Impossible triangles: flat actors in telematic theatre

In fact, in this scene, both A and B are online. A is in a classroom at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and B is in a television studio at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. The two locations are connected through video conference and, in each space, a local audience watches the local performer in the room, and the remote performer projected on a screen. The performers are captured in profile, and appear to be looking at computer screens in front of them but cannot actually see one another. The text is consciously banal, composed to replicate the broken rhythms and sequences, flattened tone and repetitions of scrolling words in a text box on a screen. Information about presence and absence (A or B is offline or online) is spoken as text. Although the two performers speak in accents that declare their different language/ cultures, the vernacular is generic 'internetslang'. The relatively monotonous and unpunctuated delivery of the textual rhythms is interrupted and counterpointed by a sound lag of nearly a second, and by a faint audio echo as one voice 'lands' in the second location. Its orchestration allows the sound fracture and dispersal in some moments. In other moments, the actors anticipate or absorb the gaps in transmission, driving the speech rhythms through so that the utterance 'arrives' precisely at the end of the prompt line.

Screen media, parenting practices, and the family environment in Australia: a longitudinal study of young children’s media use, lifestyles, and outcomes for healthy weight

Few studies of media use and adiposity explore the influence of parenting on children’s lifestyle behaviors. Screen media access, bedroom television, lack of physical activity, and snacking on energy-dense foods have long been implicated in child overweight. This research used data from the first three waves of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children to investigate, prospectively, the associations between parental practices in early to middle childhood and children’s behaviors and weight in late childhood. A path model was used to investigate whether consistent parentingpredicted setting of boundaries for access to and use of media, and was indirectly associated with children’s lifestyle behaviors that increase the likelihood of healthy weight maintenance. The findings demonstrated that children’s lifestyles pertinent to weight maintenance and media use cluster together and involve both old and newer screen media, but are also predicted by parenting practices and the family environment.

Peanut allergens alter intestinal barrier permeability and tight junction localisation in Caco-2 cell cultures

Allergen absorption by epithelia may play an important role in downstream immune responses. Transport mechanisms that can bypass Peyer's patches include transcellular and paracellular transport. The capacity of an allergen to cross via these means can modulate downstream processing of the allergen by the immune system. The aim of this study was to investigate allergen-epithelial interactions of peanut allergens with the human intestinal epithelium.

Validity of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 to screen for depression in patients with coronary artery disease.

Depression is common but frequently undetected in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Self-report screening instruments for assessing depression such as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) are available but their validity is typically determined in depressed patients without comorbid somatic illness. We investigated the validity of these instruments relative to a referent diagnostic standard in recently hospitalized patients with CAD.

Reducing youth screen time: Qualitative metasynthesis of findings on barriers and facilitators.

An integrated perspective on the relevant qualitative findings on the experience of screen time in youth can inform the development of hypotheses to be tested in future research and can guide the development of interventions to decrease sedentary behavior. The purpose of this qualitative metasynthesis was to explore parent, youth, and educational professionals' perceptions of barriers to, and facilitators of, reducing youth screen time.

The films of John Hughes: a history of independent screen production in Australia

ABSTRACTIn The Films of John Hughes: A history of independent screen production in Australia filmmaker and academic John Cumming tells the ongoing story of Hughes’ work illustrating the delicate balance of individual, collective and corporate agendas that many contemporary artists need to negotiate. This story begins in the 1960s with a generation of intelligent, socially engaged young people who challenge established power structures, conventions and stereotypes in art, politics and the media. Experiments were being made with grassroots democracy, with new social formations and new ways of seeing and communicating. The book also pays attention to earlier periods of cultural and political activism that captured Hughes’ imagination in the 1970s and became the subject of a number of his films over a period of nearly forty years. Through these films Cumming traces the outline of post-war film culture and production in Melbourne from the 1940s and sets this history within the context of international trends in independent filmmaking throughout the 20th Century and into the 21st.The work of an independent filmmaker has always included a great deal more than directing films. Working in an artisanal mode, he or she often performs, or has a hand in, every aspect of craft at the same time as engaging in discussion and organisation around the wider sphere of screen culture and industry. In addition to having proficiency as a producer, photographer, sound recordist, editor, distributor and exhibitor of films, there is research, organisation, lobbying, entrepreneurship and mentoring to be done. As an independent producer-director, John Hughes has engaged in all of these activities – often simultaneously. He is also a scholar, writer, organiser, activist and teacher. As a television bureaucrat he was both eminent and innovative, and through his filmmaking he has become a leading historian of Australian documentary cinema. ‘… that view – that art and politics are inherently at odds – is still lurking around. It is at the heart of cultural conservatism; and John Hughes’s film-making, from the 1970s to the present, confounds its proponents. His cinema is at once crowded, detailed, elegant and absolutely lucid; at the same time, it is shot through with political and historical understandings.’ Sylvia Lawson, ‘Such a Bloody Wonderful Place’, Inside Story, 28 April 2013.

Strategies for Using the Safe Schools Hub: A ‘One-stop Resource Shop’ for Developing Safe and Supportive School Cultures

The Safe Schools Hub is an online portal created by the Australian Government to support the National Safe Schools Framework. It includes extensive resources for leaders, teachers, specialist staff, parents and students. This presentation will highlight a variety of practical strategies based on these resources that schools can use as they continue to develop safe and supportive school cultures. In particular there will be a focus on resource-based approaches that can assist leaders with data collection and change processes, specific resources that can be incorporated into professional development seminars for staff and resources to direct and support strategies for parent education sessions.

The German SCREEN project - design and evaluation of the communication strategy

Background: Skin cancer is the most common cancer in light-skinned populations worldwide. Primary and secondary preventive activities such as skin cancer screening are intended to reduce skin cancer burden. In 2003, a population-based skin cancer screening project [SCREEN (Skin Cancer Research to Provide Evidence for Effectiveness of Screening in Northern Germany)] was conducted in Northern Germany with more than 360 000 people screened. SCREEN was supported by a communication intervention that was aimed at informing the population about skin cancer, its risk factors and the screening intervention as well as preparing the health professionals for the project. Within SCREEN both physicians and practice nurses were educated in counselling. The aim of the present article is to describe and evaluate the communication strategy accompanying SCREEN. Methods: Two computer-assisted telephone interview surveys were performed in April/May 2003 and May 2004. Participants had to be members of the statutory health insurance and be aged ≥20 years. They were asked about knowledge of skin cancer, perception of physicians' performance and skin cancer screening in general. Data are mainly presented in a descriptive manner. For statistical analyses, Mann-Whitney U test and Pearson's chi-square test were used. Results: Knowledge about sunburn in childhood and high ultraviolet exposure as skin cancer risk factors increased during SCREEN. Simultaneously, the awareness for early detection of skin cancer increased significantly from 41.3 to 74.0% (P < 0.001). A total of 21.5% of the interviewees participated in the skin cancer screening project, similar to the population-based participation rate reached. Conclusion: A comprehensive communication strategy accompanying a screening intervention improves the knowledge of potential screenees and may additionally increase the participation rate.

Locating learning: making connections between virtual and physical spaces with mobile touch-screen devices

This paper is concerned with the potential of mobile touch-screen devices and emerging socio-technological practices to support pedagogies of place that provide a means for young people to reflect critically on the social construction of place and to take actions that speak of and to their own locatedness. Drawing on de Certeau’s (1984) concept of space as a practiced place and Massey’s (2005) perspective of spatiality and interrelatedness, we examine two school-based examples of learning activities that bring together the virtual and physical as in experiences and representations of place. The first example is an Australian local history unit, where lower secondary school students participated in a series of field trips, planned and conducted under the guidance of an indigenous elder. They used Smartphones and iPads to capture and create personalised audio-visual records of their knowledge of place that were then used to create geo-location games. In the second example, upper primary school students worked with local authorities and environmental educators to select sites for two environmental monitoring posts, which were then installed and provided a locus for the students’ school-based environmental science learning as well as a vehicle for community engagement. Drawing on interview, video and photographic data, this paper examines the way mobile technologies were deployed for student knowledge production, engagement with place, reconstruction of place and engagement with community.