Development and validation of a new measure of everyday adolescent functioning : the multidimensional adolescent functioning scale implications and contribution

Everyday functioning is an important outcome for studies of the developmental psychopathology of adolescence. An unbiased, well-validated, and easy-to-use instrument to specifically assess normal adolescent functioning is not yet available. The current study aimed to introduce and validate the Multidimensional Adolescent Functioning Scale

Development and implementation of a novel measure for quantifying training loads in rowing : the T2minute method

Development and implementation of a novel measure for quantifying training loads in rowing: The T2minute method. J Strength Cond Res 28(4): 1172–1180, 2014—The systematic management of training requires accurate training load measurement. However, quantifying the training of elite Australian rowers is challenging because of (a) the multicenter, multistate structure of the national program; (b) the variety of training undertaken; and (c) the limitations of existing methods for quantifying the loads accumulated from varied training formats. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to develop a new measure for quantifying training loads in rowing (the T2minute method). Sport scientists and senior coaches at the National Rowing Center of Excellence collaborated to develop the measure, which incorporates training duration, intensity, and mode to quantify a single index of training load. To account for training at different intensities, the method uses standardized intensity zones (T zones) established at the Australian Institute of Sport. Each zone was assigned a weighting factor according to the curvilinear relationship between power output and blood lactate response. Each training mode was assigned a weighting factor based on whether coaches perceived it to be “harder” or “easier” than on-water rowing. A common measurement unit, the T2minute, was defined to normalize sessions in different modes to a single index of load; one T2minute is equivalent to 1 minute of on-water single scull rowing at T2 intensity (approximately 60–72% V[Combining Dot Above]O2max). The T2minute method was successfully implemented to support national training strategies in Australian high performance rowing. By incorporating duration, intensity, and mode, the T2minute method extends the concepts that underpin current load measures, providing 1 consistent system to quantify loads from varied training formats.

The short anger measure: development of a measure to assess anger in forensic populations

In this brief report, we describe the development of a brief measure of anger that may be used by nurses and other professionals to assess anger and changes in anger with male offenders. The Short Anger Measure, a 12-item self-report measure of angry feelings and aggressive impulses, was administered to 73 male offenders. The measure showed sound psychometric properties (internal consistency reliability, test–retest reliability) and concurrent validity with an established measure of anger. The potential use of the measure by nurses working in forensic settings is discussed.

Using the functional independence measure to assess adults with cerebral palsy: an exploratory report

The Functional Independence Measure (FIM) was selected as an assessment to be conducted annually with adults attending The Spastic Centre of New South Wales (SCNSW), Australia, an organisation specifically for individuals with cerebral palsy. Service-providers were trained in the administration of the FIM and in the use of a customised data base. Initially 173 adults with cerebral palsy were assessed, this number included 135 individuals in supported and open employment. The FIM is currently being used to assess all adults attending the SCNSW as part of an annual review. The data from this ongoing assessment procedure will assist in lobbying government to ensure that individuals have access to the attendant care services that they require to function optimally in the community and will provide a longitudinal data base for study of some of the effects of the ageing process on individuals with cerebral palsy. A case study is presented which illustrates the use of the FIM with a couple who live independently in the community.

Firefighter feedback during active cooling: A useful tool for heat stress management?

Monitoring an individual's thermic state in the workplace requires reliable feedback of their core temperature. However, core temperature measurement technology is expensive, invasive and often impractical in operational environments, warranting investigation of surrogate measures which could be used to predict core temperature. This study examines an alternative measure of an individual's thermic state, thermal sensation, which presents a more manageable and practical solution for Australian firefighters operating on the fireground. Across three environmental conditions (cold, warm, hot & humid), 49 Australian volunteer firefighters performed a 20-min fire suppression activity, immediately followed by 20min of active cooling using hand and forearm immersion techniques. Core temperature (Tc) and thermal sensation (TS) were measured across the rehabilitation period at five minute intervals. Despite the decline in Tc and TS throughout the rehabilitation period, there was little similarity in the magnitude or rate of decline between each measure in any of the ambient conditions. Moderate to strong correlations existed between Tc and TS in the cool (0.41, p<0.05) and hot & humid (0.57, p<0.05) conditions, however this was resultant in strong correlation during the earlier stages of rehabilitation (first five minutes), which were not evident in the latter stages. Linear regression revealed TS to be a poor predictor of Tc in all conditions (SEE=0.45-0.54°C) with a strong trend for TS to over-predict Tc (77-80% of the time). There is minimal evidence to suggest that ratings of thermal sensation, which represent a psychophysical assessment of an individual's thermal comfort, are an accurate reflection of the response of an individual's core temperature. Ratings of thermal sensation can be highly variable amongst individuals, likely moderated by local skin temperature. In account of these findings, fire managers require a more reliable source of information to guide decisions of heat stress management.

Detection on application layer DDoS using random walk model

Application Layer Distributed Denial of Service (ALDDoS) attacks have been increasing rapidly with the growth of Botnets and Ubiquitous computing. Differentiate to the former DDoS attacks, ALDDoS attacks cannot be efficiently detected, as attackers always adopt legitimate requests with real IP address, and the traffic has high similarity to legitimate traffic. In spite of that, we think, the attackers' browsing behavior will have great disparity from that of the legitimate users'. In this paper, we put forward a novel user behavior-based method to detect the application layer asymmetric DDoS attack. We introduce an extended random walk model to describe user browsing behavior and establish the legitimate pattern of browsing sequences. For each incoming browser, we observe his page request sequence and predict subsequent page request sequence based on random walk model. The similarity between the predicted and the observed page request sequence is used as a criterion to measure the legality of the user, and then attacker would be detected based on it. Evaluation results based on real collected data set has demonstrated that our method is very effective in detecting asymmetric ALDDoS attacks. © 2014 IEEE.

The role of a self-report measure in athlete preparation

Athlete self-report measures (ASRM) are a common and cost-effective method of athlete monitoring. It is purported that ASRM be used to detect athletes at risk of overtraining, injury or illness, allowing intervention through training modification. However it is not known whether ASRM are actually being used for or are achieving these objectives in the applied sport setting. Therefore the aim of this study was to better understand how ASRM are being used in elite sports and their role in athletic preparation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted one-on-one with athletes, coaches and sports science and medicine staff (n=30) at a national sporting institute. Interview recordings were transcribed and analysed for emergent themes. Twelve day-to-day and seven longer-term practices were identified which contributed to a four-step process of ASRM use (record data, review data, contextualize, act). In addition to the purported uses, ASRM facilitated information disclosure and communication amongst athletes and staff and between staff, and improved the understanding and management of athlete preparation. These roles of ASRM are best achieved through engagement of athletes, coaches and support staff in the systematic, cyclic process.

Building fuzzy inference systems with similarity reasoning : NSGAII-based fuzzy rule selection and evidential functions

In our previous investigations, two Similarity Reasoning (SR)-based frameworks for tackling real-world problems have been proposed. In both frameworks, SR is used to deduce unknown fuzzy rules based on similarity of the given and unknown fuzzy rules for building a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). In this paper, we further extend our previous findings by developing (1) a multi-objective evolutionary model for fuzzy rule selection; and (2) an evidential function to facilitate the use of both frameworks. The Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithms-p (NSGA-p) is adopted for fuzzy rule selection, in accordance with the Pareto optimal criterion. Besides that, two new evidential functions are developed, whereby given fuzzy rules are considered as evidence. Simulated and benchmark examples are included to demonstrate the applicability of these suggestions. Positive results were obtained.

Development, reliability and validity of a tool, to measure emergency department clinicians' attitudes towards family presence (FP) during acute deterioration in adult patients.

Despite many studies of family presence during resuscitation, no validated tool exploring the attitudes and beliefs of healthcare staff towards family presence has been published. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of a tool to accurately measure the attitudes and beliefs of emergency department staff towards family presence in the deteriorating adult patient, present the results of validity and reliability testing, and present the final validated tool. Twenty-nine items were developed, informed by themes from the literature and unvalidated published tools related to family presence during resuscitation. The tool was piloted on a sample of 68 emergency nursing and medical staff. Content validity and face validity were established using feedback from participants. Reliability was established by unidimensionality, exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency. Sixteen items were deleted from the original tool due to low item-to-total correlations and low communalities. Exploratory factor analysis of the remaining items revealed four factors with acceptable correlation coefficients and appropriate explanation of variance. Cronbach's alpha for each factor was >0.7 indicating a high degree of internal consistency. The four factors were labelled and arranged in a logical order to form the final tool, the Emergency Department Family Presence Survey.