Moving European research on work and ageing forward: Overview and agenda

This paper summarizes the state of affairs of European research on ageing and work. After a close inspection of the age construct, an overview is presented of research in four areas: the relationship between age and HR-policies, early retirement, age and performance/employability, age and health/well-being. The overview results in a research agenda on work and ageing and in recommendations for practice.

Some reflection of research 'Schools' and geographies

Reflecting on real and perceived differences between European and North American research cultures, I challenge views that ‘European’ research is under appreciated or discriminated against, and caution against isolationist European positions. Instead, I argue that although no distinctive and coherent European tradition or culture really exists, there may be elements of the prevalent research culture that can be turned into an advantage for Europe-based and/or European-trained researchers in helping to influence and improve one, global research conversation. Of course, a range of sub-communities and sub-conversations will and should exist, but there is no reason for these to be based on geography.

Integrating engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curriculum

Many nations are experiencing a decline in the number of graduating engineers, an overall poor preparedness for engineering studies in tertiary institutions, and a lack of diversity in the field. Given the increasing importance of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology in our world, it is imperative that we foster an interest and drive to participate in engineering from an early age. This discussion paper argues for the integration of engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curricula. In doing so, we offer a definition of engineering education and address its core goals; consider some perceptions of engineering and engineering education held by teachers and students; and offer one approach to promoting engineering education within the elementary and middle school mathematics curriculum, namely through mathematical modeling.

Early experience of mobile telephony : a comparison of two villages in Papua New Guinea

This paper examines social change following the recent introduction of mobile telephony into rural communities in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It presents the findings of substantial fieldwork conducted in 2009, and suggests ways in which the new technology is already changing people’s lives and relationships. The paper identifies the roles of mobile telephones in two communities, the changes taking place, and how villagers are responding to them. Comparison of the two villages is strategic as it highlights similarities in perceptions of mobile phones in these two very different settings. An ethnographic approach is adopted, situated within an interpretative methodology. Data collection methods include semi-structured interviews, orally-administered surveys and participant observation. The theoretical lens is focused on the ‘communicative ecology’ concept, which stems from the communication research tradition. This research is significant as it addresses changes currently occurring in the communication methods of whole communities.

Introduction

In this volume we compile and comment on a collection of some of the most important works on nascent entrepreneurship that have appeared in the last two decades. We do not go further back than that because up until1992 hardly any systematic research on the pre-operational stage of business creation was undertaken. In that year, the terms 'nascent entrepreneur' and 'nascent venture' appear for the first time in the research literature (Reynolds and Miller, Chapter l, 1992; Reynolds and White, 1992). This signals the emergence of a new research paradigm designed to study• business creation processes empirically at very early stages, before an operational firm has come into existence. The most central feature of this type of research is that it identifies a statistically representative sample of nascent entrepreneurs (NEs)- people engaged in ongoing but not yet operational business start-ups- via screening interviews with a very large random sample of adults. The overarching research questions pursued in this emerging research tradition are the following: 1. What proportion of individuals (in various population subgroups) are trying to start a new business at any given time? 2. What led them to engage in the creation of a new business? 3. What characteristics and behaviors associated with the founder(s), the venture, the environment and the process are associated with persistence, progress and success in trying to start a new business?

Successful outcomes in vocational education and training courses : how pedagogy and expectations influence achievement

This paper reports on a four year Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project titled Skilling Indigenous Queensland, conducted in regional areas of Queensland, Australia from 2009 to 2013. The project sought to investigate vocational education, training (VET) and teaching, Indigenous learners’ needs, employer cultural and expectations and community culture and expectations to identify best practice in numeracy teaching for Indigenous VET learners. Specifically it focused on ways to enhance the teaching and learning of courses and the associated mathematics in such courses to benefit learners and increase their future opportunities of employment. To date thirty-nine teachers/trainers/teacher aides and two hundred and thirty-one students consented to participate in the project. Nine VET courses were nominated to be the focus on the study. This paper focuses on questionnaire and interview responses from four trainers, two teacher aides and six students. In recent years a considerable amount of funding has been allocated to increasing Indigenous Peoples’ participation in education and employment. This increased funding is predicated on the assumption that it will make a difference and contribute to closing the education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians (Council of Australia Governments, 2009). The central tenet is that access to education for Indigenous People will create substantial social and economic benefits for regional and remote Indigenous People. The project’s aim is to address some of the issues associated with the gap. To achieve the aims, the project adopted a mixed methods design aimed at benefitting research participants and included: participatory collaborative action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988) and, community research (Smith, 1999). Participatory collaborative action research refers to a is a “collective, self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social and educational practices” (Kemmis et al., 1988, p. 5). Community research is described as an approach that “conveys a much more intimate, human and self-defined space” (p. 127). Community research relies on and validates the community’s own definitions. As the project is informed by the social at a community level, it is described as “community action research or emancipatory research” (Smith, 1999, p. 127). It seeks to demonstrate benefit to the community, making positive differences in the lives of Indigenous People and communities. The data collection techniques included survey questionnaires, video recording of teaching and learning processes, teacher reflective video analysis of teaching, observations, semi-structured interviews and student numeracy testing. As a result of these processes, the findings indicate that VET course teachers work hard to adopt contextualising strategies to their teaching, however this process is not always straight forward because of the perceptions of how mathematics has been taught and learned historically. Further teachers, trainers and students have high expectations of one another with the view to successful outcomes from the courses.

Roundabout design and cycling safety

Roundabouts reduce the frequency and severity of motor vehicle crashes and therefore the number installed has increased dramatically in the last 20 years in many countries. However, the safety impacts of roundabouts for bicycle riders are a source of concern, with many studies reporting lower injury reductions for cyclists than car occupants. This paper summarises the results of a project undertaken to provide guidance on how cyclist safety could be improved at existing roundabouts in Queensland, Australia, where cyclist crashes have been increasing and legislation gives motor vehicles priority over cyclists and pedestrians at roundabouts. The review of international roundabout design guidelines identified two schools of design: tangential roundabouts (common in English-speaking countries, including Australia), which focus on minimising delay to motor vehicles, and radial roundabouts (common in continental Europe), which focus on speed reduction and safety. While it might be expected that radial roundabouts would be safer for cyclists, there have been no studies to confirm this view. Most guidelines expect cyclists to act as vehicle traffic in single-lane, typically low-speed, roundabouts. Some jurisdictions do not permit cyclists to travel on multi-lane roundabouts, and recommend segregated bicycle facilities because of their lowest crash risk for cyclists. Given that most bicycle-vehicle crashes at roundabouts involve an entering vehicle and a circulating cyclist, the greatest challenges appear to be reducing the speed of motor vehicles on the approach/entry to roundabouts and other ways of maximizing the likelihood that cyclists will be seen. Lower entry speeds are likely to underpin the greater safety of compact roundabouts for cyclists and, conversely, the higher than expected crash rates at two-lane roundabouts. European research discourages the use of bike lanes in roundabouts which position cyclists at the edge of the road and contributes to cyclists being less likely to be noticed by drivers.

Epigenetic modelling

The field of epigenetics looks at changes in the chromosomal structure that affect gene expression without altering DNA sequence. A large-scale modelling project to better understand these mechanisms is gaining momentum. Early advances in genetics led to the all-genetic paradigm: phenotype (an organism's characteristics/behaviour) is determined by genotype (its genetic make-up). This was later amended and expressed by the well-known formula P = G + E, encompassing the notion that the visible characteristics of a living organism (the phenotype, P) is a combination of hereditary genetic factors (the genotype, G) and environmental factors (E). However, this method fails to explain why in diseases such as schizophrenia we still observe differences between identical twins. Furthermore, the identification of environmental factors (such as smoking and air quality for lung cancer) is relatively rare. The formula also fails to explain cell differentiation from a single fertilized cell. In the wake of early work by Waddington, more recent results have emphasized that the expression of the genotype can be altered without any change in the DNA sequence. This phenomenon has been tagged as epigenetics. To form the chromosome, DNA strands roll over nucleosomes, which are a cluster of nine proteins (histones), as detailed in Figure 1. Epigenetic mechanisms involve inherited alterations in these two structures, eg through attachment of a functional group to the amino acids (methyl, acetyl and phosphate). These 'stable alterations' arise during development and cell proliferation and persist through cell division. While information within the genetic material is not changed, instructions for its assembly and interpretation may be. Modelling this new paradigm, P = G + E + EpiG, is the object of our study.

Cardiometabolic effects of genetic upregulation of the interleukin 1 receptor antagonist: A Mendelian randomisation analysis

Background To investigate potential cardiovascular and other effects of long-term pharmacological interleukin 1 (IL-1) inhibition, we studied genetic variants that produce inhibition of IL-1, a master regulator of inflammation. Methods We created a genetic score combining the effects of alleles of two common variants (rs6743376 and rs1542176) that are located upstream of IL1RN, the gene encoding the IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra; an endogenous inhibitor of both IL-1α and IL-1β); both alleles increase soluble IL-1Ra protein concentration. We compared effects on inflammation biomarkers of this genetic score with those of anakinra, the recombinant form of IL-1Ra, which has previously been studied in randomised trials of rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory disorders. In primary analyses, we investigated the score in relation to rheumatoid arthritis and four cardiometabolic diseases (type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, ischaemic stroke, and abdominal aortic aneurysm; 453 411 total participants). In exploratory analyses, we studied the relation of the score to many disease traits and to 24 other disorders of proposed relevance to IL-1 signalling (746 171 total participants). Findings For each IL1RN minor allele inherited, serum concentrations of IL-1Ra increased by 0·22 SD (95% CI 0·18–0·25; 12·5%; p=9·3 × 10−33), concentrations of interleukin 6 decreased by 0·02 SD (−0·04 to −0·01; −1·7%; p=3·5 × 10−3), and concentrations of C-reactive protein decreased by 0·03 SD (−0·04 to −0·02; −3·4%; p=7·7 × 10−14). We noted the effects of the genetic score on these inflammation biomarkers to be directionally concordant with those of anakinra. The allele count of the genetic score had roughly log-linear, dose-dependent associations with both IL-1Ra concentration and risk of coronary heart disease. For people who carried four IL-1Ra-raising alleles, the odds ratio for coronary heart disease was 1·15 (1·08–1·22; p=1·8 × 10−6) compared with people who carried no IL-1Ra-raising alleles; the per-allele odds ratio for coronary heart disease was 1·03 (1·02–1·04; p=3·9 × 10−10). Per-allele odds ratios were 0·97 (0·95–0·99; p=9·9 × 10−4) for rheumatoid arthritis, 0·99 (0·97–1·01; p=0·47) for type 2 diabetes, 1·00 (0·98–1·02; p=0·92) for ischaemic stroke, and 1·08 (1·04–1·12; p=1·8 × 10−5) for abdominal aortic aneurysm. In exploratory analyses, we observed per-allele increases in concentrations of proatherogenic lipids, including LDL-cholesterol, but no clear evidence of association for blood pressure, glycaemic traits, or any of the 24 other disorders studied. Modelling suggested that the observed increase in LDL-cholesterol could account for about a third of the association observed between the genetic score and increased coronary risk. Interpretation Human genetic data suggest that long-term dual IL-1α/β inhibition could increase cardiovascular risk and, conversely, reduce the risk of development of rheumatoid arthritis. The cardiovascular risk might, in part, be mediated through an increase in proatherogenic lipid concentrations. Funding UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, UK National Institute for Health Research, National Institute for Health Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, European Research Council, and European Commission Framework Programme 7.

Director independence or decision bias? An investigation of alternative sources of agency costs in board decision making

Research into boards traditionally focuses on independent monitoring of management, with studies focused on the effect of board independence on firm performance. This thesis aims to broaden the research tradition by consolidating prior research and investigating how agents may circumvent independent monitoring. Meta-analysis of previous board independence-firm performance studies indicated no systematic relationship between board independence and firm performance. Next, a series of experiments demonstrated that the presentation of recommendations to directors may bias decision making irrespective of other information presented and the independence of the decision maker. Together, results suggest that independence may be less important than the agent's motivation to misdirect the monitoring process.

Critical communications research in Australia : from radical populism to creative industries

This paper tracks the development of critical communicatiosn research in Australia over a 30 year period. It assesses the relative significance of critical theory, Marxist political economy and cultural studies to the development of such a tradition. it also evaluates the rise of 'creative industries' dicourse as an emergent development in the field, and a distinctive contribution of Australian media and communications research.

Deriving a preference-based utility measure for cancer patients from the European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer's Quality of Life Questionnaire C30 : a confirmatory versus exploratory approach

Background Multi attribute utility instruments (MAUIs) are preference-based measures that comprise a health state classification system (HSCS) and a scoring algorithm that assigns a utility value to each health state in the HSCS. When developing a MAUI from a health-related quality of life (HRQOL) questionnaire, first a HSCS must be derived. This typically involves selecting a subset of domains and items because HRQOL questionnaires typically have too many items to be amendable to the valuation task required to develop the scoring algorithm for a MAUI. Currently, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by Rasch analysis is recommended for deriving a MAUI from a HRQOL measure. Aim To determine whether confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is more appropriate and efficient than EFA to derive a HSCS from the European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer’s core HRQOL questionnaire, Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30), given its well-established domain structure. Methods QLQ-C30 (Version 3) data were collected from 356 patients receiving palliative radiotherapy for recurrent/metastatic cancer (various primary sites). The dimensional structure of the QLQ-C30 was tested with EFA and CFA, the latter informed by the established QLQ-C30 structure and views of both patients and clinicians on which are the most relevant items. Dimensions determined by EFA or CFA were then subjected to Rasch analysis. Results CFA results generally supported the proposed QLQ-C30 structure (comparative fit index =0.99, Tucker–Lewis index =0.99, root mean square error of approximation =0.04). EFA revealed fewer factors and some items cross-loaded on multiple factors. Further assessment of dimensionality with Rasch analysis allowed better alignment of the EFA dimensions with those detected by CFA. Conclusion CFA was more appropriate and efficient than EFA in producing clinically interpretable results for the HSCS for a proposed new cancer-specific MAUI. Our findings suggest that CFA should be recommended generally when deriving a preference-based measure from a HRQOL measure that has an established domain structure.

Wrestling with schools, schooling and educational research (Personal Reflections on the European Union-supported Educational Research 1995-2003: Briefing Papers for Policy Makers)

I must admit that I approached the European Union-supported educational research 1995-2003: Briefing papers for policy makers with a sense of trepidation. As a researcher who defines himself as socially critical, I wondered about the dynamics of a policy document that was published by the bureaucracy that has, in some form, a vested interest in the structure and operation of education in its various guises. In turning my attention to this review, I decided to focus my attention on the third guiding question that argues education and training "are strongly interconnected with concerns that include citizenship and democratic participation, inequalities and social justice, cultural diversity and quality of life" (Millei, 2005). The Briefing Papers include recommendations on democracy and citizenship, social exclusion and equality, gender and dealing with mental illness in schools...