Early age alcohol use and later alcohol problems in adolescents : individual and peer mediators in a bi-national study

This paper examines whether there is cross-national similarity in the longitudinal relationship between early age alcohol use and adolescent alcohol problems. Potential mechanisms underlying this relationship also are examined, testing adolescent alcohol use, low self-regulation, and peer deviance as possible mediators. Students (N = 1,945) participating in the International Youth Development Study, a longitudinal panel survey study, responded to questions on alcohol use and influencing factors, and were followed annually over a 3-year period from 2002 to 2004 (98% retention rate). State-representative, community student samples were recruited in grade 7 in Washington State, United States (US, n = 961, 78% of those eligible; Mage = 13.09, SD = .44) and Victoria, Australia (n = 984, 76% of those eligible; Mage = 12.93, SD = .41). Analyses were conducted using multiple-group structural equation modeling. In both states, early age alcohol use (age 13) had a small but statistically significant association with subsequent alcohol problems (age 15). Overall, there was little evidence for mediation of early alcohol effects. Low self-regulation prospectively predicted peer deviance, alcohol use, and alcohol problems in both states. Peer deviance was more positively related to alcohol use and low self-regulation among students in Victoria compared to students in Washington State. The small but persistent association of early age alcohol use with alcohol problems across both samples is consistent with efforts to delay alcohol initiation to help prevent problematic alcohol use. Self-regulation was an important influence, supporting the need to further investigate the developmental contribution of neurobehavioral disinhibition.

The foraging range of Little Penguins (Eudyptula minor) during winter

Although the movements of seabirds at sea during various stages of breeding in spring and summer have been the focus of many studies in recent years, there is still little known about the non-breeding period for most species. Satellite telemetry was used to determine the at-sea movements and foraging range of 47 Little Penguins (Eudyptula minor) from Phillip Island, south-eastern Australia, during the winter non-breeding period. Individuals conducting single-day trips (72% of individuals) typically foraged 8–14 km from the colony, whereas individuals conducting longer trips (28%; 2–49 days) foraged either within Port Phillip Bay or in the coastal waters of western Bass Strait at maximum distances of 62–147 km from the colony. Although there was no difference between sexes in duration of foraging trips, the overall foraging range of males (841 km2) was substantially smaller than that of females (1983 km2) across all months, and showed an overlap of only 34%. Our results show that the foraging range of Little Penguins in the non-breeding period is greater than that observed during the summer breeding period, which suggest a reduction in local food abundance in winter and highlights the importance of foraging areas distant to the colony during a time of increased energetic costs and higher mortality.

Heat tolerance, behavioural temperature selection and temperature-dependent respiration in larval Octopus huttoni

This study reports temperature effects on paralarvae from a benthic octopus species, Octopus huttoni, found throughout New Zealand and temperate Australia. We quantified the thermal tolerance, thermal preference and temperature-dependent respiration rates in 1-5 days old paralarvae. Thermal stress (1°C increase h^-1) and thermal selection (~10-24°C vertical gradient) experiments were conducted with paralarvae reared for 4 days at 16°C. In addition, measurement of oxygen consumption at 10, 15, 20 and 25°C was made for paralarvae aged 1, 4 and 5 days using microrespirometry. Onset of spasms, rigour (CT_max) and mortality (upper lethal limit) occurred for 50% of experimental animals at, respectively, 26.0±0.2°C, 27.8±0.2°C and 31.4±0.1°C. The upper, 23.1±0.2°C, and lower, 15.0±1.7°C, temperatures actively avoided by paralarvae correspond with the temperature range over which normal behaviours were observed in the thermal stress experiments. Over the temperature range of 10°C-25°C, respiration rates, standardized for an individual larva, increased with age, from 54.0 to 165.2nmol larvae^-1h^-1 in one-day old larvae to 40.1-99.4nmol h^-1 at five days. Older larvae showed a lesser response to increased temperature: the effect of increasing temperature from 20 to 25°C (Q₁₀) on 5 days old larvae (Q₁₀=1.35) was lower when compared with the 1 day old larvae (Q₁₀=1.68). The lower Q₁₀ in older larvae may reflect age-related changes in metabolic processes or a greater scope of older larvae to respond to thermal stress such as by reducing activity. Collectively, our data indicate that temperatures >25°C may be a critical temperature. Further studies on the population-level variation in thermal tolerance in this species are warranted to predict how continued increases in ocean temperature will limit O. huttoni at early larval stages across the range of this species.

Teaching secondary school mathematics : research and practice for the 21st century

For the last decade or so, educational policy makers and researchers in many countries have been calling for significant changes to the way mathematics is taught in secondary schools. Australian mathematics curriculum documents now promote learning goals that go beyond mastery of a pre-determined body of knowledge and procedures - the traditional emphasis on facts, skills, formulae - to include mathematical reasoning and problem solving, communication, and real world applications. There is also pressure to move away from over-reliance on teacher-centred practices such as exposition and individual seatwork, towards activities that promote learners' involvement in constructing, applying, and evaluating mathematical ideas. Further impetus for reform comes from research recommending that if learners are to develop mathematically powerful forms of thinking and habits of mind, then classrooms should immerse them in the authentic practices of the discipline by supporting a culture of collaboration and sense-making. Teaching Secondary School Mathematics - incorporates recent developments in research and practice and applications to teaching mathematics in Australian secondary schools. Covering such areas as curriculum, pedagogy and assessment; teaching mathematical content; equity and diversity in the classroom; and professional and community engagement, it is an invaluable resource for all practising and pre-service mathematics teachers.

Challenges in the development of standards for synthetic turf for Australian football and cricket

Given the escalating drought conditions in Australia, synthetic surfaces have recently been explored as a viable surface option for community-level Australian football–cricket ovals. The vast majority of Australian football ovals are transformed into cricket pitches during the football off-season and hence the characteristics of both sports had to be duly considered in the development of standards that could be tested in a laboratory setting, for a synthetic turf surface. This paper describes the data collection and test methods undertaken in the development of the standards for synthetic surface use in Australian football and cricket. The paper also discusses the issues and challenges encountered during the development of standards for multi-sport synthetic surfaces to ensure player safety while maintaining the performance characteristics of both sports. Surface property and ball interaction tests were undertaken on natural playing surfaces, both in situ and in the laboratory to determine the properties of the current playing surface for each sport. This paper highlights the importance of careful consideration of the characteristics of both games and the use of equipment from both sports in the testing methods. The standards described in this paper have now been accepted by the Australian Football League and Cricket Australia and the product approval process and use of synthetic surfaces for Australian football and cricket is imminent.

Provocation in New South Wales : the need for abolition

Over the past two decades significant debate has emerged surrounding the operation of the partial defence of provocation. Such debates have led to its abolition in several Australian and international jurisdictions where Government and Law Commission bodies have argued that provocation has operated in a gender biased way that is no longer reflective of community values and expectations of justice. In contrast to the Australian states of Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia, who have transferred consideration of provocation to sentencing, New South Wales (NSW) has retained provocation as a partial defence to murder. Drawing upon in-depth interviews conducted with legal stakeholders and an analysis of recent case law, this article considers whether the operation of provocation in NSW is still in the best interests of justice, and, specifically, whether in practice it privileges one gender above the other. This research concludes that the continued operation of provocation in NSW raises key issues surrounding the legitimisation of male violence against women, the denial and minimisation of the harm caused by lethal domestic violence, and the continued inability of the law to appropriately respond to women who kill in the context of prolonged family violence.

The impact of a computerised consolidation accounting package (CCAP) on student performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between the use of a computerised learning tool (specifically designed to teach consolidation accounting) and student performance in the final examination of an undergraduate accounting unit on Corporate Accounting.

Design/methodology/approach – A regression model was developed to analyse 1,103 observations of assignment and examination scores, collected over three semesters, to test the central proposition that computer assisted learning enhances student learning outcomes and performance in the exam.

Findings – The results show a positive and significant relationship between the computerised accounting assignment on consolidated accounting (linked to usage of the computerised tool) and the consolidation question in the final examination. The findings suggest that the computerised consolidation accounting package (CCAP) assists students to understand the concepts underpinning consolidation accounting.

Research limitations/implications – The data were collected from a single institution, which may not represent the population of accounting students. Due to ethical obligations, the study lacked a control group that would have allowed meaningful comparison and assessment of student performance. Furthermore, whilst the findings in this study were able to demonstrate a positive association between the CCAP and exam performance, it is unable to determine the quality and depth of the learning experience from using the CCAP.

Practical implications – The present study found that a CCAP and its usage has the potential to positively impact student performance on assessment tasks on subject matter similar to concepts contained the computer package. Such findings may encourage instructors to seek ways of incorporating learning technologies in the pedagogical design.

Originality/value – This is believed to be one the few papers that has exclusively studied the impact of a specific CCAP and a specific segment in accounting education (consolidation accounting) using direct measures, CCAP assignment score and the final examination score for a question dedicated to consolidation accounting.

Minimal similarity in songs suggests limited exchange between humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the southern Indian ocean

Comparing humpback whale song from different breeding assemblages can reveal similarities in song due to acoustically interacting males, and therefore indirectly test whether males from different breeding sites are mixing. Northern Hemisphere song comparisons illustrated that whales within ocean basins share similar songs and are subpopulations within a larger population, whereas whales in different ocean basins are isolated populations and therefore do not share songs. During the 2006 breeding season, recordings were collected in Madagascar and Western Australia, and were compared visually plus aurally. Both regions shared one theme, whereas each region had four and six private themes, respectively. This study had a substantially low number of shared themes. The co-occurrence of one theme was interpreted as an indication of limited exchange between these breeding assemblages, and we speculate that limited song similarity is due to inter-oceanic interactions. Male(s) from an Indian Ocean breeding group could be exposed to novel song when they geographically overlap, and acoustically interact, with males from a different ocean basin. Novel song could induce rapid temporal changes as new song content is incorporated, thereby minimizing song similarities between that breeding group and other Indian Ocean breeding groups that were not exposed to the novel song.

Factor analysis of partners' commitment to risk management in public-private partnership projects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate and uncover key determinants that could explain partners' commitment to risk management in public-private partnership projects so that partners' risk management commitment is taken into the consideration of optimal risk allocation strategies.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on an extensive literature review and an examination of the purchasing power parity (PPP) market, an industry-wide questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the data for a confirmatory factor analysis. Necessary statistical tests are conducted to ensure the validity of the analysis results.

Findings – The factor analysis results show that the procedure of confirmatory factor analysis is statistically appropriate and satisfactory. As a result, partners' organizational commitment to risk management in public-private partnerships can now be determined by a set of components, namely general attitude to a risk, perceived one's own ability to manage a risk, and the perceived reward for bearing a risk.

Practical implications – It is recommended, based on the empirical results shown in this paper, that, in addition to partners' risk management capability, decision-makers, both from public and private sectors, should also seriously consider partners' risk management commitment. Both factors influence the formation of optimal risk allocation strategies, either by their individual or interacting effects. Future research may therefore explore how to form optimal risk allocation strategies by integrating organizational capability and commitment, the determinants and measurement of which have been established in this study.

Originality/value – This paper makes an original contribution to the general body of knowledge on risk allocation in large-scale infrastructure projects in Australia adopting the procurement method of public-private partnership. In particular, this paper has innovatively established a measurement model of organisational commitment to risk management, which is crucial to determining optimal risk allocation strategies and in turn achieving project success. The score coefficients of all obtained components can be used to construct components by linear combination so that commitment to risk management can be measured. Previous research has barely focused on this topic.

Making Connections in Geelong : migrants, social capital and growing regional cities

Migration has been increasingly used to compensate for demographic trends and skill shortages in developed countries. This has resulted in policies to encourage migration to regional areas in order to relieve pressures on liveability and infrastructure in big cities. Like many other regional cities in Victoria, Geelong actively encourages migrants from overseas, from Melbourne and from other parts of rural and regional Australia, by promoting workforce participation, and enhancing lifestyles to attract and retain a growing population. A number of countries including Australia, Canada, Italy and Spain have policies to encourage immigration to locations other than large urban centres to stimulate regional economic development and to ensure immigrants fill skill shortages in regional areas. However, migrants do not always stay long in the regional locations where they initially settle, and new migrants are needed to replace their skills. Given the Australian and Victorian government policy imperatives of encouraging regional migration there is a need to understand how migrants and their families make the social connections that contribute to wellbeing and their retention in regional areas such as Geelong. This paper emerges from a research project on this challenge at Deakin University, in Geelong It discusses some of the issues associated with regional migration and describes how a sound, theoretically informed understanding of social capital can assist employers, governments and community groups (formal and informal) to effectively assist migrants to make social connections and therefore remain in regional cities.

Learning in both worlds : academic journalism as a research outcome

Works of journalism by journalism academics can be valuable outcomes of research without making the claim that they are scholarly works per se. In the discussion of the feature article Learning in both worlds that follows, I make a case for the importance of writing and publishing this piece of journalism as an outcome of my research on the interplay of news media and bilingual education policy in Australia’s Northern Territory 1988-2008. I also advocate the ‘experimental’ possibilities such works of journalism offer for ‘testing’ research findings, concepts and theories.

Sustaining modified behaviours learnt in a diabetes prevention program in regional Australia : the role of social context

Background
The Greater Green Triangle diabetes prevention program was conducted in primary health care setting of Victoria and South Australia in 2004--2006. This program demonstrated significant reductions in diabetes risk factors which were largely sustained at 18 month follow-up. The theoretical model utilised in this program achieved its outcomes through improvements in coping self-efficacy and planning. Previous evaluations have concentrated on the behavioural components of the intervention. Other variables external to the main research design may have contributed to the success factors but have yet to be identified. The objective of this evaluation was to identify the extent to which participants in a diabetes prevention program sustained lifestyle changes several years after completing the program and to identify contextual factors that contributed to sustaining changes.

Methods
A qualitative evaluation was conducted. Five focus groups were held with people who had completed a diabetes prevention program, several years later to assess the degree to which they had sustained program strategies and to identify contributing factors.

Results
Participants value the recruitment strategy. Involvement in their own risk assessment was a strong motivator. Learning new skills gave participants a sense of empowerment. Receiving regular pathology reports was a means of self-assessment and a motivator to continue. Strong family and community support contributed to personal motivation and sustained practice.

Conclusions
Family and local community supports constitute the contextual variables reported to contribute to sustained motivation after the program was completed. Behaviour modification programs can incorporate strategies to ensure these factors are recognised and if necessary, strengthened at the local level.

A clustered randomised trial examining the effect of social marketing and community mobilisation on the age of uptake and levels of alcohol consumption by Australian adolescents

Introduction
Throughout the world, alcohol consumption is common among adolescents. Adolescent alcohol use and misuse have prognostic significance for several adverse long-term outcomes, including alcohol problems, alcohol dependence, school disengagement and illicit drug use. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether randomisation to a community mobilisation and social marketing intervention reduces the proportion of adolescents who initiate alcohol use before the Australian legal age of 18, and the frequency and amount of underage adolescent alcohol consumption.
Method and analysis
The study comprises 14 communities matched with 14 non-contiguous communities on socioeconomic status (SES), location and size. One of each pair was randomly allocated to the intervention. Baseline levels of adolescent alcohol use were estimated through school surveys initiated in 2006 (N=8500). Community mobilisation and social marketing interventions were initiated in 2011 to reduce underage alcohol supply and demand. The setting is communities in three Australian states (Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia). Students (N=2576) will complete school surveys in year 8 in 2013 (average age 12). Primary outcomes: (1) lifetime initiation and (2) monthly frequency of alcohol use. Reports of social marketing and family and community alcohol supply sources will also be assessed. Point estimates with 95% CIs will be compared for student alcohol use in intervention and control communities. Changes from 2006 to 2013 will be examined; multilevel modelling will assess whether random assignment of communities to the intervention reduced 2013 alcohol use, after accounting for community level differences. Analyses will also assess whether exposure to social marketing activities increased the intervention target of reducing alcohol supply by parents and community members.