Population structure and patterns of genetic variation in a pearl oyster (Pinctada radiata) native to the Arabian Gulf

The study assessed natural levels and patterns of genetic variation in Arabian Gulf populations of a native pearl oyster to define wild population structure considering potential intrinsic and extrinsic factors that could influence any wild structure detected. The study was also the first attempt to develop microsatellite markers and to generate a genome survey sequence (GSS) dataset for the target species using next generation sequencing technology. The partial genome dataset generated has potential biotechnological applications and for pearl oyster farming in the future.

Community college faculty's teaching social networks and their implications for librarians

Collaboration between faculty and librarians is an important topic of discussion and research among academic librarians. These partnerships between faculty and librarians are vital for enabling students to become lifelong learners through their information literacy education. This research developed an understanding of academic collaborators by analyzing a community college faculty's teaching social networks. A teaching social network, an original term generated in this study, is comprised of communications that influence faculty when they design and deliver their courses. The communication may be formal (e.g., through scholarly journals and professional development activities) and informal (e.g., through personal communication) through their network elements. Examples of the elements of a teaching social network may be department faculty, administration, librarians, professional development, and students. This research asked 'What is the nature of faculty's teaching social networks and what are the implications for librarians?' This study moves forward the existing research on collaboration, information literacy, and social network analysis. It provides both faculty and librarians with added insight into their existing and potential relationships. This research was undertaken using mixed methods. Social network analysis was the quantitative data collection methodology and the interview method was the qualitative technique. For the social network analysis data, a survey was sent to full-time faculty at Las Positas College, a community college, in California. The survey gathered the data and described the teaching social networks for faculty with respect to their teaching methods and content taught. Semi-structured interviews were conducted following the survey with a sub-set of survey respondents to understand why specific elements were included in their teaching social networks and to learn of ways for librarians to become an integral part of the teaching social networks. The majority of the faculty respondents were moderately influenced by the elements of their network except the majority of the potentials were weakly influenced by the elements in their network in their content taught. The elements with the most influence on both teaching methods and content taught were students, department faculty, professional development, and former graduate professors and coursework. The elements with the least influence on both aspects were public or academic librarians, and social media. The most popular roles for the elements were conversations about teaching, sharing ideas, tips for teaching, insights into teaching, suggestions for ways of teaching, and how to engage students. Librarians' weakly influenced faculty in their teaching methods and their content taught. The motivating factors for collaboration with librarians were that students learned how to research, students' research projects improved, faculty saved time by having librarians provide the instruction to students, and faculty built strong working relationships with librarians. The challenges of collaborating with librarians were inadequate teaching techniques used when librarians taught research orientations and lack of time. Ways librarians can be more integral in faculty's teaching social networks included: more workshops for faculty, more proactive interaction with faculty, and more one-on-one training sessions for faculty. Some of the recommendations for the librarians from this study were develop a strong rapport with faculty, librarians should build their services in information literacy from the point of view of the faculty instead of from the librarian perspective, use staff development funding to attend conferences and workshops to improve their teaching, develop more training sessions for faculty, increase marketing efforts of the librarian's instructional services, and seek grant opportunities to increase funding for the library. In addition, librarians and faculty should review the definitions of information literacy and move from a skills based interpretation to a learning process.

Loneliness, social anxiety and bullying victimization in young people : a literature review

Loneliness is a distressing, complex, universal phenomena. This review focuses on loneliness in children and adolescents, specifically examining research on the relationship between young people’s social anxiety and loneliness and the role of bullying victimization and loneliness. The three concepts are distinct, yet inextricably intertwined as antecedents and consequences of each other. The constructs are bi-directional, often forming a feedback loop or negative cycle. Implications for interventions are addressed.

Social media and its impact on crisis communication: Case studies of Twitter use in emergency management in Australia and New Zealand

There is a growing awareness worldwide of the significance of social media to communication in times of both natural and human-created disasters and crises. While the media have long been used as a means of broadcasting messages to communities in times of crisis – bushfires, floods, earthquakes etc. – the significance of social media in enabling many-to-many communication through ubiquitous networked computing and mobile media devices is becoming increasingly important in the fields of disaster and emergency management. This paper undertakes an analysis of the uses made of social media during two recent natural disasters: the January 2011 floods in Brisbane and South-East Queensland in Australia, and the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is part of a wider project being undertaken by a research team based at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, that is working with the Queensland Department of Community Safety (DCS) and the EIDOS Institute, and funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) through its Linkages program. The project combines large-scale, quantitative social media tracking and analysis techniques with qualitative cultural analysis of communication efforts by citizens and officials, to enable both emergency management authorities and news media organisations to develop, implement, and evaluate new social media strategies for emergency communication.

Social enterprises and regional development : opportunities and constraints in Australia

This thesis examines the role of social enterprises in regional development and is based on comparative case studies of two regions in NSW. With a specific focus on 10 social enterprises, including both Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations, 63 interviews were conducted with a wide range of community stakeholders. Utilising a decolonising methodological approach, the study examined the social and financial needs of these organisations, as well as their contributions as regional development actors.

Give some, get some: investigating the relationship between conspicuous donation behaviour on social media and customer value in a blood donation context

Previous research has questioned the role of altruism in charitable donation and suggests that such behaviour is also motivated by self-interest, such as public recognition or emotional satisfaction. Recognising this, not-for-profit organisations have developed strategies that allow individuals to donate conspicuously, and are at an embryonic stage of turning to social media to provide such recognition. Under investigation in this paper, is the relationship between conspicuous donation behaviour (CDB) on social media and customer value, in blood donation. Online survey results, from a sample of 186 Australian blood donors, support the proposed framework. Significant relationships between self-orientated CDB and emotional value, and other-orientated CDB and social value are demonstrated. The findings provide valuable insights into the use of conspicuous donation strategies on social media as a means to add value to the donation experience, and contribute to our understanding into the under-researched areas of CDB and customer value.

Effect of dangling chains on the structure and physical properties of a tightly crosslinked poly(ethylene glycol) network

Major imperfections in crosslinked polymers include loose or dangling chain ends that lower the crosslink d., thereby reducing elastic recovery and increasing the solvent swelling. These imperfections are hard to detect, quantify and control when the network is initiated by free radical reactions. As an alternative approach, the sol-​gel synthesis of a model poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG-​2000) network is described using controlled amts. of bis- and mono-​triethoxy silyl Pr urethane PEG precursors to give silsesquioxane (SSQ, R-​SiO1.5) structures as crosslink junctions with a controlled no. of dangling chains. The effect of the no. of dangling chains on the structure and connectivity of the dried SSQ networks has been detd. by step-​crystn. differential scanning calorimetry. The role that micelle formation plays in controlling the sol-​gel PEG network connectivity has been studied by dynamic light scattering of the bis- and mono-​triethoxy silyl precursors and the networks have been characterized by 29Si solid state NMR, sol fraction and swelling measurements. These show that the dangling chains will increase the mesh size and water uptake. Compared to other end-​linked PEG hydrogels, the SSQ-​crosslinked networks show a low sol fraction and high connectivity, which reduces solvent swelling, degree of crystallinity and the crystal transition temp. The increased degree of freedom in segment movement on the addn. of dangling chains in the SSQ-​crosslinked network facilitates the packing process in crystn. of the dry network and, in the hydrogel, helps to accommodate more water mols. before reaching equil.

Outsider board activity, ownership structure and firm value : evidence from Korea

Using a sample of publicly listed firm in Korea from 2002 to 2006, this article examines the impact of board monitoring on firm value and productivity. We use outsider's attendance of board meetings as a proxy for board monitoring. Consistent with the commitment hypothesis, we find that outsider's attendance rate increases firm value, suggesting that attending board meeting itself is a strong signal that reflects outsider's intention to monitor insiders. While ownership of controlling shareholders negatively affects firm value, this relationship is not moderated by increased monitoring by outsiders. Our findings provide further evidence that the outside director system is less effective in chaebol-affiliated firms. Results also indicate that the effect of outsider's board monitoring activity on investor's valuation of the firm is greater than on productivity improvement of the firm. Our conclusions are robust for possible endogeneity in the relationship between firm value and board attendance by outside directors.

Ethics, Law and Health Care : a Guide for Nurses and Midwives

Understanding ethics and law in health care is an essential part of nurses’ and midwives’ professional standards. Ethics, Law and Health Care focuses on teaching applied ethics and law in a manner that illustrates the real world applications of these core components of the nursing and midwifery curriculum and practice. It equips readers with the ability to recognise and address legal and ethical issues that will arise in their professional practice. The book uses the four principles of biomedical ethics (autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice) together with the use of both the Nursing and Midwifery Codes of Ethics and Codes of Professional Conduct, issued by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, as a central means through which to analyse and approach ethical and legal issues. Ethics, Law and Health Care is scaffolded to assist readers in understanding legal and ethical principles, to integrate them in the context of a particular issue within professional practice, and provide them with a decision-making framework to take action in a professional context by utilising the Codes as well as state and federal law. Aided by pedagogical features such as case studies, review questions, further reading and a glossary of common terms, this book is an essential resource for students, academics and practitioners.

Creating a Sustainability Scorecard as a predictive tool for measuring the complex social, economic and environmental impacts of industries, a case study : assessing the viability and sustainability of the dairy industry

Sustainability is a key driver for decisions in the management and future development of industries. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987) outlined imperatives which need to be met for environmental, economic and social sustainability. Development of strategies for measuring and improving sustainability in and across these domains, however, has been hindered by intense debate between advocates for one approach fearing that efforts by those who advocate for another could have unintended adverse impacts. Studies attempting to compare the sustainability performance of countries and industries have also found ratings of performance quite variable depending on the sustainability indices used. Quantifying and comparing the sustainability of industries across the triple bottom line of economy, environment and social impact continues to be problematic. Using the Australian dairy industry as a case study, a Sustainability Scorecard, developed as a Bayesian network model, is proposed as an adaptable tool to enable informed assessment, dialogue and negotiation of strategies at a global level as well as being suitable for developing local solutions.

Survival tucker : improved diet and health indicators in an Aboriginal community

The poor nutritional status of Aboriginal Australians is a serious and complex public health concern. We describe an unusually successful health and nutrition project initiated by the people of Minjilang, which was developed, implemented and evaluated with the community. Apparent community dietary intake, assessed by the ‘store-turnover’ method, and biochemical, anthropometric and haematological indicators of health and nutritional status were measured before intervention and at three-monthly intervals during the intervention year. Following intervention, there was a significant decrease in dietary intake of sugar and saturated fat, an increase in micronutrient density, corresponding improvements in biochemical indices (for example, a 12 per cent decrease in mean serum cholesterol, increases in serum and red cell folate, serum vitamin B6 and plasma ascorbic acid), decrease in mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures, a normalisation of body mass index, and a normalisation of haematologic indices. The success of this project demonstrates that Aboriginal communities can bring about improvements in their generally poor nutritional status, and that the store-turnover method provides a valid, inexpensive and noninvasive method for evaluating the resultant changes in community diet. Although the project was undoubtedly effective in the short term, further work is in progress to assess individual strategies with respect to sustainability, cost-effectiveness and generalisability.

Social media and journalism during times of crisis

Around lunchtime on 22 February 2011, the New Zealand city of Christchurch – the country’s second largest city – was hit by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. Built on a geological faultline, like Los Angeles and Tokyo, Christchurch is no stranger to tremors; indeed, it had experienced a magnitude 7.1 quake just months before, in September 2010, and technically, this new earthquake was no more than an aftershock of the earlier tremor. That earlier quake had caused significant structural damage, but no fatalities, but the February earthquake was different: with its epicentre located no more than ten kilometres from the Christchurch city centre, at a depth of only five kilometres, it proved considerably more destructive – and it affected buildings whose structural integrity had already been severely compromised by the September quake, in the middle of a weekday when schools and city offices would have been fully occupied. While the full death toll has yet to be determined, it is estimated at close to 200.

An exploratory study of grief and health-related quality of life for caregivers of people with dementia

The aim of this qualitative study was to explore key positive and negative factors that impact on grief resolution and health outcomes of caregivers who were caring, or had cared, for a family member with dementia who had died. The study was a scoping study and involved face-to-face interviews with these family caregivers (N ¼ 13). Results indicated a complex interaction of issues (many unique to dementia caregiving) which in different combinations acted as protective or risk factors for caregiver outcomes. Interaction of individual characteristics, role appraisal, value of intrinsic and extrinsic resources, and experiences with health professionals during the caregiving period and around the death of their relative were shown to have the most influence on caregiver outcomes. Psychological resilience and satisfaction with caregiving were protective against negative outcomes while unresolved grief was a risk factor. These findings highlight the potential benefits of multicomponent, holistic dementia caregiver interventions.