The relative risk of second primary cancers in Queensland, Australia: A retrospective cohort study

Background Cancer survivors face an increased likelihood of being subsequently diagnosed with another cancer. The aim of this study was to quantify the relative risk of survivors developing a second primary cancer in Queensland, Australia. Methods Standardised incidence rates stratified by type of first primary cancer, type of second primary cancer, sex, age at first diagnosis, period of first diagnosis and follow-up interval were calculated for residents of Queensland, Australia, who were diagnosed with a first primary invasive cancer between 1982 and 2001 and survived for a minimum of 2 months. Results A total of 23,580 second invasive primary cancers were observed over 1,370,247 years of follow-up among 204,962 cancer patients. Both males (SIR = 1.22; 95% CI = 1.20-1.24) and females (SIR = 1.36; 95% CI = 1.33-1.39) within the study cohort were found to have a significant excess risk of developing a second cancer relative to the incidence of cancer in the general population. The observed number of second primary cancers was also higher than expected within each age group, across all time periods and during each follow-up interval. Conclusions The excess risk of developing a second malignancy among cancer survivors can likely be attributed to factors including similar aetiologies, genetics and the effects of treatment, underlining the need for ongoing monitoring of cancer patients to detect subsequent tumours at an early stage. Education campaigns developed specifically for survivors may be required to lessen the prevalence of known cancer risk factors.

Threat appraisal for harm from falls: Insights for development of education-based intervention

Objective: This study aims to describe how patients perceive the threat of falls in hospitals, to identify patient characteristics that are associated with greater or lesser perceptions of the threat of falls, and to examine whether there is a discord between the risk that patients perceive in general and the risk that they perceive for themselves personally. Method: A cross-sectional survey amongst geriatric rehabilitation inpatients in Brisbane, Australia, was implemented. The first component of the survey dealt with the ‘general’ nature of in-hospital falls and falls related risks while the second component of the survey was directed at identifying whether the patient held the same belief for themselves. Results: A total of 21 out of 125 participants (17%) indicated that they felt that they were at risk of falling during their hospitalisation and 28 (22%) felt that they would injure themselves if they were to fall. Self-perceived risk of falls was associated with decreasing age and lower cognitive function (Functional Independence Measure Cognitive score). A majority of patients felt that falls most commonly occur in the bathroom [n=67 (54%)] and that if they were to fall, they would fall in the bathroom [n=56 (45%)]. Discussion: Patients generally do not think they are at risk of falling while in hospital and this may contribute to poor adherence to falls prevention strategies. It is possible that raising patient perception of the risk of falls and injury from falls in hospitals may help improve adherence to falls prevention strategies in this setting.

Dynamics of rod and cone photoreceptor interactions under mesopic light levels

Visual adaptation regulates contrast sensitivity during dynamically changing light conditions (Crawford, 1947; Hecht, Haig & Chase, 1937). These adaptation dynamics are unknown under dim (mesopic) light levels when the rod (R) and long (L), medium (M) and short (S) wavelength cone photoreceptor classes contribute to vision via interactions in shared non-opponent Magnocellular (MC), chromatically opponent Parvocellular (PC) and Koniocellular (KC) visual pathways (Dacey, 2000). This study investigated the time-course of adaptation and post-receptoral pathways mediating receptor specific rod and cone interactions under mesopic illumination. A four-primary photostimulator (Pokorny, Smithson & Quinlan, 2004) was used to independently control the activity of the four photoreceptor classes and their post-receptoral visual athways in human observers. In the first experiment, the contrast sensitivity and time-course of visual adaptation under mesopic illumination were measured for receptoral (L, S, R) and post-receptoral (LMS, LMSR, L-M) stimuli. An incremental (Rapid-ON) sawtooth conditioning pulse biased detection to ON-cells within the visual pathways and sensitivity was assayed relative to pulse onset using a briefly presented incremental probe that did not alter adaptation. Cone.Cone interactions with luminance stimuli (L cone, LMS, LMSR) reduced sensitivity by 15% and the time course of recovery was 25± 5ms-1 (μ ± SEM). PC mediated (+L-M) chromatic stimuli sensitivity loss was less (8%) than for luminance and recovery was slower (μ = 2.95 ± 0.05 ms-1), with KC mediated (S cone) chromatic stimuli showing a high sensitivity loss (38%) and the slowest recovery time (1.6 ± 0.2 ms-1). Rod-Rod interactions increased sensitivity by 20% and the time course of recovery was 0.7 ± 0.2 ms-1 (μ ± SD). Compared to these interaction types, Rod-Cone interactions reduced sensitivity to a lesser degree (5%) and showed the fastest recovery (μ = 43 ± 7 ms-1). In the second experiment, rod contribution to the magnocellular, parvocellular and koniocellular post-receptoral pathways under mesopic illumination was determined as a function of incremental stimulus duration and waveform (rectangular; sawtooth) using a rod colour match procedure (Cao, Pokorny & Smith, 2005; Cao, Pokorny, Smith & Zele, 2008a). For a 30% rod increment, a cone match required a decrease in [L/(L+M)] and an increase in [L+M] and [S/(L+M)], giving a greenish-blue and brighter appearance for probe durations of 75 ms or longer. Probe durations less than 75 ms showed an increase in [L+M] and no change in chromaticity [L/(L+M) or S/(L+M)], uggesting mediation by the MC pathway only for short duration rod stimuli. s We advance previous studies by determining the time-course and nature of photoreceptor specific retinal interactions in the three post-receptoral pathways under mesopic illumination. In the first experiment, the time-course of adaptation for ON cell processing was determined, revealing opponent cell facilitation in chromatic PC and KC pathways. The Rod-Rod and Rod-Cone data identify previously unknown interaction types that act to maintain contrast sensitivity during dynamically changing light conditions and improve the speed of light adaptation under mesopic light levels. The second experiment determined the degree of rod contribution to the inferred post-eceptoral pathways as a function of the temporal properties of the rod signal. r The understanding of the mechanisms underlying interactions between photoreceptors under mesopic illumination has implications for the study of retinal disease. Visual function has been shown to be reduced in persons with age-related maculopathy (ARM) risk genotypes prior to clinical signs of the disease (Feigl, Cao, Morris & Zele, 2011) and disturbances in rod-mediated adaptation have been shown in early phases of ARM (Dimitrov, Guymer, Zele, Anderson & Vingrys, 2008; Feigl, Brown, Lovie-Kitchin & Swann, 2005). Also, the understanding of retinal networks controlling vision enables the development of international lighting standards to optimise visual performance nder dim light levels (e.g. work-place environments, transportation).

Safety leaders’ perceptions of safety culture in a large Australasian construction organisation

This paper reports safety leaders’ perceptions of safety culture in one of Australasia’s largest construction organisations. A modified Delphi method was used including two rounds of data collection. The first round involved 41 semi-structured interviews with safety leaders within the organisation. The second round involved an online quantitative perception survey, with the same sample, aimed at confirming the key themes identified in the interviews. Participants included Senior Executives, Corporate Managers, Project Managers, Safety Managers and Site Supervisors. Interview data was analysed using qualitative thematic analysis, and the survey data was analysed using descriptive statistics. Leaders’ definitions and descriptions of safety culture were primarily action-oriented and some confusion was evident due to the sometimes implicit nature of culture in organisations. Leadership was identified as a key factor for positive safety culture in the organisation, and there was an emphasis on leaders demonstrating commitment to safety, and being visible to the project-based workforce. Barriers to safety culture improvement were also identified, including the subcontractor management issues, pace of change, and reporting requirements. The survey data provided a quantitative confirmation of the interview themes, with some minor discrepancies. The findings highlight that safety culture is a complex construct, which is difficult to define, even for experts in the organisation. Findings on the key factors indicated consistency with the current literature; however the perceptions of barriers to safety culture offer a new understanding in to how safety culture operates in practice.

The development of ground impact models for the analysis of the risks associated with Unmanned Aircraft Operations over inhabited areas

With the emergence of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) there is a growing need for safety standards and regulatory frameworks to manage the risks associated with their operations. The primary driver for airworthiness regulations (i.e., those governing the design, manufacture, maintenance and operation of UAS) are the risks presented to people in the regions overflown by the aircraft. Models characterising the nature of these risks are needed to inform the development of airworthiness regulations. The output from these models should include measures of the collective, individual and societal risk. A brief review of these measures is provided. Based on the review, it was determined that the model of the operation of an UAS over inhabited areas must be capable of describing the distribution of possible impact locations, given a failure at a particular point in the flight plan. Existing models either do not take the impact distribution into consideration, or propose complex and computationally expensive methods for its calculation. A computationally efficient approach for estimating the boundary (and in turn area) of the impact distribution for fixed wing unmanned aircraft is proposed. A series of geometric templates that approximate the impact distributions are derived using an empirical analysis of the results obtained from a 6-Degree of Freedom (6DoF) simulation. The impact distributions can be aggregated to provide impact footprint distributions for a range of generic phases of flight and missions. The maximum impact footprint areas obtained from the geometric template are shown to have a relative error of typically less than 1% compared to the areas calculated using the computationally more expensive 6DoF simulation. Computation times for the geometric models are on the order of one second or less, using a standard desktop computer. Future work includes characterising the distribution of impact locations within the footprint boundaries.

Career paths in the third sector : implications for human resource management

My interest in career paths in the third sector came from three early observations. First, the majority of workers appear to be women, in fact 77% of community sector community services in NSW (O'Donnell, 1985). Second, when asked about their career, most workers express the opinion that they have none. Third, when I examined the individual career paths of community sector workers I was struck by the stop and start nature of their paid work. Even, or perhaps especially, well qualified workers would move out of a position after about two years often to a more difficult position in a new area, with little or no salary increase and little prospect of future promotion. Indeed, there appears to be little career path available. These observations raise a number of important questions, some of which will be explored in this paper. What is the structure of the third sector labour market? What is the staff structure of third sector organisations? Is it true that career paths are unavailable, either within organisations or within the sector? If none exists, why do workers stay in the field? What motivates them? If there is a high turnover of staff, is this the reason? What are the implications of all this? If some sort of career path does exist, why do workers deny having a career? What do we mean by `career' anyway?

The geostationary orbit : a critical legal geography of space’s most valuable real estate

This chapter attends to the legal and political geographies of one of Earth's most important, valuable, and pressured spaces: the geostationary orbit. Since the first, NASA, satellite entered it in 1964, this small, defined band of Outer Space, 35,786km from the Earth's surface, and only 30km wide, has become a highly charged legal and geopolitical environment, yet it remains a space which is curiously unheard of outside of specialist circles. For the thousands of satellites which now underpin the Earth's communication, media, and data industries and flows, the geostationary orbit is the prime position in Space. The geostationary orbit only has the physical capacity to hold approximately 1500 satellites; in 1997 there were approximately 1000. It is no overstatement to assert that media, communication, and data industries would not be what they are today if it was not for the geostationary orbit. This chapter provides a critical legal geography of the geostationary orbit, charting the topography of the debates and struggles to define and manage this highly-important space. Drawing on key legal documents such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty, the chapter addresses fundamental questions about the legal geography of the orbit, questions which are of growing importance as the orbit’s available satellite spaces diminish and the orbit comes under increasing pressure. Who owns the geostationary orbit? Who, and whose rules, govern what may or may not (literally) take place within it? Who decides which satellites can occupy the orbit? Is the geostationary orbit the sovereign property of the equatorial states it supertends, as these states argued in the 1970s? Or is it a part of the res communis, or common property of humanity, which currently legally characterises Outer Space? As challenges to the existing legal spatiality of the orbit from launch states, companies, and potential launch states, it is particularly critical that the current spatiality of the orbit is understood and considered. One of the busiest areas of Outer Space’s spatiality is international territorial law. Mentions of Space law tend to evoke incredulity and ‘little green men’ jokes, but as Space becomes busier and busier, international Space law is growing in complexity and importance. The chapter draws on two key fields of research: cultural geography, and critical legal geography. The chapter is framed by the cultural geographical concept of ‘spatiality’, a term which signals the multiple and dynamic nature of geographical space. As spatial theorists such as Henri Lefebvre assert, a space is never simply physical; rather, any space is always a jostling composite of material, imagined, and practiced geographies (Lefebvre 1991). The ways in which a culture perceives, represents, and legislates that space are as constitutive of its identity--its spatiality--as the physical topography of the ground itself. The second field in which this chapter is situated—critical legal geography—derives from cultural geography’s focus on the cultural construction of spatiality. In his Law, Space and the Geographies of Power (1994), Nicholas Blomley asserts that analyses of territorial law largely neglect the spatial dimension of their investigations; rather than seeing the law as a force that produces specific kinds of spaces, they tend to position space as a neutral, universally-legible entity which is neatly governed by the equally neutral 'external variable' of territorial law (28). 'In the hegemonic conception of the law,' Pue similarly argues, 'the entire world is transmuted into one vast isotropic surface' (1990: 568) on which law simply acts. But as the emerging field of critical legal geography demonstrates, law is not a neutral organiser of space, but is instead a powerful cultural technology of spatial production. Or as Delaney states, legal debates are “episodes in the social production of space” (2001, p. 494). International territorial law, in other words, makes space, and does not simply govern it. Drawing on these tenets of the field of critical legal geography, as well as on Lefebvrian concept of multipartite spatiality, this chapter does two things. First, it extends the field of critical legal geography into Space, a domain with which the field has yet to substantially engage. Second, it demonstrates that the legal spatiality of the geostationary orbit is both complex and contested, and argues that it is crucial that we understand this dynamic legal space on which the Earth’s communications systems rely.

Navigating in a sea of change : second set of working papers of the higher education policy project

This volume represents teh second collection of working papers and articles by participants in the Higher Education Policy Project (HEPP), a project funded by the Australian Research Council and based in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Queensland. The first volume, 'Higher Education in Transition: Working Papers of the Higher Education Policy Project (Bella, McCollow and Knight, 1993), took the broad theme of "higher education in transition" in order to introduce readers the HEPP and give them some idea of the breadth of the research being pursued by the HEPP research team itself and by the cohort of post-graduate students also associated with the project. Since then, higher education has remained in transition. Stubborn and resurgent questions continue: such as what a university ought to be, what forms of research should be supported in a mass system, and how institutional accountability can be demonstrated. In differing ways and using a variety of research perspectives and methodologies, the contributors to this volume explore these and other questions of relevance to higher education today.

Waterfall : Nature and Culture

Many people take pleasure in visiting waterfalls and much has been written on the subject. Numerous accounts of Niagara Falls were published after Hennepin's late seventeenth-centure descriptions, particularly from the early nineteenth century, but is was only later that other waterfalls became the subject of books. George Holley's Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts of the World, published in 1883, and John Gibson's Great Waterfalls, Cataracts and Geysers, published in 1887, are early examples of global accounts of major falls. Most books about waterfalls are guides to the falls of a particular country, state or region. Apart from a few slim illustrated volumes, few books have been puslished on the world's waterfalls since Edward Rashleigh's Among the Waterfalls (1935). Most of these are slim pictorial volumes, some aimed at the children's market. Geologist Richard Maxwell Pearl published a series of waterfall articles in his journal Earth Science between 1973 and 1975, apparently with the intention of turning them into a book, but this never materialized. My book, the culmination of more than a decade of waterfalls research, is comprehensive in its approach, but is not intended to describe as many of the world's waterfalls as possible. This is far from my aim, and readers may be disappointed at my omission of falls they feel deserved mention. What I have attempted to do is celebrate the delights of these beautiful wonders of nature by considering them from many points of view, emphasizing the roles that they play in the human experience. To be as representative as possible, I draw on examples of waterfalls from all over the world, some famous, many not. North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania and, with recent global warming, the Earth's polar regions, all feature in the discussion. Even though there are already enough books and articles about Niagara Falls to fill a large library, it has been impossible to avoid making frequent reference to this great cataract, which has been so important in the history of travel and tourism, power generation, urban development and art. Amoung the issues that I consider is the human impact on waterfalls, particularly the effects of hydropower schemes and tourism development. Also considered are artificial waterfalls, which have long been features of the designed landscape. Their contemporay role is poignantly exemplified in the design of the National September 11 Memorial, in which the footprints of the Twin Towers are traced by walls of waterfalls. A geographer and urban and regional planner by training, I have ventured into many other fields of knowledge that are outside my areas of expertise. I apologize for any errors that I may have made in my book and invite correction.

Serious playground : using Second Life to engage high school students in urban planning

Virtual world platforms such as Second Life have been successfully used in educational contexts to motivate and engage learners. This article reports on an exploratory workshop involving a group of high school students using Second Life for an urban planning project. Young people are traditionally an under-represented demographic when it comes to participating in urban planning and decision making processes. The research team developed activities that combined technology with a constructivist approach to learning. Real world experiences and purposes ensured that the workshop enabled students to see the relevance of their learning. Our design also ensured that play remained an important part of the learning. By conceiving of the workshop as a ‘serious playground’ we investigated the ludic potential of learning in a virtual world.

Producing readings : freedom versus normativity?

The subject known as English has been framed in terms of a number of models which can be broadly defined through the literature as cultural heritage (associated with Matthew Arnold and F.R. Leavis), personal growth (associated with John Dixon and James Britton) and cultural studies (associated with Raymond Williams and Roland Barthes). Traditionally these models have been assumed to reflect different theories of English, each one being hailed as a radical break with the previous model. Taking the reading lesson as an example, the paper attempts to trouble the idea that the models of English are radically different, first by identifying an unhelpful dialectic that historically informs discussions of literature teaching and English and second, by exploring a circularity that characterises arguments used to justify the radical nature of cultural studies English.

Listening skill requires a further look into second/foreign language learning

Current English-as-a-second and foreign-language (ESL/EFL) research has encouraged to treat each communicative macroskill separately due to space constraint, but the interrelationship among these skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) is not paid due attention. This study attempts to examine first the existing relationship among the four dominant skills, second the potential impact of reading background on the overall language proficiency, and finally the relationship between listening and overall language proficiency as listening is considered an overlooked/passive skill in the pedagogy of the second/foreign language classroom. However, the literature in language learning has revealed that listening skill has salient importance in both first and second language learning. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of each of four skills in EFL learning and their existing interrelationships in an EFL setting. The outcome of 701 Iranian applicants undertaking International English Language Testing System (IELTS) in Tehran demonstrates that all communicative macroskills have varied correlations from moderate (reading and writing) to high (listening and reading). The findings also show that the applicants’ reading history assisted them in better performing at high stakes tests, and what is more, listening skill was strongly correlated with the overall language proficiency.

Moving beyond transition pedagogy: Maturity models and student engagement

Australian higher education institutions (HEIs) have entered a new phase of regulation and accreditation which includes performance-based funding relating to the participation and retention of students from social and cultural groups previously underrepresented in higher education. However, in addressing these priorities, it is critical that HEIs do not further disadvantage students from certain groups by identifying them for attention because of their social or cultural backgrounds, circumstances which are largely beyond the control of students. In response, many HEIs are focusing effort on university-wide approaches to enhancing the student experience because such approaches will enhance the engagement, success and retention of all students, and in doing so, particularly benefit those students who come from underrepresented groups. Measuring and benchmarking student experiences and engagement that arise from these efforts is well supported by extensive collections of student experience survey data. However no comparable instrument exists that measures the capability of institutions to influence and/or enhance student experiences where capability is an indication of how well an organisational process does what it is designed to do (Rosemann & de Bruin, 2005). This paper proposes that the concept of a maturity model (Marshall, 2010; Paulk, 1999) may be useful as a way of assessing the capability of HEIs to provide and implement student engagement, success and retention activities. We will describe the Student Engagement, Success and Retention Maturity Model (SESR-MM), (Clarke, Nelson & Stoodley, 2012; Nelson, Clarke & Stoodley, 2012) we are currently investigating. We will discuss if our research may address the current gap by facilitating the development of an SESR-MM instrument that aims (i) to enable institutions to assess the capability of their current student engagement and retention programs and strategies to influence and respond to student experiences within the institution; and (ii) to provide institutions with the opportunity to understand various practices across the sector with a view to further improving programs and practices relevant to their context. The first aim of our research is to extend the generational approach which has been useful in considering the evolutionary nature of the first year experience (FYE) (Wilson, 2009). Three generations have been identified and explored: First generation approaches that focus on co-curricular strategies (e.g. orientation and peer programs); Second generation approaches that focus on curriculum (e.g. pedagogy, curriculum design, and learning and teaching practice); and third generation approaches—also referred to as transition pedagogy—that focus on the production of an institution-wide integrated holistic intentional blend of curricular and co-curricular activities (Kift, Nelson & Clarke, 2010). The second aim of this research is to move beyond assessments of students’ experiences to focus on assessing institutional processes and their capability to influence student engagement. In essence, we propose to develop and use the maturity model concept to produce an instrument that will indicate the capability of HEIs to manage and improve student engagement, success and retention programs and strategies. References Australian Council for Educational Research. (n.d.). Australasian Survey of Student Engagement. Retrieved from http://www.acer.edu.au/research/ausse/background Clarke, J., Nelson, K., & Stoodley, I. (2012, July). The Maturity Model concept as framework for assessing the capability of higher education institutions to address student engagement, success and retention: New horizon or false dawn? A Nuts & Bolts presentation at the 15th International Conference on the First Year in Higher Education, “New Horizons,” Brisbane, Australia. Kift, S., Nelson, K., & Clarke, J. (2010) Transition pedagogy - a third generation approach to FYE: A case study of policy and practice for the higher education sector. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 1(1), pp. 1-20. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. (n.d.). The University Experience Survey. Advancing quality in higher education information sheet. Retrieved from http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Policy/Documents/University_Experience_Survey.pdf Marshall, S. (2010). A quality framework for continuous improvement of e-Learning: The e-Learning Maturity Model. Journal of Distance Education, 24(1), 143-166. Nelson, K., Clarke, J., & Stoodley, I. (2012). An exploration of the Maturity Model concept as a vehicle for higher education institutions to assess their capability to address student engagement. A work in progress. Submitted for publication. Paulk, M. (1999). Using the Software CMM with good judgment, ASQ Software Quality Professional, 1(3), 19-29. Wilson, K. (2009, June–July). The impact of institutional, programmatic and personal interventions on an effective and sustainable first-year student experience. Keynote address presented at the 12th Pacific Rim First Year in Higher Education Conference, “Preparing for Tomorrow Today: The First Year as Foundation,” Townsville, Australia. Retrieved from http://www.fyhe.com.au/past_papers/papers09/ppts/Keithia_Wilson_paper.pdf