Is phase-specific, community-oriented treatment of early psychosis- an economically viable method of improving outcome?

Objective: The Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC) provides a comprehensive 'real-world' model of early intervention to young people experiencing an emerging psychotic disorder. A prospective study has already provided evidence of improved clinical outcome at 12 months after entry. The present study examined whether the service was also cost-effective.

Method: A cost-effectiveness analysis compared EPPIC with its immediate precursor service, from the perspective of the government funding agency. Only direct costs were included.

Results: EPPIC proved to be more cost-effective. The weighted average cost per patient for the first 12 months was cheaper (by äD 7110 per patient), while treatment outcomes were superior. The savings were due to the marked reduction in in-patient costs outweighing substantial increases in the costs of community care.

Conclusion: These results, while encouraging in terms of the further development of integrated, phase-specific intervention programmes for early psychosis, are not conclusive, and further research is required.

Teachers’ ethics : education international and the forging of professional unity

The paper maintains that the current era, marked by a new global economy transforming economic and social development, has created the need for a reorganisation of teachers’ representation. This paper discusses a key development in teacher organisation, namely the emergence of Education International as a global hub for teacher unionism from across the world. This unique organisation, formulated in response to the emergence of global economies and supra-national figures, represents teachers’ response to globalised institutions and has instigated projects, such as the Professional Code of Ethics, which aim to create a sense of professional identity and unity amongst teachers. The organisation presents the political voice of teachers as a global collective that seeks to embed teachers’ interests in education reform and in the public debates concerning the direction of educational change in the era of globalisation. The paper concludes by outlining an ongoing issue that jeopardizes the collective voice of teachers and stresses how this needs to be further addressed in the ethical frameworks of what it means to be a teacher in the 21st century.

A comparison of business ethics commitment in private and public sector orgnaizations in Sweden

This paper reports the results of a study of the top 500 private sector organizations and the top 100 public sector organizations in Sweden. It is a replication of the study by Svensson et al. (2004). The aim of the study was to describe and compare the business ethics commitment of organizations across the two sectors. The empirical findings indicate that the processes involved in business ethics commitment have begun to be recognized and acted upon at an organizational level in Sweden. Some support is provided to show that codes of ethics are developing in some of Sweden’s largest private and public sector organizations – although this is happening to a lesser extent in the public sector. It is noted that an effect of a code of ethics on the bottom line of the business was acknowledged by respondents in both private and public sector organizations. We believe that the supporting measures of business ethics commitment appear to be underutilized in both private and public sector organizations in Sweden (among those that possess codes of ethics), thus indicating that the commitment to business ethics in Swedish organizations has potential for future development.

Introduction : The complex and contested history of democracy

Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.

Learning to engage with human rights in heritage

Cultural heritage should not be seen merely as a technical matter or from a narrow visitor management point of view but rather as cultural practice—a form of cultural politics dominated by ruling regimes and social groups in which decisions are made about the future of and access to scarce resources. Several scholars have sought to push this approach further by arguing that heritage studies should take on the protection of human rights as a core consideration in the processes of identifying, inscribing, conserving and interpreting cultural heritage. This paper builds on these previous works to explore what the shift to a rights-based management approach in the World Heritage system might mean for various stakeholders in the heritage protection enterprise as they learn to meet this challenge and to find ways to support people’s right to access, enjoy and maintain cultural heritage. Reaffirming the need to maintain a strong relationship between theory and praxis, the paper draws into the discussion heritage practitioners, decision makers in governments and government agencies, scholars and educators. Of these, the principal emphasis in this paper is on educators who are seen to have a fundamentally important role in developing a critical understanding of the cultural heritage concept, how heritage is created, used and misused and how conservation approaches and programs sit within the broader context of community attitudes and aspirations and governmental responsibilities. A distinction is made between teachers in universities and trainers offering short courses more focused on specific employer needs. The paper focuses on World Heritage but refers to both tangible and intangible aspects. It shows how current moves to establish a rights-based approach to the management of World Heritage sites connects with moves elsewhere in global governance, most notably in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Forgotten histories: ephemeral culture for children and the digital archive

The history of children’s popular culture in Australia is still to be written. This article examines Australian print publication for children from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, together with radio and children’s television programming from the 1950s to the 1970s. It presents new scholarship on the history of children’s magazines and newspapers, sourced from digital archives such as Trove, and documents new sources for early works by Australian children’s writers. The discussion covers early television production for children, mobilising digital resources that have hitherto not informed scholarship in the field.

Using birthing kits to promote clean birth practices in Ethiopia

This article explores three NGO projects that assemble and distribute clean birthing kits in Ethiopia. It contrasts the government's health strategy that aims to increase skilled birth attendance, with local realities as most women in rural and remote settings give birth at home, often in unhygienic conditions, and without skilled assistance. Many health facilities are also unable to provide hygienic conditions for birthing women. The findings indicate that clean birth kits have assisted the NGOs to effectively promote clean delivery at home or in health facilities, and to encourage antenatal care, and early referral to emergency obstetric and new-born care.

Early adoption of mobile devices : a social network perspective

As mobile devices have become the personal information-processing interface of choice, many individuals seem to swiftly follow fashion. Yet, the literature is silent on how early adopters of mobile devices overcome uncertainties related to shifts in technology. Based on purposive sampling, this paper presents detailed insights into why and how five closely related individuals made the decision to adopt the iPhone before it was available through traditional supply chains. Focusing on the role played by social networks, we analyze how adoption threshold, opinion leaders, social contagion, and social learning shaped adoption behaviors and outcomes. The analyses confirm that network structures impact the early decision to accept the iPhone; they show that when facing uncertainty, adoption decisions emerged as a combined result of individual adoption reflections and major influences from the social network as well as behaviors observed within the network, and, they reveal interesting behaviors that differed from expectations. In conclusion, we discuss implications for both theory and practice.

Early adoption of mobile devices : a social network perspective

As mobile devices have become the personal information-processing interface of choice, many individuals seem to swiftly follow fashion. Yet, the literature is silent on how early adopters of mobile devices overcome uncertainties related to shifts in technology. Based on purposive sampling, this paper presents detailed insights into why and how five closely related individuals made the decision to adopt the iPhone before it was available through traditional supply chains. Focusing on the role played by social networks, we analyze how adoption threshold, opinion leaders, social contagion, and social learning shaped adoption behaviors and outcomes. The analyses confirm that network structures impacted the early decision to accept the iPhone; they show that when facing uncertainty, adoption decisions emerged as a combined result of individual adoption reflections and major influences from the social network as well as behaviors observed within the network; and, they reveal interesting behaviors that differed from expectations. In conclusion, we discuss implications for both theory and practice.

Late maturers at a performance disadvantage to their more mature peers in junior Australian football

Children and adolescents mature at different rates such that individuals competing in the same competition may differ in physical and biological maturity despite being of similar chronological age. Whether or not differences translate into on-field performance in competition is relatively unknown. This study investigated the influence of biological maturity on fitness and match running performance in junior Australian football. Eighty-seven under-15 years players were categorised into early (n = 20), average (n = 45) and late (n = 22) maturity groups based on self-reported and anthropometric assessment of biological maturity. Running movements during competition were collected using GPS (5 Hz) technology. Early maturers were heavier and taller than all other boys (P < 0.05), while biological maturity was significantly correlated to 20 m sprint (r = 0.53, P < 0.01). Total distance, high-intensity (>14.4 km · h−1) running distance and number of high-intensity efforts were significantly greater (20.8%, 53.6%, 31.7%, respectively; P < 0.01) in early compared to late maturers. Number of sprints and peak speed in competition were not different. Pubertal development and maturity status partially explained the differences between players in physical size, functional running fitness and match running performance. Late maturing players in this Australian football under-15 age group were at a physical and performance disadvantage to their earlier maturing peers.

Tracks to advocacy: journalism studies, animal rights and Australian media law

This article considers the role of animal rights-based journalism and its connection to teaching media law and ethics to undergraduate students in an Australian university arts faculty. An anecdotal discussion of a reflective practice informing the teaching of an undergraduate course in a journalism major relates questions of ethics and law to broader considerations of the role of advocacy in and around journalism, and media practice. It is argued that animal rights-related stories have a role in training media professionals, and also in inspiring journalists to envision their own work as part of the democratic mechanisms of social and legal reform in Australia.

Early-developmental stress, repeatability, and canalization in a suite of physiological and behavioral traits in female zebra finches

Adaptive developmental plasticity allows individuals experiencing poor environmental conditions in early life to adjust their life-history strategy in order to prioritize short-term fitness benefits and maximize reproductive output in challenging environments. Much research has been conducted to test whether such adoption of a "faster" life-history strategy is accompanied by concordant changes in behavior and physiology, with mixed results. As research in this field has focused on comparison of mean-level responses of treatment groups, few studies include repeated measures of response variables and the effect that developmental stress may have on repeatability per se. We investigated how early-developmental stress affects the mean expression of (and repeatability in) a variety of behavioral and physiological traits in female zebra finches. We predicted that: (1) individuals subjected to nutritional restriction in the nestling phase would have higher feeding and activity rates, with associated increases in hematocrit and basal metabolic rates (BMRs), (2) nutritional restriction in early life would alter adults' stress-induced corticosterone level, and (3) developmental stress would, respectively, influence the amount of among-individual and within-individual variation in behavioral and physiological traits, hence affecting the repeatability of these traits. In comparison to control females, stressed females did not differ in activity rate or stress-induced corticosterone level, but they did have higher levels of feeding, hematocrit, and BMR. Among-individual variance and repeatability were generally higher in stressed females than in controls. Finally, we found that developmental dietary restriction significantly reduced the amount of within-individual variance both in activity rate in the novel environment and in stress-induced corticosterone level. Our results not only confirm previous findings on the effect of early-developmental stress on BMR, but also extend its effect to feeding rate and hematocrit, suggesting that developmental plasticity in these traits is ontogenetically linked. Early-developmental stress may disable particular genetic canalizing processes, which would release cryptic genetic variation and explain why repeatability and among-individual variance were generally higher in the stressed groups than in controls. For activity rate in the novel environment and with stress-induced corticosterone level, however, early-developmental stress significantly reduced within-individual variance, which may be a consequence of increased canalization of these traits at the micro-environmental level.

The complex and contested history of democracy

Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.

Associations between early adrenarche, affective brain function and mental health in children

Early timing of adrenarche, associated with relatively high levels of Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in children, has been associated with mental health and behavioral problems. However, little is known about effects of adreneracheal timing on brain function. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of early adrenarche (defined by high DHEA levels independent of age) on affective brain function and symptoms of psychopathology in late childhood (N = 83, 43 females, M age 9.53 years, s.d. 0.34 years). Results showed that higher DHEA levels were associated with decreased affect-related brain activity (i) in the mid-cingulate cortex in the whole sample, and (ii) in a number of cortical and subcortical regions in female but not male children. Higher DHEA levels were also associated with increased externalizing symptoms in females, an association that was partly mediated by posterior insula activation to happy facial expressions. These results suggest that timing of adrenarche is an important moderator of affect-related brain function, and that this may be one mechanism linking early adrenarche to psychopathology.