Introduced mammals in Australian rangelands: Future threats and the role of monitoring programmes in management strategies

In the present paper, we have provided an initial assessment of the current and future threats to biodiversity posed by introduced mammals (predators and herbivores) inhabiting the Australian rangelands, exploring trends in populations and options for management. Notably, rabbits have declined in recent years in the wake of rabbit haemorrhagic disease, populations of feral camels have increased dramatically and foxes appear to have moved northwards, thereby threatening native fauna within an expanded range. Following on, we developed a framework for monitoring the impacts of introduced mammals in the Australian rangelands. In doing so, we considered the key issues that needed to be considered in designing a monitoring programme for this purpose and critically evaluated the role of monitoring in pest animal management. Finally we have provided a brief inventory of current best-practice methods of estimating the abundance of introduced mammal populations in the Australian rangelands with some comments on new approaches and their potential applications.

Teacher responses to the communicative attempts of children with autism

We assessed teacher responses to the communicative attempts of children with autism. Teachers were first interviewed using the Inventory of Potential Communicative Acts (IPCA) to identify behaviors in each child's repertoire that the teachers considered to be communicative. Interview results suggested that the teachers interpreted many of the children's prelinguistic gestures, body movements, and facial expressions, as forms of communication. Naturalistic observations were then conducted in the child's classroom to determine how teachers responded to the children's identified forms of prelinguistic behaviors. The results of these naturalistic observations suggested that the teachers often did not respond to the child's prelinguistic behaviors in ways that acknowledged their communicative intent. Implications of the results on the child's communication development and for intervention efforts are discussed.

Restoration of degraded tropical forest landscapes

The current scale of deforestation in tropical regions and the large areas of degraded lands now present underscore the urgent need,for interventions to restore biodiversity, ecological functioning, and the supply of goods and ecological services previously used by poor rural communities. Traditional timber plantations have supplied some goods but have made only minor contributions to fulfilling most of these other objectives. New approaches to reforestation are now emerging, with potential for both overcoming forest degradation and addressing rural poverty.

Development of a measure to assess coping for auditory hallucinations

This paper describes the development of an instrument to assess coping strategies for auditory hallucinations. An inventory of coping strategies was obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews with 17 male participants. This inventory was then used to develop a 27-item questionnaire, the Responses to Auditory Hallucinations Questionnaire (RAHQ). The RAHQ was administered to 125 respondents. Measures of symptom severity, appraisal, anxiety, depression and coping dissatisfaction were also administered. Factor Analysis of the RAHQ yielded three coping subscales, Active coping, Passive coping and Suppression coping. The subscales were shown to be empirically distinct and to possess satisfactory internal reliability. For a small subgroup of participants, two of the three subscales demonstrated satisfactory test-retest reliability. Construct validity was assessed within a stress and coping framework. The RAHQ will facilitate the investigation of the efficacy of coping strategies for the management of auditory hallucinations.

The contagion of international terrorism and its effects on the firm in an interconnected world

International trade and investment economies are highly integrated and interdependent and can be exploited by organized, international terrorism. The network of inter dependencies in the international economy means that a terrorist attack has the potential to disrupt the functioning of the network, so the effects can reverberate around the world. Governments can control the distributed effects of terrorism by auditing industrial networks to reveal and protect critical hubs and by promoting flexibility in production and distribution of goods and services to improve resilience in the economy. To explain these network effects, the authors draw on the new science of complex networks which has been applied to the physical sciences and is now increasingly being used to explain organizational and economic phenomena.

Physical activity measurement - a primer of health promotion

As the importance of physical activity is recognised in health promotion, the task of measuring it becomes a central research and practice challenge. Measurement of physical activity is important to policy makers interested in population surveillance, as well as to practitioners interested in programme evaluation and research. This review outlines 'best practice' in physical activity measurement, and provides an inventory of established physical activity and related measures for use in health promotion programme evaluation, research and surveillance at the national and local level. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Gender and consumer search of the internet

The role of gender differences in the consumption of goods and services is well established in many areas of consumer behaviour and computer use and yet there has been only limited research into such gender-based differences in the information search behaviour of Internet users. This paper reports the gender-based results of an exploratory study of consumer external information search of the web. The study investigated consumer characteristics, web search behaviour, and the post web search outcomes of purchase decision status and consumer judgements of search usefulness and satisfaction. Gender-based differences are reported in all three areas. Consideration of the results suggests they are issues which could inhibit the adoption of online purchasing by female web users. The implications of these results are discussed and a future research agenda proposed.