A shared reading intervention with parents to enhance young children’s early literacy skills

Parental reading to children from an early age has been shown to enhance children’s emergent literacy skills. A pragmatic randomized controlled trial (RCT) was used to investigate the effects of two forms of shared reading interventions on children’s language and literacy skills. Parents of 80 preparatory year children from outer suburban schools of an Australian metropolitan city were trained to use shared reading strategies in an eight-week home intervention. Families were assigned to one of three groups: Dialogic Reading (DR), Dialogic Reading with the addition of Print Referencing (DR + PR), or an attention-matched control group. The sample comprised 42 boys and 38 girls ranging in age from 4.9 years to 6.3 years (M = 5.5, SD = 0.3). Data were collected at pre, post, and at three months follow-up. Measures assessed children’s oral language (receptive and expressive vocabulary), phonological awareness (rhyme, word completion), alphabet knowledge, and concepts about print. Analyses of change from pre to post showed significant effects for the DR and DR + PR groups compared to the control group on three of the six measures: expressive language, rhyme, and concepts about print. At 3-month follow-up assessment, the two intervention groups maintained significantly better performance on the measure of concepts of print only. At both time points, there were no group differences between the DR and DR+PR conditions. These findings illustrate the potential of a brief home focused intervention on promoting children’s emergent literacy.

Fundamental Tax Legislation [22nd Edition]

This edition includes a revised Year in Review section, which summarises the legislative developments in taxation over the previous 12 months, a listing of the passage of tax-related legislation during the last year and the inclusion of reference statistics (such as CPI quarterly figures and individual tax rates for residents and non-residents). A Tax Rates and Tables section which contains an accessible summary of the main tax rates and tables that students will need to refer to for their tax studies

Task constraints

Newell (1985, 1986) identified the importance of interacting constraints on the emergent behaviours of learners or performers in sport as they assemble functional states of movement organisation in achieving task goals. Constraints, related to the person, task and environment, were defined as ‘boundaries or features that limit motion of the entity under consideration at any moment in time’ (Newell, 1986, p.347). Personal (or organismic) constraints include factors such as individual anthropometrics (height, weight, and limb lengths), fitness (e.g., strength, speed, aerobic capacity, and flexibility), mental skills (e.g. concentration, confidence, emotional control and motivation), perceptual and decisionmaking skills (e.g., recognising patterns of play, anticipation by reading the movements of opponents) and personality factors (e.g., risk taking or conservative behaviours). Newell (1986, p.350) distinguished between general environmental constraints, such as gravity, ambient temperature, natural light and altitude and task constraints, which are task specific and concerned with the goals of a specific activity. More recently, socio-cultural constraints (e.g., family support, cultural expectations and access to facilities) have also been considered as environmental constraints. Application of the constraints framework to the study of sport performance has led to task constraints being defined to include factors such as rules of games, equipment used, boundary playing areas and markings, nets and goals, the number of...

The development of an effective and efficient dispute resolution processes for strata scheme disputes in peninsular Malaysia

Dispute resolution in strata schemes in Peninsular Malaysia should focus on more than just "settlement." The quality of the outcome, its sustainability and its relevance in supporting the basic principles of a good neighbourhood and self-governance in a strata scheme are also fundamental. Based on the comprehensive law movement, this thesis develops a theoretical framework for strata scheme disputes within the parameters of therapeutic jurisprudence, preventive law, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and problem-solving courts. The therapeutic orientation of this model offers approaches that promote positive communication between disputing parties, preserve neighbour relations and optimise people's psychological and emotional well-being.

Tracking spatio temporal movement of human in terms of space utilization using media access control address data

Using Media-Access-Control (MAC) address for data collection and tracking is a capable and cost effective approach as the traditional ways such as surveys and video surveillance have numerous drawbacks and limitations. Positioning cell-phones by Global System for Mobile communication was considered an attack on people's privacy. MAC addresses just keep a unique log of a WiFi or Bluetooth enabled device for connecting to another device that has not potential privacy infringements. This paper presents the use of MAC address data collection approach for analysis of spatio-temporal dynamics of human in terms of shared space utilization. This paper firstly discuses the critical challenges and key benefits of MAC address data as a tracking technology for monitoring human movement. Here, proximity-based MAC address tracking is postulated as an effective methodology for analysing the complex spatio-temporal dynamics of human movements at shared zones such as lounge and office areas. A case study of university staff lounge area is described in detail and results indicates a significant added value of the methodology for human movement tracking. By analysis of MAC address data in the study area, clear statistics such as staff’s utilisation frequency, utilisation peak periods, and staff time spent is obtained. The analyses also reveal staff’s socialising profiles in terms of group and solo gathering. The paper is concluded with a discussion on why MAC address tracking offers significant advantages for tracking human behaviour in terms of shared space utilisation with respect to other and more prominent technologies, and outlines some of its remaining deficiencies.

Occupy Oakland and #oo : uses of Twitter within the Occupy movement

Social media have become crucial tools for political activists and protest movements, providing another channel for promoting messages and garnering support. Twitter, in particular, has been identified as a noteworthy medium for protests in countries including Iran and Egypt to receive global attention. The Occupy movement, originating with protests in, and the physical occupation of, Wall Street, and inspiring similar demonstrations in other U.S. cities and around the world, has been intrinsically linked with social media through location-specific hashtags: #ows for Occupy Wall Street, #occupysf for San Francisco, and so on. While the individual protests have a specific geographical focus-highlighted by the physical occupation of parks, buildings, and other urban areas-Twitter provides a means for these different movements to be linked and promoted through tweets containing multiple hashtags. It also serves as a channel for tactical communications during actions and as a space in which movement debates take place. This paper examines Twitter's use within the Occupy Oakland movement. We use a mixture of ethnographic research through interviews with activists and participant observation of the movements' activities, and a dataset of public tweets containing the #oo hashtag from early 2012. This research methodology allows us to develop a more accurate and nuanced understanding of how movement activists use Twitter by cross-checking trends in the online data with observations and activists' own reported use of Twitter. We also study the connections between a geographically focused movement such as Occupy Oakland and related, but physically distant, protests taking place concurrently in other cities. This study forms part of a wider research project, Mapping Movements, exploring the politics of place, investigating how social movements are composed and sustained, and the uses of online communication within these movements.

State of Energy Efficiency Education in Australian Technical & Further Education (TAFE) : A Report to the Australian Government Skills for the Carbon Challenge Initiative, The Natural Edge Project (TNEP), Queensland University of Technology

The Australian Government’s Skills for the Carbon Challenge (SCC) initiative aims to accelerate industry and the education sectors response to climate change. As part of the SCC initiative, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRTE) provided funding to investigate the state of energy efficiency education in engineering-related Australian Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Programs. The following document reports on the outcomes of a multi-stage consultation project that engaged with participants from over 80% of TAFE institutions across Australia with the aim of supporting and enhancing future critical skills development in this area. Specifically, this report presents the findings of a national survey, based on a series of TAFE educator focus groups, conducted in May 2013 aimed at understanding the experiences and insights of Australian TAFE educators teaching engineering-related courses. Responses were received from 224 TAFE Educators across 50 of the 61 TAFE institutions in Australia (82% response rate).

An investigation into increasing the extent of energy efficiency knowledge and skills in engineering education

Today, many sectors across society are recognising the need to swiftly reduce their growing energy demand, as well as meeting remaining demand with low emissions options. A key ingredient to addressing such issues is equipping professionals – in particular engineers – with emerging energy efficiency knowledge and skills. This paper responds to an identified engineering education gap in Australia, by investigating options to increase energy efficiency content for both undergraduate and postgraduate engineers. The authors summarise the findings of the multi-stage methodology funded by the National Framework for Energy Efficiency (2008-2009), highlighting identified key barriers and benefits to such curriculum renewal. The findings are intended for use by engineering departments, accreditation agencies, professional bodies and government, to identify opportunities for moving forward based on rigorous research, and then to strategically plan the transition. This process, focused on energy efficiency, may also provide valuable parallels for a range of sustainable engineering related topics.

Retooling Chinese primary school teachers to use technology creatively to promote innovation and problem solving skills in science classrooms

This paper reports on the initial phase of a Professional Learning Program (PLP) undertaken by 100 primary school teachers in China that aimed to facilitate the development of adaptive expertise in using technology to facilitate innovative science teaching and learning such as that envisaged by the Chinese Ministry of Education’s (2010-2020) education reforms. Key principles derived from literature about professional learning and scaffolding of learning informed the design of the PLP. The analysis of data revealed that the participants had made substantial progress towards the development of adaptive expertise. This was manifested not only by advances in the participants’ repertoires of Subject Matter Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge but also in changes to their levels of confidence and identities as teachers. By the end of the initial phase of the PLP, the participants had coalesced into a professional learning community that readily engaged in the sharing, peer review, reuse and adaption, and collaborative design of innovative science learning and assessment activities. The findings from the study indicate that those engaged in the development of PLPs for teachers in China need to take cognizance of certain cultural factors and traditions idiosyncratic to the Chinese educational system. A set of revised principles is then presented to inform the future design and implementation of PLPs for teachers in China.

Good practice report : clinical teaching

Clinical experience, or experience in the ‘real world’ of practice, is a fundamental component of many health professional courses. It often involves students undertaking practical experience in clinical workplace settings, typically referred to as clinical placements, under the supervision of health professionals. Broadly speaking, the role of clinical supervisors, or teachers, is aimed at assisting students to integrate the theoretical and skills based components of the curriculum within the context of patient/client care (Erstzen et al 2009). Clinical experience also provides students with the opportunity to assimilate the attitudes, values and skills which they require to become appropriately skilled professionals in the environments in which they will eventually practise. However, clinical settings are particularly challenging learning environments for students. Unlike classroom learning, students in the clinical setting frequently find themselves involved in unplanned and often complex activities with patients and other health care providers, being supervised by a variety of clinical staff who have very different methods and styles of teaching, and negotiating bureaucratic or hierarchical structures in busy clinical workplaces where they may only be spending a limited amount of time. Kilminster et al (2007) also draw attention to tensions that may exist between the learning needs of students and the provision of quality care or need to prevent harm to the patient (e.g. Elkind et al 2007). All of these factors complicate the realisation of clinical education goals and underscore the need for effective clinical teaching practices that maximise student learning in clinical environments. This report provides a summary of work that has been achieved in relation to ALTC projects and fellowships associated with clinical teaching, and a review of scholarly publications relevant to this field. The report also makes recommendations based on issues identified and/or where further work is indicated. The projects and fellowships reviewed cover a range of discipline areas including Biology, Paramedic Practice, Clinical Exercise Physiology, Occupational Therapy, Speech Pathology, Physiotherapy, Pharmacy, Nursing and Veterinary Science. The main areas of focus cover issues related to curriculum, particularly in relation to industry expectations of ‘work-ready’ graduates and the implications for theoretical and practical, or clinical preparation; development of competency assessment tools that are nationally applicable across discipline-specific courses; and improvement of clinical learning through strategies targeting the clinical learning environment, building the teaching capacity of clinical supervisors and/or enhancing the clinical learning/teaching process.

Tactics of antifeminist backlash against the U. S. battered women's movement

Opposition to men’s violence against women who are their intimate partners has become politically popular in the United States. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has enjoyed broad-based support for over 15 years. VAWA has been refined and expanded with each reauthorization. Resistance to the battered women’s movement is often overlooked in this political context. However, woman abuse and state responses to it are mired in cultural tensions about crime, law, gender, economics, scholarship, and the family. Based on interviews with 35 advocates in the United States, this paper outlines key tactics of antifeminist backlash against the battered women’s movement.

Macroscopic fundamental diagram for Brisbane, Australia: empirical findings on network partitioning and incident detection

The Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) relates space-mean density and flow, and the existence with dynamic features was confirmed in congested urban network in downtown Yokohama with real data set. Since the MFD represents the area-wide network traffic performances, studies on perimeter control strategies and an area traffic state estimation utilizing the MFD concept has been reported. However, limited works have been reported on real world example from signalised arterial network. This paper fuses data from multiple sources (Bluetooth, Loops and Signals) and presents a framework for the development of the MFD for Brisbane, Australia. Existence of the MFD in Brisbane arterial network is confirmed. Different MFDs (from whole network and several sub regions) are evaluated to discover the spatial partitioning for network performance representation. The findings confirmed the usefulness of appropriate network partitioning for traffic monitoring and incident detections. The discussion addressed future research directions.

Neck movement and muscle activity characteristics in female office workers with neck pain

Study Design Cross-sectional study. Objective To explore aspects of cervical musculoskeletal function in female office workers with neck pain. Summary of Background Data Evidence of physical characteristics that differentiate computer workers with and without neck pain is sparse. Patients with chronic neck pain demonstrate reduced motion and altered patterns of muscle control in the cervical flexor and upper trapezius (UT) muscles during specific tasks. Understanding cervical musculoskeletal function in office workers will better direct intervention and prevention strategies. Methods Measures included neck range of motion; superficial neck flexor muscle activity during a clinical test, the craniocerivcal flexion test; and a motor task, a unilateral muscle coordination task, to assess the activity of both the anterior and posterior neck muscles. Office workers with and without neck pain were formed into 3 groups based on their scores on the Neck Disability Index. Nonworking women without neck pain formed the control group. Surface electromyographic activity was recorded bilaterally from the sternocleidomastoid, anterior scalene (AS), cervical extensor (CE) and UT muscles. Results Workers with neck pain had reduced rotation range and increased activity of the superficial cervical flexors during the craniocervical flexion test. During the coordination task, workers with pain demonstrated greater activity in the CE muscles bilaterally. On completion of the task, the UT and dominant CE and AS muscles demonstrated an inability to relax in workers with pain. In general, there was a linear relationship between the workers’ self-reported levels of pain and disability and the movement and muscle changes. Conclusion These results are consistent with those found in other cervical musculoskeletal disorders and may represent an altered muscle recruitment strategy to stabilize the head and neck. An exercise program including motor reeducation may assist in the management of neck pain in office workers.

"What" versus "how" in nonvisual whole-body movement

Dissociable processes for conscious perception (“what” processing) and guidance of action (“how” processing) have been identified in visual, auditory, and somatosensory systems. The present study was designed to find similar dissociation within whole-body movements in which the presence of vestibular information creates a unique perceptual condition. In two experiments, blindfolded participants walked along a linear path and specified the walked distance by verbally estimating it (“what” measure) and by pulling a length of tape that matched the walked distance (“how” measure). Although these two measures yielded largely comparable responses under a normal walking condition, variability in verbal estimates showed a qualitatively different pattern from that in tape-pulling when sensory input into walking was altered by having participants wear a heavy backpack. This suggests that the “what” versus “how” dissociation exists in whole-body movements as well, supporting a claim that it is a general principle with which perceptual systems are organized.

The Number Crunch game : a simple vehicle for building algebraic reasoning skills

A newspaper numbers game based on simple arithmetic relationships is discussed. Its potential to give students of elementary algebra practice in semi-ad hoc reasoning and to build general arithmetic reasoning skills is explored.