Self-determination, control, and reactions to changes in workload : a work simulation

The objective of this experimental study is to capture the dynamic temporal processes that occur in changing work settings and to test how work control and individuals' motivational predispositions interact to predict reactions to these changes. To this aim, we examine the moderating effects of global self-determined and non-self-determined motivation, at different levels of work control, on participants' adaptation and stress reactivity to changes in workload during four trials of an inbox activity. Workload was increased or decreased at Trial 3, and adaptation to this change was examined via fluctuations in anxiety, coping, motivation, and performance. In support of the hypotheses, results revealed that, for non-self-determined individuals, low work control was stress-buffering and high work control was stress-exacerbating when predicting anxiety and intrinsic motivation. In contrast, for self-determined individuals, high work control facilitated the adaptive use of planning coping in response to a change in workload. Overall, this pattern of results demonstrates that, while high work control was anxiety-provoking and demotivating for non-self-determined individuals, self-determined individuals used high work control to implement an adaptive antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategy (i.e., planning coping) to meet situational demands. Other interactive effects of global motivation emerged on anxiety, active coping, and task performance. These results and their practical implications are discussed.

General self-efficacy influences affective task reactions during a work simulation : the temporal effects of changes in workload at different levels of control

This study investigated the effects of workload, control, and general self-efficacy on affective task reactions (i.e., demands-ability fit, active coping, and anxiety) during a work simulation. The main goals were: (1) to determine the extent general self-efficacy moderates the effects of demand and control on affective task reactions, and; (2) to determine if this varies as a function of changes in workload. Participants (N=141) completed an inbox activity under conditions of low or high control and within low and high workload conditions. The order of trials varied so that workload increased or decreased. Results revealed individuals with high general self-efficacy reported better demands-abilities fit and active coping as well as less anxiety. Three interactive effects were found. First, it was found that high control increased demands-abilities fit from trial 1 to trial 2, but only when workload decreased. Second, it was found that low efficacious individuals active coping increased in trial 2, but only under high control. Third, it was found that high control helped high efficacious individuals manage anxiety when workload decreased. However, for individuals with low general self-efficacy, neither high nor low control alleviated anxiety (i.e., whether workload increased or decreased over time).

Physical inactivity remains the greatest public health problem of the 21st century : evidence, improved methods and solutions using the '7 investments that work' as a framework

In 2009, BJSM's first editorial argued that ‘Physical inactivity is the greatest public health problem of the 21st century’.1 The data supporting that claim have not yet been challenged. Now, 5 years after BJSM published its first dedicated ‘Physical Activity is Medicine’ theme issue (http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/1.toc) we are pleased to highlight 23 new contributions from six countries. This issue contains an analysis of the cost of physical inactivity from the US Centre for Diseases Control.2 We also report the cost-effectiveness of one particular physical activity intervention for adults.3

Radiographic imaging for traumatic ankle injuries : a demand profile and investigation of radiological reporting timeframes from an Australian tertiary facility

Background Radiographic examinations of the ankle are important in the clinical management of ankle injuries in hospital emergency departments. National (Australian) Emergency Access Targets (NEAT) stipulate that 90 percent of presentations should leave the emergency department within 4 hours. For a radiological report to have clinical usefulness and relevance to clinical teams treating patients with ankle injuries in emergency departments, the report would need to be prepared and available to the clinical team within the NEAT 4 hour timeframe; before the patient has left the emergency department. However, little is known about the demand profile of ankle injuries requiring radiographic examination or time until radiological reports are available for this clinical group in Australian public hospital emergency settings. Methods This study utilised a prospective cohort of consecutive cases of ankle examinations from patients (n=437) with suspected traumatic ankle injuries presenting to the emergency department of a tertiary hospital facility. Time stamps from the hospital Picture Archiving and Communication System were used to record the timing of three processing milestones for each patient's radiographic examination; the time of image acquisition, time of a provisional radiological report being made available for viewing by referring clinical teams, and time of final verification of radiological report. Results Radiological reports and all three time stamps were available for 431 (98.6%) cases and were included in analysis. The total time between image acquisition and final radiological report verification exceeded 4?hours for 404 (92.5%) cases. The peak demand for radiographic examination of ankles was on weekend days, and in the afternoon and evening. The majority of examinations were provisionally reported and verified during weekday daytime shift hours. Conclusions Provisional or final radiological reports were frequently not available within 4 hours of image acquisition among this sample. Effective and cost-efficient strategies to improve the support provided to referring clinical teams from medical imaging departments may enhance emergency care interventions for people presenting to emergency departments with ankle injuries; particularly those with imaging findings that may be challenging for junior clinical staff to interpret without a definitive radiological report.

Developing agency in the creative career : a design-based framework for work integrated learning

Research shows that approximately half of creative practitioners operate as embedded creatives by securing gainful employment within organisations located in the field beyond their core discipline. This foregrounds the significance of having the skills necessary to successfully cross the disciplinary boundaries in order to negotiate a professional role. The multiple implications of such reframing for emerging creative practitioners who navigate uncertain professional boundaries include developing a skill of identifying and successfully targeting the shifting professional and industry coordinates while remaining responsive to changes. A further implication involves creative practitioners engaging in a continuous cycle of re-negotiation of their professional identity making the management of multiple professional selves - along with creating and recreating a meaningful frame of references such as the language around their emerging practice - a necessary skill. This chapter presents a case study of a set of Work Integrated Learning subjects designed to develop in creative industries practitioners the skills to manage their emerging professional identities in response to the shifts in the professional world.

'Music eScape': mHealth application

Research Background Young people’s avid use of mobile technologies in daily life has led to an increase in the design and research on mHealth (mobile health) interventions targeting young people. ‘Music eScape’ is a mobile based mood regulation app that uses an innovative approach to promoting young people’s wellbeing using music. Research Question The design, research, development and evaluation of ‘Music eScape’ addressed a number of research questions from across the fields of Psychology and Interactive and Visual Design. The specific design research question addressed was: How can interaction and visual design be utilized to promote and enable young people to effectively regulate their mood using music and how can the new design further promote their experience of empowerment, control and agency over actively directing their mood journey? Research Contribution Innovation and New Knowledge Through its unique visual interface design and interactivity, the application presents a novel approach to promoting young people’s wellbeing using music and a specific function that allows users to ‘draw’ their mood journey in order to generate a playlist. The mobile app is the first to contain a function that enables users to plan their mood journey and exercise a sense of agency, intentional choice and control over the mood shift and by extension, their wellbeing. The feature ‘drawing’ interface was designed by Oksana Zelenko using participatory design research and Russell’s circumplex model of affect (1980) to inform the key visual design concept and underpinning interaction design. Research Significance The significance of the design research component within the larger interdisciplinary practices that have informed ‘Music eScape’ (e.g. field of psychology, reported through journal articles and other related outcomes), is the unique visual and interactive presentation of participant data and music therapy research within the app interface and interaction design which improves and increases young people’s engagement with the health messages it contains. The industry quality standard is further demonstrated by the launch on Apple iTunes. This demonstrates the application meets the high professional requirements for national release and meets international standards. The app also creates a new benchmark for the quality of health apps on the market as it marks the industry release of a trialled evidence-based mHealth intervention co-designed with young people.

Half-wave cycloconverter-based photovoltaic microinverter topology with phase-shift power modulation

A grid-connected microinverter with a reduced number of power conversion stages and fewer passive components is proposed. A high-frequency transformer and a series-resonant tank are used to interface the full-bridge inverter to the half-wave cycloconverter. All power switches are switched with zero-voltage switching. Phase-shift power modulation is used to control the output power of the inverter. A steady-state analysis of the proposed topology is presented to determine the average output power of the inverter. Analysis of soft switching of the full-bridge and the half-wave cycloconverter is presented with respect to voltage gain, quality factor, and phase shift of the inverter. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the operation of the proposed topology.

Creative Work Beyond the Creative Industries: An Introduction

Creative occupations exist across the entire economy. The creative worker’s habitus cannot be discovered by looking only in film studios, games companies or artist’s garrets. Work practices, evolved through the traditions of the creative and performing arts, are now deployed to create new services and products across all sectors, to develop process innovations, and to change the distribution thereof. Yet the bulk of academic study of creative work (both functionalist and critical), as well as the content of higher/further professional education programs and everyday understanding of creative workers, focuses on one subset of the Creative Industries: those involved in the production of cultural goods or services (film, television, music etc.) for consumption by the general public. And further, the bulk of existing academic work focuses on those creative workers employed in cultural production industries. However, as recent work has shown, this focus misses both the large (and increasing) number of creative workers embedded in industries beyond the core Creative Industries (for example, manufacturing, banking, mining) and those creative workers and firms that supply services to business as well as to the general public, such as architects, technical writers, and graphic designers (see Cunningham 2013; Potts and Cunningham 2008; Potts, Cunningham, Hartley and Omerod 2008). This book focuses on this subset of very important, and yet under-recognized creative workers: embedded creative workers and providers of creative services into other sectors of the economy, as indicated in the following taxonomy (Figure 1.1), which juxtaposes occupation and industry sector...

Analysis of the needs of the East Coast cluster regional natural resource management bodies in relation to planning for climate change adaptation

The Climate Change Adaptation for Natural Resource Management (NRM) in East Coast Australia Project aims to foster and support an effective “community of practice” for climate change adaptation within the East Coast Cluster NRM regions that will increase the capacity for adaptation to climate change through enhancements in knowledge and skills and through the establishment of long‐term collaborations. It is being delivered by six consortium research partners: * The University of Queensland (project lead) * Griffith University * University of the Sunshine Coast * CSIRO * New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage * Queensland Department of Science, IT, Innovation and the Arts (Queensland Herbarium). The project relates to the East Coast Cluster, comprising the six coastal NRM regions and regional bodies between Rockhampton and Sydney: * Fitzroy Basin Association (FBA) * Burnett‐Mary Regional Group (BMRG) * SEQ Catchments (SEQC) * Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority (CMA) (NRCMA) * Hunter‐Central Rivers CMA (HCRCMA) * Hawkesbury Nepean CMA (HNCMA). The aims of this report are to summarise the needs of the regional bodies in relation to NRM planning for climate change adaptation, and provide a basis for developing the detailed work plan for the research consortium. Two primary methods were used to identify the needs of the regional bodies: (1) document analysis of the existing NRM/ Catchment Action Plans (CAPs) and applications by the regional bodies for funding under Stream 1 of the Regional NRM Planning for Climate Change Fund, and; (2) a needs analysis workshop, held in May 2013 involving representatives from the research consortium partners and the regional bodies. The East Coast Cluster includes five of the ten largest significant urban areas in Australia, world heritage listed natural environments, significant agriculture, mining and extensive grazing. The three NSW CMAs have recently completed strategic level CAPs, with implementation plans to be finalised in 2014/2015. SEQC and FBA are beginning a review of their existing NRM Plans, to be completed in 2014 and 2015 respectively; while BMRG is aiming to produce a NRM and Climate Variability Action Strategy. The regional bodies will receive funding from the Australian Government through the Regional NRM Planning for Climate Change Fund (NRM Fund) to improve regional planning for climate change and help guide the location of carbon and biodiversity activities, including wildlife corridors. The bulk of the funding will be available for activities in 2013/2014, with smaller amounts available in subsequent years. Most regional bodies aim to have a large proportion of the planning work complete by the end of 2014. In addition, NSW CMAs are undergoing major structural change and will be incorporated into semi‐autonomous statutory Local Land Services bodies from 2014. Boundaries will align with local government boundaries and there will be significant change in staff and structures. The regional bodies in the cluster have a varying degree of climate knowledge. All plans recognise climate change as a key driver of change, but there are few specific actions or targets addressing climate change. Regional bodies also have varying capacity to analyse large volumes of spatial or modelling data. Due to the complex nature of natural resource management, all regional bodies work with key stakeholders (e.g. local government, industry groups, and community groups) to deliver NRM outcomes. Regional bodies therefore require project outputs that can be used directly in stakeholder engagement activities, and are likely to require some form of capacity building associated with each of the outputs to maximise uptake. Some of the immediate needs of the regional bodies are a summary of information or tools that are able to be used immediately; and a summary of the key outputs and milestone dates for the project, to facilitate alignment of planning activities with research outputs. A project framework is useful to show the linkages between research elements and the relevance of the research to the adaptive management cycle for NRM planning in which the regional bodies are engaged. A draft framework is proposed to stimulate and promote discussion on research elements and linkages; this will be refined during and following the development of the detailed project work plan. The regional bodies strongly emphasised the need to incorporate a shift to a systems based resilience approach to NRM planning, and that approach is included in the framework. The regional bodies identified that information on climate projections would be most useful at regional and subregional scale, to feed into scenario planning and impact analysis. Outputs should be ‘engagement ready’ and there is a need for capacity building to enable regional bodies to understand and use the projections in stakeholder engagement. There was interest in understanding the impacts of climate change projections on ecosystems (e.g. ecosystem shift), and the consequent impacts on the production of ecosystem services. It was emphasised that any modelling should be able to be used by the regional bodies with their stakeholders to allow for community input (i.e. no black box models). The online regrowth benefits tool was of great interest to the regional bodies, as spatial mapping of carbon farming opportunities would be relevant to their funding requirements. The NSW CMAs identified an interest in development of the tool for NSW vegetation types. Needs relating to socio‐economic information included understanding the socio‐economic determinants of carbon farming uptake and managing community expectations. A need was also identified to understand the vulnerability of industry groups as well as community to climate change impacts, and in particular understanding how changes in the flow of ecosystem services would interact with the vulnerability of these groups to impact on the linked ecologicalsocio‐economic system. Responses to disasters (particularly flooding and storm surge) and recovery responses were also identified as being of interest. An ecosystem services framework was highlighted as a useful approach to synthesising biophysical and socioeconomic information in the context of a systems based, resilience approach to NRM planning. A need was identified to develop processes to move towards such an approach to NRM planning from the current asset management approach. Examples of best practice in incorporating climate science into planning, using scenarios for stakeholder engagement in planning and processes for institutionalising learning were also identified as cross‐cutting needs. The over‐arching theme identified was the need for capacity building for the NRM bodies to best use the information available at any point in time. To this end a planners working group has been established to support the building of a network of informed and articulate NRM agents with knowledge of current climate science and capacity to use current tools to engage stakeholders in NRM planning for climate change adaptation. The planners working group would form the core group of the community of practice, with the broader group of stakeholders participating when activities aligned with their interests. In this way, it is anticipated that the Project will contribute to building capacity within the wider community to effectively plan for climate change adaptation.

The free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit: the shifting values of Wikipedia editors

Wikipedia is often held up as an example of the potential of the internet to foster open, free and non-commercial collaboration. However such discourses often conflate these values without recognising how they play out in reality in a peer-production community. As Wikipedia is evolving, it is an ideal time to examine these discourses and the tensions that exist between its initial ideals and the reality of commercial activity in the encyclopaedia. Through an analysis of three failed proposals to ban paid advocacy editing in the English language Wikipedia, this paper highlights the shift in values from the early editorial community that forked encyclopaedic content over the threat of commercialisation, to one that today values the freedom that allows anyone to edit the encyclopaedia.

Policing in Context : An Introduction to Police Work in Australia

Policing in Context is a well structured introductory text that gives students the practical information they need to grasp the diverse roles, duties, powers and problems of policing in Australia. This book approaches policing in three key sections, creating a natural flow of information. The first section sets up the basic knowledge needed for understanding the history, context and structure of policing in Australia. The second section provides a description of the core skills, tasks and operations of police work. In the final section, chapters cover and reflect on contemporary and emerging issues.

Caring for emergency service personnel : does what we do work?

Most emergency service organisations have some form of staff support program that share general aims of promoting and maintaining the mental health of their workforce. Yet few of these services have been subject to evaluation and fewer still have commissioned external professional researchers to scrutinise their programs. The Queensland Ambulance (QAS) Service provides a comprehensive and multifaceted program that is both proactive and reactive in design and with the support of the Commissioner, was the subject of a rigorous evaluation throughout 2013. In this paper the program services are briefly outlined and the considered approach to the evaluation is presented within the context of existing scientific literature. Using focus groups, information regarding the uptake of the program’s various ‘arms’, and survey data, results suggest the program is widely used and that staff are very satisfied with the services provided. Further, analysis of established psychometric measures demonstrated organisational and interpersonal factors that are important in the promotion of mental health and in warding off the deleterious impacts that frontline emergency service staff can endure. Data presented in this paper indicate how best to ensure a professional quality of life for ambulance personnel, how to promote resilience to the sometimes extremely challenging aspects of the work role, and ways in which difficulties such as depression may be minimised.

Audiencing through social media : a brief overview

Notwithstanding the problems with identifying audiences (c.f. Hartley, 1987), nor with sampling them (c.f. Turner, 2005), we contend that by using social media, it is at least possible to gain an understanding of the habits of those who chose to engage with content through social media. In this chapter, we will broadly outline the ways in which networks such as Twitter and Facebook can stand as proxies for audiences in a number of scenarios, and enable content creators, networks and researchers to understand the ways in which audiences come into existence, change over time, and engage with content. Beginning with the classic audience – television – we will consider the evolution of metrics from baseline volume metrics to the more sophisticated ‘telemetrics’ that are the focus of our current work. We discuss the evolution of these metrics, from principles developed in the field of ‘sabermetrics’, and highlight their effectiveness as both a predictor and a baseline for producers and networks to measure the success of their social media campaigns. Moving beyond the evaluation of the audiences engagement, we then move to consider the ‘audiences’ themselves. Building on Hartley’s argument that audiences are “imagined” constructs (1987, p. 125), we demonstrate the continual shift of Australian television audiences, from episode to episode and series to series, demonstrating through our map of the Australian Twittersphere (Bruns, Burgess & Highfield, 2014) both the variation amongst those who directly engage with television content, and those who are exposed to it through their social media networks. Finally, by exploring overlaps between sporting events (such as the NRL and AFL Grand Finals), reality TV (such as Big Brother, My Kitchen Rules & Biggest Loser), soaps (e.g. Bold & The Beautiful, Home & Away), and current affairs programming (e.g. Morning Television & A Current Affair), we discuss to what extent it is possible to profile and categorize Australian television audiences. Finally, we move beyond television audiences to consider audiences around social media platforms themselves. Building on our map of the Australian Twittersphere (Bruns, Burgess & Highfield, 2014), and a pool of 5000 active Australian accounts, we discuss the interconnectedness of audiences around particular subjects, and how specific topics spread throughout the Twitter Userbase. Also, by using Twitter as a proxy, we consider the career of a number of popular YouTuber’s, utilizing a method we refer to as Twitter Accession charts (Bruns & Woodford, 2014) to identify the growth curves, and relate them to specific events in the YouTubers career, be that ‘viral’ videos or collaborations, to discuss how audiences form around specific content creators.

Measuring child work and residence adjustments to parents' long-term care needs

This article estimates the effects of various parent and child characteristics on the choice of care arrangement of the parent, taking into account the potential endogeneity of some of the child characteristics. Three equations are estimated: a care choice equation, a child location equation, and a child work equation. Results suggest a hierarchy of family decision making; child locations affect the care decision, which affects child work decisions. The results also question previous research attempting to explain causes of secular trends in long-term care.

Organizational work-related road safety situational analysis: More than just an audit tool

Although safety statistics indicate that road crashes are the most common form of work-related fatalities, many organizations fail to treat company vehicles in the same manner as other physical safety hazards within the workplace. Traditionally, work-related road safety has targeted primarily driver-related issues and not adequately addressed organizational processes, such as the organizations’ safety system and risk management processes and practice. This inadequacy generally stems from a lack of specific contextual knowledge and basic requirements to improve work-related road safety, including the supporting systems to ensure any intervention strategy or initiative’s ongoing effectiveness. Therefore, informed by previous research and based on a case study methodology, the Organizational Work-Related Road Safety Situational Analysis was developed to assess organizations’ current work-related road safety system, including policy, procedures, processes and practice. The situational analysis tool is similar to a safety audit however is more comprehensive in detail, application and provides sufficient evidence to enable organizations to mitigate and manage their work-related road safety risks. In addition, data collected from this process assists organizations in making informed decisions regarding intervention strategy design, development, implementation and ongoing effectiveness. This paper reports on the effectiveness of the situational analysis tool to assess WRRS systems across five differing and diverse organizations; including gas exploration and mining, state government, local government, and not for profit/philanthropy. The outcomes of this project identified considerable differences in the degree by which the organizations’ addressed work-related road safety across their vehicle fleet operations and provides guidelines for improving organizations’ work-related road safety systems.