Modifying behaviour to reduce over-speeding in work-related drivers : an objective approach

The goal of this study was to utilise an objective measurement tool, via an on-board Diagnostic tool (OBDII), to explore the effectiveness of a behaviour modification intervention designed to reduce over-speed violations in a group of work-related drivers. It was predicted that over-speed violations would be decreased following participation in a behaviour modification intervention where drivers received weekly feedback on their speeding performance and goal setting exercises. The final analysis included the on-road behaviour of 16 drivers, all of whom completed each stage of the intervention program. As predicted, over-speed violations significantly decreased from pre-test to post-test, after controlling for kilometres driven. These findings offer practical guidance for industry in developing interventions designed to improve work-related driving behaviour.

Consciousness, solidarity and hope as prevention and rehabilitation

This paper grapples with the question of how progressive criminologists might approach working with people who have committed violent or predatory crimes, or are ‘at risk’ of doing so. Progressives have often been uneasy about ‘intervention’ with people who offend: but in the face of the destructiveness of violence, especially in some parts of the world, a posture of simple non-intervention won’t suffice. I suggest three central principles – which I call consciousness, solidarity and hope – that may guide us in developing ways of working with offenders that are both progressive and effective.

Australasian nutrition research for prevention and management of child obesity : innovation and progress in the last decade

The Food and Nutrition stream of Australasian Child and Adolescent Obesity Research Network (ACAORN) aims to improve the quality of dietary methodologies and the reporting of dietary intake within Australasian child obesity research (http://www.acaorn.org.au/streams/nutrition/). With 2012 marking ACAORN’s 10th anniversary, this commentary profiles a selection of child obesity nutrition research published over the last decade by Food and Nutrition Stream members. In addition, stream activities have included the development of an online selection guide to assist researchers in their selection of appropriate dietary intake methodologies (http://www.acaorn.org.au/streams/nutrition/dietary-intake/index.php). The quantity and quality of research to guide effective child obesity prevention and treatment has increased substantially over the last decade. ACAORN provides a successful case study of how research networks can provide a collegial atmosphere to foster and co-ordinate research efforts in an otherwise competitive environment.

A distributed control based coordination scheme of household PV systems for overvoltage prevention

This paper presents a distributed communication based active power curtailment (APC) control scheme for grid connected photovoltaic (PV) systems to address voltage rise. A simple distribution feeder model is presented and simulated using MATLAB. The resource sharing based control scheme proposed is shown to be effective at reducing voltage rise during times of peak generation and low load. Simulations also show the even distribution of APC using simple communications. Simulations demonstrate the versatility of the proposed control method under major communication failure conditions. Further research may lead to possible applications in coordinated electric vehicle (EV) charging.

Prevention of surgical site infection in total joint arthroplasty : an international tertiary care center survery

Background Prevention strategies are critical to reduce infection rates in total joint arthroplasty (TJA), but evidence-based consensus guidelines on prevention of surgical site infection (SSI) remain heterogeneous and do not necessarily represent this particular patient population. Questions/Purposes What infection prevention measures are recommended by consensus evidence-based guidelines for prevention of periprosthetic joint infection? How do these recommendations compare to expert consensus on infection prevention strategies from orthopedic surgeons from the largest international tertiary referral centers for TJA? Patients and Methods A review of consensus guidelines was undertaken as described by Merollini et al. Four clinical guidelines met inclusion criteria: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's, British Orthopedic Association, National Institute of Clinical Excellence's, and National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC). Twenty-eight recommendations from these guidelines were used to create an evidence-based survey of infection prevention strategies that was administered to 28 orthopedic surgeons from members of the International Society of Orthopedic Centers. The results between existing consensus guidelines and expert opinion were then compared. Results Recommended strategies in the guidelines such as prophylactic antibiotics, preoperative skin preparation of patients and staff, and sterile surgical attire were considered critically or significantly important by the surveyed surgeons. Additional strategies such as ultraclean air/laminar flow, antibiotic cement, wound irrigation, and preoperative blood glucose control were also considered highly important by surveyed surgeons, but were not recommended or not uniformly addressed in existing guidelines on SSI prevention. Conclusion Current evidence-based guidelines are incomplete and evidence should be updated specifically to address patient needs undergoing TJA.

Socio-technological phishing prevention

Phishing is deceptive collection of personal information leading to embezzlement, identity theft, and so on. Preventive and combative measures have been taken by banking institutions, software vendors, and network authorities to fight phishing. At the forefront of this resilience are consortiums such as APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group) and PhishTank, the latter being a collaborative platform where everyone can submit potentially phishing web-pages and classify web-pages as either phish or genuine. PhishTank also has an API that the browsers use to notify users when she tries to load a phishing page. There are some organizations and individuals who are very active and highly accurate in classifying web-pages on PhishTank. In this paper, we propose a defense model that uses these experts to fight phishing.

Internet teaching foundation for the Remote Sensing Core Curriculum program

The Remote Sensing Core Curriculum (RSCC) was initiated in 1993 to meet the demands for a college-level set of resources to enhance the quality of education across national and international campuses. The American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing adopted the RSCC in 1996 to sustain support of this educational initiative for its membership and collegiate community. A series of volumes, containing lectures, exercises, and data, is being created by expert contributors to address the different technical fields of remote sensing. The RSCC program is designed to operate on the Internet taking full advantage of the World Wide Web (WWW) technology for distance learning. The issues of curriculum development related to the educational setting, with demands on faculty, students, and facilities, is considered to understand the new paradigms for WWW-influenced computer-aided learning. The WWW is shown to be especially appropriate for facilitating remote sensing education with requirements for addressing image data sets and multimedia learning tools. The RSCC is located at http://www.umbc.edu/rscc. The Remote Sensing Core Curriculum (RSCC) was initiated in 1993 to meet the demands for a college-level set of resources to enhance the quality of education across national and international campuses. The American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing adopted the RSCC in 1996 to sustain support of this educational initiative for its membership and collegiate community. A series of volumes, containing lectures, exercises, and data, is being created by expert contributors to address the different technical fields of remote sensing. The RSCC program is designed to operate on the Internet taking full advantage of the World Wide Web (WWW) technology for distance learning. The issues of curriculum development related to the educational setting, with demands on faculty, students, and facilities, is considered to understand the new paradigms for WWW-influenced computer-aided learning. The WWW is shown to be especially appropriate for facilitating remote sensing education with requirements for addressing image data sets and multimedia learning tools. The RSCC is located at http://www.umbc.edu/rscc.

Analysis of construction dispute review boards

The construction industry has long been burdened with inherent adversarial relationships among the parties and the resulting disputes. Dispute review boards (DRBs) have emerged as alternatives to settle construction-related disputes outside courts. Although DRBs have found support in some quarters of the construction industry, the quantitative assessment of the impact of DRBs has not been adequately addressed. This paper presents the results of a research project undertaken to assess the impact of DRBs on the construction program of a large-scale highway agency. Three dimensions of DRB impact were assessed: (1) influence on project cost and schedule performance, (2) effectiveness of DRBs in preventing and resolving construction disputes, and (3) costs of DRB implementation. The analyses encompass data from approximately 3,000 projects extending over a 10-year period (2000–2009). Quantitative measures of performance were developed and analyzed for each category. Projects that used DRBs faced reduced costs and schedule growth (6.88 and 12.92%, respectively) when compared to non-DRB projects (11.53 and 28.96%). DRBs were also found to be effective in avoiding and settling disputes; the number of arbitration cases reduced consistently after DRB implementation, and DRBs have a success rate of 97% in settling disputes for which DRBs were used. Moreover, costs of DRBs were found to comprise a relatively small fraction (i.e., approximately 0.3%) of total project budgets. It was concluded that DRBs were effective dispute prevention and resolution alternatives with no significant adverse effects on project performance.

Evidence of effectiveness : high level synthesis of research to prevent obesity and increase physical activity in children

Background Prevention of childhood obesity is a public health priority for Malaysia and many other countries. Physical activity for children is also decreasing at an alarming rate. Both conditions are associated with non-communicable diseases and with significant morbidity and mortality in later life. Systematic reviews of public health interventions provide a useful summary to inform public health practice by combining the results of a range of research studies on a specific intervention into a single report. Systematic reviews are deemed most valuable for health program development and evidence based practice. Unfortunately, many policy makers and practitioners are simply unaware of the evidence: which strategies which are most likely to provide benefit; and which strategies are known to be harmful or useless. This presentation provides a “birds eye” overview based upon recent (since 2007 to present) high quality systematic reviews of public health interventions. Method HealthEvidece.org and the Cochrane Library were searched for systematic reviews which evaluated interventions targeting obesity prevention and increasing physical activity for children. The findings of the included reviews were themed and summarized. Results Seven reviews were identified addressing obesity in the early years, and fifteen reviews addressing obesity more broadly in childhood. Additional reviews were identified aimed at increasing physical activity. The synthesis shows several strategies to be effective, however many popular strategies clearly are not. Several of the reviews were inconclusive due to an absence of robust primary studies. Amongst the findings, interventions undertaken in the school setting appear very promising. Conclusions There is significant evidence from systematic reviews to guide public health practice and policy, and to inform future research.

Educational programmes for primary prevention of skin cancer (Protocol)

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To assess the effects of education programmes for skin cancer prevention in the general population. Description of the condition Skin cancer is a term that includes both melanoma and keratinocyte cancer. Keratinocyte cancer (also known as nonmelanoma skin cancer) generally refers to basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), although it also includes other rare cutaneous neoplasms (Madan 2010). Skin cancer is the most common cancer in populations of predominantly fair-skinned people (Donaldson 2011; Lomas 2012; Stern 2010), with incidence increasing (Garbe 2009; Leiter 2012). There are variations in annual incidence rates between these populations, with Australia reporting the highest rate of skin cancer in the world (Lomas 2012). In 2012, the estimated age-standardised incidence rate for melanoma was almost 63 per 100,000 people for Australian men, and 40 per 100,000 people for Australian women (AIHW 2012). In Europe, incidence rates range from 10 to 15 per 100,000 people (Garbe 2009; Lasithiotakis 2006), with rates highest amongst men (Stang 2006). In the United States, incidence rates are approximately 18 per 100,000 people (Garbe 2009),with the highest rates reported forwomen (Bradford 2010). Keratinocyte cancer is much more common than melanoma. In 2012, the estimated Australian age-standardised rates for BCCand SCC were 884 and 387 per 100,000 people, respectively (Staples 2006). The cumulative three-year risk of developing a subsequent keratinocyte cancer is 18% for SCC and 44% for BCC (Marcil 2000).

Critical analysis of spam prevention techniques

E-mail spam has remained a scourge and menacing nuisance for users, internet and network service operators and providers, in spite of the anti-spam techniques available; and spammers are relentlessly circumventing these anti-spam techniques embedded or installed in form of software products on both client and server sides of both fixed and mobile devices to their advantage. This continuous evasion degrades the capabilities of these anti-spam techniques as none of them provides a comprehensive reliable solution to the problem posed by spam and spammers. Major problem for instance arises when these anti-spam techniques misjudge or misclassify legitimate emails as spam (false positive); or fail to deliver or block spam on the SMTP server (false negative); and the spam passes-on to the receiver, and yet this server from where it originates does not notice or even have an auto alert service to indicate that the spam it was designed to prevent has slipped and moved on to the receiver’s SMTP server; and the receiver’s SMTP server still fail to stop the spam from reaching user’s device and with no auto alert mechanism to inform itself of this inability; thus causing a staggering cost in loss of time, effort and finance. This paper takes a comparative literature overview of some of these anti-spam techniques, especially the filtering technological endorsements designed to prevent spam, their merits and demerits to entrench their capability enhancements, as well as evaluative analytical recommendations that will be subject to further research.