Reconstructing the Risk–Need–Responsivity model : a theoretical elaboration and evaluation

In this paper, we examine the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of the Risk–Need–Responsivity (RNR) model of offender rehabilitation. We briefly discuss the nature of rehabilitation theories and their core components and then review the three source theories associated with the RNR Model. Following this we set out to reconstruct the RNR model in light of this analysis, essentially arguing that there are at least three components to any rehabilitation theory: (a) primary aims, values and principles; (b) etiological and methodological assumptions; and (c) practice implications. We then evaluate the theoretical and empirical adequacy of the RNR model. Finally, we conclude the paper with a few comments on the policy, research, and clinical implications of our evaluation (and reconstruction) of this important rehabilitation model.

User-centered design and evaluation of an interactive visual-haptic-auditory interface : a user study on assembly

Utilizing user-centred system design and evaluation method has become an increasingly important tool to foster better usability in the field of virtual environments (VEs). In recent years, although it is still the norm that designers and developers are concerning the technological advancement and striving for designing impressive multimodal multisensory interfaces, more and more awareness are aroused among the development team that in order to produce usable and useful interfaces, it is essential to have users in mind during design and validate a new design from users' perspective. In this paper, we describe a user study carried out to validate a newly developed haptically enabled virtual training system. By taking consideration of the complexity of individual differences on human performance, adoption and acceptance of haptic and audio-visual I/O devices, we address how well users learn, perform, adapt to and perceive object assembly training. We also explore user experience and interaction with the system, and discuss how multisensory feedback affects user performance, perception and acceptance. At last, we discuss how to better design VEs that enhance users perception, their interaction and motor activity.

Pandemic (H1N1) Influenza 2009 and Australian emergency departments : implications for policy, practice and pandemic preparedness

Objective: To describe the reported impact of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 on EDs, so as to inform future pandemic policy, planning and response management.

Methods: This study comprised an issue and theme analysis of publicly accessible literature, data from jurisdictional health departments, and data obtained from two electronic surveys of ED directors and ED staff. The issues identified formed the basis of policy analysis and evaluation.

Results: Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 had a significant impact on EDs with presentation for patients with ‘influenza-like illness’ up to three times that of the same time in previous years. Staff reported a range of issues, including poor awareness of pandemic plans, patient and family aggression, chaotic information flow to themselves and the public, heightened stress related to increased workloads and lower levels of staffing due to illness, family care duties and redeployment of staff to flu clinics. Staff identified considerable discomfort associated with prolonged times wearing personal protective equipment. Staff believed that the care of non-flu patients was compromised during the pandemic as a result of overwork, distraction from core business and the difficulties associated with accommodating infectious patients in an environment that was not conducive.

Conclusions: This paper describes the breadth of the impact of pandemics on ED operations. It identifies a need to address a range of industrial, management and procedural issues. In particular, there is a need for a single authoritative source of information, the re-engineering of EDs to accommodate infectious patients and organizational changes to enable rapid deployment of alternative sources of care.

Steps in the design, development and formative evaluation of obesity prevention-related behavior change trials

Obesity prevention interventions through dietary and physical activity change have generally not been effective. Limitations on possible program effectiveness are herein identified at every step in the mediating variable model, a generic conceptual framework for understanding how interventions may promote behavior change. To minimize these problems, and thereby enhance likely intervention effectiveness, four sequential types of formative studies are proposed: targeted behavior validation, targeted mediator validation, intervention procedure validation, and pilot feasibility intervention. Implementing these studies would establish the relationships at each step in the mediating variable model, thereby maximizing the likelihood that an intervention would work and its effects would be detected. Building consensus among researchers, funding agencies, and journal editors on distinct intervention development studies should avoid identified limitations and move the field forward.

Enhancing critical analysis and problem-solving skills in undergraduate psychology: An evaluation of a collaborative learning and problem-based learning approach

Critical analysis and problem-solving skills are two graduate attributes that are important in ensuring that graduates are well equipped in working across research and practice settings within the discipline of psychology. Despite the importance of these skills, few psychology undergraduate programmes have undertaken any systematic development, implementation, and evaluation of curriculum activities to foster these graduate skills. The current study reports on the development and implementation of a tutorial programme designed to enhance the critical analysis and problem-solving skills of undergraduate psychology students. Underpinned by collaborative learning and problem-based learning, the tutorial programme was administered to 273 third year undergraduate students in psychology. Latent Growth Curve Modelling revealed that students demonstrated a significant linear increase in self-reported critical analysis and problem-solving skills across the tutorial programme. The findings suggest that the development of inquiry-based curriculum offers important opportunities for psychology undergraduates to develop critical analysis and problem-solving skills. © 2013 The Australian Psychological Society.

A university-wide ePortfolio initiative at Federation University Australia: software analysis, test-to-production, and evaluation phases

This paper describes an ePortfolio implementation strategy at Federation University Australia, Victoria (formerly the University of Ballarat). The authors combined a personal and practical viewpoint to elicit pitfalls, challenges, and recommendations for improvement. The paper is divided into three main areas in order to outline the experiments that occurred. The first section provides a standard literature review around ePortfolio adoption as well as a research-based analysis of available ePortfolio software at Australian universities. The second part depicts the University’s ePortfolio implementation strategy that focused on “test-to-production” and technology dissemination phases. This section is based on the authors’ personal viewpoint of ePortfolio adoption at a university where a “top-down management decision making model” (Slade, Murfin, & Readman, 2013, p. 178) was used. Third, the evaluation strategy is reported, which was based on similar research conducted at Australian universities (Hallam & Creagh, 2010; Hallam, Harper, Hauville, Creagh, & McAllister, 2009). This part is offered as a modest-scoped, mixed methods evaluation process. The paper extends on ePortfolio implementation strategies (Bell & White, 2013; Coffey & Ashford-Rowe, 2014; Jarrott & Gambrel, 2011; Lambert & Corrin, 2007; Ring & Ramirez, 2012; Slade et al., 2013) and software analysis (ACODE, 2011; Slade et al., 2013). Recommendations are made for the careful integration of pre- and post-rollout of ePortfolio programs with face-to-face ePortfolio tutor support, offering online resources and alternative portfolio-making options for students with poor broadband access.

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.

Agriculture, trade openness and emissions: an empirical analysis and policy options

This article investigates the impact of sectoral production allocation, energy usage patterns and trade openness on pollutant emissions in a panel consisting of high-, medium- and low-income countries. Extended STIRPAT (Stochastic Impact by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology) and EKC (Environmental Kuznets Curve) models are conducted to systematically identify these factors driving CO2 emissions in these countries during the period 1980–2010. To this end, the studyemploys three different heterogeneous, dynamic mean group-type linear panel modelsand one nonlinear panel data estimation procedure that allows for cross-sectionaldependence. While affluence, nonrenewable energy consumption and energy intensity variables are found to drive pollutant emissions in linear models, population is also found to be a significant driver in the nonlinear model. Both service sector and agricultural value-added levels play a significant role in reducing pollution levels, whereas industrialisation increases pollution levels. Although the linear model fails totrack any significant impact of trade openness, the nonlinear model finds trade liberalisation to significantly affect emission reduction levels. All of these results suggest that economic development, and especially industrialisation strategies and environmental policies, need to be coordinated to play a greater role in emission reduction due to trade liberalisation.

Social justice intents in policy: an analysis of capability for and through education

Primarily developed as an alternative to narrow measures of well-being such as utility and resources, Amartya Sen’s capability approach places strong emphasis on people’s substantive opportunities. As a broad normative framework, the capability approach has become a valuable tool for understanding and evaluating social arrangements (e.g. education policies and development programmes) in terms of individuals’ effective freedoms to achieve valuable beings and doings. This paper explores the recent emergence of ‘capability’ in Australian education policy, specifically in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. We explore capability as a framing device and reveal how its various meanings are at odds with the scholarly literature, specifically Sen’s conception of capability and its implications for social justice in and through education. The analysis shows that the social justice intent of a capability approach appears to be overtaken in the White Paper by an emphasis on outcomes, performance and functionings that seek to serve the nation’s economic interests more than the interests of students, especially the disadvantaged.

Policy-based SQLIA detection and prevention approach for RFID systems

While SQL injection attacks have been plaguing web application systems for years, the possibility of them affecting RFID systems was only identified very recently. However, very little work exists to mitigate this serious security threat to RFID-enabled enterprise systems. In this paper, we propose a policy-based SQLIA detection and prevention method for RFID systems. The proposed technique creates data validation and sanitization policies during content analysis and enforces those policies during runtime monitoring. We tested all possible types of dynamic queries that may be generated in RFID systems with all possible types of attacks that can be mounted on those systems. We present an analysis and evaluation of the proposed approach to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in mitigating SQLIA.

User centric design, data analysis and performance of snowboard bindings

This study focuses on soft boot snowboard bindings by looking at how users interact with their binding and proposes a possible solution to overcome such issues. Snowboarding is a multibillion-dollar sport that has only reached mainstream in the last 30 years its levels of progression in technology have evolved in that time. However, snowboard bindings for the most part still consist of the same basic architecture in the last 20 years. This study was aimed at taking a user centric point of view and using additive manufacturing technologies to be able to generate a new snowboard binding that is completely adaptable to the user. The initial part of the study was a survey of 280 snowboarders focussing on preferences, style and habits. This survey was generated from over 15 nations with the vast majority of boarders on the snow for five to fifty days a year. Significant emphasis was placed on the relationship between boarder binding set-up and occurrence of pain and/or injury. From the detailed survey it was found that boarder's experienced pain in the front foot/toe area as a result from the toe strap being too tight. However boarders wanted tighter bindings to increase responsiveness. Survey data was compared to ankle and foot biomechanics to build a relationship to assess the problem of pain versus responsiveness. The design stage of the study was to develop a binding that overcame the over-tightening of the binding but still maintain equivalent or better responsiveness compared to traditional bindings. The resulting design integrated the snowboard boot much more into the design, by using the sole as a "semi-rigid" platform and locking it in laterally between the heel cup and the new toe strap arrangement. The new design developed using additive manufacturing techniques was tested via qualitative and quantitative measures in the snow and in the lab. It was found that using the new arrangement in a system resulted in no loss of performance or responsiveness to the user. Due to the design and manufacturing approach users have the ability to customise the design to their specific needs.

Design and evaluation of coordinated in-network caching model for content centric networking

In-network caching has been widely adopted in Content Centric Networking (CCN) to accelerate data delivery, mitigate server load and reduce network traffic. However, the line-speed requirement makes the in-network caching space very limited. With the rapid growth of network traffic, it is significant challenging to decide content placement in such limited cache space. To conquer this conflict, coordinated in-network caching schemes are needed so as to maximize the profit of ubiquitous caching capacities. In particular, in-network caching in CCN is deployed as an arbitrary network topology and naturally supports dynamic request routing. Therefore, content placement scheme and dynamic request routing are tightly coupled and should be addressed together. In this paper, we propose a coordinated in-network caching model to decide the optimal content placement and the shortest request routing path under constraints of cache space and link bandwidth in a systematic fashion. Via extensive simulations, the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed model has been validated.