The ‘Good Eater’ : modelling maternal perception of food fussiness in Australian toddlers – the NOURISH and SAIDI cohorts

Purpose Food refusal is part of normal toddler development due to an innate ability to self-regulate energy intake and the onset of neophobia. For parents, this ‘fussy’ stage causes great concern, prompting use of coercive feeding practices which ignore a child’s own hunger and satiety cues, promoting overeating and overweight. This analysis defines characteristics of the ‘good eater’ using latent variable structural equation modelling and the relationship with maternal perception of her child as a fussy eater. Methods Mothers in the control group of the NOURISH and South Australian Infants Dietary Intake studies (n=332) completed a self-administered questionnaire - when child was age 12-16 months - describing refusal of familiar and unfamiliar foods and maternal perception as fussy/not fussy. Weight-for-age z-score (WAZ) was derived from weight measured by study staff. Questionnaire items and WAZ were combined in AMOS to represent the latent variable the ‘good eater’. Results/findings Mean age(sd) of children was 13.8(1.3) months, mean WAZ(sd), .58(.86) and 49% were male. The ‘good eater’ was represented by higher WAZ, a child that hardly ever refuses food, hardly ever refuses familiar food, and willing to eat unfamiliar foods (x2/df=2.80, GFI=.98, RMSEA=.07(.03-.12), CFI=.96). The ‘good eater’ was inversely associated with maternal perception of her child as a fussy eater (β=-.64, p<.05). Conclusions Toddlers displaying characteristics of a ‘good eater’ are not perceived as fussy, but these characteristics, especially higher WAZ, may be undesirable in the context of obesity prevention. Clinicians can promote food refusal as normal and even desirable in healthy young children.

Leader vision and diffusion of HR policy during change

Purpose – This paper utilizes diffusion of innovation theory in order to investigate and understand the relationships between HR policies on employee change-related outcomes. In addition, the aim is to explore the role of leader vision at different hierarchical levels in the organization in terms of the relationship of HR policy with employee change-related outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – This quantitative study was conducted in one large Australian government department undergoing major restructuring and cultural change. Data from 624 employees were analyzed in relation to knowledge of HR policies (awareness and clarity), leader vision (organizational and divisional), and change-related outcomes. Findings –Policy knowledge (awareness and clarity) does not have a direct impact on employee change-related outcomes. It is the implementation of policies through the divisional leader that begins to enable favorable employee outcomes. Research limitations/implications – Future research should employ a longitudinal design to investigate relationships over time, and also examine the importance of communication medium and individual preferences in relation to leader vision. Originality/value - This research extends the application of diffusion of innovation theory and leader vision theory to investigate the relationship between HR policy, leader vision, and employees’ change-related outcomes.

Do good things and talk about them : a theory of academics usage of enterprise social networks for impression management tactics

Enterprise social networks provide benefits especially for knowledge-intensive work as they enable communication, collaboration and knowledge exchange. These platforms should therefore lead to increased adoption and use by knowledge-intensive workers such as consultants or indeed researchers. Our interest is in ascertaining whether scientific researchers use enterprise social networks as part of their work practices. This focus is motivated by an apparent schism between a need for researchers to exchange knowledge and profile themselves, and the aversion to sharing breakthrough ideas and joining in an ever-increasing publishing and marketing game. We draw on research on academic work practices and impression management to develop a model of academics’ ESN usage for impression management tactics. We describe important constructs of our model, offer strategies for their operationalization and give an outlook to our ongoing empirical study of the use of an ESN platform by 20 schools across six faculties at an Australian university.

Good Practice Report : Postgraduate Research and Coursework Degrees

Over the past decade, enrolments in postgraduate courses in Australian universities have risen by 34% (or from 258,164 in 2004 to 347,363 in 2013) (uCube, 2014). This substantial growth can be attributed to increased demand for postgraduate coursework as continuing professional education, the expansion of Higher Degrees Research (HDR) intakes, and the development of postgraduate research and coursework degrees in new fields. At the same time, the establishment of the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) and national Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), as well as the internationalisation of postgraduate education, have brought challenges and opportunities to the sector. During the past five years, the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) and its predecessor bodies have funded a number of projects and Fellowships on postgraduate coursework and research degrees. They span diverse topics–from entry pathways and research training to supporting international and Indigenous students, examination, scoping studies of new and emergent programs, and effective supervision. In 2014 the OLT commissioned this good practice report to review the grants and fellowships conducted between 2009 and 2014. Encompassing twenty-seven learning and teaching projects and fellowships, the aims of this report include providing universities and academics with an overview of the current state of postgraduate study in Australia and the major influences upon it; a coherent overview of funded projects’ findings and outcomes; and a central point to access good practices, resources and tools in summary form. The objectives of this good practice report are to provide: • A literature review, which contextualises the projects within the Australian and international Higher Education environment, emphasises factors that currently influence postgraduate programs, and highlights challenges and opportunities for the sector. It also explains variations in postgraduate course types and definitions within the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF), and identifies key learning and teaching issues as well as good practices identified in scholarly research and position papers. • A collated overview of the twenty-seven national learning and teaching projects and fellowships on postgraduate coursework and research, including a summary of each project’s aims and objectives, methodologies, outcomes and resources. • A summative index of project characteristics (topics, themes and approaches) and inventory of scholarly research outcomes of the completed projects (publications, reports) as well as resources produced (tools, methods, good practice case studies), and their location (URL Links, references, etc.). • A summary of good practices that have been identified from the literature and the findings of completed projects. • A set of recommendations to address remaining gaps in the field and areas in which further work or development are appropriate. Bringing this work together will help enable university course teams to improve the delivery and development of existing postgraduate courses and to develop new ones, and it will provide academics with an overview of good practices and resources for teaching, supervising and supporting postgraduate students.

Imaginging the good Indigenous citizen : race war and the pathology of partiarchal white sovereignty

In June 2007, the Australian federal government sent military and policy into Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory on the premise that sexual abuse of children was rampant and a national crisis. This article draws on Foucault’s work on sovereignty and rights to argue that patriarchal white sovereignty as a regime of power deploys a discourse of pathology in the exercising of sovereign right to subjugate and discipline Indigenous people as good citizens.

Relocating a flood-affected community : good planning or good politics?

Problem, research strategy and findings: On January 10, 2011, the town of Grantham, Queensland (Australia), was inundated with a flash flood in which 12 of the town's 370 residents drowned. The overall damage bill in Queensland was AUD∃2.38 billion (USD∃2.4 billion) with 35 deaths, and more than three-quarters of the state was declared a flood disaster zone. In this study, we focus on the unusual and even rare decision to relocate Grantham in March 2011. The Lockyer Valley Regional Council (LVRC) acquired a 377-hectare (932-acre) site to enable a voluntary swap of equivalent-sized lots. In addition, planning regulations were set aside to streamline the relocation of a portion of the town. We review the natural hazard literature as it relates to community relocation, state and local government documents related to Grantham, and reports and newspaper articles related to the flood. We also analyze data from interviews with key stakeholders. We document the process of community relocation, assess the relocation process in Grantham against best practice, examine whether the process of community relocation can be upscaled and if the Grantham relocation is an example of good planning or good politics. Takeaway for practice: Our study reveals two key messages for practice. Community relocation (albeit a small one) is possible, and the process can be done quickly; some Grantham residents moved into their new, relocated homes in December 2012, just 11 months after the flood. Moreover, the role of existing planning regulations can be a hindrance to quick action; political leadership, particularly at the local level, is key to implementing the relocation.

Creating good lives through computer games

In this chapter we aim to explore how videogames can lead to improvements in wellbeing. Following Keyes (2007) and Huppert and So (2012) we view wellbeing as a multidimensional concept with both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects. In this chapter we take a broad approach in terms of exploring the impact of videogames on the psychological, social, and physical components of wellbeing. We explore how videogames have been shown to have an impact in each of these domains. Although there is a great deal of evidence for the actual and potential positive impacts of videogames, there are many unanswered questions regarding the situations in which there is likely to be an impact of videogame play on wellbeing, as well as the aspects of wellbeing that are likely to be impacted by videogame play. We conclude the chapter by outlining the key questions for future research. Our focus in this chapter is on the positive influences of videogames. We do not explore research on contexts in which negative impacts are possible or subgroups for which videogames could cause harm. However, these questions are obviously important and we see balanced engagement with age-appropriate videogames as a key prerequisite for any of the wellbeing benefits discussed below.

Open problem: Shifting experts on easy data

A number of online algorithms have been developed that have small additional loss (regret) compared to the best “shifting expert”. In this model, there is a set of experts and the comparator is the best partition of the trial sequence into a small number of segments, where the expert of smallest loss is chosen in each segment. The regret is typically defined for worst-case data / loss sequences. There has been a recent surge of interest in online algorithms that combine good worst-case guarantees with much improved performance on easy data. A practically relevant class of easy data is the case when the loss of each expert is iid and the best and second best experts have a gap between their mean loss. In the full information setting, the FlipFlop algorithm by De Rooij et al. (2014) combines the best of the iid optimal Follow-The-Leader (FL) and the worst-case-safe Hedge algorithms, whereas in the bandit information case SAO by Bubeck and Slivkins (2012) competes with the iid optimal UCB and the worst-case-safe EXP3. We ask the same question for the shifting expert problem. First, we ask what are the simple and efficient algorithms for the shifting experts problem when the loss sequence in each segment is iid with respect to a fixed but unknown distribution. Second, we ask how to efficiently unite the performance of such algorithms on easy data with worst-case robustness. A particular intriguing open problem is the case when the comparator shifts within a small subset of experts from a large set under the assumption that the losses in each segment are iid.

Art and the anxious city: Public art, public interest and the public good

While public art is often considered a key hallmark of a creative city, artworks in the public realm also have the capacity to act as lightening rods for social anxiety at times of perceived crisis. This paper considers recent debates about government-sponsored public art projects in Queensland in light of three international case studies: Rodin’s Thinker in Paris, Tilted Arc in New York and Vault in Melbourne. It considers whether consensus positions on public art are possible or desirable in light of issues of spatial control, and proposes that well-negotiated anxieties about public art may be an indicator of creative vibrancy and dynamism that will assist in the future understanding of Queensland’s experiment with government-mandated public art.

What’s best for our lymphoedema patients? Have we lost the patient as an individual in the quest for good science?

In a recent issue of the Journal of Lymphoedema, Nickolaidis and Karlsson (2013) indicated that most of the standard treatments for lymphoedema patients were explored and developed early last century, and suggested that holistic assessment of the individual is critical for good outcomes, but that perhaps “less emphasis should be placed on manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) and more on compression, exercise and weight reduction.”

If you're going to be a leader, at least act like it! Prejudice towards women who are tentative in leader roles

Role congruity theory predicts prejudice towards women who meet the agentic requirements of the leader role. In line with recent findings indicating greater acceptance of agentic behaviour from women, we find evidence for a more subtle form of prejudice towards women who fail to display agency in leader roles. Using a classic methodology, the agency of male and female leaders was manipulated using assertive or tentative speech, presented through written (Study 1, N = 167) or verbal (Study 2, N = 66) communications. Consistent with predictions, assertive women were as likeable and influential as assertive men, while being tentative in leadership reduced the likeability and influence of women, but not of men. Although approval of agentic behaviour from women in leadership reflects progress, evidence that women are quickly singled out for disapproval if they fail to show agency is important for understanding how they continue to be at a distinct disadvantage to men in leader roles.

Moral vitalism: Seeing good and evil as real, agentic forces

Moral vitalism refers to a tendency to view good and evil as actual forces that can influence people and events. We introduce a scale designed to assess the belief in moral vitalism. High scorers on the scale endorse items such as “There are underlying forces of good and evil in this world”. After establishing the reliability and criterion validity of the scale (Studies 1, 2a, 2b), we examined the predictive validity of the moral vitalism scale, showing that “moral vitalists” worry about being possessed by evil (Study 3), being contaminated through contact with evil people (Study 4), and forfeiting their own mental purity (Study 5). We discuss the nature of moral vitalism and the implications of the construct for understanding the role of metaphysical lay theories about the nature of good and evil in moral reasoning.

The way schools cope with learning difficulties is doing more harm than good

We fail children who experience difficulty in school and with learning almost every day in Australia and in so many ways. These children can fall through a myriad of cracks: cracks that appear in some schools and not others, cracks that exist for different reasons whether they be capacity, belief or resource-related, and cracks that are exacerbated by industrial relations and education policy. Whatever their origin, these cracks need to be addressed.