Assessing volume of accelerometry data for reliability in preschool children

Purpose: This study examines what volume of accelerometry data (h·d-1) is required to reliably estimate preschool children’s physical activity and whether it is necessary to include weekday and weekend data.

Methods: Accelerometry data from 493 to 799 (depending on wear time) preschool children from the Melbourne-based Healthy Active Preschool Years study were used. The percentage of wear time each child spent in total (light–vigorous) physical activity was the main outcome. Hourly increments of daily data were analyzed. t-tests, controlling for age and clustering by center of recruitment, assessed the differences between weekday and weekend physical activity. Intraclass correlation coefficients estimated reliability for an individual day. Spearman–Brown prophecy formula estimated the number of days required to reach reliability estimates of 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9.

Results: The children spent a significantly greater percentage of time being physically active on weekend compared with weekdays regardless of the minimum number of hours included (t = 12.49–16.76, P < 0.001 for all). The number of days required to reach each of the predetermined reliability estimates increased as the number of hours of data per day decreased. For instance, 2.7–2.8 d of data were required to reach a reliability estimate of 0.7 with 10 or more hours of data per day; 3.3–3.4 d were required to meet the same reliability estimate for days with 7 h of data.

Conclusions: Future studies should ensure they include the minimum amount of data (hours per day and number of days) as identified in this study to meet at least a 0.7 reliability level and should report the level of reliability for their study. In addition to weekdays, at least one weekend day should be included in analyses to reliably estimate physical activity levels for preschool children.

Starting out in STEM : a study of young men and women in first year science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses

In late 2011, first year university students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses across Australia were invited to participate in the international Interests and Recruitment in Science (IRIS) study. IRIS investigates the influences on young people's decisions to choose university STEM courses and their subsequent experiences of these courses. The study also has a particular focus on the motivations and experiences of young women in courses such as physics, IT and engineering given the low rates of female participation in these fields. Around 3500 students from 30 Australian universities contributed their views on the relative importance of various school and non-school influences on their decisions, as well as insights into their experiences of university STEM courses so far. It is hoped that their contributions will help improve recruitment, retention and gender equity in STEM higher education and careers.

China in a book: Victorian representations of the 'celestial kingdom' in William Dalton’s 'The wolf boy of China'

Despite the wealth of material related to China in Victorian and Edwardian children’s literature, relatively few scholarly works have been published on the subject. Critics who have discussed the topic have tended to emphasize the negative discourse and stereotypical images of the Chinese in late nineteenth-century children’s literature. I use the case of William Dalton’s The Wolf Boy of China (1857), one of the earliest full-length Victorian children’s novels set in China, to complicate previous generalizations about negative representations of China and the Chinese and to highlight the unpredictable nature of child readers’ reactions to a text. First, in order to trace the complicated process of how information about the country was disseminated, edited, framed, and translated before reaching Victorian and Edwardian readers, I analyse how Dalton wove fragments from his reading of a large archive of texts on China into his novel.
Although Dalton may have preserved and transmitted some ‘factual’ information about China from his sources, he also transformed material that he read in innovative ways. These are reflected in the more subversive and radical parts of the novel, which are discussed in the second part of the essay. In the final section, I provide examples of historical readers of The Wolf Boy of China to challenge the notion that children passively accept the imperialist messages in books of empire.

Two trees: Australian artists' books to Afghanistan and back

Two Trees documents an artists' books collaboration between 14 Australian women artists and women in Afghanistan who were learning literacy. The collaboration resulted in 36 concertina books of images, withDari and Pashto hand written texts.The books are held in the State Library of Queensland's artists' books collection. Two Trees includes includes an introduction by Barbara Kameniar, and texts by Malalai Joya, Gali Weiss, Matthias Thomczak and Latifa Ahmady.

The effect of surgical timing on the outcome of patients with neck of femur fracture

Aims: To investigate the effect of surgical timing (in hours versus after hours and weekdays versus weekends) on the outcome of patients with neck of femur fracture. Methods: Patients who were admitted to a single tertiary referral hospital for surgical management of femoral neck fractures over a continuous period from 1/11/2002 to 12/7/2012 were identified from medical records and the operating theatre database. Results: A consecutive series of 2334 patients were included in the study. Of the patients who underwent surgery during the weekday and during usual hours, 18 % (207/1135) experienced an adverse event, compared to 16 % (193/1199) outside of these times. The difference between the two groups was not significant (p = 0.17). The same conclusion was made for the comparison between those who had surgery during the week with those who had surgery on the weekend (17 %, 267/1546 and 17 %, 133/788, respectively, p > 0.05). The proportion of patients who underwent surgery during hours that experienced an adverse event was significantly higher than those undergoing surgery out of hours (18 %, 327/1789 and 13 %, 73/545, respectively, p = 0.0081). When adjusted for age, ASA score and pre-operative stay, there was no statistical difference between those different sub-groups. Conclusions: There was no difference in the rates of adverse events between patients who had surgery during hours and weekdays with those who had surgery after hours or weekends. The careful selection of patients with appropriate hospital staff, resources and adequate theatre access, surgery during after hours and weekends may be safely considered to prevent a delay in surgical treatment for patient with neck of femur fracture.

The competition between metastable and equilibrium S (Al2CuMg) phase during the decomposition of AlCuMg alloys

Abstract The decomposition sequence of the supersaturated solid solution leading to the formation of the equilibrium S (Al2CuMg) phase in AlCuMg alloys has long been the subject of ambiguity and debate. Recent high-resolution synchrotron powder diffraction experiments have shown that the decomposition sequence does involve a metastable variant of the S phase (denoted S1), which has lattice parameters that are distinctly different to those of the equilibrium S phase (denoted S2). In this paper, the difference between these two phases is resolved using high-resolution synchrotron and neutron powder diffraction and atom probe tomography, and the transformation from S1 to S2 is characterised in detail by in situ synchrotron powder diffraction. The results of these experiments confirm that there are no significant differences between the crystal structures of S1 and S2, however, the powder diffraction and atom probe measurements both indicate that the S1 phase forms with a slight deficiency in Cu. The in situ isothermal aging experiments show that S1 forms rapidly, reaching its maximum concentration in only a few minutes at high temperatures, while complete conversion to the S2 phase can take thousands of hours at low temperature. The kinetics of S phase precipitation have been quantitatively analysed for the first time and it is shown that S1 phase forms with an average activation energy of 75 kJ/mol, which is much lower than the activation energy for Cu and Mg diffusion in an Al matrix (136 kJ/mol and 131 kJ/mol, respectively). The mechanism of the replacement of S1 with the equilibrium S2 phase is discussed.

How many days of monitoring are needed to reliably assess SenseWear Armband outcomes in primary school-aged children?

OBJECTIVES: To identify the number of hours and days or nights of monitoring required to reliably estimate energy expenditure (EE), steps, waking sedentary time, light- (LPA), moderate- (MPA), vigorous- (VPA), moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA), time in bed and total sleep time using the SenseWear Armband. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: One hundred and two children (50% boys) aged 8-11 years from six schools wore a SenseWear Armband (BodyMedia Inc, USA) for eight consecutive days (seven consecutive nights). Hourly increments of valid day wear time criteria were examined (days/week; 8h/day-14h/day). Intra-class correlation coefficients estimated the reliability for any individual day for each wear time criteria. The Spearman-Brown prophecy formula was used to determine the number of days/nights of monitoring needed to achieve reliability estimates of 0.7, 0.8 and 0.9. RESULTS: Fewer monitoring days were needed as the valid day criteria became more stringent. For example, at least 12h of wear time on at least 2 days was required to achieve a reliability of 0.7 for EE. In contrast, at least 8h/day on 5 days resulted in reliable estimates (0.7) for MPA, VPA and MVPA. Between 6 and 7 nights of monitoring were required to reliably estimate children's time in bed and total sleep time, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: A 7-day monitoring protocol in primary school-aged children would provide acceptable reliability for the assessment of EE, waking sedentary time, LPA, MPA, VPA, MVPA, time in bed and total sleep time, as assessed by the SenseWear Armband.

Australian doctors’ non-clinical activities: results from the MABEL survey of doctors

Objective. The aim of the present study was to investigate non-clinical work conducted by Australian doctors.
Methods. This study was an exploratory descriptive study using data from Wave 5 of the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) longitudinal survey, collected in 2012 from Australian medical practitioners (2200 general practitioners (GPs), 3455 specialists, 1270 specialists in training and 1656 hospital non-specialists). The main outcome measure was the number of hours worked per week in non-clinical work. Regression analysis was used to determine associations between non-clinical activities (i.e. education-related, management and administration and other) and personal and professional characteristics, including age, gender, job and life satisfaction, total clinical working hours, sector of practice
(public or private) and doctor type.
Results. Australian doctors spend an average of just under 7 h per week, or 16% of their working time, on non-clinical activities. Doctors who worked more hours on non-clinical activities overall, and in education-related and management and
administration specifically, were male, younger, had lower life satisfaction and generally spent fewer hours on clinical work. Lower job satisfaction was associated with longer management and administration hours, but not with time spent in
education-related activities. Specialists were more likely to work long non-clinical hours, whereas GPs were more likely to report none. Hospital non-specialists reported relatively high management and administration hours.
Conclusions. Further work is required to better understand the full range of non-clinical activities doctors are involved in and how this may impact future workforce projections.

Ubby's underdogs: a transformative vision of Australian community

In Black Words White Page (2004), his seminal study of Aboriginal cultural production in Australia, Adam Shoemaker notes that ‘when Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s first collection of poetry appeared in print in 1964, a new phase of cultural communication began in Australia’ (2004, p. 5). The ‘new phase’ to which Shoemaker refers pertains to the many plays, collections of poetry and novels by Aboriginal authors published between 1964 and 1988 and directed to Australian and international audiences. Flying under the radar of scholarly attention, Aboriginal authors and artists also produced significant numbers of children’s books during this time, including Wilf Reeves and Olga Miller’s The Legends of Moonie Jarl, published by Jacaranda Press in 1964 (see O’Conor 2007), Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s Stradbroke Dreamtime (1972), and the picture books of Dick Roughsey and many other Aboriginal authors and artists (see Bradford 2001, pp. 159-90).

Intensive mode learning and threshold concepts

Intensive mode teaching and learning refers to educational activities that occur on fewer days, and longer each day, than a “traditional” unit or module in the discipline. In traditional education, a full-time student would study between four and eight subjects or units per term or per semester at school, TAFE or university. Hence each subject or unit is effectively part-time study, taking up between 10% and 25% of the study hours available in each week. By way of contrast, an intensive mode subject might take between 30% and 100% of the available study hours. Examples include field trips and study tours, during which students devote 100% of the available hours to a single subject. In chemistry, the University of New England and Central Queensland University offer course by distance education, but students are expected to attend compulsory residential schools. During these residential schools, the students participate in chemistry laboratories and tutorials, all day, every day for up to one week.

Is it only 'what works' that 'counts' in new knowledge economies? Evidence-based practice, educational research and teacher education in Australia

Recent texts on globalisation and education policy refer to the rapid ¯ow of education policy texts producing or responding to common trends across nation states with the emergence of new knowledge economies. These educational policies are shaping what counts as research and the dynamics between research, policy, and practice in schools, creating new types of relationships between universities, the public, the professions, government, and industry. The trend to evidence-based policy and practice in Australian schools is used to identify key issues within wider debates about the `usefulness' of educational research and the role of universities and university-based research in education in new knowledge economies.

Time to make a difference: using action research to foster student engagement

This paper reports on a project, funded by the Victorian Department of Education and Training (Australia), undertaken to explore the capacity for teachers to develop innovative teaching and learning strategies aimed at improving the educational experiences of students in the middle years. Central to this charter was the need for local schools to form Clusters, share ideas and develop strategies designed to improve student engagement and connection. In forming the Buxton (pseudonym) Cluster, four schools came together to declare their shared interest in improving student connection through the teaching and learning of mathematics. The 22 teachers involved in the project shared a broad concern that the traditional pedagogies built up around the maths discipline were contributing to the wider level of student disconnection observed in the middle years. In thinking about change, the group were attracted to constructivist approaches to pedagogy in which learning opportunities and tasks are varied sufficiently to appeal to the various learning styles and aptitudes of learners. Favouring an action research framework teachers involved in the project embarked on the implementation of pedagogic reforms aimed at improving levels of student engagement.