A multifaceted pharmacist intervention to improve antihypertensive adherence: a cluster-randomized, controlled trial (HAPPy trial)

About half of all patients taking antihypertensives discontinue treatment by 12 months. There is potential for substantial health gains at both individual and population levels through improved treatment adherence. The objective was to evaluate a community pharmacist intervention to improve adherence with antihypertensive medicines with a view to improving blood pressure (BP) control.

Marking Four Decades of World Heritage - the view from Australia

 The celebration of the milestone of the fortieth year since the adoption by UNESCO of the World Heritage Convention provided a global stimulus for reflection that included activities in Australia. Four decades of experience of implementing the idealistic and international notions that underpin the Convention had demonstrated the distinctiveness of the potential contributions from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. With that in mind, the starting premise of this volume of Historic Environment has been to provide a snapshot of the experiences of World Heritage in Australia - essentially the view from 'here', and a specifically oriented view based on the experiences and priorities of cultural heritage practice.

Simulation in higher education: a sociomaterial view

This article presents a sociomaterial account of simulation in higher education. Sociomaterial approaches change the ontological and epistemological bases for understanding learning and offer valuable tools for addressing important questions about relationships between university education and professional practices. Simulation has grown in many disciplines as a means to bring the two closer together. However, the theoretical underpinnings of simulation pedagogy are limited. This paper extends the wider work of applying sociomaterial approaches to educational phenomena, taking up Schatzki’s practice theory as a distinctive basis for doing so. The question ‘What is being simulated?’ is posed, prompting discussion of multiple bodies, performances and experiences. The potential of adopting such a framework for understanding simulation as a pedagogic practice that brings the classroom and workplace together is illustrated with reference to clinical education in nursing.

Learning in-between, across and beyond workplace boundaries

In this paper, we challenge conventional theories underpinning the practice of human resource development (HRD) that typically focus on the objects of learning - individuals, skills, jobs - or separate the contexts of work (performance) from learning (training). Using case study research from a public utility and a winery, we found similarities in workers' experiences of various organisational practices despite different objects of learning. These practices were, firstly, temporarily occupying (acting up) in a more senior position and, secondly, collaborating across functions. Unlike notions of boundary-crossing or job rotation, we argue that learning 'in-between' develops interactional competence that is grounded within the work practices of interacting individuals. This relational view opens up possibilities for redirecting the focus of HRD practice towards integrating work and learning in ways that develop the potential for learning in-between, across and beyond the boundaries of work. © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Towards a cohesive, holistic view of top predation: a definition, synthesis and perspective

Research on the ecology of top predators - upper trophic level consumers that are relatively free from predation once they reach adult size - has provided regular contributions to general ecology and is a rapidly expanding and increasingly experimental, multidisciplinary and technological endeavour. Yet, an exponentially expanding literature coupled with rapid disintegration into specialized, disconnected subfields for study (e.g. vertebrate predators versus invertebrate predators, community ecology versus biological control etc.) increasingly means that we are losing a coherent, integrated understating of the role and importance of these species in ecosystems. This process of canalization is likely to hinder sharing of scientific discovery and continued progress, especially as there is a growing need to understand the generality of the top-down forcing, as demonstrated for some members of this group. Here, we propose ways to facilitate synthesis by promoting changes in mentality and awareness among specialists through increased debate and collaboration, conceptual reviews and a series of exemplary case studies. The strategy will rely on the collective contribution by all scientists in the field and will strive to consolidate and formalise top-order predation as a holistic, cohesive, cross-taxonomical field of research studying the ecology, evolution and behaviour of apex predators and their capability to exert top-down forcing on lower trophic levels. © 2014 The Authors.

Towards designing an email classification system using multi-view based semi-supervised learning

The goal of email classification is to classify user emails into spam and legitimate ones. Many supervised learning algorithms have been invented in this domain to accomplish the task, and these algorithms require a large number of labeled training data. However, data labeling is a labor intensive task and requires in-depth domain knowledge. Thus, only a very small proportion of the data can be labeled in practice. This bottleneck greatly degrades the effectiveness of supervised email classification systems. In order to address this problem, in this work, we first identify some critical issues regarding supervised machine learning-based email classification. Then we propose an effective classification model based on multi-view disagreement-based semi-supervised learning. The motivation behind the attempt of using multi-view and semi-supervised learning is that multi-view can provide richer information for classification, which is often ignored by literature, and semi-supervised learning supplies with the capability of coping with labeled and unlabeled data. In the evaluation, we demonstrate that the multi-view data can improve the email classification than using a single view data, and that the proposed model working with our algorithm can achieve better performance as compared to the existing similar algorithms.

Is removing blood donation barriers a donation facilitator? Australian African migrants’ view

Purpose – The aim of this study was to assess whether the removal of blood donation “barriers” facilitates blood donation intentions, using a sample of African migrants, and to identify the implications for social marketing. African migrants are currently under-represented as blood donors in Australia. Some members of the African community have unique donation needs that can only be served by this community. Design/methodology/approach – Interviews were conducted with 425 people from the African community in Victoria and South Australia. Factor analysis was performed on the barriers and the removal of barriers. Item groupings for both constructs differed, suggesting that barriers and their removal are not necessarily opposite constructs. Findings – The cultural society factor was negatively associated with blood donation intention (i.e. a barrier), whereas engagement and overcoming fear were positively associated with blood donation intention (i.e. facilitators). Cultural issues and lack of understanding were not seen to impede blood donation. Additionally, the removal of cultural barriers did not facilitate increases in blood donation intentions. Thus, the removal of barriers may not be sufficient on their own to encourage donation Research limitations/implications – This only examines the issue with regards to whether the removal of barriers is a facilitator of blood donation with one group of migrants, and relationships may vary across other migrant and non-migrant groups. Practical implications – Policymakers often use social marketing interventions to overcome barriers as a way of facilitating blood donation. This research suggests that removing barriers is indeed important because these barriers impede people considering becoming blood donors. However, the findings also suggest that the removal of barriers is insufficient on its own to motivate blood donations (i.e. the removal of barriers is a hygiene factor). If this is the case, social marketing campaigns need to be multifaceted, removing barriers as well as leveraging facilitators, simultaneously. Social implications – This work identified that the impact of barriers and their removal may facilitate effective social marketing campaigns in differing ways, in the context of blood donation. Originality/value – How barriers and their removal impact social marketing activities (i.e. blood donation behaviour) has generally not been explored in research.

High basal metabolic rates of shorebirds while in the Arctic: a circumpolar view

The basal metabolic rate (BMR) of Old World long-distance-migrant shorebirds has been found to vary along their migration route. On average, BMR is highest in the Arctic at the start of fall migration, intermediate at temperate latitudes, and lowest on the tropical wintering grounds. As a test of the generality of this pattern, we measured the BMR of one adult and 44 juvenile shorebirds of 10 species (1-18 individuals of each species, body-mass range 19-94 g) during the first part of their southward migration in the Canadian Arctic (68-76°N). The interspecific relationship between BMR and body mass was almost identical to that found for juvenile shorebirds in the Eurasian Arctic (5 species), although only one species appeared in both data sets. We conclude that high BMR of shorebirds in the Arctic is a circumpolar phenomenon. The most likely explanation is that the high BMR reflects physiological adaptations to low ambient temperatures. Whether the BMR of New World shorebirds drops during southward migration remains to be investigated.

Children's play in the Australian Indigenous context: the need for a contemporary view

Despite an extensive search, very little literature was found on Australian Indigenous children’s play, and more specifically pretend play. Most of the literature found was written in the period from 1840 to the 1950s and was primarily descriptive. We argue that the literature found on Australian Indigenous children’s play could be interpreted through the prominent classical theories of the day. These theories emphasized the value of play in preparing children for adulthood. The literature is silent in regard to the value and significance of play in Indigenous Australian culture and on the contribution of play to children’s developmental skills such as language, cognition, problem-solving, literacy and learning. This paper presents a review of the available literature and argues for an analysis of contemporary Australian Indigenous children’s play which values play in the development of the child and interprets play behavior within an Indigenous cultural framework.

Education in the age of uncertainty: an eagle's eye-view

 How are we to educate young people of, and for, these times in a way which takes into account the existential and moral dilemmas of our age? We argue that the current education system fails to address the full implications of historical change in relation to ethics and equity. In what follows, we offer some ways of describing and theorising contemporary life in an age of uncertainty. We offer it as a knowledge base from which teachers, principals and policy makers might draw in creating new morally and ethically sound policy discourses. We follow with some new frameworks for helping students to deal with the altered context of moral and political life.