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.

Supporting adaptive learning in hypertext environment : a high level timed Petri net based approach

One problem for hypertext-based learning application is to control learning paths for different learning activities. This paper first introduced related concepts of hypertext learning state space and Petri net, then proposed a high level timed Petri Net based approach to provide some kinds of adaptation for learning activities. Examples were given while explaining ways to realizing adaptive instructions. Possible future directions were also discussed at the end of this paper.

Supporting adaptive learning in hypertext environment : an agent based approach

One problem for hypertext-based learning application is to control learning paths for different learning activities. This paper first introduces related concepts of hypertext learning state space, then proposes an agent based approach used to provide kinds of adaptation for learning activities. Examples are given while explaining ways to realizing adaptive instructions. Possible future directions are also discussed at the end of this paper.

A fuzzy logic based approach for software testing

How to provide cost-effective strategies for Software Testing has been one of the research focuses in Software Engineering for a long time. Many researchers in Software Engineering have addressed the effectiveness and quality metric of Software Testing, and many interesting results have been obtained. However, one issue of paramount importance in software testing — the intrinsic imprecise and uncertain relationships within testing metrics — is left unaddressed. To this end, a new quality and effectiveness measurement based on fuzzy logic is proposed. Related issues like the software quality features and fuzzy reasoning for test project similarity measurement are discussed, which can deal with quality and effectiveness consistency between different test projects. Experiments were conducted to verify the proposed measurement using real data from actual software testing projects. Experimental results show that the proposed fuzzy logic based metrics is effective and efficient to measure and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of test projects.

Evidence-based mental health nursing in Australia: our history and our future

This paper will develop a discussion related to evidence-based knowledge for mental health nursing, arguing for a historical component to be included in the comprehensive degree programme that will offer significant insights into mental health nursing knowledge from historical information and constructing implications for contemporary practice. Our understanding of the present is clearer by this looking back and forth and by adding meaning (and what the meanings mean) to what historically preceded. It allows the history of psychiatry to be a much more productive, useful, and a continual source of wisdom for the here and now. This blending of past knowledge with contemporary inquiry can offer depth in mental health nursing practices by forming a context for practice for the beginning nurse practitioner.

A role for workforce competencies in evidence-based health promotion education

Education programs should be based on research about the knowledge and skills required for practice, rather than on intuition or tradition, but there is limited published curriculum research on health promotion education. This paper describes a case study of how workforce competencies have been used to assist evidence-based health promotion education in the areas of curriculum design, selection of assessment tasks and continuous quality assurance processes in an undergraduate program at an Australian university. A curriculum-competency mapping process successfully identified gaps and areas of overlap in an existing program. Previously published health promotion workforce competencies were effectively used in the process of selecting assessment items, providing clear guidelines for curriculum revision and a useful method to objectively assess competency content in an evidence informed framework. These health promotion workforce competencies constituted an additional tool to assess course quality. We recommend other tertiary institutions consider curriculum-competency mapping and curriculum based assessment selection as quality and evidence based curriculum review strategies.

Localization with orientation using RSSI measurements: RF map based approach

Localization of RFIDs in the indoor environment will entail determining both the position and the orientation of the user. This paper develops estimator using RSSI measurements to predict the position and orientation of a transmitter in an indoor environment. The best estimator tried was an K-nearest neighbours model that gave an accuracy of approximately 83% for position prediction and 93% for orientation prediction. It was also found that the RSSI values change throughout the day, meaning that an adaptive estimator is necessary for localization.

Geometric formations in swarm aggregation: an artificial formation force based approach

Cooperative control of multiple mobile robots is an attractive and challenging problem which has drawn considerable attention in the recent past. This paper introduces a scalable decentralized control algorithm to navigate a group of mobile robots (swarm) into a predefined shape in 2D space. The proposed architecture uses artificial forces to control mobile agents into the shape and spread them inside the shape while avoiding inter-member collisions. The theoretical analysis of the swarm behavior describes the motion of the complete swarm and individual members in relevant situations. We use computer simulated case studies to verify the theoretical assertions and to demonstrate the robustness of the swarm under external disturbances such as death of agents, change of shape etc.

Evidence-based nutrition and cardiovascular disease in the Asia-Pacific region

The Asia-Pacific region is undergoing a major change in both food and health patterns, with a connection between the two more than likely. Evidence for certain traditional Asia-Pacific foods as protective agents against chronic non-communicable disease and cardiovascular disease (CVD), in particular, is growing at a time when their usage diminishes. The nature of the evidence to establish relevant Asia-Pacific food-health linkages will include randomised placebo-controlled clinical trials, but is much more extensive and meaningful. Okinawans have probably achieved one of the most successful food cultures from a health point of view and serve as a reference point for the Asia-Pacific region. The expert working party has produced, in November 2000, the 'Okinawan Recommendations on Nutrition and CVD in the Asia-Pacific region'.

Evidence-based clinical policy: case report of a reproducible process to encourage understanding and evaluation of evidence

We report within a case study a reproducible process to facilitate the explicit incorporation of evidence by a multidisciplinary group into clinical policy development. To support the decision-making of a multidisciplinary Intersectoral Advisory Group (IAG) convened by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Health Policy Unit, a systematic review of randomized controlled trials about environmental tobacco smoke and smoking cessation interventions in paediatric settings was first undertaken. As reported in detail here, IAG members were then formally engaged in a transparent and replicable process to understand and interpret the synthesized evidence and to proffer their independent reactions regarding policy, practice and research. Our intention was to ensure that all IAG members were democratically engaged and made aware of the available evidence. As clinical policy must engage stakeholder representatives from diverse backgrounds, a process to equalize understanding of the evidence and 'democratize' judgment about its implications is needed. Future research must then examine the benefits of such explicit steps when guidelines, in turn, are implemented. We hypothesize that changes to future practice will be more likely if processes undertaken to develop guidelines are transparent to clinicians and other target groups.

Improving access to evidence-based acute stroke services: development and evaluation of a health systems model to address equity of access issues

Level 1 evidence for management of patients with stroke in a dedicated Stroke Care Unit (SCU) demonstrates improved outcomes by about 20%. It has been estimated that 21% of Australian hospitals provide an SCU and that these SCUs are mainly located in either metropolitan sites and/or in hospitals with more than 300 beds. To address equity issues related to access to SCUs, the National Stroke Foundation and the Australian Government undertook the National Stroke Units Program. One program outcome was the development of a conceptual model of acute stroke service delivery. The development process and initial evaluation of the model are described. Use of the model to increase capacity within the health care system to treat stroke is discussed.

A glossary for evidence based public health

This glossary seeks to define and explain some of the main concepts underpinning evidence based public health. It draws on the published literature, experience gained over several years analysis of the topic, and discussions with public health colleagues, including researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and students.