Achieving at university and beyond : does it help to be good looking?

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the associations between attitudes to academic achievement and post university success using perceptions of attractiveness, gender, ethnic identity, personality, and social acceptance as antecedents. Design/methodology/approach – An online questionnaire was completed by male (N=116) and female (N=126) university students from various cultural backgrounds. To evaluate the proposed relationships, multiple regression analysis was used. Findings – The findings suggest that attractiveness is related to attitudes to academic achievement and success through its association with social appeal and acceptance. Ethnic identity is also related to both academic achievement and post university success. Personality is not positively related to academic achievement. Finally, social acceptance is positively related to academic achievement for males and to success for females. Research limitations/implications – Whilst the survey targeted students from various cultural backgrounds studying in Australia, it did not look at university students from other countries. A cross-cultural perspective could reveal further differences in attitudes. Originality/value – This study links attractiveness and academic achievement theories. The findings have implications for tertiary institutions and suggest academics and policy-makers to vigorously promote core personality and values such as intelligence, communication skills, and sincerity, rather than allow superficial values such as attractiveness to be placed at the centre stage of students' endeavour.

Prediction of age at menopause from assessment of ovarian reserve may be improved by using body mass index and smoking status

Objective: Menopause is the consequence of exhaustion of the ovarian follicular pool. AMH, an indirect hormonal marker of ovarian reserve, has been recently proposed as a predictor for age at menopause. Since BMI and smoking status are relevant independent factors associated with age at menopause we evaluated whether a model including all three of these variables could improve AMH-based prediction of age at menopause. Methods: In the present cohort study, participants were 375 eumenorrheic women aged 19–44 years and a sample of 2,635 Italian menopausal women. AMH values were obtained from the eumenorrheic women. Results: Regression analysis of the AMH data showed that a quadratic function of age provided a good description of these data plotted on a logarithmic scale, with a distribution of residual deviates that was not normal but showed significant leftskewness. Under the hypothesis that menopause can be predicted by AMH dropping below a critical threshold, a model predicting menopausal age was constructed from the AMH regression model and applied to the data on menopause. With the AMH threshold dependent on the covariates BMI and smoking status, the effects of these covariates were shown to be highly significant. Conclusions: In the present study we confirmed the good level of conformity between the distributions of observed and AMH-predicted ages at menopause, and showed that using BMI and smoking status as additional variables improves AMH-based prediction of age at menopause.

Nurse-led trials of medical devices: General principles and good practice

Aim To provide an overview of key governance matters relating to medical device trials and practical advice for nurses wishing to initiate or lead them. Background Medical device trials, which are formal research studies that examine the benefits and risks of therapeutic, non-drug treatment medical devices, have traditionally been the purview of physicians and scientists. The role of nurses in medical device trials historically has been as data collectors or co-ordinators rather than as principal investigators. Nurses more recently play an increasing role in initiating and leading medical device trials. Review Methods A review article of nurse-led trials of medical devices. Discussion Central to the quality and safety of all clinical trials is adherence to the International Conference on Harmonization Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice, which is the internationally-agreed standard for the ethically- and scientifically-sound design, conduct and monitoring of a medical device trial, as well as the analysis, reporting and verification of the data derived from that trial. Key considerations include the class of the medical device, type of medical device trial, regulatory status of the device, implementation of standard operating procedures, obligations of the trial sponsor, indemnity of relevant parties, scrutiny of the trial conduct, trial registration, and reporting and publication of the results. Conclusion Nurse-led trials of medical devices are demanding but rewarding research enterprises. As nursing practice and research increasingly embrace technical interventions, it is vital that nurse researchers contemplating such trials understand and implement the principles of Good Clinical Practice to protect both study participants and the research team.

What is a good project manager? Reconceptualizing the “do” : an Aristotelian perspective

In Social Science (Organization Studies, Economics, Management Science, Strategy, International Relations, Political Science…) the quest for addressing the question “what is a good practitioner?” has been around for centuries, with the underlying assumptions that good practitioners should lead organizations to higher levels of performance. Hence to ask “what is a good “captain”?” is not a new question, we should add! (e.g. Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997, p. 670; Söderlund, 2004, p. 190). This interrogation leads to consider problems such as the relations between dichotomies Theory and Practice, rigor and relevance of research, ways of knowing and knowledge forms. On the one hand we face the “Enlightenment” assumptions underlying modern positivist Social science, grounded in “unity-of-science dream of transforming and reducing all kinds of knowledge to one basic form and level” and cause-effects relationships (Eikeland, 2012, p. 20), and on the other, the postmodern interpretivist proposal, and its “tendency to make all kinds of knowing equivalent” (Eikeland, 2012, p. 20). In the project management space, this aims at addressing one of the fundamental problems in the field: projects still do not deliver their expected benefits and promises and therefore the socio-economical good (Hodgson & Cicmil, 2007; Bredillet, 2010, Lalonde et al., 2012). The Cartesian tradition supporting projects research and practice for the last 60 years (Bredillet, 2010, p. 4) has led to the lack of relevance to practice of the current conceptual base of project management, despite the sum of research, development of standards, best & good practices and the related development of project management bodies of knowledge (Packendorff, 1995, p. 319-323; Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006, p. 2–6, Hodgson & Cicmil, 2007, p. 436–7; Winter et al., 2006, p. 638). Referring to both Hodgson (2002) and Giddens (1993), we could say that “those who expect a “social-scientific Newton” to revolutionize this young field “are not only waiting for a train that will not arrive, but are in the wrong station altogether” (Hodgson, 2002, p. 809; Giddens, 1993, p. 18). While, in the postmodern stream mainly rooted in the “practice turn” (e.g. Hällgren & Lindahl, 2012), the shift from methodological individualism to social viscosity and the advocated pluralism lead to reinforce the “functional stupidity” (Alvesson & Spicer, 2012, p. 1194) this postmodern stream aims at overcoming. We suggest here that addressing the question “what is a good PM?” requires a philosophy of practice perspective to complement the “usual” philosophy of science perspective. The questioning of the modern Cartesian tradition mirrors a similar one made within Social science (Say, 1964; Koontz, 1961, 1980; Menger, 1985; Warry, 1992; Rothbard, 1997a; Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997; Flyvbjerg, 2001; Boisot & McKelvey, 2010), calling for new thinking. In order to get outside the rationalist ‘box’, Toulmin (1990, p. 11), along with Tsoukas & Cummings (1997, p. 655), suggests a possible path, summarizing the thoughts of many authors: “It can cling to the discredited research program of the purely theoretical (i.e. “modern”) philosophy, which will end up by driving it out of business: it can look for new and less exclusively theoretical ways of working, and develop the methods needed for a more practical (“post-modern”) agenda; or it can return to its pre-17th century traditions, and try to recover the lost (“pre-modern”) topics that were side-tracked by Descartes, but can be usefully taken up for the future” (Toulmin, 1990, p. 11). Thus, paradoxically and interestingly, in their quest for the so-called post-modernism, many authors build on “pre-modern” philosophies such as the Aristotelian one (e.g. MacIntyre, 1985, 2007; Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997; Flyvbjerg, 2001; Blomquist et al., 2010; Lalonde et al., 2012). It is perhaps because the post-modern stream emphasizes a dialogic process restricted to reliance on voice and textual representation, it limits the meaning of communicative praxis, and weaking the practice because it turns away attention from more fundamental issues associated with problem-definition and knowledge-for-use in action (Tedlock, 1983, p. 332–4; Schrag, 1986, p. 30, 46–7; Warry, 1992, p. 157). Eikeland suggests that the Aristotelian “gnoseology allows for reconsidering and reintegrating ways of knowing: traditional, practical, tacit, emotional, experiential, intuitive, etc., marginalised and considered insufficient by modernist [and post-modernist] thinking” (Eikeland, 2012, p. 20—21). By contrast with the modernist one-dimensional thinking and relativist and pluralistic post-modernism, we suggest, in a turn to an Aristotelian pre-modern lens, to re-conceptualise (“re” involving here a “re”-turn to pre-modern thinking) the “do” and to shift the perspective from what a good PM is (philosophy of science lens) to what a good PM does (philosophy of practice lens) (Aristotle, 1926a). As Tsoukas & Cummings put it: “In the Aristotelian tradition to call something good is to make a factual statement. To ask, for example, ’what is a good captain’?’ is not to come up with a list of attributes that good captains share (as modem contingency theorists would have it), but to point out the things that those who are recognized as good captains do.” (Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997, p. 670) Thus, this conversation offers a dialogue and deliberation about a central question: What does a good project manager do? The conversation is organized around a critic of the underlying assumptions supporting the modern, post-modern and pre-modern relations to ways of knowing, forms of knowledge and “practice”.

Study protocol : establishing good relationships between patients and health care providers while providing cardiac care. Exploring how patient-clinician engagement contributes to health disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in South Australia

Abstract Background: Studies that compare Indigenous Australian and non-Indigenous patients who experience a cardiac event or chest pain are inconclusive about the reasons for the differences in-hospital and survival rates. The advances in diagnostic accuracy, medication and specialised workforce has contributed to a lower case fatality and lengthen survival rates however this is not evident in the Indigenous Australian population. A possible driver contributing to this disparity may be the impact of patient-clinician interface during key interactions during the health care process. Methods/Design: This study will apply an Indigenous framework to describe the interaction between Indigenous patients and clinicians during the continuum of cardiac health care, i.e. from acute admission, secondary and rehabilitative care. Adopting an Indigenous framework is more aligned with Indigenous realities, knowledge, intellects, histories and experiences. A triple layered designed focus group will be employed to discuss patient-clinician engagement. Focus groups will be arranged by geographic clusters i.e. metropolitan and a regional centre. Patient informants will be identified by Indigenous status (i.e. Indigenous and non-Indigenous) and the focus groups will be convened separately. The health care provider focus groups will be convened on an organisational basis i.e. state health providers and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services. Yarning will be used as a research method to facilitate discussion. Yarning is in congruence with the oral traditions that are still a reality in day-to-day Indigenous lives. Discussion: This study is nestled in a larger research program that explores the drivers to the disparity of care and health outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians who experience an acute cardiac admission. A focus on health status, risk factors and clinical interventions may camouflage critical issues within a patient-clinician exchange. This approach may provide a way forward to reduce the appalling health disadvantage experienced within the Indigenous Australian communities. Keywords: Patient-clinician engagement, Qualitative, Cardiovascular disease, Focus groups, Indigenous

Something’s coming, something good: Identifying TPACK competence in pre-service teachers’ analyses of learning objects

There is a song at the beginning of the musical, West Side Story, where the character Tony sings that “something’s coming, something good.” The song is an anthem of optimism, brimming with promise. This paper is about the long-held promise of information and communication technology (ICT) to transform teaching and learning, to modernise the learning environment of the classroom, and to create a new digital pedagogy. But much of our experience to date in the schooling sector tells more of resistance and reaction than revolution, of more of the same but with a computer in the corner and of ICT activities as unwelcome time-fillers/time-wasters. Recently, a group of pre-service teachers in a postgraduate primary education degree in an Australian university were introduced to learning objects in an ICT immersion program. Their analyses and related responses, as recorded in online journals, have here been interpreted in terms of TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge). Against contemporary observation, these students generally displayed high levels of competence and highly positive dispositions of students to the integration of ICT in their future classrooms. In short, they displayed the same optimism and confidence as the fictional “Tony” in believing that something good was coming.

An intuitive dashboard for Bayesian network inference

Current Bayesian network software packages provide good graphical interface for users who design and develop Bayesian networks for various applications. However, the intended end-users of these networks may not necessarily find such an interface appealing and at times it could be overwhelming, particularly when the number of nodes in the network is large. To circumvent this problem, this paper presents an intuitive dashboard, which provides an additional layer of abstraction, enabling the end-users to easily perform inferences over the Bayesian networks. Unlike most software packages, which display the nodes and arcs of the network, the developed tool organises the nodes based on the cause-and-effect relationship, making the user-interaction more intuitive and friendly. In addition to performing various types of inferences, the users can conveniently use the tool to verify the behaviour of the developed Bayesian network. The tool has been developed using QT and SMILE libraries in C++.

Steady natural convection of non-Newtonian power-law fluid in a trapezoidal enclosure

Numerically investigation of free convection heat transfer in a differentially heated trapezoidal cavity filled with non-Newtonian Power-law fluid has been performed in this study. The left inclined surface is uniformly heated whereas the right inclined surface is maintained as uniformly cooled. The top and bottom surfaces are kept adiabatic with initially quiescent fluid inside the enclosure. Finite volume based commercial software FLUENT 14.5 is used to solve the governing equations. Dependency of various flow parameters of fluid flow and heat transfer is analyzed including Rayleigh number, Ra ranging from 10^5 to 10^7, Prandtl number, Pr of 100 to 10,000 and power index, n of 0.6 to 1.4. Outcomes have been reported in terms of isotherms, streamline, and local Nusselt number for various Ra, Pr, n and inclined angles. Grid sensitivity analysis is performed and numerically obtained results have been compared with those results available in the literature and found good agreement.

It takes more than good intentions : institutional and attitudinal impediments to engaging young people in participatory planning

While participatory processes have become an important part of planning, young people are a particularly vulnerable group in terms of potential marginalisation and exclusion from effective participation. Including the views of young people in participatory planning is not simply a matter of bringing them into existing processes. Instead, participatory processes must find ways to integrate and accommodate their needs and ways of expressing their views. Without these adjustments young people may simply move from being kept outside the planning process to a situation where, although they are formally included, their claims are not taken seriously and they are not treated with equal respect. In this paper we reflect on the success of a community advisory committee, formed to consider water planning issues, in integrating the views of young people into their deliberations. Using Iris Marion Young’s (1995) ideas of communicative democracy we highlight the challenges and opportunities presented by this participatory approach, as articulated by both the young people involved and the adult participants. We specifically consider how the elements of greeting, rhetoric and narrative were reflected in the committee process. We argue that both planners and adult participants need to ensure that participatory processes allow for the equal engagement of all participants and place equal value on their contributions. Our research shows that this involves both an institutional and attitudinal commitment to include the views of young people. The institutional commitment requires young people to be included in processes and for their involvement to be supported. However, the attitudinal commitment it is equally important and requires that adult participants be prepared not only to accept the views of younger participants but to actively encourage and support their full participation.

One night’s CPAP withdrawal in otherwise compliant OSA patients: marked driving impairment but good awareness of increased sleepiness

Purpose Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) patients effectively treated by and compliant with continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) occasionally miss a night’s treatment. The purpose of this study was to use a real car interactive driving simulator to assess the effects of such an occurrence on the next day’s driving, including the extent to which these drivers are aware of increased sleepiness. Methods Eleven long-term compliant CPAP-treated 50–75-year-old male OSA participants completed a 2-h afternoon, simulated, realistic monotonous drive in an instrumented car, twice, following one night: (1) normal sleep with CPAP and (2) nil CPAP. Drifting out of road lane (‘incidents’), subjective sleepiness every 200 s and continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) activities indicative of sleepiness and compensatory effort were monitored. Results Withdrawal of CPAP markedly increased sleep disturbance and led to significantly more incidents, a shorter ‘safe’ driving duration, increased alpha and theta EEG power and greater subjective sleepiness. However, increased EEG beta activity indicated that more compensatory effort was being applied. Importantly, under both conditions, there was a highly significant correlation between subjective and EEG measures of sleepiness, to the extent that participants were well aware of the effects of nil CPAP. Conclusions Patients should be aware that compliance with treatment every night is crucial for safe driving.

The Good, the Bad and the Efficient : Productivity, efficiency and technical change in the Airline Industry, 2004:2008

This study models the joint production of desirable and undesirable output production (that is, CO2 emissions) of airlines. The Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index is employed to measure productivity growth when undesirable output production is regulated and unregulated. The results show that pollution abatement activities of airlines lowers productivity growth which suggests the traditional approach of measuring productivity growth, which ignores CO2 emissions, overstate "true" productivity growth.

Monitoring and benchmarking government policies and actions to improve the healthiness of food environments : a proposed Government Healthy Food Environment Policy Index

Government action is essential to increase the healthiness of food environments and reduce obesity, diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and their related inequalities. This paper proposes a monitoring framework to assess government policies and actions for creating healthy food environments. Recommendations from relevant authoritative organizations and expert advisory groups for reducing obesity and NCDs were examined, and pertinent components were incorporated into a comprehensive framework for monitoring government policies and actions. A Government Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) was developed, which comprises a ‘policy’ component with seven domains on specific aspects of food environments, and an ‘infrastructure support’ component with seven domains to strengthen systems to prevent obesity and NCDs. These were revised through a week-long consultation process with international experts. Examples of good practice statements are proposed within each domain, and these will evolve into benchmarks established by governments at the forefront of creating and implementing food policies for good health. A rating process is proposed to assess a government's level of policy implementation towards good practice. The Food-EPI will be pre-tested and piloted in countries of varying size and income levels. The benchmarking of government policy implementation has the potential to catalyse greater action to reduce obesity and NCDs.

Is foot ulcer simulation training (FUST) really effective? Participants’ supervisors speak out

Background Foot ulcers are a common reason for diabetes-related hospitalisation. Foot ulcer simulation training (FUST) programs have increased podiatry participants self-confidence to manage foot ulcers. However, supervisors’ perspectives on their participants attending these simulation programs have not been investigated. This mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) study aimed to investigate home clinical supervisors’ perspectives on any changes to their participants’ competence and practice following FUST. Methods Clinical supervisors of fifteen podiatrists, who participated in a two-day Foot Ulcer Simulation Training (FUST) course, were recruited. Supervisors completed quantitative surveys evaluating their participants’ foot ulcer competence pre-FUST and 6-months post-FUST, via a purposed designed 21-item survey using a five-point Likert scale (1=Very limited, 5=Highly competent). Supervisors also attended a semi-structured qualitative group interview to investigate supervisors’ perspectives on FUST. Results Supervisors surveys returned were pre-FUST (n=10) and post-FUST (n=12). Significant competence improvements were observed at the 6-month survey (mean scores 2.84 cf. 3.72, p < 0.05). Five supervisors attended the group interview. Five sub-themes emerged: i) FUST provided a good foundation for future learning, ii) FUST modelled good clinical behaviour, iii) clinical practice improvement was evident in most participants, iv) clinical improvements were dependent on participant’s willingness to change and existing workplace culture, v) FUST needs to be reinforced back in the home clinic. Conclusion Overall, supervisors of FUST participants indicated that the course improved their participants’ competence and clinical practice. However, the degree of improvement appears dependant on the participants’ home workplace culture and willingness to embrace change.

A longitudinal study of the impact of chronic psychological stress on health-related quality of life and clinical biomarkers : protocol for the Australian Healthy Aging of Women Study

BACKGROUND: Despite advancements in our understanding of the importance of stress reduction in achieving good health, we still only have limited insight into the impact of stress on cellular function. Recent studies have suggested that exposure to prolonged psychological stress may alter an individual's physiological responses, and contribute to morbidity and mortality. This paper presents an overview of the study protocol we are using to examine the impact of life stressors on lifestyle factors, health-related quality of life and novel and established biomarkers of stress in midlife and older Australian women.The primary aim of this study is to explore the links between chronic psychological stress on both subjective and objective health markers in midlife and older Australian women. The study examines the extent to which exposure frightening, upsetting or stressful events such as natural disasters, illness or death of a relative, miscarriage and relationship conflict is correlated with a variety of objective and subjective health markers.Methods/design: This study is embedded within the longitudinal Healthy Aging of Women's study which has collected data from midlife and older Australian women at 5 yearly intervals since 2001, and uses the Allostastic model of women's health by Groer and colleagues in 2010. The current study expands the focus of the HOW study and will assess the impact of life stressors on quality of life and clinical biomarkers in midlife and older Australian women to explain the impact of chronic psychological stress in women. DISCUSSION: The proposed study hypothesizes that women are at increased risk of exposure to multiple or repeated stressors, some being unique to women, and the frequency and chronicity of stressors increases women's risk of adverse health outcomes. This study aims to further our understanding of the relationships between stressful life experiences, perceived quality of life, stress biomarkers, chronic illness, and health status in women.