A systematic review of the literature comparing the practices of dispensing and non-dispensing doctors

Objectives: Some doctors perform the dual roles of prescribing and dispensing pharmaceuticals. The dispensing doctors (DDs) role may give rise to prescribing behaviours that vary from those of non-DDs. The aim of this review was to systematically and comparatively appraise the research evidence related to the practices of DDs. Methods: A systematic search of bibliographic databases and reference lists from selected papers were the sources of the data. Inclusion criteria were papers published in English, between 1970 and 2008 that provided quantitative data comparing the practices of DDs and non-DDs. At least two of the authors abstracted data from all eligible papers using a purpose-made data extraction form. Results: Twenty-one papers were included in this review. Evidence indicated that DDs prescribed more pharmaceutical items and less often generically than non-DDs. There was limited evidence to suggest that DDs prescribed less judiciously and were associated with poor dispensing standards. Patient convenience and access to pharmaceuticals were main reasons for doctors to dispense. Conclusion: DDs can fill an important gap in the provision of pharmaceuticals for their patients especially where health workforce shortages exist. There was evidence the dispensing role influenced prescribing. Patient convenience should be balanced against scarce medical resources, being utilised for dispensing.

Is quality more important if you’re quirky? A review of the literature on differential susceptibility to childcare environments

Evidence concerning the impact of child care on child development suggests that higher-quality environments, particularly those that are more responsive, predict more favourable social and behavioural outcomes. However, the extent of this effect is not as great as might be expected. Impacts on child outcomes are, at best, modest. One recent explanation emerging from a new theoretical perspective of development, differential susceptibility theory, is that a minority of children are more reactive to both positive and negative environments, while the majority are relatively unaffected. These 'quirky' children have temperamental traits that are more extreme, and are often described in research studies as having 'difficult temperaments'. This paper reviews the literature on such children and argues for the need for further research to identify components of childcare environments that optimise the potential of these more sensitive, quirky individuals.

Can mechanism help explain insect host choice?

Evolutionary theory predicts that herbivorous insects should lay eggs on plants in a way that reflects the suitability of each plant species for larval development. Empirical studies, however, often fail to find any relationship between an adult insect’s choice of host–plant and offspring fitness, and in such cases, it is generally assumed that other ‘missing’ factors (e.g. predation, host–plant abundance, learning and adult feeding sites) must be contributing to overall host suitability. Here, I consider an alternative theory – that a fitness cost inherent in the olfactory mechanism could constrain the evolution of insect host selection. I begin by reviewing current knowledge of odour processing in the insect antennal lobe with the aid of a simple schematic: the aim being to explain the workings of this mechanism to scientists who do not have prior knowledge in this field. I then use the schematic to explore how an insect’s perception of host and non-host odours is governed by a set of processing rules, or algorithm. Under the assumptions of this mechanistic view, the perception of every plant odour is interrelated, and seemingly bad host choices can still arise as part of an overall adaptive behavioural strategy. I discuss how an understanding of mechanism can improve the interpretation of theoretical and empirical studies in insect behaviour and evolution.

Empathy : narrative empathy and children's literature

The term empathy has only existed in English for a little over a hundred years, but the idea of feeling with another person is an old one. Because of its perceived connection to moral behaviour, empathy and its development are of great interest to educators, policy makers, psychologists, and philosophers. Reading children’s literature is often considered important for developing (among other things) children’s ethical and empathic understandings of society and its people. However, claims as to the impact of reading on readers’ ability to become more empathic, tolerant, and better people are divided. While many readers may attribute positive influences that authors and texts have had on shaping their attitudes and actions, there is no guarantee that a desirable affective and cognitive response will follow the reading experience. The complexity of readers and texts refuses to be reduced to simple universal statements about the capacity of narrative empathy to create a particular kind of empathic reader or person: fiction that engages a reader with the emotional plight of a character does not necessarily translate into actions in the real world towards people who are similarly suffering, marginalized, or victimized. This chapter asks: Does children’s literature foster empathy? There are two implicit features of this question: one concerns narrative empathy; the other concerns empathic reader response. The discussion will focus on how a selection of ‘multicultural’ picture books attempts to create narrative empathy by focussing on cultural and spatial differences.

(Re)imagining the world : children's literature's response to changing times

(Re)Imagining the world: Children’s Literature’s Response to Changing Times considers how writers of fiction for children imagine ‘the world’, not one universal world, but different worlds: imaginary, strange, familiar, even monstrous worlds. The chapters in this collection discuss how fiction for children engages with some of the changes brought about by new technologies, information literacy, consumerism, migration, politics, different family structures, cosmopolitanism, and new and old monsters. They also invite us to think about how memory shapes our understanding of the past, and how fiction engages our emotions, our capacity to empathize, our desire to discover, and what the future may hold. The contributors bring different perspectives from education, postcolonial studies, literary criticism, cultural studies, childhood studies, postmodernism, and the social sciences. With a wide coverage of texts from different countries, and scholarly and lively discussions, this collection is itself a testament to the power of the human imagination and the significance of children’s literature in the education of young people.

Confidence in the police : balancing public image with community safety : a comparative review of the literature

Examining the evolution of British and Australian policing, this comparative review of the literature considers the historical underpinnings of policing in these two countries and the impact of community legitimacy derived from the early concepts of policing by consent. Using the August 2011 disorder in Britain as a lens, this paper considers whether, in striving to maintain community confidence, undue emphasis is placed on the police's public image at the expense of community safety. Examining the path of policing reform, the impact of bureaucracy on policing and the evolving debate surrounding police performance, this review suggests that, while largely delivering on the ideal of an ethical and strong police force, a preoccupation with self-image may in fact result in tarnishing the very thing British and Australian police forces strive to achieve – their standing with the public. This paper advocates for a more realistic goal of gaining public respect rather than affection in order to achieve the difficult balance between maintaining trust and respect as an approachable, ethical entity providing firm, confident policing in this ever-evolving, modern society.

Which dissimilarity is to be used when extracting typologies in sequence analysis? A comparative study

Originally developed in bioinformatics, sequence analysis is being increasingly used in social sciences for the study of life-course processes. The methodology generally employed consists in computing dissimilarities between the trajectories and, if typologies are sought, in clustering the trajectories according to their similarities or dissemblances. The choice of an appropriate dissimilarity measure is a major issue when dealing with sequence analysis for life sequences. Several dissimilarities are available in the literature, but neither of them succeeds to become indisputable. In this paper, instead of deciding upon one dissimilarity measure, we propose to use an optimal convex combination of different dissimilarities. The optimality is automatically determined by the clustering procedure and is defined with respect to the within-class variance.

Memory : (Re)imagining the past through children's literature

There has been a renewal of interest in memory studies in recent years, particularly in the Western world. This chapter considers aspects of personal memory followed by the concept of cultural memory. It then examines how the Australian cultural memory of the Anzac Legend is represented in a number of recent picture books.

Exploring Indigenous representations in Australian film and literature for the Australian Curriculum

The Australian Curriculum: English, v.5 (ACARA, 2013) now being implemented in Queensland asks teachers and curriculum designers to incorporate the cross curriculum priority (CCP)of Indigenous issues through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. In the Australian Curriculum English, (AC:E) one way to address this CCP is by including texts by and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. With the rise of promising and accomplished young, Indigenous filmmakers such as Ivan Sen, Rachael Perkins, Wayne Blair and Warwick Thornton, this guide focuses on the suitable films for schools implementing the Australian Curriculum in terms of cultural representations. This annotated guide suggests some films suitable for inclusion in classroom study and suggests some companion texts (novels, plays, television series and animations, documentaries, poetry and short stories) that may be studied alongside the films. Some of these are by Indigenous filmmakers and writers, and others features Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island representations in character and/or themes.

Research students' early experiences of the dissertation literature review

The phenomenon of a dissertation literature review is explored from a "second-order" perspective. Written responses from 41 neophyte research scholars from various disciplines in an Australian university were gathered in response to two questions: "What do you mean when you use the words "literature review"?" and "What is the meaning of a literature review for your research?" A phenomenographic analysis identified six conceptions, or ways of experiencing, literature reviews: literature review as a list, literature review as a search, literature review as a survey, literature review as a vehicle for learning, literature review as a research facilitator, and literature review as a report. The conceptions represent differing relations between student researchers and the literature. The range of conceptions suggests that the supervisors of postgraduates and other teachers interested in the literature review process need to accept literature reviews as a problem area for students and develop strategies to help them.

Producing and maintaining professional identities in early childhood

This study is an inquiry into early childhood teacher professional identities. In Australia, workforce reforms in early childhood include major shifts in qualification requirements that call for a university four-year degree-qualified teacher to be employed in child care. This marks a shift in the early years workforce, where previously there was no such requirement. At the same time as these reforms to quality measures are being implemented, and requiring a substantive up skilling of the workforce, there is a growing body of evidence through recent studies that suggests these same four-year degree-qualified early childhood teachers have an aversion to working in child care. Their preferred employment option is to work in the early years of more formal schooling, not in before-school contexts. This collision of agendas warrants investigation. This inquiry is designed to investigate the site at which advocacy for higher qualification requirements meets early childhood teachers who are reluctant to choose child care as a possible career pathway. The key research question for this study is: How are early childhood teachers’ professional identities currently produced? The work of this thesis is to problematise the early childhood teacher in child care through a particular method of discourse analysis. There are two sets of data. The first was a key early childhood political document that read as a "moment of arising" (Foucault, 1984a, p. 83). It is a political document which was selected for its current influence on the early childhood field, and in particular, workforce reforms that call for four-year degree-qualified teachers to work in before-school contexts, including child care. The second data set was generated through four focus group discussions conducted with preservice early childhood teachers. The document and transcripts of the focus groups were both analysed as text, as conceptualised by Foucault (1981). Foucault’s work spans a number of years and a range of philosophical matters. This thesis draws particularly on Foucault’s writings on discourse, power/knowledge, regimes of truth and resistance. In order to consider the production of early childhood teachers’ professional identities, the study is also informed by identity theorists, who have worked on gender, performativity and investment (Davies, 2004/2006; McNay, 1992; Osgood, 2012; Walkerdine, 1990; Weedon, 1997). The ways in which discourses intersect, compete and collide produce the subject (Foucault, 1981) and, in the case of this inquiry, there are a number of competing discourses at play, which produce the early childhood teacher. These particular theories turn particular lenses on the question of professional identities in early childhood, and such a study calls for the application of particular methodologies. Discourse analysis was used as the methodological framework, and the analysis was informed by Foucauldian concepts of discourse. While Foucault did not prescribe a form of discourse analysis as a method, his writings nonetheless provide a valuable framework for illuminating discursive practices and, in turn, how people are affected, through the shifts and distribution of power (Foucault, 1980a). The treatment used with both data sets involved redescription. For the policy document, a technique for reading document-as-text applied a genealogical approach (Foucault, 1984a). For the focus groups, the process of redescription (Rorty, 1989) involved reading talk-as-text. As a method, redescription involves describing "lots and lots of things in new ways until you have created a pattern of linguistic behaviour which will tempt the new generation to adopt it" (Rorty, 1989, p. 9). The development and application of categories (Davies, 2004/2006) built on a poststructuralist theoretical framework and the literature review informed the data analysis method of discourse analysis. Irony provided a rhetorical and playful tool (Haraway, 1991; Rorty, 1989), to look to how seemingly opposing discourses are held together. This opens a space to collapse binary thinking and consider seemingly contradictory terms in a way in which both terms are possible and both are true. Irony resists the choice of one or the other being right, and holds the opposites together in tension. The thesis concludes with proposals for new, ironic categories, which work to bring together seemingly opposing terms, located at sites in the field of early childhood where discourses compete, collide and intersect to produce and maintain early childhood teacher professional identities. The process of mapping these discourses goes some way to investigating the complexities about identities and career choices of early childhood teachers. The category of "the cost of loving" captures the collision between care/love, inherent in child care, and new discourses of investment/economics. Investment/economics has not completely replaced care/love, and these apparent opposites were not read as a binary because both are necessary and both are true (Haraway, 1991). They are held together in tension to produce early childhood teacher professional identities. The policy document under scrutiny was New Directions, released in 2007 by the then opposition ALP leader, Kevin Rudd. The claim was made strongly that the "economic prosperity" of Australia relies on investment in early childhood. The arguments to invest are compelling and the neuroscience/brain research/child development together with economic/investment discourses demand that early childhood is funding is increased. The intersection of these discourses produces professional identities of early childhood teachers as a necessary part of the country’s economy, and thus, worthy of high status. The child care sector and work in child care settings are necessary, with children and the early childhood teacher playing key roles in the economy of the nation. Through New Directions it becomes sayable (Foucault, 1972/1989) that the work the early childhood teacher performs is legitimated and valued. The children are produced as "economic units". A focus on what children are able to contribute to the future economy of the nation re-positions children and produces these "smart productive citizens", making future economic contribution. The early childhood teacher is produced through this image of a child and "the cost of loving" is emphasised. A number of these categories were produced through the readings of the document-as text and the talk-as-text. Two ironic categories were read in the analysis of the transcripts of the focus group discussions, when treated as talk-as-text data: the early childhood teacher as a "heroic victim"; and the early childhood teacher as a "glorified babysitter". This thesis raises new questions about professional identities in early childhood. These new questions might go some way to prompt re-thinking of some government policy, as well as some aspects of early childhood teacher education course design. The images of children and images of child care provide provocations to consider preservice teacher education course design. In particular, how child care, as one of the early childhood contexts, is located, conceptualised and spoken throughout the course. Consideration by course designers and teacher educators of what discourses are privileged in course content —what discourses are diminished or silenced—would go some way to reconceptualising child care within preservice teacher education and challenging dominant ways of speaking child care, and work in child care. This inquiry into early childhood teachers’ professional identities has gone some way to exploring the complexities around the early childhood teacher in child care. It is anticipated that the significance of this study will thus have immediate applicably and relevance for the Australian early childhood policy landscape. The early childhood field is in a state of rapid change, and this inquiry has examined some of the disconnects between policy and practice. Awareness of the discourses that are in play in the field will continue to allow space for conversations that challenge dominant assumptions about child care, work in child care and ways of being an early childhood teacher in child care.

Canon fodder : young adult literature as a tool for critiquing canonicity

Young adult literature is a tool of socialisation and acculturation for young readers. This extends to endowing ‘reading’ with particular significance in terms of what literature should be read and why. This paper considers some recent young adult fiction with an eye to its engagement with canonical literature and its representations of young people reading. Wider possibilities of using such novels in secondary English classes are discussed, particularly in the context of critiquing literary canons and the social hierarchies they are used to legitimate.

Empirical evaluation of public transport travel time variability

Although transit travel time variability is essential for understanding the deterioration of reliability, optimising transit schedule and route choice; it has not attracted enough attention from the literature. This paper proposes public transport-oriented definitions of travel time variability and explores the distributions of public transport travel time using the Transit Signal Priority data. First, definitions of public transport travel time variability are established by extending the common definitions of variability in the literature and by using route and services data of public transport vehicles. Second, the paper explores the distribution of public transport travel time. A new approach for analysing the distributions involving all transit vehicles as well as vehicles from a specific route is proposed. The Lognormal distribution is revealed as the descriptors for public transport travel time from the same route and service. The methods described in this study could be of interest for both traffic managers and transit operators for planning and managing the transit systems.

Loneliness, social anxiety and bullying victimization in young people : a literature review

Loneliness is a distressing, complex, universal phenomena. This review focuses on loneliness in children and adolescents, specifically examining research on the relationship between young people’s social anxiety and loneliness and the role of bullying victimization and loneliness. The three concepts are distinct, yet inextricably intertwined as antecedents and consequences of each other. The constructs are bi-directional, often forming a feedback loop or negative cycle. Implications for interventions are addressed.