The serious and playful work of gender : talk and social order in a preschool classroom

This chapter reports some observations made of the social interactions of girls and boys, aged 3 to 5 years, in play situations in a preschool classroom of a childcare centre. It provides an alternate framework for early childhood educators to become aware of how preschool children construct their gendered social organizations. As girls and boys organise and build their social worlds of play through their talk-in-interaction, they are building their social orders. In this chapter, an analysis of one episode of children's play has, as its focus , the methods that some girls and boys use in their talk and activity to make sense of their everyday interactions. The analysis of play shows the children's real life work of constructing and maintaining gendered social orders in their lived everyday social worlds. A close reading of the transcript of an episode illustrates how two girls turn they boys' masculine practices o ritualized threats into performance. By so doing, they show that while they know masculine discourse, and can perform it themselves, they do not actually 'own' it in the same way that the boys do. In this way, gender is established not as a social density but as a shaped dynamic practice that is ongoing, build by relational encounters and shaped by the collective performances of the participants.

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.

Expanded scope roles in primary health – what makes them work?

Introduction The demand for better integration between primary and secondary healthcare frequently leads to discussion about expanded scope of practice for nursing, paramedic and allied health professionals and the role these clinicians could play in facilitating improved access to timely and appropriate healthcare. From workforce perspective, expanded scope of practice has also been advocated as a mean of fostering workforce retention. Models of expanded scope roles in nursing and paramedicine have been trialled nationally and internationally in both acute and community care settings. Where they have been successful, trials have resulted in reduction in hospital presentation and admission; improved patient access and timeliness; and patient satisfaction. This paper will examine the characteristics of successful expanded scope programs. Method Exploratory case-study analysis of successful integration of expanded health care roles across primary healthcare settings in rural Australia. Results & Conclusions One size does not fill all. Successful models of integrated expanded health care roles in primary health care settings are built on stakeholder’s capacity and preference; community need; and political will. Collaborative, congruent, multi-disciplinary care teams that prioritise patient-centred care within a dynamic primary care setting have merit and are more likely to foster flexibility and sustainability.

Axial elongation associated with biomechanical factors during near work

Purpose: To investigate the changes occurring in the axial length, choroidal thickness and anterior biometrics of the eye during a 10 minute near task performed in downward gaze. Methods: Twenty young adult subjects (10 emmetropes and 10 myopes) participated in this study. To measure ocular biometrics in downward gaze, an optical biometer was inclined on a custom built, height and tilt adjustable table. Baseline measures were collected after each subject performed a distance primary gaze control task for 10 mins, to provide wash-out period for prior visual tasks before each of three different accommodation/gaze conditions. These other three conditions included a near task (2.5 D) in primary gaze, and a near (2.5 D) and a far (0 D) accommodative task in downward gaze (25°), all for 10 mins duration. Immediately after, and then 5 and 10 mins from the commencement of each trial, measurements of ocular biometrics (e.g. anterior biometrics, axial length, choroidal thickness and retinal thickness) were obtained. Results: Axial length increased with accommodation and was significantly greater for downward gaze with accommodation (mean change ± SD 23 ± 13 µm at 10 mins) compared to primary gaze with accommodation (mean change 8 ± 15 µm at 10 mins) (p < 0.05). A small amount of choroidal thinning was also found during accommodation that was statistically significant in downward gaze (13 ± 14 µm at 10 mins, p < 0.05). Accommodation in downward gaze also caused greater changes in anterior chamber depth and lens thickness compared to accommodation in primary gaze. Conclusion: Axial length, choroidal thickness and anterior eye biometrics change significantly during accommodation in downward gaze as a function of time. These changes appear to be due to the combined influence of biomechanical factors (i.e. extraocular muscle forces, ciliary muscle contraction) associated with near tasks in downward gaze.

Context-specific stressors, work-related social support and work-family conflict : a mediation study

Understanding the antecedents of work-family conflict is important as it allows organisations to effectively engage in work design for professional employees. This study examines the impact of sources of social support as antecedents of work-family conflict. The hypotheses were tests using Partial Least Squares modelling on a sample of 366 professional employees. The path model showed that context-specific stressors impacted positively on job demand, which led to higher levels of work-family conflict. Contrary to our expectation, non-work related social support did not have any statistical relationship with job demand and work-family conflict. In addition, individuals experiencing high job demands were found to obtain more social support from both work and non-work-related sources. Individuals with more work-related social support were less likely to have less work-family conflict. Surprisingly, non-work social support sources had no statistically significant relationship with work-family conflict.

Re : Why optometry must work from urban and regional Aboriginal health services

We are writing to support the recent Viewpoint written by Anjou, Boudville and Taylor ‘Why optometry must work in Aboriginal Health Services in urban and regional Australia’.[1] We are a group of optometrists who provide optometric services within Aboriginal Health Services in urban and regional settings and we agree that access to optometry in Aboriginal Health Services should be supported and expanded in an effort to ‘close the gap’ for vision.

A product of their culture : Using a value systems approach to understand the work practices of journalists

Past approaches adopted by scholars in comparing international news have tended to concentrate on political and economic perspectives, while the role that culture plays in determining news has been somewhat neglected until recently. This article examines the role of culture in the development of journalistic practices and how a value systems approach can be applied to understanding journalism practices across cultures. Specifically, the article compares German and Anglo-American journalism practices with a view to locating differences between these traditions. The study demonstrates that using value systems as developed by Dutch anthropologist Geert Hofstede can be immensely useful in comparing the differences between the two traditions, as well as in understanding how journalists in these traditions report about the world.

Visualization of predictive distributions for discrete spatial-temporal log Cox processes approximated with MCMC

An important aspect of decision support systems involves applying sophisticated and flexible statistical models to real datasets and communicating these results to decision makers in interpretable ways. An important class of problem is the modelling of incidence such as fire, disease etc. Models of incidence known as point processes or Cox processes are particularly challenging as they are ‘doubly stochastic’ i.e. obtaining the probability mass function of incidents requires two integrals to be evaluated. Existing approaches to the problem either use simple models that obtain predictions using plug-in point estimates and do not distinguish between Cox processes and density estimation but do use sophisticated 3D visualization for interpretation. Alternatively other work employs sophisticated non-parametric Bayesian Cox process models, but do not use visualization to render interpretable complex spatial temporal forecasts. The contribution here is to fill this gap by inferring predictive distributions of Gaussian-log Cox processes and rendering them using state of the art 3D visualization techniques. This requires performing inference on an approximation of the model on a discretized grid of large scale and adapting an existing spatial-diurnal kernel to the log Gaussian Cox process context.

The idea of women : representations of power in the work of Charles Bukowski

This thesis is a comparative textual analysis of Charles Bukowski's representations of power in relation to the idea of women. The exegesis explores Bukowski's idea of women and power as exemplified by the representational differences between his short stories for Hustler Magazine and his novel Women. The creative piece, a novel, "Many a Broken Hearted Woman" informed and was informed by this research.

Management [5th Asia-Pacific Edition]

The fifth edition of this text has been thoroughly updated, continuing its strong emphasis on the importance of the Asian region to contemporary Australian and New Zealand organisations. Many Asian case examples are featured to illustrate key management concepts, and these provide a useful basis for comparison with management practices in Australia and New Zealand. Numerous practical examples throughout the text highlight contemporary management issues, such as: •workplace diversity •sustainability •ethics/corporate social responsibility •the impact of technology •innovation in the workplace •globalisation •employee engagement •flexible working arrangements •work-life balance •generational issues in the workplace •skills shortages in various industries •the importance of effective employee recruitment and training •organisational culture •workforce flexibility and casualisation •the ‘24/7’ nature of contemporary communication technology, including social media •outsourcing Management, 5th Asia Pacific edition, has also retained the features that have made previous editions so popular with students and lecturers, including the Career Readiness Workbook activities at the end of the book, and the accompanying Interactive Study Guide with its vast array of multimedia resources.

Management : Foundations and Applications (2nd Asia-Pacific Edition)

The second edition of this text has been thoroughly updated, continuing its strong emphasis on the importance of the Asian region to contemporary Australian and New Zealand organisations. Many Asian case examples are featured to illustrate key management concepts, and these provide a useful basis for comparison with management practices in Australia and New Zealand. Numerous practical examples throughout the text highlight contemporary management issues, such as: •workplace diversity •sustainability •ethics/corporate social responsibility •the impact of technology •innovation in the workplace •globalisation •employee engagement •flexible working arrangements •work-life balance •generational issues in the workplace •skills shortages in various industries •the importance of effective employee recruitment and training •organisational culture •workforce flexibility and casualisation •the ‘24/7’ nature of contemporary communication technology, including social media •outsourcing Management, Foundation and Applications, 2nd Asia-Pacific edition, has also retained the features that made its previous edition so popular with students and lecturers, including the Career Readiness Workbook activities at the end of the book, and the accompanying Interactive Study Guide with its vast array of multimedia resources.

Making context work in primary health care

Health care in the community setting is one of the more challenging contexts for evidence-based practice. Community-based care comprises more than simply transplanting hospital care into people’s homes; in addition to the provision of supportive services, it also takes a range of approaches to health care practice that promotes optimal health and builds the capacity of individuals and communities to respond to their health needs. Primary health care is comprised of the diverse activities that build sustainable community capacity to achieve health and well-being throughout all of life’s stages. The expansive nature of primary health care means that a map for practice is not feasible; however a framework which can be adapted to suit the variety of situations and practice settings can be identified. The focus of this chapter is to broadly define and explore the principles of primary health care and consider the contexts of primary health care in relation to evidence-based practice.

Flexible IBE and beyond in the commutative-blinding framework

The cryptographic community has, of late, shown much inventiveness in the creation of powerful new IBE-like primitives that go beyond the basic IBE notion and extend it in many new directions. Virtually all of these “super-IBE” schemes rely on bilinear pairings for their implementation, which they tend to use in a surprisingly small number of different ways: three of them as of this writing. What is interesting is that, among the three main frameworks that we know of so far, one has acted as a veritable magnet for the construction of many of these “generalized IBE” primitives, whereas the other two have not been nearly as fruitful in that respect. This refers to the Commutative Blinding framework defined by the Boneh-Boyen [Bscr ][Bscr ]1 IBE scheme from 2004. The aim of this chapter is to try to shed some light on this approach's popularity, first by comparing its key properties with those of the competing frameworks, and then by providing a number of examples that illustrate how those properties have been used.

The politics of open-access publishing : M/C Journal, Public Intellectualism, and Academic Discourses of Legitimacy

This article investigates the discourses of academic legitimacy that surround the production, consumption, and accreditation of online scholarship. Using the web-based media and cultural studies journal (http://journal.media-culture.org.au) as a case study, it examines how online scholarly journals often position themselves as occupying a space between the academic and the popular and as having a functional advantage over print-based media in promoting a spirit of public intellectualism. The current research agenda of both government and academe prioritises academic research that is efficient, self-promoting, and relevant to the public. Yet, although the cost-effectiveness and public-intellectual focus of online scholarship speak to these research priorities, online journals such as M/C Journal have occupied, and continue to occupy, an unstable position in relation to the perceived academic legitimacy of their content. Although some online scholarly journals have achieved a limited form of recognition within a system of accreditation that still privileges print-based scholarship, I argue that this, nevertheless, points to the fact that traditional textual notions of legitimate academic work continue to pervade the research agenda of an academe that increasingly promotes flexible delivery of teaching and online research initiatives.

Spatial metaphor as spatial technique in the work of Michel Foucault

This essay argues that the deployment of spatial metaphor in the writing of Michel Foucault is indivisible from his spatial politics. Beginning with his 1967 essay "Of Other Spaces," the development of Foucault's spatial politics and his growing awareness of the importance to his work of spatial (particularly geographic) metaphors can be charted. The focus here is not the concretisation of Foucault's early spatial obsessions—particularly with regard to the concept of "heterotopia"—into a theory or model. Rather, I am concerned with the way in which those obsessions inform Foucault's major works, in particular The Archaeology of Knowledge and Discipline and Punish. These works, I argue, do not develop a theory of space, but instead perform, through their rhetoric, a kind of spatial praxis. In this sense, Foucault's metaphors become "spatial techniques" for the practice and production of power–knowledge.