Creating healthy food environments in NSW: A knowledge and evidence synthesis to inform advocacy and action: Food labeling

Reviews and synthesizes evidence to produce evidence-based recommendations on policy actions to improve food labeling for NSW Health

Creating healthy food environments in NSW: A knowledge and evidence synthesis to inform advocacy and action. Seven separate documents across the domains: Food promotion

Reviews and synthesizes evidence to make recommendations on policy actions improve food environments in the area of food promotion for NSW Health

Creating healthy food environments in N.S.W.: A knowledge and evidence synthesis to inform advocacy and action: Food pricing

Reviews and synthesizes evidence to produce evidence-based recommendations on policy actions to improve food pricing for NSW Health

Creating healthy food environments in N.S.W.: A knowledge and evidence synthesis to inform advocacy and action: Food provision

Reviews and synthesizes evidence to produce evidence-based recommendations on policy actions to improve food provision for NSW Health

Creating healthy food environments in NSW: A knowledge and evidence synthesis to inform advocacy and action. Seven separate documents across the domains: Food retail

Reviews and synthesizes nutrition policy actions to improve food retail for NSW Health

Creating healthy food environments in NSW: A knowledge and evidence synthesis to inform advocacy and action. Seven separate documents across the domains: Overview

Summaries evidence across seven domains of potential food policy action to improve food environments and food supply to prevent obesity for NSW Health

Human action recognition from video sequences

This PhD research has proposed new machine learning techniques to improve human action recognition based on local features. Several novel video representation and classification techniques have been proposed to increase the performance with lower computational complexity. The major contributions are the construction of new feature representation techniques, based on advanced machine learning techniques such as multiple instance dictionary learning, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Sparse coding. A Binary-tree based classification technique was also proposed to deal with large amounts of action categories. These techniques are not only improving the classification accuracy with constrained computational resources but are also robust to challenging environmental conditions. These developed techniques can be easily extended to a wide range of video applications to provide near real-time performance.

Educational action research in Singapore: To prove or improve?

The rise of educational action research amongst schools in Singapore can be attributed to the government’s belief that educational research and reform can improve school performance and help Singapore keep pace with the impact of globalization. However, against a backdrop of neo-liberal educational reform where efficiency, accountability and demonstrable outcomes are valued, the underlying intent of the action research projects would seem to be inconsistent with the emancipatory intent normally associated with action research. A systematic review was conducted of 71 action research projects submitted to a local educational conference in 2006. Of concern to us is how action research has been narrowly interpreted and recruited simply as an evaluative tool with the emancipatory potential largely ignored. The paper is theoretically framed by governmentality and performativity to explore the embedded power relations that may “fabricate” the action research projects. The findings and discussions suggest a need for the government, schools and teacher-researchers to reflexively question the current expectation of action research and to be clear about its broader purpose

Expecting too much? Can Indigenous sport programs in Australia deliver development and social outcomes?

Sport holds a special place in the national psyche of many nations with claims for sport being far reaching. More recently sport has been identified as a development and an educational tool in the areas of health and behaviour modification. Against the backdrop of the Close the Gap blueprint for Indigenous Australians and within the context of competing claims for sport, this paper discusses whether sport can genuinely contribute to community development in Indigenous Australian communities. Drawing on cases from sports-based programmes that spanned a 5-year research programme and informed by a theoretical framework inspired by Sen’s notion of ‘Development as Freedom’, this paper makes the case that sport can be a robust developmental tool capable of delivering social outcomes to marginalized communities.

The impact of Indigenous Community sports programs: The case of surfing

The objective of this research project was to consider the social impact of sport and physical activity on the lives of Indigenous Australians and their communities. There has been strong research interest in the links between sport and recreation programs and various health and social outcomes and a well-established body of literature exists on the use of sport to address social issues in mainstream society (A Thomson, Darcy and Pearce 2010). The consensus is that physical activity is an important contributor to health for all people (Nelson, Abbott and Macdonald 2010). While there is strong research interest, what remains unclear is the value and impact of sport and physical activity on Indigenous communities (Cairnduff 2001). Nelson (2009) drawing on the work of Jonas and Langton (1994) indicates that an ‘Aboriginal person is a descendant of an Indigenous inhabitant of Australia, identifi es as an Aboriginal, and is recognised as Aboriginal by members of the community in which he or she lives’ (p. 97). Even this defi nition has the potential to be politically charged. At a general level, the collective terms ‘Indigenous’ (capitalised) and ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ people (title capitalised) appear to be broadly acceptable terms. Indigenous groups cannot be considered to be homogenous as there is much diversity between and within groups (Nelson et al. 2010; Parker et al. 2006). It is therefore important this report is not viewed as taking an essentialist view of who Indigenous people are and how they develop. Rather, this paper attempts to describe and discuss the experiences of some individuals and their communities in site-specifi c surfi ng programs.

Assessing the effectiveness of school-based sexual abuse prevention programs

This article highlights the importance of systematic reviews for research synthesis, with the strength of this approach demonstrated through the authors’ recent Cochrane review into the effectiveness of school-based programs for the prevention of child sexual abuse. It describes the features of evaluation studies and the differences between systematic reviews and more traditional literature reviews, before summarising the findings of their recent Cochrane review.

Reforming technology company incentive programs for achieving knowledge-based economic development:a Brazil-Australia comparative study

This doctoral thesis aims to demonstrate the importance of incentives to technology-based firms as a strategy to promote knowledge-based economic development (KBED). To remain competitive, technology-based firms must innovate and seek new markets; therefore, this study aims to propose an incentive model to technology-based firms as a strategy to promote knowledge-based urban development, according to framework described by Yigitcanlar (2011). This is an exploratory and descriptive research with a qualitative approach. Surveys were carried out with national trade associations that represented technology-based firms both in Brazil and Australia. After analysing the surveys, structured interviews were conducted with government representatives, trade associations and businessmen who had used financial support by the federal government. When comparing both countries, the study found the importance of direct incentives through tax incentives, for it is a less bureaucratic, quicker and more direct process for firms. We suggest to include the terms incentives in the framework of knowledge-based urban development, as one of the pillars that contribute to knowledge-based economic development.

Youth programs in remote Indigenous communities: Context matters

A diversity of programs oriented to young people seek to develop their capacities and their connection to the communities in which they live. Some focus on ameliorating a particular issue or ‘deficit’ whilst others, such as sporting, recreation and youth groups are more grounded in the community. This article reports a qualitative study undertaken in three remote Indigenous communities in Central Australia. Sixty interviews were conducted with a range of stakeholders involved in a diversity of youth programs. A range of critical challenges for and characteristics of remote Indigenous youth programs are identified if such programs are to be ‘fit for context’. ‘Youth centred-context specific’ provides a positive frame for the delivery of youth programs in remote Central Australia, encouraging an explicit focus on program logic; program content and processes; and relational, temporal, and, spatial aspects of the practice context. These provide lenses with which youth program planning and delivery may be enhanced in remote communities. Culturally safe service planning and delivery suggests locally determined processes for decision-making and community ownership. In some cases, this may mean a community preference for all ages to access the service to engage in culturally relevant activities. Where activities are targeted at young people, yet open to and inclusive of all ages, they provide a medium for cross-generational interaction that requires a high degree of flexibility on the part of staff and funding programs. Although the findings are focused in Central Australia, they may be relevant to similar contexts elsewhere.

'Getting started, getting feedback, and getting finished'- practice research in action

This article outlines the purpose, definition and usefulness of social work practice research and then describes a training program conducted by a group of social workers in the Australian Association of Social Workers (Victorian Branch) Practice Research Special Interest Group. These workshops offered practitioners the opportunity to explore a research idea with a group of colleagues which acted as a reference group over a period of six months. Two models of practice research workshops are described and their outcomes presented.

Action regulation across the adult lifespan (ARAL): A metatheory of work and aging

The goals of this article are to integrate action regulation theory (ART) with the lifespan developmental perspective and to outline tenets of a new metatheory of work and aging. The action regulation across the adult lifespan (ARAL) theory explains how workers influence, and are influenced by, their environment across different time spans. First, the basic concepts of ART are described, including the sequential and hierarchical structure of actions, complete tasks and actions, foci of action regulation, and the action-regulating mental model. Second, principles of the lifespan developmental perspective are delineated, including development as a lifelong and multidirectional process, the joint occurrence of gains and losses, intraindividual plasticity, historical embeddedness, and contextualism. Third, propositions of ARAL theory are derived by analyzing workers’ action regulation from a lifespan developmental perspective (i.e., effects of aging on action regulation), and by analyzing aging and development in the work context from an ART perspective (i.e., effects of action regulation on age-related changes in cognition and personality). Fourth, we develop further propositions to integrate ART with lifespan theories of motivation and socioemotional experience. Finally, we discuss implications for future research and practice based on ARAL theory.