My baby body : a qualitative insight into women's body-related experiences and mood during pregnancy and the postpartum

An inductive qualitative approach was employed to explore women's experiences of their body and mood during pregnancy and the postpartum. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 perinatal women (n at late pregnancy=10; n in the early postpartum period=10). While most of the sample reported adapting positively to body changes experienced during pregnancy, the postpartum period was often associated with body dissatisfaction. Women reported several events unique to pregnancy which helped them cope positively with bodily changes (e.g. increased perceived body functionality, new sense of meaning in life thus placing well-being of developing foetus above body aesthetics, perceptual experiences such as feeling baby kick, increased sense of social connectedness due to pregnancy body shape, and positive social commentary); however, these events no longer protected against body dissatisfaction post-birth. While women reported mood lability throughout the perinatal period, the postpartum was also a time of increased positive affect for most women, and overall most women did not associate body changes with their mood. Clinical implications of these findings included the need for education about normal postpartum body changes and their timing, and the development of more accurate measures of perinatal body image.

Baby boomers and property busts

In the latter half of the 20th century the baby boom generation created an increased demand for many aspects of society including education, housing and medical services. Only now are the negative aspects resulting from this unique demand being fully considered. One of the most important issues is the impact on residential housing values which directly or indirectly affects most residents whether owning, buying or renting.
The relationship between the ageing of the baby boomers and housing values is a current topic of debate throughout the world. Particularly in the U.S.A. warnings have been sounded of a dramatic decrease in property values causing a property bust as the baby boomers move into the older generation.
This paper revisits the baby boom generation and discusses previous research in the worldwide debate concerning their impact on housing values. The status of the Australian baby boomers is examined and the future impact on residential house values in Australia is contemplated.

Power ultrasound offers an environmentally friendly approach to cleaning dairy UF membranes

Flat sheet polymeric UF membranes of 30000 MWCO were obtained from Millipore Inc. Polypropylene spacers of a 50 mil (1.3 mm) thickness were obtained from KOCH membrane systems. A single 30 cm^sup 2^ membrane sheet was sandwiched with a spacer on the feed side of a cross flow Minitan S unit (Millipore Inc). The unit was immersed in a 50 kHz ultrasonic bath that was switched on as required. All experiments used re-constituted spray-dried whey powder to foul the membrane.

Programmer friendly and efficient distributed shared memory integrated into a distributed operating system

Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) provides programmers with a shared memory environment in systems where memory is not physically shared. Clusters of Workstations (COWs), an often untapped source of computing power, are characterised by a very low cost/performance ratio. The combination of Clusters of Workstations (COWs) with DSM provides an environment in which the programmer can use the well known approaches and methods of programming for physically shared memory systems and parallel processing can be carried out to make full use of the computing power and cost advantages of the COW. The aim of this research is to synthesise and develop a distributed shared memory system as an integral part of an operating system in order to provide application programmers with a convenient environment in which the development and execution of parallel applications can be done easily and efficiently, and which does this in a transparent manner. Furthermore, in order to satisfy our challenging design requirements we want to demonstrate that the operating system into which the DSM system is integrated should be a distributed operating system. In this thesis a study into the synthesis of a DSM system within a microkernel and client-server based distributed operating system which uses both strict and weak consistency models, with a write-invalidate and write-update based approach for consistency maintenance is reported. Furthermore a unique automatic initialisation system which allows the programmer to start the parallel execution of a group of processes with a single library call is reported. The number and location of these processes are determined by the operating system based on system load information. The DSM system proposed has a novel approach in that it provides programmers with a complete programming environment in which they are easily able to develop and run their code or indeed run existing shared memory code. A set of demanding DSM system design requirements are presented and the incentives for the placement of the DSM system with a distributed operating system and in particular in the memory management server have been reported. The new DSM system concentrated on an event-driven set of cooperating and distributed entities, and a detailed description of the events and reactions to these events that make up the operation of the DSM system is then presented. This is followed by a pseudocode form of the detailed design of the main modules and activities of the primitives used in the proposed DSM system. Quantitative results of performance tests and qualitative results showing the ease of programming and use of the RHODOS DSM system are reported. A study of five different application is given and the results of tests carried out on these applications together with a discussion of the results are given. A discussion of how RHODOS’ DSM allows programmers to write shared memory code in an easy to use and familiar environment and a comparative evaluation of RHODOS DSM with other DSM systems is presented. In particular, the ease of use and transparency of the DSM system have been demonstrated through the description of the ease with which a moderately inexperienced undergraduate programmer was able to convert, write and run applications for the testing of the DSM system. Furthermore, the description of the tests performed using physically shared memory shows that the latter is indistinguishable from distributed shared memory; this is further evidence that the DSM system is fully transparent. This study clearly demonstrates that the aim of the research has been achieved; it is possible to develop a programmer friendly and efficient DSM system fully integrated within a distributed operating system. It is clear from this research that client-server and microkernel based distributed operating system integrated DSM makes shared memory operations transparent and almost completely removes the involvement of the programmer beyond classical activities needed to deal with shared memory. The conclusion can be drawn that DSM, when implemented within a client-server and microkernel based distributed operating system, is one of the most encouraging approaches to parallel processing since it guarantees performance improvements with minimal programmer involvement.

Still invisible : the myth of the woman-friendly state

Australian women faced the last two decades of the twentieth century, optimistic in their capacity to contribute positively to social change in the restructuring state. Encouraged by the relative euphoria of the late 1970s and early 1980s, women had a fleeting glimpse of the possibilities of woman-friendly legislation and feminist inspired government policy. What eventuated was the dismantling of supportive welfare structures, under the guise of economic rationalist state action, which undermined and eventually halted women’s economic and social advancement. This research project examines the impact of government policy on the welfare of Victorian women, through a feminist analysis of state and federal decision-making, framed in the context of case studies in the areas of employment, education and health. The promotion of ‘gender-neutral’ policy, by generally conservative bureaucracies, effectively exposes the mythical woman-friendly state. The implications do not auger well for Victorian women in the new millenium.

Evaluation of the Asthma Friendly Schools program

This thesis examined what makes schools want to embrace the Asthma Friendly Schools program. It also investigated the limitations and barriers of the Asthma Friendly Schools program and explored it's uptake by schools and the implications of the findings for the redesign of the program.

Environmentally friendly sound absorbing noise barrier made from concrete waste - further developments

This paper reports on the second phase of a research project aimed at the development of an environmentally friendly noise barrier for urban freeways, also known as KMAK [1]. The concrete barrier, which has some unique capabilities to mitigate transportation noise, is made from recycled concrete (RC) aggregate and industrial by-products such as fly ash and reclaimed water. The current developmental work expands on a research project that resulted in a two-layer (2L) concrete barrier. Two prototypes of the 2L barrier were produced, followed by extensive acoustic testing and a number of simulations where standard timber and/or concrete barriers were substituted with KMAK barrier [2]. Current research investigates a variety of architectural finishes applied to the original KMAK barrier with the aim of improving its visual appearance and also fine-tuning its acoustic performance. The new three-layer (3L) barrier optimizes sound absorption in a frequency range characteristic similar to that of transportation noise, especially road traffic noise. Three major aspects related to the development of architectural finishes were considered; environmentally responsible materials, surface features, and production methods. The findings of the current investigation demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between surface features, percentage of perforation as well as depth of the architectural layer, and increased potential of the 3L barrier to mitigate transportation noise. On average, the addition of perforated architectural finish contributes to a 20% increase in sound absorption. The preliminary results also show that the sound absorbency of the 3L barrier can be better controlled and tuned to specific noise frequency than the 2L type. The visual appearance has been significantly improved with the addition of the architectural finish, which makes the barrier an attractive, feasible, and viable alternative to road barriers made from standard concrete or timber.

Baby boomers' food shopping habits. Relationships with demographics and personal values

The purpose of this study was to examine baby boomers’ food shopping behaviours and to investigate their relationships with demographics and personal values. A questionnaire concerning food shopping behaviours, personal values and demographics was mailed to a random sample of 2975 people aged 40–70 years in Victoria, Australia. Usable questionnaires of 1031 were obtained. Structural equation modelling was employed for data analyses. The analyses revealed that demographics and personal values influenced shopping behaviours via different pathways among male and female baby boomers. For example, self-direction positively impacted on shopping planning for men but negatively influenced price minimization for women. Among women only, age was positively related to shopping planning and negatively to price minimization. Thus, both personal values and demographics influenced baby boomers’ shopping behaviours. Since values are more likely to be amenable to change than demographics, segmentation of the population via value orientations would facilitate targeted interventions to promote healthy food shopping.

CFL bulbs : environmentally friendly and sustainable?

The purpose of this paper is to document the positive and negative characteristics of using compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and to raise awareness and debate about the potential negative health effects resulting from prolonged exposure to CFLs. This is a theoretical paper and, primarily, incorporates the literature and the author’s experiences of CFLs. Governmental and non-governmental measures in the area of recycling and disposal of CFLs are also presented. This is a relatively new area of research; hence, very limited academic literature is currently available. Discussion of the issue of increased usage of CFLs is timely following heightened debate on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Increased debate amongst the policy and decision-makers will assist the public to make an informed decision. It is also anticipated that this debate will put pressure on the manufacturers of all types of bulbs, and government and non-governmental agencies to enhance their own and community initiatives to recycle and/or safely dispose of CFLs. No other similar review of the advantages and weaknesses of using CFLs has been undertaken that encourages the reader and potential users of CFLs to reflect on their choices.