Posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic depreciation as predictors of psychological adjustment

Informed by current trauma literature, this study explored the relationships between Posttraumatic Growth (PTG; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995), Posttraumatic Depreciation (PTD; Cann et al., 2010) and other post-trauma outcomes including well-being, psychological flourishing, and psychological distress. The predictive utility of PTG and PTD was also examined. The sample comprised 104 trauma survivors who completed the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory – 42 (Baker et al., 2008) and several outcome measures. As expected, PTD showed strong linear correlations with well-being, flourishing and distress, and emerged as a significant predictor of scores on such measures. However, PTG showed negligible correlations with well-being, flourishing and distress. This reaffirms that PTG and PTD measure conceptually distinct and independent dimensions of experience, which has implications for therapeutic practice.

Working with refugee survivors of torture and trauma : an opportunity for vicarious posttraumatic growth

Clinical work with people who have survived trauma carries a risk of vicarious traumatisation for the service provider, but also the potential for vicarious posttraumatic growth. Despite growing interest in this area, the effects of working with survivors of refugee-related trauma have remained relatively unexplored. The aim of the current study was to examine the lived experiences of people working on a daily basis with survivors of torture and trauma who had sought refuge in Australia. Seventeen clinical, administrative, and managerial staff from a not-for-profit organisation participated in a semi-structured interview that was later analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Analysis of the data demonstrated that the entire sample reported symptoms of vicarious trauma (e.g., strong emotional reactions, intrusive images, shattering of existing beliefs) as well as vicarious posttraumatic growth (e.g., forming new relationships, increased self-understanding, greater appreciation of life). Moreover, effortful meaning making processes appeared to facilitate such positive changes. Reduction in the risks associated with this work, enhancement of clinician well-being, and improvement of therapeutic outcomes is a shared responsibility of the organisation and clinician. Without negating the distress of trauma work, clinicians are encouraged to more deeply consider the unique positive outcomes that supporting survivors can provide.

Mentoring as professional development: ‘growth for both’ mentor and mentee

Teachers need professional development to keep current with teaching practices, although costs for extensive professional development can be prohibitive across an education system. Mentoring provides one way for embedding cost-effective professional development. This mixed-method study includes surveying mentor teachers (n = 101) on a five-part Likert scale and interviews with experienced mentors (n = 10) to investigate professional development for mentors as a result of the mentoring process. Quantitative data were analysed through a pedagogical knowledge framework and qualitative data were collated into themes. Survey data showed that although mentoring of pedagogical knowledge was variable, mentoring pedagogical knowledge practices occurs with the majority of mentors, which requires mentors to evaluate and articulate teaching practices. Qualitative data showed that mentoring acted as professional development and led towards enhancing communication skills, developing leadership roles (problem-solving and building capacity) and advancing pedagogical knowledge. Providing professional development to teachers on mentoring can help to build capacity in two ways: quality mentoring of preservice teachers through explicit mentoring practices, and reflecting and deconstructing teaching practices for mentors’ own pedagogical advancements.

Recovery and reuse of ammonium from wastewater treatment plants : an application for agriculture

In wastewater treatment plants based on anaerobic digestion, supernatant and outflows from sludge dewatering systems contain significantly high amount of ammonium. Generally, these waters are returned to the head of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), thereby increasing the total nitrogen load of the influent flow. Ammonium from these waters can be recovered and commercially utilised using novel ion-exchange materials. Mackinnon et al. have described an approach for removal and recovery of ammonium from side stream centrate returns obtained from anaerobic digester of a typical WWTP. Most of the ammonium from side streams can potentially be removed, which significantly reduces overall inlet demand at a WWTP. However, the extent of reduction achieved depends on the level of ammonium and flow-rate in the side stream. The exchange efficiency of the ion-exchange material, MesoLite, used in the ammonium recovery process deteriorates with long-term use due to mechanical degradation and use of regenerant. To ensure that a sustainable process is utilised a range of potential applications for this “spent” MesoLite have been evaluated. The primary focus of evaluations has been use of ammonium-loaded MesoLite as a source of nitrogen and growth medium for plants. A MesoLite fertiliser has advantage over soluble fertilisers in that N is held on an insoluble matrix and is gradually released according to exchange equilibria. Many conventional N fertilisers are water-soluble and thus, instantly release all applied N into the soil solution. Loss of nutrient commonly occurs through volatilisation and/or leaching. On average, up to half of the N delivered by a typical soluble fertiliser can be lost through these processes. In this context, use of ammonium-loaded MesoLite as a fertiliser has been evaluated using standard greenhouse and field-based experiments for low fertility soils. Rye grass, a suitable test species for greenhouse trials, was grown in 1kg pots over a period of several weeks with regular irrigation. Nitrogen was applied at a range of rates using a chemical fertiliser as a control and using two MesoLite fertilisers. All other nutrients were applied in adequate amounts. All treatments were replicated three times. Plants were harvested after four weeks, and dry plant mass and N concentrations were determined. At all nitrogen application rates, ammonium-loaded MesoLite produced higher plant mass than plants fertilised by the chemical fertiliser. The lower fertiliser effectiveness of the chemical fertliser is attributed to possible loss of some N through volatilisation. The MesoLite fertilisers did not show any adverse effect on availability of macro and trace nutrients, as shown by lack of deficiency symptoms, dry matter yield and plant analyses. Nitrogen loaded on to MesoLite in the form of exchanged ammonium is readily available to plants while remaining protected from losses via leaching and volatilisation. Spent MesoLite appears to be a suitable and effective fertiliser for a wide range of soils, particularly sandy soils with poor nutrient holding capacity.

New Perspectives On Firm Growth

This insightful volume presents a collection of innovative works by two of the leading researchers of firm growth: Per Davidsson, Director, Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research and Professor of Entrepreneurship, Queensland University of Technology, Australia and Jönköping International Business School, Sweden and Johan Wiklund, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Syracuse University, US and Jönköping International Business School, Sweden. The studies extend previous research by providing stronger theoretical underpinnings and using longitudinal databases that can separate in time the firms’ growth from its presumed causes. They also break new ground by examining different modes of growth, such as sales growth vs. employment growth, and organic growth vs. acquisition-based expansion. Further, the studies investigate the drivers of firm growth and take a critical look at the effects, such as under what circumstances high growth is associated with high profitability. The issue of how firm growth is achieved and managed, and what consequences it has for different stakeholders is both theoretically interesting and practically important. The book will strongly appeal to academics of entrepreneurship, small business management and strategy.

Asset specificity and behavioral uncertainty as moderators of the sales growth-employment growth relationship in emerging ventures

New venture growth is a central topic in entrepreneurship research. Although sales growth is emerging as the most commonly used measure of growth for emerging ventures, employment growth has also been used frequently. However, empirical research demonstrates that there are only very low to moderately sized correlations between the two (Delmar et aL, 2003; Weinzimmer, et al., 1998). In addition) sales growth and employment growth respond differently to a wide variety of criteria (Baum et al., 2001; Delmar et al., 2003). In this study we use transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1996) as a theoretical base to examine transaction cost influences on the addition of new employees as emerging ventures experience sales growth. \\le theorize that transaction cost economics variables will moderate the relationship between sales growth and employment growth. W'e develop and test hypotheses related to asset specificity, behavioral uncertainty, and the influence of resource munificence on the strength of the sales growth/ employment growth relationship. Asset specificity is theorized to be a positive moderator of the relationship between sales growth and employment growth. When the behavioral uncertainty associated with adding new employees is greater than that of outsourcing or subcontracting, it is hypothesized to be a negative moderator of the sales growth/employment growth relationship. We also hypothesize that resource scarcity will strengthen those relationships.

Towards an integrative framework for future research on small firm growth

Our review has demonstrated that small firm growth is a complex phenomenon. The concept ‘growth’ denotes both a change in amount and the process by which that change is attained. Further, the growth can be achieved in different ways and with varying degrees of regularity, and it manifests itself along several different dimensions such as sales, employment, and accumulation of assets. This complexity has naturally led researchers to adopt different approaches to studying growth and to use different measures to assess it. Further, although our review shows that it can fruitfully be regarded as a growth issue, the research on small firms' internationalization has largely developed as a separate stream. Similarly, other relatively separate literatures have evolved, which effectively focus on different modes of growth although mostly without regarding the studies first and foremost as growth studies. This goes for topics such as mergers and acquisitions, diversification, and integration - research streams which have largely ignored the particularities of small firms and which in turn have been largely ignored among researchers focusing on small firm growth.

Organic and acquisitive growth : re-examining, testing and extending Penrose’s growth theory

The Theory of the Growth of The Firm by Edith Penrose, first published in 1959, is a seminal contribution to the field of management. Penrose's intention was to create a theory of firm growth which was logically consistent and empirically tractable (Buckley and Casson, 2007). Much attention, however, has been focused on her unintended contribution to the resource-based view (henceforth RBV) (e.g. Kor and Mahoney, 2004; Lockett and Thompson, 2004) rather than her firm growth theory. We feel that this is unfortunate because despite a rapidly growing body of empirical work, conceptual advancement in growth studies has been limited (Davidsson and Wiklund, 2000; Davidsson et ai., 2006; Delmar, 1997; Storey, 1994). The growth literature frequently references Penrose's work, but little explicit testing of her ideas has been undertaken. This is surprising given that Penrose's work remains the most comprehensive theory of growth to date. One explanation is that she did not formality present her arguments, favouring verbal exposition over formalized models (Lockett, 2005; Lockett and Thompson, 2004). However, the central propositions and conclusions of her theory can be operationalized and empirically tested.

Performance configurations over time: implications for growth-and profit-oriented strategies

Entrepreneurship research and practice places emphasis on company growth as a measure of entrepreneurial success. In many cases, there has been a tendency to give growth a very central role, with some researchers even seeing growth as the very essence of entrepreneurship (Cole, 1949; Sexton, 1997; Stevenson & Gumpert, 1991). A large number of empirical studies of the performance of young and/or small firms use growth as the dependent variable (see reviews by Ardishvili, Cardozo, Harmon, & Vadakath, 1998; Delmar, 1997; Wiklund, 1998). By contrast, the two most prominent views of strategic management – strategic positioning (Porter, 1980) and the resource-based view (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984) – are both concerned with achieving competitive advantage and regard achieving economic rents and profitability relative to other competitors as the central measures of firm performance. Strategic entrepreneurship integrates these two perspectives and is simultaneously concerned with opportunity seeking and advantage seeking (Hitt, Ireland, Camp, & Sexton, 2002; Ireland, Hitt, & Sirmon, 2003). Consequently, both company growth and relative profitability are together relevant measures of firm performance in the domain of strategic entrepreneurship.

Pro-Am curators of Australian television history : how is their practice different from that of professional television historians?

Eleven Pro-Am curators of Australian television history were interviewed about their practice. The data helps us to understand the relationship between professional and Pro-Am approaches to Australian television history. There is no simple binary – the lines are blurred – but there are some differences. Pro-Am curators of Australian television history are not paid for their work and present other motivations for practice – particularly being that ‘weird child’ who was obsessed with gathering information and objects related to television. They have freedom to curate only programs and genres that interest them, and they tend to collect merchandise as much as program texts themselves. And they have less interest in formally cataloguing their material than do professional curators of Australian television history.

A potential role for lamellar insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor in the pathogenesis of hyperinsulinaemic laminitis

The reason why a sustained high concentration of insulin induces laminitis in horses remains unclear. Cell proliferation occurs in the lamellae during insulin-induced laminitis and in other species high concentrations of insulin can activate receptors for the powerful cell mitogen, insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1. The first aim of this study was to determine if IGF-1 receptors (IGF-1R) are activated in the hoof during insulin-induced laminitis. Gene expression for IGF-1R and the insulin receptor (InsR) was measured using qRT-PCR, in lamellar tissue from control horses and from horses undergoing a prolonged euglycaemic, hyperinsulinaemic clamp (p-EHC), during the mid-developmental (24 h) and acute (46 h) phases of insulin-induced laminitis. Gene expression for both receptors was decreased 13–32-fold (P < 0.05) at both time-points in the insulin-treated horses. A second aim was to determine if the down-regulation of the receptor genes could be accounted for by an increase in circulating IGF-1. Serum IGF-1 was measured at 0, 10, 25 and 46 h post-treatment in horses given a p-EHC for approximately 46 h, and in matched controls administered a balanced, electrolyte solution. There was no increase in serum IGF-1 concentrations during the p-EHC, consistent with down-regulation of both receptors by insulin. Stimulation of the IGF-1R by insulin may lead to inappropriate lamellar epidermal cell proliferation and lamellar weakening, a potential mechanism for hyperinsulinaemic laminitis. Targeting this receptor may provide insights into the pathogenesis or identify a novel therapy for hyperinsulinaemic laminitis.

Insulin and the insulin-like growth factor system : a novel theory for hyperinsulinemic laminitis pathogenesis

Research into hyperinsulinemic laminitis has progressed significantly in recent years with the use of the prolonged-euglycemic, hyperinsulinemic clamp (p-EHC). Previous investigations of laminitis pathophysiology have focused on digital vascular dysfunction, inflammation, altered glucose metabolism within the lamellae, and lamellar basement membrane breakdown by metalloproteinases. The etiopathogenesis of laminitis occurring in association with hyperinsulinemia is yet to be fully characterized, but it may not involve these mechanisms. Insulin stimulates cellular proliferation and can also affect other body systems, such as the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system. Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) is structurally homologous to insulin and, like insulin, binds with strong affinity to a specific tyrosine kinase receptor on the cell surface to produce its effects, which include promoting cell proliferation. Receptors for IGF-1 (IGF-1R) are present in the lamellar epidermis. An alternative theory for the pathogenesis of hyperinsulinemic laminitis is that uncontrolled cell proliferation, mediated through both the insulin receptor (InsR) and IGF-1R, leads to lengthening, weakening, and failure of the lamellae. An analysis of the proliferative activity of lamellar epidermal cells during the developmental and acute phases of hyperinsulinemic laminitis, and lamellar gene expression of the InsR and IGF-1R was undertaken.

Featureless visual processing for SLAM in changing outdoor environments

Vision-based SLAM is mostly a solved problem providing clear, sharp images can be obtained. However, in outdoor environments a number of factors such as rough terrain, high speeds and hardware limitations can result in these conditions not being met. High speed transit on rough terrain can lead to image blur and under/over exposure, problems that cannot easily be dealt with using low cost hardware. Furthermore, recently there has been a growth in interest in lifelong autonomy for robots, which brings with it the challenge in outdoor environments of dealing with a moving sun and lack of constant artificial lighting. In this paper, we present a lightweight approach to visual localization and visual odometry that addresses the challenges posed by perceptual change and low cost cameras. The approach combines low resolution imagery with the SLAM algorithm, RatSLAM. We test the system using a cheap consumer camera mounted on a small vehicle in a mixed urban and vegetated environment, at times ranging from dawn to dusk and in conditions ranging from sunny weather to rain. We first show that the system is able to provide reliable mapping and recall over the course of the day and incrementally incorporate new visual scenes from different times into an existing map. We then restrict the system to only learning visual scenes at one time of day, and show that the system is still able to localize and map at other times of day. The results demonstrate the viability of the approach in situations where image quality is poor and environmental or hardware factors preclude the use of visual features.

Layered silicates in Chondritic Porous Aggregate W7029*A : a case of primary growth

An important subset of extraterrestrial particles that reach the Earth's stratosphere include the so-called Chondritic Porous Aggregates (CPA's) [1-3]. In general, CPA's have a fluffy morphology and consist of numerous (>104)subparticles that are often <100A in size [4]. Mineral species in CPA's include Mg-rich pyroxene and olivine, Fe- and (Fe,Ni)-sulphides, taenite, Fe,Ni-carbides, magnetite, Ti-metal, a Bi-phase (metal or oxide), and variable amounts of carbonaceous material [1, 5-7]. Hydrated silicates are rare in CPA's and are limited to aggregates that have not been severely altered (thermo-metamorphosed) during atmospheric entry [8]. The presence of hydrated silicates in one cosmic dust particle was established by X-ray diffraction [2] and has been inferred in others by infra-red spectroscopy [8]. If CPA's are cometary, their mineralogy and morphology suggest that at least two episodes of aggregation occurred and that variations in porosity may be related to local differences in ice-to-dust ratio [3].

Is CEO human capital related to firm performance?

The global economy experienced continuous growth from 2002 to 2007 until the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis caused instability in worldwide stock markets. Simultaneously, global CEO turnover continued to fall to 13.8 percent in 2007. In contrast, the CEO turnover rate in Australia increased to 18 percent in 2007. The purpose of this paper is to determine under what conditions a change in a CEO is associated with firm performance. Succinctly, does the firm’s decision to replace the CEO depend on the CEO’s human capital or firm performance? The empirical study of Australian listed firms (2005 – 2008) shows that firm performance is not a determinant of CEO turnover, rather a CEO with less valuable human capital is more likely to be replaced. The study also finds that merely changing the CEO is not associated firm performance. Rather, there is a positive association between firm performance and the successor’s general human capital for firms that replace the CEO. Specifically, it is the internal successor’s general human capital that is an important determinant of increasing firm performance. These results are important because they imply that CEO turnover is a result of a more active market for CEOs and contributes to explaining why firms retain CEOs despite poor firm performance.