin's research has been cited by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and featured in popular media outlets, including Nature News, Scientific American, and Wired magazine. He has received several awards of distinction from the American and International Medical Informatics Associations and, in 2009, he was honored as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Dr. Malin completed his education at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, where he received a bachelor's in biological sciences, a master's in data mining and knowledge discovery, a master's in public policy and management, and a doctorate in computer science.
The ACT Government has the technology to interact on-line, but the staff and MLAs are not trained in how to do this. Communicating on-line in a professional was does not come naturally, even to the digital generation. This is something people need to learn to do and be tested they are competent. The Federal Department of Finance has run some "Online engagement course for the APS", which I helped with.But more formal vocational training courses, which have specified competences are required.
| 0.807 | ||
| m³/kw | Weight kg/kw | |
| Solar panels | 0.807 | 110 |
| Generator | 0.034 | 12 |
| Fuel | 0.016 | 163 |
| Total | 0.857 | 285 |
| ISO Container | ||
| Volume ISO m³ | 33.1 | |
| Possible kw | 37 | |
| Volume m³ | 32 | |
| % total capacity | 86% | |
| Equipment kg | 10545 | |
| Container kg | 2200 | |
| Total weight kg | 12745 | |
| CH47 Capacity kg | 12700 | |
| % total capacity | 100% |
Assuming $2,000 per kw for solar panels, mounting hardware and cables. A diesel generator costs about $300 per kw. Allowing for the cost of the container and construction, the cost would be about $200,000 per unit.| Cost | $/kw |
| Solar panels | $2,000.00 |
| Generator | $302.00 |
| Fuel | $25.00 |
| Total per kw | $2,327.00 |
| Total for module | $86,099.00 |
| Shipping container | $5,000.00 |
| Total Materials | $91,099.00 |
| Build factor' | 200.00% |
| Total | $182,198.00 |
on amazon.com, but it is not clear if these are suitable for Australian cisterns.
Nature Climate Change launched in April 2011 and is a monthly journal dedicated to publishing the most significant and cutting-edge research on the science and impacts of global climate change and its implications for the economy, policy and the world at large. The journal covers the physical, biological and social sciences and strives to synthesize interdisciplinary research. Dr Bronwyn Wake works at Nature Climate Change as an Associate Editor covering the physical sciences and the marine and aquatic environment. Bronwyn will talk about her experiences as an Associate Editor, explain the philosophy of the journal and will provide advice on how to submit manuscripts to Nature Climate Change. About the Speaker: Bronwyn is a chemical oceanographer, with a PhD in trace element biogeochemistry and first class Honours in Antarctic Studies from the University of Tasmania, Australia. Her undergraduate work was at the Australian National University. Prior to joining Nature Climate Change in February 2012, Bronwyn was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southampton, UK and European Institute for Marine Studies, Brest, France. Her research work focused on trace metal cycling in marine waters and their roles as micronutrients for phytoplankton.
More than ever, water allocation in the Murray-Darling region depends on decisions made in Canberra. Climate change is expected to exacerbate water scarcity, adding further urgency to the challenge of adapting to a highly variable climate. Meanwhile, across the globe, Washington DC faces its own climate challenge as federal agencies attempt to coordinate States’ efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The challenge in this watershed isn’t about who gets to extract how much from the rivers and streams, but who gets to add how much – in terms of pollution. Climate change exacerbates this challenge as well, with more frequent intense storms threatening to wash additional sediment and pollution into the Bay.
With climate impacts on water resources at opposite extremes of the spectrum, what can these two regions learn from each other? Recent institutional changes in the Murray-Darling and Chesapeake regions share a number of intriguing similarities, with implications for adaptation.
This seminar aims to draw parallels between the regions as a first step in furthering cross-national policy learning and collaborative scholarship between the U.S. and Australia.
About the speaker
Dana Archer Dolan is a PhD Candidate in Public Policy at George Mason University, and a Visiting Scholar at The Australian National University. Field work in Australia is funded under an EAPSI Fellowship from the U.S. National Science Foundation, and supported by the Australian Academy of Science. Dana is grateful to her host scholar, Professor Stephen R. Dovers and Dr. Karen Hussey for their continued support and guidance, and to the wider Murray-Darling community for welcoming her during her time in Australia and participating in her research.
Synopsis:
In this paper I consider the implications of resource peaks and climate change, their possible effect on the character of war and the challenge these developments pose for the future of Australian security. The analytical approach I use is one that will be familiar to most military and security professionals, the idea that periodic Military Revolutions are responsible for discontinuous shifts in the nature of society which have a cascading effect on the parameters of what is possible (and not possible) in the art of war. I explain why conditions are becoming likely for the onset of another Military Revolution; perhaps one that has already begun but whose effect is not yet being felt. The paper will highlight that the guiding force of the coming Military Revolution will be global limits on the availability of resources, particularly food, water and energy. In making the case for the Military Revolution of Limits I will outline possible repercussions on Australian society that will effect the Army and suggest ways forward in order to adjust to coming changes.
Biography:
Dr. Albert Palazzo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Army’s Land Warfare Studies Centre in Canberra. His Ph.D. is from The Ohio State University and his thesis was published as Seeking Victory on The Western Front: The British Army & Chemical Warfare in World War I. He has written widely on warfare in the modern age and on the Australian Army in particular. His many publications include: The Australian Army: A History of its Organisation, 1901-2001; Battle of Crete; Australian Military Operations in Vietnam; Moltke to bin Laden: The Relevance of Doctrine in Contemporary Military Environment and The Future of War Debate in Australia. His current research concerns the implications resource shortages to lead to conflict and the waging of war in an age of mutually assured precision.
IR and friends
Scalable mobile video retrieval with sparse projection learning and pseudo label mining
Lexing Xie (ANU)
Monday 19 August 2013
Retrieving relevant videos from a large corpus on mobile devices is a vital challenge. We address two key issues for mobile search on user-generated videos. The first is the lack of good relevance measurement, due to the unconstrained nature of online videos, for learning semantic-rich representations. The second is due to the limited resource on mobile devices, stringent bandwidth, and delay requirement between the device and the video server.
We propose a knowledge-embedded sparse projection learning approach. To alleviate the need for expensive annotation for hash learning, we investigate varying approaches for pseudo label mining, where explicit semantic analysis leverages Wikipedia and performs the best. In addition, we propose a novel sparse projection method to address the efficiency challenge. It learns a discriminative compact representation that drastically reduces transmission cost. With less than 10% non-zero element in the projection matrix, it also reduces computational and storage cost.
The experimental results on 100K videos show that our proposed algorithm is competitive in the performance to the prior state-of-the-art hashing methods which are not applicable for mobiles and solely rely on costly manual annotations. The average query time on 100K videos consumes only 0.592 seconds. This is joint work with Guan-Long Wu, Winston Hsu and others in National Taiwan University....
Caroline Pidcock is an architect with genuine interest and experience in sustainable built environments. This has been developed and enhanced through her involvement in a wide range of professional, academic and other commitments. This includes current roles as Chair of the Living Future Institute Australia and Carriageworks, and past roles as lecturer/tutor at a number of Universities."The Magic of Australia" in the title of Caroline talk is a reference to Marion's book The Magic of America, the surviving drafts of which were placed on the web by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. This work ranges over issues of democracy and spiritualism, as well as architecture and land use planning. Similarly tonight's talk ranges over issues of democracy, education, the Internet and equity in Australia.
The annual Marion Mahony Griffin Lecture, instituted in 2009, has attracted capacity audiences. The Lectures have focussed on particular facets of Marion’s personality, architectural career in the USA, Australia and India, creative works as architect, illustrator and graphic artist, passionate life interests and her marriage and partnership with Walter Burley Griffin. Recently, Griffin scholars have been publishing much more and new material about Marion and her achievements. Her life with Walter and her role in producing the winning plan for the National Capital are bound to be of keen popular interest in Canberra’s 2013 Centenary celebrations.
ABSTRACT: The first global energy crises of 1973 and 1979 initiated a large number of energy studies within the United States that outlined future energy scenarios. Many experts expected a growth in solar and other renewables during the last few decades of the 20th century. That expectation did not occur, primarily because the crises disappeared and the price of oil in the US remained low. Recently, climate change scenarios, a more receptive political climate, and a successful growth in renewables in Europe has set the stage for another possible rise in these technologies in the US. Several global indicators suggest that this time the rise in renewables may be successful. But there are problems. The principle hindrance to PV penetration on the electrical grid comes from the inherited cost of already built power generation facilities, which become less and less needed as PV comes on line. The utilities are worried about paying for them. They are also worried that renewables cannot provide the same level of grid security and stability that traditional fuels have provided. This talk is about the current perspective of several US utilities and Independent System Operators (ISOs) as they speak about these problems in their own words. We will examine the projects that operators in several states have put in place to gather data on the effects that PV actually has on the grid system. We will also discuss projects underway by the Department of Energy and the NREL. Lastly we will talk about an interesting project now underway in Belgium to study the efficacy of micro-grids.
BIO: Arnold McKinley worked as an intern in the Electrical Planning Department at San Diego Gas and Electric company in the early 1970's. In 1977 he led a multi-disciplinary team of faculty, graduate students and industry experts at Stanford University in a study of the US Energy System to the year 2025 for the US Department of Energy. He co-taught a course at San Diego State University on Energy issues in the Physics Department in the early 1980's. From 2005-2009, he worked as Senior Scientist at Apparent, Inc a startup in California on a micro-inverter for PV solar modules. He wrote the internet applications used to browse data from the device and wrote several papers on how micro-inverters can help manage voltage levels and reactive power flow on the electrical grid. His name appears on two of the patents. Since coming to the ANU in 2010 to work on a PhD, he has lectured on renewables and grid integration in several courses.
The Lowy Institute is pleased to invite you to the launch of The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia: from Darul Islam to Jema'ah Islamiyah by a leading expert in Islamic extremism in Indonesia, Solahudin. Published jointly by the Lowy Institute and New South Publishing, the book is an edited English language edition of Solahudin's best selling NII Sampai JI: Salafy Jihadisme di Indonesia, translated by the Lowy Institute's Dr Dave McRae. Based on a remarkable array of original sources it shows how the ideas and form of activism that lead to the Bali Bombings in 2002 have a long and complex history, stretching back to the Darul Islam revolt in the 1950s. The translation and publication of the book was supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Speakers at the launch will include Professor the Hon. Gareth Evans AC QC, Chancellor of the Australian National University, Allaster Cox, First Assistant Secretary, South-East Asia Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the book's author Solahudin. ...
ANU China Seminar Series
ANU College of Asia & the Pacific
Australian Centre on China in the World
E-monitoring and regime improvement in China: technical capabilities and systemic limitations
Information technologies are often regarded as “liberation technologies” (Larry Diamond), because mobile phones and the Internet enable citizens to organize and coordinate resistance against autocratic rule. However, all political systems – democracies and autocracies alike – depend fundamentally on information feedbacks to maintain their equilibrium, and digital technologies greatly facilitate the gathering and processing of such information. The better the information flows between regime and society are, the more political authorities are able to fine-tune their policies in line with the stability requirements of the system.
The “liberation technology” perspective misses that information technologies can also serve to stabilize autocratic regimes, for example by enhancing surveillance, accountability, indoctrination, and participation. It follows that improved information flows can both strengthen and undermine autocratic rule, and the puzzle is how autocratic regime elites deal with this dilemma. China is a good case to study this question, because an increasing number of local governments is applying information technologies to strengthen their “social management” (shehui guanli) capabilities.
The talk contributes to a better understanding of the capabilities and limitations of e-monitoring in China by introducing the results of first-hand research an e-monitoring platform in a Chinese province. It illuminates how information technologies are used to gather information about the preferences and grievances of the local population, how this information is processed, and how it motivates government action. On the other hand, it sheds light on the systemic limitations that prevent such solutions from being implemented more broadly than is presently the case.
About the Speaker
Christian Göbel is Professor of Modern China Studies at Vienna University. His current research projects examine the role of change agents in policy innovation in China and the impact of information technology on the operation of non-democratic regimes. He was trained in Political Science and China Studies in Erlangen, Taipei, Heidelberg and Duisburg. Previous to his appointment to Vienna, he held positions in Lund and Heidelberg. He is the author of "The Politics of Rural Reform in China" (Routledge 2010) and "The Politics of Community Building in Urban China" (Routledge 2011, with Thomas Heberer) and has published widely on topics related to state-society relations and political reform in China and Taiwan. ...
"Its failure, attended by enormous cost, damage to government and impact on workforce, may be the most spectacular example of all the unsuccessful attempts to impose a uniform solution on a highly complicated and individualised agency. ...
The system did not perform adequately with terrible consequences for the employees of QH and equally serious financial consequences for the State.
After many months of anguished activity during which employees of Queensland Health endured hardship and uncertainty, a functioning payroll system was developed, but it is very costly. It required about 1,000 employees to process data in order to deliver fortnightly pays11. It is estimated that it will cost about $1.2B over the next eight years12. ...
The replacement of the QH payroll system must take a place in the front rank of failures in public administration in this country. It may be the worst. ..."
Table of Contents
Introduction 9
1. Procurement 15
- Introduction .15
- Reviews of the SS Initiative 16
- Request for Information (RFI) 36
- Request for Proposal (RFP) 37
- Invitation to Tender (ITO) .57
- Procurement: Conclusions .85
2. Contract and Project Management 90
- Introduction .90
- Overview 92
- The Contract 99
- Scoping 100
- The Deficient System and the Opportunities to Redress it ..113
- The Decision to Go Live 143
3. Settlement 170
- Introduction 170
- Preliminary Observations 171
- The Supplemental Agreement 171
- Factors that Influenced the Decision ...194
- Mr Reid 206
- Mr Grierson 208
- Conclusions 210
4. Summary 213
5. Recommendations 217
- Introduction 217
- Lessons to be Learned 217
- Project Management for Future Projects 220
- Future of the Queensland Health Payroll System 220
- Principles of Project Management 221
Appendicies 225
- Establishment and Operations 226
- QH Payroll System Timeline 230
- Opening Remarks 232
- Copy of Public Notice 244
- Acknowledgements 245
- Inquiry Staff 246
- Legal Representatives 247
- Exhibits List 248
- Report Glossary 258
To facilitate an undisturbed growth we must first place the different parts of the town in groups, so that each can grow without encumbering the other. We must moreover set down the plan for the nearest surroundings of the town and choose suitable places for its future suburbs, each with a character of its own.
We have, -
(a) the official town with the Houses of Parliament, the Ministerial Buildings, and all houses which are to surround them.
(b) the university quarter;
(c) the military quarter;
(d) the commercial quarter;
(e) the industrial quarter with its population of workmen;
(f) the quarter for hospitals etc....
4 Key highlights
Implementing the strategy
Over the past year we have made significant progress in implementing the Greening Government ICT strategy. Not only have the roadmap and maturity model been adopted across government departments, but these departments now have plans in place to reach level 3 of the model, the government target is to meet level 3 by 2015. The average green IT maturity score for departments is now 2.9 compared to 2.4 last year.The Green ICT Delivery Unit (GDU)A forum of government and wider public sector green IT sustainability leads. It’s primary function is to lead the development of the Greening Government ICT Strategy and drive forward its implementation.
Progress has been made in measuring our technology related energy usage and in signing up to the EU Code of Conduct. The Green ICT Delivery Unit (GDU) continues to drive efficiencies and is looking to modernise ways of working using technology to reduce travel, improve collaboration and find better ways to reuse and recycle IT equipment.Data centresWith the increase in the use of online services for government transactions, data centres are a key focus of the GDU and government’s green IT strategy. Four government departments have endorsed the EU’s Code of Conduct for Data Centres1 over the past year and a number of other organisations are progressing towards this goal. In addition a number of data centres used by suppliers to government are now registered as participants under the Code.
Defra is currently working to design guidance for buyers on effective practice for procuring energy efficient data centre services and ensuring sustainability has a high profile in contract management for the increasing number of cloud hosting services being used. The guidance has been discussed with Intellect, the UK industry bodyrepresenting both larger industry players and hundreds of smaller companies, and this is being coordinated with input from other government stakeholders. There have also been discussions with the European Commission via its EU wide Green Public Procurement process2.
Recycling and reducing wasteIT RecyclingThe GPS agreement was used to dispose of 66,448 items, of which 33,514 were resold, generating £405,881.68. A further 8738 items were able to be donated, further reducing the items sent for disposal.Recycling of IT is key to achieving efficiencies and being greener. The Government Procurement Service (GPS) offers organisations a method for recycling IT assets. The service agreement has been used by at least 33 bodies including schools, councils, agencies and government departments.Currently work is underway in the GPS to refresh the service agreement to increase the financial benefits. This will focus on money raised from the recovery and sale of components plus that of rare and valuable raw materials, and the sustainability benefits, for example, reducing waste sent to landfill or for incineration.
Public service deliveryIn the last year the Government Digital Service published the Government Digital Strategy. This was followed by the publication of individual digital strategies by government departments. These strategies are fundamental to shifting government’s approach to interacting with citizens and businesses. The shift will need to be supported by the right technologies and systems to make the most efficient use of hardware and power. Digital by default also reduces the environmental impact of physical and paper based processes by using technology to create more cost effective, efficient and user-centred online services.
The move to digital by default is crucial as shown by the shift to online in HMRC which has seen more than 80 per cent of HMRC’s tax returns submitted via the internet. These online submissions have resulted in a big paper saving alongside cutting the carbon emissions by 760 tonnes. The use of different channels like SMS for alerts, have also played their part in reducing paper. Streamlining processes has also improved sustainability and efficiency, HMRC now send one Tax Credits award notice to joint households, for example, whereas previously each person in a household would have received a separate letter.3
Exploiting collaborative toolsDepartments continue to maintain effective working whilst reducing business travel by conducting their business via video, web and teleconferencing. The Home Office extended to all staff members its departmental contract for teleconferencing facilities (this was previously only available to a small number of staff). MOD increased its use of videoconferencing and teleconferencing as part of its travel budget cuts and efficiencies. Peer-to-peer instant messaging is now available and a peer-to-peer webcam trial is underway. These tools and other methods of remote working were used to help reduce travel by government employees during the Olympic games.
The Public Services Network (PSN) continues to drive sustainable savings and efficiencies by removing duplicate network connections, providing simpler procurement and greater competition, and allowing public sector employees to work in more flexible, collaborative ways. PSN creates a common network of networks and a more open and competitive telecommunications marketplace for the UK public sector. It provides assured networks, based on industry standards, over which government can safely share services, including many G-Cloud services, to collaborate in new ways, substantially reducing the cost of communication services across UK Government and enabling new, joined-up and shared public services.
PartnershipThis year we have worked closely with colleagues in academia and are grateful to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)4 for sharing use of its tools to record the use of energy from operating ICT. We have also discussed our plans and sought and received feedback from Industry through Intellect events. Colleagues in local government and the National Health Service (NHS) sit on the GDU and share knowledge about green IT which helps others learn effective practices.1 http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/energyefficiency/ict-codes-conduct/data-centres-energy-efficiency2 The European equivalent of the UK’s Government Buying Standards, which identify sustainability requirements for public procuring authorities.3 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greening-government-commitments4 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
From: Greening Government: ICT Annual Report, UK Cabinet Office, July 2013
