Translating vision research into policy and practice to improve visibility, and hence safety, of road workers at night

This case study report describes the stages involved in the translation of research on night-time visibility into standards for the safety clothing worn by roadworkers. Vision research demonstrates that when lights are placed on the moveable joints of the body and the person moves in a dark setting, the phenomenon known as “biological motion or biomotion” occurs, enabling rapid and accurate recognition of the human form although only the lights can be seen. QUT was successful in gaining funding from the Australian Research Council for a Linkage grant due to the support of the predecessors of the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) to research the biomotion effect in on-road settings using materials that feature in roadworker clothing. Although positive results were gained, the process of translating the research results into policy, practices and standards relied strongly on the supportive efforts of TMR staff engaged in the review and promulgation of national standards. The ultimate result was the incorporation of biomotion marking into AS/NZS 4602.1 2011. The experiences gained in this case provide insights into the processes involved in translating research into practice.

Immigrant wage differentials and the role of self-employment in Australia

Immigration has played an important role in the historical development of Australia. Thus, it is no surprise that a large body of empirical work has developed, which focuses upon how migrants fare in the land of opportunity. Much of the literature is comparatively recent, i.e. the last ten years or so, encouraged by the advent of public availability of Australian crosssection micro data. Several different aspects of migrant welfare have been addressed, with major emphasis being placed upon earnings and unemployment experience. For recent examples see Haig (1980), Stromback (1984), Chiswick and Miller (1985), Tran-Nam and Nevile (1988) and Beggs and Chapman (1988). The present paper contributes to the literature by providing additional empirical evidence on the native/migrant earnings differential. The data utilised are from the rather neglected Australian Bureau of Statistics, ABS Special Supplementary Survey No.4. 1982, otherwise known as the Family Survey. The paper also examines the importance of distinguishing between the wage and salary sector and the self-employment sector when discussing native/migrant differentials. Separate earnings equations for the two labour market groups are estimated and the native/migrant earnings differential is broken down by employment status. This is a novel application in the Australian context and provides some insight into the earnings of the selfemployed, a group that despite its size (around 20 per cent of the labour force) is frequently ignored by economic research. Most previous empirical research fails to examine the effect of employment status on earnings. Stromback (1984) includes a dummy variable representing self-employment status in an earnings equation estimated over a pooled sample of paid and self-employed workers. The variable is found to be highly significant, which leads Stromback to question the efficacy of including the self-employed in the estimation sample. The suggestion is that part of self-employed earnings represent a return to non-human capital investment, i.e. investments in machinery, buildings etc, the structural determinants of earnings differ significantly from those for paid employees. Tran-Nam and Nevile (1988) deal with differences between paid employees and the selfemployed by deleting the latter from their sample. However, deleting the self-employed from the estimation sample may lead to bias in the OLS estimation method (see Heckman 1979). The desirable properties of OLS are dependent upon estimation on a random sample. Thus, the 'Ran-Nam and Nevile results are likely to suffer from bias unless individuals are randomly allocated between self-employment and paid employment. The current analysis extends Tran-Nam and Nevile (1988) by explicitly treating the choice of paid employment versus self-employment as being endogenously determined. This allows an explicit test for the appropriateness of deleting self-employed workers from the sample. Earnings equations that are corrected for sample selection are estimated for both natives and migrants in the paid employee sector. The Heckman (1979) two-step estimator is employed. The paper is divided into five major sections. The next section presents the econometric model incorporating the specification of the earnings generating process together with an explicit model determining an individual's employment status. In Section 111 the data are described. Section IV draws together the main econometric results of the paper. First, the probit estimates of the labour market status equation are documented. This is followed by presentation and discussion of the Heckman two-stage estimates of the earnings specification for both native and migrant Australians. Separate earnings equations are estimated for paid employees and the self-employed. Section V documents estimates of the nativelmigrant earnings differential for both categories of employees. To aid comparison with earlier work, the Oaxaca decomposition of the earnings differential for paid-employees is carried out for both the simple OLS regression results as well as the parameter estimates corrected for sample selection effects. These differentials are interpreted and compared with previous Australian findings. A short section concludes the paper.

The right to choose an assisted death : time for legislation?

The legal framework that operates at the end of life in Australia needs to be reformed. • Voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide are currently unlawful. • Both activities nevertheless occur not infrequently in Australia, in part because palliative care cannot relieve physical and psychological pain and suffering in all cases. • In this respect, the law is deficient. The law is also unfair because it doesn’t treat people equally. Some people can be helped to die on their own terms as a result of their knowledge and/or connections while some are able to hasten their death by the refusal of life-sustaining treatment. But others do not have access to the means for their life to end. • A very substantial majority of Australians have repeatedly expressed in public opinion polls their desire for law reform on these matters. Many are concerned at what they see is happening to their loved ones as they reach the end of their lives, and want the confidence that when their time comes they will be able to exercise choice in relation to assisted dying. • The most consistent reason advanced not to change the law is the need to protect the vulnerable. There is a concern that if the law allows voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide for some people, it will be expanded and abused, including pressures being placed on highly dependent people and those with disabilities to agree to euthanasia. • But there is now a large body of experience in a number of international jurisdictions following the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia and/or assisted suicide. This shows that appropriate safeguards can be implemented to protect vulnerable people and prevent the abuse that opponents of assisted dying have feared. It reveals that assisted dying meets a real need among a small minority of people at the end of their lives. It also provides reassurance to people with terminal and incurable disease that they will not be left to suffer the indignities and discomfort of a nasty death. • Australia is an increasingly secular society. Strong opposition to assisted death by religious groups that is based on their belief in divine sanctity of all human life is not a justification for denying choice for those who do not share that belief. • It is now time for Australian legislators to respond to this concern and this experience by legislating to enhance the quality of death for those Australians who seek assisted dying.

Why are children the most important audience for pornography in Australia?

Who watches pornography in Australia? If you listen to public debates about the genre the answer is clear – it’s children. Children are accessing pornography on smartphones (Murray and Tin 2011). Children are taking ‘lewd’ photographs of themselves, creating their own pornography (Nelligan and Etheridge 2011). Indigenous Australian children must be protected by banning pornography (the Age 2011). Pornographic magazines are placed where children can see them (O'Rourke 2011). Exposure to pornography is damaging children (Sundstrom 2011). The Australian Government insists that the Internet must be filtered to protect children from pornography (Collerton 2010). And if indeed any adults are watching pornography in Australia, then it’s child pornography (MacDonald 2011; Ralston and Howden 2011).In story after story, public debate about pornography focuses on children as its audience. There is no suggestion that children are numerically the largest audience of pornography in Australia. But emphatically the suggestion is that children are the most important audience to be taken into account when thinking about the genre. This chapter explores why this is the case, and notes the political advantages and disadvantages of focusing on children as the most important audience for pornography in Australia.

Oriented graphitic carbon films for hydrogen gas sensors

An oriented graphitic nanostructured carbon film has been employed as a conductometric hydrogen gas sensor. The carbon film was energetically deposited using a filtered cathodic vacuum arc with a -75 V bias applied to a stainless steel grid placed 1cm from the surface of the Si substrate. The substrate was heated to 400°C prior to deposition. Electron microscopy showed evidence that the film consisted largely of vertically oriented graphitic sheets and had a density of 2.06 g/cm3. 76% of the atoms were bonded in sp2 or graphitic configurations. A change in the device resistance of >; 1.5% was exhibited upon exposure to 1 % hydrogen gas (in synthetic, zero humidity air) at 100°C. The time for the sensor resistance to increase by 1.5 % under these conditions was approximately 60 s and the baseline (zero hydrogen exposure) resistance remained constant to within 0.01% during and after the hydrogen exposures.

Pt/Graphene Nano-sheet Based Hydrogen Gas Sensor

In this paper, we present gas sensing properties of Pt/graphene-like nano-sheets towards hydrogen gas. The graphene-like nano-sheets were produced via the reduction of spray-coated graphite oxide deposited on SiC substrates by hydrazine vapor. Structural and morphological characterizations of the graphene sheets were analyzed by scanning electron and atomic force microscopy. Current-voltage and dynamic responses of the sensors were investigated towards different concentrations of hydrogen gas in a synthetic air mixture at 100°C. A voltage shift of 100 mV was recorded at 1 mA reverse bias current.

Speaker diarization : "who spoke when"

Speaker diarization is the process of annotating an input audio with information that attributes temporal regions of the audio signal to their respective sources, which may include both speech and non-speech events. For speech regions, the diarization system also specifies the locations of speaker boundaries and assign relative speaker labels to each homogeneous segment of speech. In short, speaker diarization systems effectively answer the question of ‘who spoke when’. There are several important applications for speaker diarization technology, such as facilitating speaker indexing systems to allow users to directly access the relevant segments of interest within a given audio, and assisting with other downstream processes such as summarizing and parsing. When combined with automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems, the metadata extracted from a speaker diarization system can provide complementary information for ASR transcripts including the location of speaker turns and relative speaker segment labels, making the transcripts more readable. Speaker diarization output can also be used to localize the instances of specific speakers to pool data for model adaptation, which in turn boosts transcription accuracies. Speaker diarization therefore plays an important role as a preliminary step in automatic transcription of audio data. The aim of this work is to improve the usefulness and practicality of speaker diarization technology, through the reduction of diarization error rates. In particular, this research is focused on the segmentation and clustering stages within a diarization system. Although particular emphasis is placed on the broadcast news audio domain and systems developed throughout this work are also trained and tested on broadcast news data, the techniques proposed in this dissertation are also applicable to other domains including telephone conversations and meetings audio. Three main research themes were pursued: heuristic rules for speaker segmentation, modelling uncertainty in speaker model estimates, and modelling uncertainty in eigenvoice speaker modelling. The use of heuristic approaches for the speaker segmentation task was first investigated, with emphasis placed on minimizing missed boundary detections. A set of heuristic rules was proposed, to govern the detection and heuristic selection of candidate speaker segment boundaries. A second pass, using the same heuristic algorithm with a smaller window, was also proposed with the aim of improving detection of boundaries around short speaker segments. Compared to single threshold based methods, the proposed heuristic approach was shown to provide improved segmentation performance, leading to a reduction in the overall diarization error rate. Methods to model the uncertainty in speaker model estimates were developed, to address the difficulties associated with making segmentation and clustering decisions with limited data in the speaker segments. The Bayes factor, derived specifically for multivariate Gaussian speaker modelling, was introduced to account for the uncertainty of the speaker model estimates. The use of the Bayes factor also enabled the incorporation of prior information regarding the audio to aid segmentation and clustering decisions. The idea of modelling uncertainty in speaker model estimates was also extended to the eigenvoice speaker modelling framework for the speaker clustering task. Building on the application of Bayesian approaches to the speaker diarization problem, the proposed approach takes into account the uncertainty associated with the explicit estimation of the speaker factors. The proposed decision criteria, based on Bayesian theory, was shown to generally outperform their non- Bayesian counterparts.

Developing a method for assessing product inclusivity

In order to develop more inclusive products and services, designers need a means of assessing the inclusivity of existing products and new concepts. Following previous research on the development of scales for inclusive design at University of Cambridge, Engineering Design Centre (EDC) [1], this paper presents the latest version of the exclusion audit method. For a specific product interaction, this estimates the proportion of the Great British population who would be excluded from using a product or service, due to the demands the product places on key user capabilities. A critical part of the method involves rating of the level of demand placed by a task on a range of key user capabilities, so the procedure to perform this assessment was operationalised and then its reliability was tested with 31 participants. There was no evidence that participants rated the same demands consistently. The qualitative results from the experiment suggest that the consistency of participants’ demand level ratings could be significantly improved if the audit materials and their instructions better guided the participant through the judgement process.

A catchment modelling approach integrating surface and groundwater processes, land use and distribution of nutrients : Elimbah Creek, southeast Queensland

As the world’s population is growing, so is the demand for agricultural products. However, natural nitrogen (N) fixation and phosphorus (P) availability cannot sustain the rising agricultural production, thus, the application of N and P fertilisers as additional nutrient sources is common. It is those anthropogenic activities that can contribute high amounts of organic and inorganic nutrients to both surface and groundwaters resulting in degradation of water quality and a possible reduction of aquatic life. In addition, runoff and sewage from urban and residential areas can contain high amounts of inorganic and organic nutrients which may also affect water quality. For example, blooms of the cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscula along the coastline of southeast Queensland are an indicator of at least short term decreases of water quality. Although Australian catchments, including those with intensive forms of land use, show in general a low export of nutrients compared to North American and European catchments, certain land use practices may still have a detrimental effect on the coastal environment. Numerous studies are reported on nutrient cycling and associated processes on a catchment scale in the Northern Hemisphere. Comparable studies in Australia, in particular in subtropical regions are, however, limited and there is a paucity in the data, in particular for inorganic and organic forms of nitrogen and phosphorus; these nutrients are important limiting factors in surface waters to promote algal blooms. Therefore, the monitoring of N and P and understanding the sources and pathways of these nutrients within a catchment is important in coastal zone management. Although Australia is the driest continent, in subtropical regions such as southeast Queensland, rainfall patterns have a significant effect on runoff and thus the nutrient cycle at a catchment scale. Increasingly, these rainfall patterns are becoming variable. The monitoring of these climatic conditions and the hydrological response of agricultural catchments is therefore also important to reduce the anthropogenic effects on surface and groundwater quality. This study consists of an integrated hydrological–hydrochemical approach that assesses N and P in an environment with multiple land uses. The main aim is to determine the nutrient cycle within a representative coastal catchment in southeast Queensland, the Elimbah Creek catchment. In particular, the investigation confirms the influence associated with forestry and agriculture on N and P forms, sources, distribution and fate in the surface and groundwaters of this subtropical setting. In addition, the study determines whether N and P are subject to transport into the adjacent estuary and thus into the marine environment; also considered is the effect of local topography, soils and geology on N and P sources and distribution. The thesis is structured on four components individually reported. The first paper determines the controls of catchment settings and processes on stream water, riverbank sediment, and shallow groundwater N and P concentrations, in particular during the extended dry conditions that were encountered during the study. Temporal and spatial factors such as seasonal changes, soil character, land use and catchment morphology are considered as well as their effect on controls over distributions of N and P in surface waters and associated groundwater. A total number of 30 surface and 13 shallow groundwater sampling sites were established throughout the catchment to represent dominant soil types and the land use upstream of each sampling location. Sampling comprises five rounds and was conducted over one year between October 2008 and November 2009. Surface water and groundwater samples were analysed for all major dissolved inorganic forms of N and for total N. Phosphorus was determined in the form of dissolved reactive P (predominantly orthophosphate) and total P. In addition, extracts of stream bank sediments and soil grab samples were analysed for these N and P species. Findings show that major storm events, in particular after long periods of drought conditions, are the driving force of N cycling. This is expressed by higher inorganic N concentrations in the agricultural subcatchment compared to the forested subcatchment. Nitrate N is the dominant inorganic form of N in both the surface and groundwaters and values are significantly higher in the groundwaters. Concentrations in the surface water range from 0.03 to 0.34 mg N L..1; organic N concentrations are considerably higher (average range: 0.33 to 0.85 mg N L..1), in particular in the forested subcatchment. Average NO3-N in the groundwater has a range of 0.39 to 2.08 mg N L..1, and organic N averages between 0.07 and 0.3 mg N L..1. The stream bank sediments are dominated by organic N (range: 0.53 to 0.65 mg N L..1), and the dominant inorganic form of N is NH4-N with values ranging between 0.38 and 0.41 mg N L..1. Topography and soils, however, were not to have a significant effect on N and P concentrations in waters. Detectable phosphorus in the surface and groundwaters of the catchment is limited to several locations typically in the proximity of areas with intensive animal use; in soil and sediments, P is negligible. In the second paper, the stable isotopes of N (14N/15N) and H2O (16O/18O and 2H/H) in surface and groundwaters are used to identify sources of dissolved inorganic and organic N in these waters, and to determine their pathways within the catchment; specific emphasis is placed on the relation of forestry and agriculture. Forestry is predominantly concentrated in the northern subcatchment (Beerburrum Creek) while agriculture is mainly found in the southern subcatchment (Six Mile Creek). Results show that agriculture (horticulture, crops, grazing) is the main source of inorganic N in the surface waters of the agricultural subcatchment, and their isotopic signature shows a close link to evaporation processes that may occur during water storage in farm dams that are used for irrigation. Groundwaters are subject to denitrification processes that may result in reduced dissolved inorganic N concentrations. Soil organic matter delivers most of the inorganic N to the surface water in the forested subcatchment. Here, precipitation and subsequently runoff is the main source of the surface waters. Groundwater in this area is affected by agricultural processes. The findings also show that the catchment can attenuate the effects of anthropogenic land use on surface water quality. Riparian strips of natural remnant vegetation, commonly 50 to 100 m in width, act as buffer zones along the drainage lines in the catchment and remove inorganic N from the soil water before it enters the creek. These riparian buffer zones are common in most agricultural catchments of southeast Queensland and are indicated to reduce the impact of agriculture on stream water quality and subsequently on the estuary and marine environments. This reduction is expressed by a significant decrease in DIN concentrations from 1.6 mg N L..1 to 0.09 mg N L..1, and a decrease in the �15N signatures from upstream surface water locations downstream to the outlet of the agricultural subcatchment. Further testing is, however, necessary to confirm these processes. Most importantly, the amount of N that is transported to the adjacent estuary is shown to be negligible. The third and fourth components of the thesis use a hydrological catchment model approach to determine the water balance of the Elimbah Creek catchment. The model is then used to simulate the effects of land use on the water balance and nutrient loads of the study area. The tool that is used is the internationally widely applied Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Knowledge about the water cycle of a catchment is imperative in nutrient studies as processes such as rainfall, surface runoff, soil infiltration and routing of water through the drainage system are the driving forces of the catchment nutrient cycle. Long-term information about discharge volumes of the creeks and rivers do, however, not exist for a number of agricultural catchments in southeast Queensland, and such information is necessary to calibrate and validate numerical models. Therefore, a two-step modelling approach was used to calibrate and validate parameters values from a near-by gauged reference catchment as starting values for the ungauged Elimbah Creek catchment. Transposing monthly calibrated and validated parameter values from the reference catchment to the ungauged catchment significantly improved model performance showing that the hydrological model of the catchment of interest is a strong predictor of the water water balance. The model efficiency coefficient EF shows that 94% of the simulated discharge matches the observed flow whereas only 54% of the observed streamflow was simulated by the SWAT model prior to using the validated values from the reference catchment. In addition, the hydrological model confirmed that total surface runoff contributes the majority of flow to the surface water in the catchment (65%). Only a small proportion of the water in the creek is contributed by total base-flow (35%). This finding supports the results of the stable isotopes 16O/18O and 2H/H, which show the main source of water in the creeks is either from local precipitation or irrigation waters delivered by surface runoff; a contribution from the groundwater (baseflow) to the creeks could not be identified using 16O/18O and 2H/H. In addition, the SWAT model calculated that around 68% of the rainfall occurring in the catchment is lost through evapotranspiration reflecting the prevailing long-term drought conditions that were observed prior and during the study. Stream discharge from the forested subcatchment was an order of magnitude lower than discharge from the agricultural Six Mile Creek subcatchment. A change in land use from forestry to agriculture did not significantly change the catchment water balance, however, nutrient loads increased considerably. Conversely, a simulated change from agriculture to forestry resulted in a significant decrease of nitrogen loads. The findings of the thesis and the approach used are shown to be of value to catchment water quality monitoring on a wider scale, in particular the implications of mixed land use on nutrient forms, distributions and concentrations. The study confirms that in the tropics and subtropics the water balance is affected by extended dry periods and seasonal rainfall with intensive storm events. In particular, the comprehensive data set of inorganic and organic N and P forms in the surface and groundwaters of this subtropical setting acquired during the one year sampling program may be used in similar catchment hydrological studies where these detailed information is missing. Also, the study concludes that riparian buffer zones along the catchment drainage system attenuate the transport of nitrogen from agricultural sources in the surface water. Concentrations of N decreased from upstream to downstream locations and were negligible at the outlet of the catchment.

The effects of cold air (-110°C) and water (8°C) cryotherapy on knee skin temperature

Exposure to cold air, whole body cryotherapy (WBC), is a novel treatment employed by athletes. In WBC individuals dressed in minimal clothing are exposed to a temperature below -100°C for 2-4 min. The use of WBC has been advocated as a treatment for various knee injuries. PURPOSE: To compare the effects of two modalities of cryotherapy, -110°C WBC and 8°C cold water immersion (CWI) on knee skin temperature (Tsk). METHODS: With ethical approval and written informed consent 10 healthy active male participants (26.5±4.9 yr, 183.5±6.0 cm, 90.7±19.9 kg, 26.8±5.0 kg/m2, 23.0±9.3% body fat (measured by DXA), 7.6 ± 2.0 mm patellar skin fold; mean±SD) were exposed to 4 min of CWI and WBC. The treatment order was randomised in a controlled crossover design, with a minimum of 7 days between treatments. During WBC participants stood in a chamber (-60±3°C) for 20 s before entering the main chamber (-110°C±3°C) where they remained for 3 min and 40 s. For CWI participants were seated in a tank filled with cold water (8±0.3°C) and immersed to the level of the sternum for 4 min. Right knee Tsk was assessed via non-contact, infrared thermal imaging. A quadrilateral region of interest was created using inert markers placed 5 cm above and below the most superior and inferior aspect of the patella. Tsk within this quadrilateral was recorded pre, immediately post and every 10 min thereafter for 60 min. Tsk changes were examined using a two-way (treatment x time) repeated measures analyses of variance. In addition, a paired sample t-test was used to compare baseline Tsk before both treatments. RESULTS: Knee Tsk was similar before treatment (WBC: 29.9±0.7°C, CWI: 29.6±0.9°C, p>0.05). There was a significant main effect for treatment (p<0.05) and time (p<0.001). Compared to baseline, Tsk was significantly reduced (p<0.05) immediately post and at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 min after both cooling modalities. Knee Tsk was lower (p<0.05) immediately after WBC (19.0±0.9°C) compared to CWI (20.5±0.6°C). However, from 10 to 60 min post, knee Tsk was lower (p<0.05) following the CWI treatment. CONCLUSION: WBC elicited a greater decrease in knee Tsk compared to CWI immediately after treatment. However, both modalities display different recovery patterns and Tsk after CWI was significantly lower than WBC at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 min after treatment.

Measurement error of rearfoot kinematics during running between a 100Hz and 30Hz camera

Background: Measurement accuracy is critical for biomechanical gait assessment. Very few studies have determined the accuracy of common clinical rearfoot variables between cameras with different collection frequencies. Research question: What is the measurement error for common rearfoot gait parameters when using a standard 30Hz digital camera compared to 100Hz camera? Type of study: Descriptive. Methods: 100 footfalls were recorded from 10 subjects ( 10 footfalls per subject) running on a treadmill at 2.68m/s. A high-speed digital timer, accurate within 1ms served as an external reference. Markers were placed along the vertical axis of the heel counter and the long axis of the shank. 2D coordinates for the four markers were determined from heel strike to heel lift. Variables of interest included time of heel strike (THS), time of heel lift (THL), time to maximum eversion (TMax), and maximum rearfoot eversion angle (EvMax). Results: THS difference was 29.77ms (+/- 8.77), THL difference was 35.64ms (+/- 6.85), and TMax difference was 16.50ms (+/- 2.54). These temporal values represent a difference equal to 11.9%, 14.3%, and 6.6% of the stance phase of running gait, respectively. EvMax difference was 1.02 degrees (+/- 0.46). Conclusions: A 30Hz camera is accurate, compared to a high-frequency camera, in determining TMax and EvMax during a clinical gait analysis. However, relatively large differences, in excess of 12% of the stance phase of gait, for THS and THL variables were measured.

The relationship between hip abductor muscle strength and magnitude of pelvic drop following a 3 week strengthening protocol in non-specific low back pain patients.

Purpose: To examine the relationship between hip abductor muscle (HABD) strength and the magnitude of pelvic drop (MPD) for patients with non-specific low back pain (NSLBP) and controls (CON) prior to and following a 3-week HABD strengthening protocol. At baseline, we hypothesized that NSLBP patients would exhibit reduced HABD strength and greater MPD compared to CON. Following the protocol, we hypothesized that strength would increase and MPD would decrease. Relevance: The Trendelenburg test (TT) is a common clinical test used to examine the ability of the HABD to maintain horizontal pelvic position during single limb stance. However, no study has specifically tested this theory. Moreover, no study has investigated the relationship between HABD strength and pelvic motion during walking or tested whether increased HABD strength would reduce the MPD. Methods: Quasi-experimental with 3-week exercise intervention. Fifteen NSLBP patients (32.5yrs,range 21-51yrs; VAS baseline: 5.3cm) and 10 CON (29.5yrs,range 22-47yrs) were recruited. Isometric HABD strength was measured using a force dynamometer and the average of three maximal voluntary contractions were normalized to body mass (N/kg). Two-dimensional MPD (degrees) was measured using a 60 Hz camera and was derived from two retroreflective-markers placed on the posterior superior iliac spines. MPD was measured while performing the static TT and while walking and averaged over 10 consecutive footfalls. NSLBP patients completed a 3-week HABD strengthening protocol consisting of 2 open-kinetic-chain exercises then all measures were repeated. Non-parametric analysis was used for group comparisons and correlation analysis. Results: At baseline, the NSLBP patients demonstrated 31% reduced HABD strength (mean=6.6 N/kg) compared to CON (mean=9.5 N/kg: p=0.03) and no significant differences in maximal pelvic frontal plane excursion while walking (NSLBP:mean=8.1°, CON:mean=7.1°: p=0.72). No significant correlations were measured between left HABD strength and right MPD (r=-0.37, p=0.11), or between right HABD strength and left MPD (r=-0.04, p=0.84) while performing the static TT. Following the 3-week strengthening protocol, NSLBP patients demonstrated a 12% improvement in strength (Post:mean=7.4 N/kg: p=0.02), a reduction in pain (VAS followup: 2.8cm), but no significant decreases in MPD while walking (p=0.92). Conclusions: NSLBP patients demonstrated reduced HABD strength at baseline and were able to increase strength and reduce pain in a 3-week period. However, despite increases in HABD strength, the NSLBP group exhibited similar MPD motion during the static TT and while walking compared to baseline and controls. Implications: The results suggest that the HABD alone may not be primarily responsible for controlling a horizontal pelvic position during static and dynamic conditions. Increasing the strength of the hip abductors resulted in a reduction of pain in NSLBP patients providing evidence for further research to identify specific musculature responsible for controlling pelvic motion.

Media and information literacy at Queensland University of Technology and in Australia

Media and Information Literacy is the focus of several teaching and research projects at Queensland University of Technology and there is particular emphasis placed on digital technologies and how they are used for communication, information use and learning in formal contexts such as schools. Research projects are currently taking place in several locations where investigators are collecting data on approaches to the use of digital media tools like cameras and editing systems, tablet computers and video games. This complements QUT’s teacher preparation courses, including preparation to implement UNESCO’s Online Course in Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue in 2013. This work takes place in the context of projects occurring at the National level in Australia that continue to promote Media and Information Literacy.

Literacy coaching roles in diverse contexts of teaching and learning : New ways of working

As the demands placed on the literacy coach have evolved, so too have the roles of these educational providers who are often responsible for working with school teams to turn around student performance on standardized literacy tests. One literacy coach based in a Queensland primary school recounts her experiences via open-ended interview over a two year period. We offer a theorisation of the new ways of working as a literacy coach in a context of teaching and learning marked by diversity.

Environmental education through listening to children

Environmental education centres contribute to schools and communities in Environmental Education and Education for Sustainability through nature and urban -based, experiential learning and action learning approaches. An underlying assumption of these centres is that intensive, short-term, outdoor/environmental education experiences can change key attitudes and/or actions leading to positive environmental behaviour. This study reflects the interests of a researching professional who investigated aspects of a program that he designed and implemented as principal of an environmental education centre. Most evaluations of similar programs have used quasi-experimental designs to measure the program outcomes. However, this study considered the experiences of the program from the perspectives of a group of key stakeholders often overlooked in the literature; the children who participated in the program. This study examined children’s accounts of their own experiences in order to contribute new understandings of children’s perspectives and how they can be considered when designing and implementing environmental education programs. This research drew on key theoretical assumptions derived from the sociology of childhood. Within sociology of childhood, children are considered to be competent practitioners within their social worlds, who, through their talk and interaction, participate actively in the construction of their own social situations. This approach also views children as capable and competent learners who construct their knowledge through everyday participation in social experiences. This study set out to generate children’s own accounts of their experiences of a five day residential program at the Centre. In total, 54 children participated in the study that used a multi-faceted data collection approach that included conversations, drawings, photographs and journal writing. Using content analysis, data were analysed by means of an inductive approach to develop themes related to the children’s perspectives of their experiences. Three interrelated and co-dependent components of the experience emerged from the analysis; space and place; engagement and participation; and responsiveness and reflection. These components co-exist and construct the conditions for effective experiences in environmental education at the Centre. The first key finding was the emphasis that the children placed on being provided with somewhere where they could feel safe and comfortable to interact with their environment and engage in a range of outdoor experiences. The children identified that place was an outdoor classroom where they could participate in first-hand experiences and, at times, explore out-of-bound spaces; that is, a place where they had previously been limited, often by adults, in their opportunities to interact with nature. A second key finding was the emphasis that the children placed on engagement and participation in environmental experience. The children described participating in a range of new primary experiences that involved first-hand, experiences and also described participating in collaborative experiences that involved interacting with peers and with teachers, who appeared to behave differently to how they behaved at school. Finally, the children described a different type of interactional relationship with teachers, comparing the active educational role they played on camp to a more passive role at school where they sat at a table and the teacher wrote on the board. The final key finding was the emphasis that the children placed on responsiveness and reflection in the experience. In responding to their experiences, the children described the fun and excitement, confidence and satisfaction that they gained from the experience. The children also identified how their experiences contributed to the development of a caring-for-nature attitude and the value of a disorienting dilemma in promoting responsiveness to the environment. This disorienting dilemma was an event that caused the children to reassess their own beliefs and attitudes. From the three main findings, a theoretical framework that represented the children’s accounts of their experiences and a pedagogic approach that respected their accounts was developed. This pedagogic approach showed how a disorienting dilemma could create a disequilibrium in relation to a child’s existing ideas and experiences. As a result, children were challenged to reflect upon their existing environmental beliefs and practices. The findings of this research have implications for the field of environmental education. Adopting sociology of childhood provides an alternative foundation to research and can present a deeper understanding of what children believe, than an approach that relies solely on using scientific methods to undercover and analyse these understandings. This research demonstrates the value of gaining children’s accounts to assist educators to design environmental education programs as it can offer more than adult and educator perspectives. This study also provides understandings of environmental education practice by describing how the children engaged with informal learning situations. Finally, two sets of recommendations, drawn from this study, are made. The first set considers nine recommendations about and for future research and the second relates to redesigning of the environmental educational program at the research site, with six recommendations made.