Sensitivity to motivational cues in attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder

This thesis examined a prediction of Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory regarding the association between personality traits and motivated behaviour and, whether reward-and-punishment sensitivity is associated with Attention-deficit / Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Results supported the predicted association between personality and motivated behaviour, but not the predicted association between reward-and-punishment sensitivity and ADHD.

The role of alcohol consumption in recovering drug users

This thesis found that alcohol consumption by illicit drig users has not been well researched. A qualitative study found alcohol was used as a substitute and believed to be related to illicit substance use. While the quantitative study generated no overall consensus, the research highlighted the need to conduct additional studies into substance abuse. The portfolio explored the relationship between maltreatment and the development of Reactive Attachment Disorder through four case studies of child clients.

Social skills training and childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

This study implemented social skills training as an adjunctive to psychostimulant medication with a sample of 14 boys with ADHD, compared to a control group of 14 ADHD boys whose treatment consisted of psychostimulant medication only. Results indicated that social skills training provides additive effects on some aspects of social functioning, over and above those of medication only. Findings are discussed in terms of their contributions to the understanding and treatment of the social difficulties in childhood ADHD. Costs and benefits of this approach to treatment are also considered.

A review of cashmere nutrition experiments with suggestions for improving their design and conduct

The scientific literature contains divergent views about the effects of nutrition on cashmere. The consequences of ignoring nutrition will be an increase in the number of goats suffering lower production, increased welfare risks and premature mortality. This review evaluated published reports to identify current knowledge and best practice in regard to the design and management of cashmere nutrition experiments. The ability of experiments to distinguish between treatments was evaluated based on their statistical evidence. Many experiments had serious deficiencies in their design, conduct and reporting. Six of 16 papers did not provide statistical information that would enable a reader to verify differences between treatments. For most experiments to detect nutrition affects at P < 0.05, they required a difference between treatments of 0.2–0.8 μm in cashmere mean fibre diameter and 15–42 g in clean cashmere production. Government Research Institutes research was characterised by more experienced authors conducting longer (P < 0.05) and larger (P < 0.05) experiments than those conducted by Universities. Much of the “debate” regarding the affects of nutrition on cashmere production arises from the misinterpretation of both experiments that did not detect statistically significant effects and of experiments that did detect statistically significant effects. Based on a comparison between experiments reporting responses to nutrition with those reporting no response, 13 design and management features were identified that are related to the ability of experiments to detect significant treatment affects. Methods must be adopted to reduce the variance in cashmere production within treatments, by using sufficient animals per treatment, and having replication to provide sufficient degrees of freedom to reduce error terms in analysis. The power of experimental designs should be evaluated before experiments commence. Cashmere production records from a previous full production year could be used as co-variants during statistical analyses but this requires that potential experimental goats are managed in one flock, without variations resulting from different grazing, reproduction or other management for a year prior to an experiment. It is preferable to use more productive and older goats, and goats that are used to handling, and to the conditions and feed to be used. Allocation of animals to treatments must take into account live weight. Nutrition treatments need to be sufficiently different to produce different growth curves. An appropriate control is needed such as live weight maintenance. Evidence of both nutrition intake and growth curves must be published with cashmere production data so the claims made can be verified by the actual responses. As cashmere production is an order of magnitude less than fibre production of Merino sheep or Angora goats and is more difficult to measure, the requirements for measurement, sampling and testing cashmere fleeces are summarised. The use of mid side cashmere patches to determine cashmere growth and quality is seriously biased and must be avoided, preferably by shearing goats prior to and at the end of experiments. In order to obtain higher fleece growth responses and improve the ability of experiments to detect treatment effects it is preferable to start cashmere growth experiments by midsummer and conduct experiments for at least 4 months. These requirements make it difficult for many university students to plan, undertake and complete long-term cashmere nutrition experiments without considerable management support. It is not possible for experiments to disprove the Null hypothesis regarding the effects of nutrition on cashmere production as they can only report a failure to detect treatment effects. Researchers and journals need to be more rigorous in providing statistical information including: degrees of freedom for error terms, treatment variances, standard error of differences or similar to enable readers to compare treatment effects. Publications that do not provide sufficient statistical information should be disregarded from future discussions. Claims that an experiment shows no responses to nutrition should be subject to rigorous examination using the issues identified in this review.

Internet-based treatment for panic disorder : does frequency of therapist contact make a difference?

Internet-based interventions with therapist support have proven effective for treating a range of mental health conditions. This study examined whether frequency of therapist contact affected treatment outcomes. Fifty-seven people with panic disorder (including 32 with agoraphobia) were randomly allocated to an 8-week Internet-based cognitive behavioural treatment intervention (Panic Online) with either frequent (three e-mails per week) or infrequent (one e-mail per week) support from a psychologist. Posttreatment, intention-to-treat analyses revealed that both treatments were effective at improving panic disorder and agoraphobia severity ratings, panicrelated cognitions, negative affect, and psychological and physical quality of life domains, with no differences between conditions. High end-state functioning was achieved by 28.6% of the frequent and infrequent participants, respectively. Therapist alliance, treatment credibility, and satisfaction also did not differ between groups, despite significantly greater therapist time invested in the frequent contact condition. The results provide evidence that the effectiveness of Internet-based mental health interventions may be independent of the frequency of therapist support and may, therefore, be more cost-effective than previously reported.

Lithium-doped plastic crystal electrolytes exhibiting fast ion conduction for secondary batteries

Rechargeable lithium batteries have long been considered an attractive alternative power source for a wide variety of applications. Safety and stability1 concerns associated with solvent-based electrolytes has necessitated the use of lithium intercalation materials (rather than lithium metal) as anodes, which decreases the energy storage capacity per unit mass. The use of solid lithium ion conductors - based on glasses, ceramics or polymers - as the electrolyte would potentially improve the stability of a lithium metal anode while alleviating the safety concerns. Glasses and ceramics conduct via a fast ion mechanism, in which the lithium ions move within an essentially static framework. In contrast, the motion of ions in polymer systems is similar to that in solvent-based electrolytes - motion is mediated by the dynamics of the host polymer, thereby restricting the conductivity to relatively low values. Moreover, in the polymer systems, the motion of the lithium ions provides only a small fraction of the overall conductivity2, which results in severe concentration gradients during cell operation, causing premature failure3. Here we describe a class of materials, prepared by doping lithium ions into a plastic crystalline matrix, that exhibit fast lithium ion motion due to rotational disorder and the existence of vacancies in the lattice. The combination of possible structural variations of the plastic crystal matrix and conductivities as high as 2 3 1024 S cm21 at 60 8C make these materials very attractive for secondary battery applications.

Screening children with developmental coordination disorder : the development of the caregiver assessment of movement participation

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Caregiver Assessment of Movement Participation (CAMP), which was developed to measure and identify children with movement participation problems in home contexts. The test-retest reliability, as well as the concurrent and contrast-group validity of the 35-item parent-proxy CAMP, was examined on 312 children aged 5 to 8 years using intraclass correlation, factor analysis, and the Rasch model. Initial findings on the CAMP appeared to support its validity. Testing on other properties from a practical perspective, such as finding the best rating scale structure and cutpoints, are recommended before using the instrument for child health surveillance screening.

Indicative markers of leadership provided by ICT professional bodies in the promotion and support of ethical conduct

Most countries with a mature Information and Communications Technology (ICT industry have at least one professional body (PB) that claims to represent its members working with such technology. Other ICT PBs operate in the international arena. These PBs may differ in membership criteria, jurisdiction and even objectives but all profess to promote high ethical and professional standards. This study seeks to determine the common indicative markers that demonstrate that an ICT PB is offering leadership in identifying, promoting and supporting ethical conduct amongst a variety of constituencies including its own members and beyond. An extensive literature review identified over 200 prospective markers covering a broad range of potential activities of an ICT PB. These were grouped into nine major areas: ethical professional practice; continuous professional development; research and publication; education of future professionals; members’ career development; social obligations; professional engagement; preserving professional dignity/ reputation and regulation of the profession. These markers were arranged hierarchically in a word processing document referred to as a “marker template”. An analysis of selected ICT PBs websites was undertaken to confirm and refine the template. It will be used in the future for a comparative study of how professional bodies offer leadership to their various constituencies in the area of ethical conduct.

Relationships and attraction among individuals with autism spectrum disorder

This research investigated attraction among individuals with autism. We found that those with autism prefer partners who assist them to meet their social and cognitive needs. Partners of those with autism chose to trade-off emotional and social skills for other traits. Lastly, those with autism had lower self-perceived mate value.