The link between belongingness and depressive symptoms: An exploration in the workplace interpersonal context

Interpersonal factors are crucial to a deepened understanding of depression. Belongingness, also referred to as connectedness, has been established as a strong risk/protective factor for depressive symptoms. To elucidate this link it may be beneficial to investigate the relative importance of specific psychosocial contexts as belongingness foci. Here we investigate the construct of workplace belongingness. Employees at a disability services organisation (N = 125) completed measures of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, workplace belongingness and organisational commitment. Psychometric analyses, including Horn's parallel analyses, indicate that workplace belongingness is a unitary, robust and measurable construct. Correlational data indicate a substantial relationship with depressive symptoms (r = −.54) and anxiety symptoms (r = −.39). The difference between these correlations was statistically significant, supporting the particular importance of belongingness cognitions to the etiology of depression. Multiple regression analyses support the hypothesis that workplace belongingness mediates the relationship between affective organisational commitment and depressive symptoms. It is likely that workplaces have the potential to foster environments that are intrinsically less depressogenic by facilitating workplace belongingness. From a clinical perspective, cognitions regarding the workplace psychosocial context appear to be highly salient to individual psychological health, and hence warrant substantial attention.

DNA technology for the detection of common genetic variants that predispose to thrombophilia

With the identification of common single locus point mutations as risk factors for thrombophilia, many DNA testing methodologies have been described for detecting these variations. Traditionally, functional or immunological testing methods have been used to investigate quantitative anticoagulant deficiencies. However, with the emergence of the genetic variations, factor V Leiden, prothrombin 20210 and, to a lesser extent, the methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR677) and factor V HR2 haplotype, traditional testing methodologies have proved to be less useful and instead DNA technology is more commonly employed in diagnostics. This review considers many of the DNA techniques that have proved to be useful in the detection of common genetic variants that predispose to thrombophilia. Techniques involving gel analysis are used to detect the presence or absence of restriction sites, electrophoretic mobility shifts, as in single strand conformation polymorphism or denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, and product formation in allele-specific amplification. Such techniques may be sensitive, but are unwielding and often need to be validated objectively. In order to overcome some of the limitations of gel analysis, especially when dealing with larger sample numbers, many alternative detection formats, such as closed tube systems, microplates and microarrays (minisequencing, real-time polymerase chain reaction, and oligonucleotide ligation assays) have been developed. In addition, many of the emerging technologies take advantage of colourimetric or fluorescence detection (including energy transfer) that allows qualitative and quantitative interpretation of results. With the large variety of DNA technologies available, the choice of methodology will depend on several factors including cost and the need for speed, simplicity and robustness. © 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Multiple analysis of three common genetic alterations associated with thrombophilia

We have previously reported the use of a novel mini-sequencing protocol for detection of the factor V Leiden variant, the first nucleotide change (FNC) technology. This technology is based on a single nucleotide extension of a primer, which is hybridized immediately adjacent to the site of mutation. The extended nucleotide that carries a reporter molecule (fluorescein) has the power to discriminate the genotype at the site of mutation. More recently, the prothrombin 20210 and thermolabile methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) 677 variants have been identified as possible risk factors associated with thrombophilia. This study describes the use of the FNC technology in a combined assay to detect factor V, prothrombin and MTHFR variants in a population of Australian blood donors, and describes the objective numerical methodology used to determine genotype cut-off values for each genetic variation. Using FNC to test 500 normal blood donors, the incidence of Factor V Leiden was 3.6% (all heterozygous), that of prothrombin 20210 was 2.8% (all heterozygous) and that of MTHFR was 10% (homozygous). The combined FNC technology offers a simple, rapid, automatable DNA-based test for the detection of these three important mutations that are associated with familial thrombophilia. (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.

The link between age, career goals, and adaptive development for work-related learning among local government employees

More recently, lifespan development psychology models of adaptive development have been applied to the workforce to investigate ageing worker and lifespan issues. The current study uses the Learning and Development Survey (LDS) to investigate employee selection and engagement of learning and development goals and opportunities and constraints for learning at work in relation to demographics and career goals. It was found that mature age was associated with perceptions of preferential treatment of younger workers with respect to learning and development. Age was also correlated with several career goals. Findings suggest that younger workers’ learning and development options are better catered for in the workplace. Mature aged workers may compensate for unequal learning opportunities at work by studying for an educational qualification or seeking alternate job opportunities. The desire for a higher level job within the organization or educational qualification was linked to engagement in learning and development goals at work. It is suggested that an understanding of employee perceptions in the workplace in relation to goals and activities may be important in designing strategies to retain workers.

Is there a physicality requirement at Common Law? : a survey of the Pre-NRDC cases discussing ‘Manufacture’

One of the fundamental issues that remains unresolved in patent law today, both in Australia and in other jurisdictions, is whether an invention must produce a physical effect or cause a physical transformation of matter to be patentable, or whether it is sufficient that an invention involves a specific practical application of an idea or principle to achieve a useful result. In short, the question is whether Australian patent law contains a physicality requirement. Despite being recently considered by the Federal Court, this is arguably an issue that has yet to be satisfactorily resolved in Australia. In its 2006 decision in Grant v Commissioner of Patents, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia found that the patentable subject matter standard is rooted in the physical, when it held that an invention must involve a physical effect or transformation to be patent eligible. That decision, however, has been the subject of scrutiny in the academic literature. This article seeks to add to the existing literature written in response to the Grant decision by examining in detail the key common law cases decided prior to the High Court’s watershed decision in National Research Development Corporation v Commissioner of Patents, which is the undisputed authoritative statement of principle in regards to the patentable subject matter standard in Australia. This article, in conjunction with others written by the author, questions the Federal Court’s assertion in Grant that the physicality requirement it established is consistent with existing law.

Haplotype analysis of two recurrent CDKN2A mutations in 10 melanoma families : evidence for common founders and independent mutations

Germ-line mutations in CDKN2A have been shown to predispose to cutaneous malignant melanoma. We have identified 2 new melanoma kindreds which carry a duplication of a 24bp repeat present in the 5' region of CDKN2A previously identified in melanoma families from Australia and the United States. This mutation has now been reported in 5 melanoma families from 3 continents: Europe, North America, and Australasia. The M53I mutation in exon 2 of CDKN2A has also been documented in 5 melanoma families from Australia and North America. The aim of this study was to determine whether the occurrence of the mutations in these families from geographically diverse populations represented mutation hotspots within CDKN2A or were due to common ancestors. Haplotypes of 11 microsatellite markers flanking CDKN2A were constructed in 5 families carrying the M53I mutation and 5 families carrying the 24bp duplication. There were some differences in the segregating haplotypes due primarily to recombinations and mutations within the short tandem-repeat markers; however, the data provide evidence to indicate that there were at least 3 independent 24bp duplication events and possibly only 1 original M53I mutation. This is the first study to date which indicates common founders in melanoma families from different continents.

A Virtual Evaluation Track for Cross Language Link Discovery

The Wikipedia has become the most popular online source of encyclopedic information. The English Wikipedia collection, as well as some other languages collections, is extensively linked. However, as a multilingual collection the Wikipedia is only very weakly linked. There are few cross-language links or cross-dialect links (see, for example, Chinese dialects). In order to link the multilingual-Wikipedia as a single collection, automated cross language link discovery systems are needed – systems that identify anchor-texts in one language and targets in another. The evaluation of Link Discovery approaches within the English version of the Wikipedia has been examined in the INEX Link the-Wiki track since 2007, whilst both CLEF and NTCIR emphasized the investigation and the evaluation of cross-language information retrieval. In this position paper we propose a new virtual evaluation track: Cross Language Link Discovery (CLLD). The track will initially examine cross language linking of Wikipedia articles. This virtual track will not be tied to any one forum; instead we hope it can be connected to each of (at least): CLEF, NTCIR, and INEX as it will cover ground currently studied by each. The aim is to establish a virtual evaluation environment supporting continuous assessment and evaluation, and a forum for the exchange of research ideas. It will be free from the difficulties of scheduling and synchronizing groups of collaborating researchers and alleviate the necessity to travel across the globe in order to share knowledge. We aim to electronically publish peer-reviewed publications arising from CLLD in a similar fashion: online, with open access, and without fixed submission deadlines.

Year 7 students’ approaches to understanding and solving NAPLAN numeracy problems

This study investigated how the interpretation of mathematical problems by Year 7 students impacted on their ability to demonstrate what they can do in NAPLAN numeracy testing. In the study, mathematics is viewed as a culturally and socially determined system of signs and signifiers that establish the meaning, origins and importance of mathematics. The study hypothesises that students are unable to succeed in NAPLAN numeracy tests because they cannot interpret the questions, even though they may be able to perform the necessary calculations. To investigate this, the study applied contemporary theories of literacy to the context of mathematical problem solving. A case study design with multiple methods was used. The study used a correlation design to explore the connections between NAPLAN literacy and numeracy outcomes of 198 Year 7 students in a Queensland school. Additionally, qualitative methods provided a rich description of the effect of the various forms of NAPLAN numeracy questions on the success of ten Year 7 students in the same school. The study argues that there is a quantitative link between reading and numeracy. It illustrates that interpretation (literacy) errors are the most common error type in the selected NAPLAN questions, made by students of all abilities. In contrast, conceptual (mathematical) errors are less frequent amongst more capable students. This has important implications in preparing students for NAPLAN numeracy tests. The study concluded by recommending that increased focus on the literacies of mathematics would be effective in improving NAPLAN results.

Evaluation framework for focused link discovery

Information has no value unless it is accessible. Information must be connected together so a knowledge network can then be built. Such a knowledge base is a key resource for Internet users to interlink information from documents. Information retrieval, a key technology for knowledge management, guarantees access to large corpora of unstructured text. Collaborative knowledge management systems such as Wikipedia are becoming more popular than ever; however, their link creation function is not optimized for discovering possible links in the collection and the quality of automatically generated links has never been quantified. This research begins with an evaluation forum which is intended to cope with the experiments of focused link discovery in a collaborative way as well as with the investigation of the link discovery application. The research focus was on the evaluation strategy: the evaluation framework proposal, including rules, formats, pooling, validation, assessment and evaluation has proved to be efficient, reusable for further extension and efficient for conducting evaluation. The collection-split approach is used to re-construct the Wikipedia collection into a split collection comprising single passage files. This split collection is proved to be feasible for improving relevant passages discovery and is devoted to being a corpus for focused link discovery. Following these experiments, a mobile client-side prototype built on iPhone is developed to resolve the mobile Search issue by using focused link discovery technology. According to the interview survey, the proposed mobile interactive UI does improve the experience of mobile information seeking. Based on this evaluation framework, a novel cross-language link discovery proposal using multiple text collections is developed. A dynamic evaluation approach is proposed to enhance both the collaborative effort and the interacting experience between submission and evaluation. A realistic evaluation scheme has been implemented at NTCIR for cross-language link discovery tasks.