Closure of the Challinor Centre II: An extended report on 95 individuals after 12 months of community living

As part of an institutional closure programme, 95 individuals with an intellectual disability were relocated to community-based group homes. Each individual was assessed 6 months prior to the relocation and then again after 1, 6, and 12 months of community living. Assessments involved ratings of adaptive and maladaptive behaviour, choice-making, and life circumstances. The group means comparing institution to community ratings showed improvements in adaptive functioning but no significant change in maladaptive behaviour. There were also improvements in life circumstances and increased opportunities for choice-making following relocation to the community. These outcomes suggest that relocation to the community was associated with a more active and normalised lifestyle than experienced in the institutional setting.

Autonomy: an important component for nurses' job satisfaction

This quantitative pilot study (n = 178), conducted in a large Brisbane teaching hospital in Australia, found autonomy to be the most important job component for registered nurses' job satisfaction. The actual level of satisfaction with autonomy was 4.6, on a scale of 1 for very dissatisfied to 7 for very satisfied. The mean for job satisfaction was 4.3, with the job components professional status and interaction adding most substantially to the result. There was discontentment with the other two job components, which were Cask requirements and organisational policies. Demographic comparisons showed that nurses who were preceptors had significantly less job satisfaction than the other nurses at the hospital. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Are transitions in human gait determined by mechanical, kinetic or energetic factors?

It is currently unclear whether it is the need to maintain metabolic efficiency, the need to keep skeletal loading below critical force levels, or simple mechanical factors that drive the walk-to-run (W R) and run-to-walk (R-W) transitions in human gait. Eighteen adults (9 males and 9 females) locomoted on an instrumented treadmill using their preferred gait. Each completed 2 ascending (W-R) and 2 descending (R-W) series of trials under three levels of loading (0%, 15% and 30% body weight). For each trial, participants locomoted for 60 s at each of 9 different speeds -4 speeds both above and below their preferred transition speed (PTS) plus their PTS. Evidence was sought for critical levels of key kinetic (maximum vertical force, impulse, first peak force, time to first peak force and maximum loading rate), energetic (oxygen consumption, transport cost) and mechanical variables (limb lengths, strength) predictive of the gait transition. Analyses suggested the kinetic variables of time to first peak force and loading rate as the most likely determinants of the W-R and R-W transitions. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Low input tillage/cropping systems for limited resource areas

Agriculture in limited resource areas is characterized by small farms which an generally too small to adequately support the needs of an average farm family. The farming operation can be described as a low input cropping system with the main energy source being manual labor, draught animals and in some areas hand tractors. These farming systems are the most important contributor to the national economy of many developing countries. The role of tillage is similar in dryland agricultural systems in both the high input (HICS) and low input cropping systems (LICS), however, wet cultivation or puddling is unique to lowland rice-based systems in low input cropping systems. Evidence suggest that tillage may result in marginal increases in crop yield in the short term, however, in the longer term it may be neutral or give rise to yield decreases associated with soil structural degradation. On marginal soils, tillage may be required to prepare suitable seedbeds or to release adequate Nitrogen through mineralization, but in the longer term, however, tillage reduces soil organic matter content, increases soil erodibility and the emission of greenhouse gases. Tillage in low input cropping systems involves a very large proportion of the population and any changes: in current practices such as increased mechanization will have a large social impact such as increased unemployment and increasing feminization of poverty, as mechanization may actually reduce jobs for women. Rapid mechanization is likely to result in failures, but slower change, accompanied by measures to provide alternative rural employment, might be beneficial. Agriculture in limited resource areas must produce the food and fiber needs of their community, and its future depends on the development of sustainable tillage/cropping systems that are suitable for the soil and climatic conditions. These should be based on sound biophysical principles and meet the needs of and he acceptable to the farming communities. Some of the principle requirements for a sustainable system includes the maintenance of soil health, an increase in the rain water use efficiency of the system, increased use of fertilizer and the prevention of erosion. The maintenance of crop residues on the surface is paramount for meeting these requirements, and the competing use of crop residues must be met from other sources. These requirements can be met within a zonal tillage system combined with suitable agroforestry, which will reduce the need for crop residues. It is, however, essential that farmers participate in the development of any new technologies to ensure adoption of the new system. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Pacific damsel bug: Friend of foe?

Determining the diet of insects present in cotton should be among the first steps in any applied research program. Omnivorous species are particularly important as they have the potential to suppress pest populations through prey feeding, but also to cause economic damage to the crop through plant feeding.

Paediatric palliative home care with Internet-based video-phones: lessons learnt

We have designed and tested an Internet-based video-phone suitable for use in the homes of families in need of paediatric palliative care services. The equipment uses an ordinary telephone line and includes a PC, Web camera and modem housed in a custom-made box. In initial field testing, six clinical consultations were conducted in a one-month trial of the videophone with a family in receipt of palliative care services who were living in the outer suburbs of Brisbane. Problems with variability in call quality-namely audio and video freezing, and audio break-up-prompted further laboratory testing. We completed a programme of over 250 test calls. Fixing modem connection parameters to use the V.34 modulation protocol at a set bandwidth of 24 kbit/s improved connection stability and the reliability of the video-phone. In subsequent field testing 47 of 50 calls (94%) connected without problems. The freezes that did occur were brief (with greatly reduced packet loss) and had little effect on the ability to communicate, unlike the problems arising in the home testing. The low-bandwidth Internet-based video-phone we have developed provides a feasible means of doing telemedicine in the home.

Reinforcing the glass ceiling: The consequences of hostile sexism for female managerial candidates

Previous research has established that benevolent sexism is related to the negative evaluation of women who violate specific norms for behavior. Research has yet to document the causal impact of hostile sexism on evaluations of individual targets. Correlational evidence and ambivalent sexism theory led us to predict that hostile sexism would be associated with negative evaluations of a female candidate for a masculine-typed occupational role. Participants completed the ASI (P. Glick & S. T. Fiske, 1996) and evaluated a curriculum vitae from either a male or female candidate. Higher hostile sexism was significantly associated with more negative evaluations of the female candidate and with lower recommendations that she be employed as a manager. Conversely, higher hostile sexism was significantly associated with higher recommendations that a male candidate should be employed as a manager. Benevolent sexism was unrelated to evaluations and recommendations in this context. The findings support the hypothesis that hostile, but not benevolent, sexism results in negativity toward individual women who pose a threat to men's status in the workplace.