Influence of gender on mental health literacy in young Australians

Objectives: To determine the effects of gender on mental health literacy in young people between 12 and 25 years of age. Design: Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing was employed to conduct a cross-sectional structured interview focusing on young people's awareness of depression and psychosis. Participants: The sample comprised 1207 young Australians (539 males and 668 females) between the ages of 12-25 recruited from two metropolitan and two regional areas within Victoria. Six hundred and six respondents were presented a depression vignette and 601 were presented a psychosis vignette. Results: Female respondents (60.7%) were significantly more likely to correctly identify depression in the vignette as compared to male respondents (34.5%). No significant gender differences were noted for the psychosis vignette. Males were less significantly likely to endorse seeing a doctor or psychologist/counsellor for the treatment of psychosis. Males were also significantly more likely than females to endorse alcohol as a way of dealing with depression and antibiotics as useful for dealing with psychosis. Conclusion: Gender differences in mental health literacy are striking. Males showed significantly lower recognition of symptoms associated with mental illness and were more likely endorse the use alcohol to deal with mental health problems. Such factors may contribute to the delays in help seeking seen in young males. Further research is needed to delineate how these gender differences in young people may obstruct help seeking, early intervention and other aspects of mental health service delivery.

Solaria use in Queensland, Australia

Objective: To describe the demographics of solarium users and the correlates of solarium use in Queensland. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 9,419 Queensland residents was conducted via an anonymous computer-assisted telephone interview. Results: Overall, 8.8% of the respondents had ever used a solarium and less than 1% had used a solarium in the previous year. Results indicated that users were more likely to be female and younger than non-users, and less than half of the users signed a consent form, suggesting that they had not been made aware of the associated risks by operators. Conclusions: The Queensland Cancer Risk Study was one of the first population-based studies to address solarium use in this State and highlights that the use of solariums in Queensland is low in comparison to other countries. Implications: There is no regulation of compliance with guidelines. It may become necessary to make compliance with the guidelines mandatory to effectively communicate the associated risks.

A windows program for the derivation of steady-state equations in enzyme systems

Despite the number of computer-assisted methods described for the derivation of steady-state equations of enzyme systems, most of them are focused on strict steady-state conditions or are not able to solve complex reaction mechanisms. Moreover, many of them are based on computer programs that are either not readily available or have limitations. We present here a computer program called WinStes, which derives equations for both strict steady-state systems and those with the assumption of rapid equilibrium, for branched or unbranched mechanisms, containing both reversible and irreversible conversion steps. It solves reaction mechanisms involving up to 255 enzyme species, connected by up to 255 conversion steps. The program provides all the advantages of the Windows programs, such as a user-friendly graphical interface, and has a short computation time. WinStes is available free of charge on request from the authors. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Socio-demographic variations in walking for transport and for recreation or exercise among adult Australians

Background: Walking is integral to strategies to promote physical activity. We identified socio-demographic variations in walking for transport, and for recreation or exercise. Methods: Representative population data (n = 3392) from Australia were collected using computer assisted telephone interviewing, to examine adults’ participation in moderate- or brisk-paced walking for transport and walking for recreation or exercise; walking “sufficient” to meet the current public health guideline (> 150 min/wk); and, the contributions of total walking to meeting the guideline for total physical activity. Results: Rates of sufficient walking for transport (10% for men, 9% for women) were lower than those for walking for recreation or exercise (14% for both genders). Few socio-demographic differences emerged. Men over age 60 y were significantly less likely (OR = 0.40) to walk for transport; men age 45 to 59 y were more likely (OR = 1.56) to walk for recreation or exercise. Walking contributed more toward meeting the current public health guideline among women (15% to 21%) than among men (6% to 8%). Conclusions: There is potential for socially equitable increases in participation, through a focus on both walking for transport and on walking for recreation or exercise; attention to gender differences would be helpful.

The Queensland Cancer Risk Study: Behavioural risk factor results

Objective: To describe the population prevalence of key cancer risk behaviours in Queensland. Methods: The Queensland Cancer Risk Study was a population-based survey of 9,419 Queensland residents aged 20-75 years. Information was collected through an anonymous, computer-assisted telephone interview between February and November 2004. Outcome measures included tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, sun-tanning and sunburn, obesity physical inactivity and poor diet, weighted by age, gender and geographic region. Results: Prevalence of current smoking was 25.2% for males and 20.8% for females and was highest in the 20-39 year age group and in rural/remote areas. Two-thirds of participants regularly drank alcohol; of these, 63% consumed excessive amounts of alcohol. Excessive sun exposure is still a problem; 70% of Queenslanders reported an episode of sunburn and 12% reported attempting to get a suntan in the past year. More than half of the respondents (53.9%) were above the healthy weight range, and 17.1% of males and 18.4% of females were obese. Just over 40% of Queensland adults reported having insufficient levels of physical activity. Fewer than half of the participants met recommended levels of fruit or vegetable consumption. Conclusions and implications: The majority of Queensland adults exhibit known, modifiable cancer risk behaviours. These results suggest that continuing efforts to reduce the prevalence of these risk factors are warranted. Specifically, significant gains could be made by targeting behaviour change programs at younger Queenslanders (aged 20-39 years), men, and those living in remote/ very remote areas of Queensland.

A corpus-based analysis of transfer effects and connected speech processes in Vietnamese English

This paper presents a corpus-based descriptive analysis of the most prevalent transfer effects and connected speech processes observed in a comparison of 11 Vietnamese English speakers (6 females, 5 males) and 12 Australian English speakers (6 males, 6 females) over 24 grammatical paraphrase items. The phonetic processes are segmentally labelled in terms of IPA diacritic features using the EMU speech database system with the aim of labelling departures from native-speaker pronunciation. An analysis of prosodic features was made using ToBI framework. The results show many phonetic and prosodic processes which make non-native speakers’ speech distinct from native ones. The corpusbased methodology of analysing foreign accent may have implications for the evaluation of non-native accent, accented speech recognition and computer assisted pronunciation- learning.

Advanced mean field methods:theory and practice

A major problem in modern probabilistic modeling is the huge computational complexity involved in typical calculations with multivariate probability distributions when the number of random variables is large. Because exact computations are infeasible in such cases and Monte Carlo sampling techniques may reach their limits, there is a need for methods that allow for efficient approximate computations. One of the simplest approximations is based on the mean field method, which has a long history in statistical physics. The method is widely used, particularly in the growing field of graphical models. Researchers from disciplines such as statistical physics, computer science, and mathematical statistics are studying ways to improve this and related methods and are exploring novel application areas. Leading approaches include the variational approach, which goes beyond factorizable distributions to achieve systematic improvements; the TAP (Thouless-Anderson-Palmer) approach, which incorporates correlations by including effective reaction terms in the mean field theory; and the more general methods of graphical models. Bringing together ideas and techniques from these diverse disciplines, this book covers the theoretical foundations of advanced mean field methods, explores the relation between the different approaches, examines the quality of the approximation obtained, and demonstrates their application to various areas of probabilistic modeling.

Communicating knowledge about police performance

This paper describes the organizational processes of knowledge acquisition, sharing, retention and utilisation as it affected the internal and external communication of knowledge about performance in an English police force. The research was gathered in three workshops for internal personnel, external stakeholders and chief officers, using Journey Making, a computer-assisted method of developing shared understanding. The research concluded that there are multiple audiences for the communication of knowledge about police performance, impeded by the requirement to publish performance data. However, the intelligence-led policing model could lead to a more focused means of communication with various stakeholder groups. Although technology investment was a preferred means of communicating knowledge about performance, without addressing cultural barriers, an investment in technology may not yield the appropriate changes in behaviour. Consequently, technology needs to be integrated with working practices in order to reduce organizational reliance on informal methods of communication.

The response to and effects of microcomputers in the education sector:the introduction of an innovation in local authority secondary schools

The study addresses the introduction of an innovation of new technology into a bureaucratic profession. The organisational setting is that of local authority secondary schools at a time at which microcomputers were being introduced in both the organisational core (for teaching) and its periphery (school administration). The research studies innovation-adopting organisations within their sectoral context; key actors influencing the innovation are identified at the levels of central government, local government and schools.A review of the literature on new technology and innovation (including educational innovation), and on schools as organisations in a changing environment leads to the development of the conceptual framework of the study using a resource dependency model within a cycle of the acquisition, allocation and utilisation of financial, physical and intangible resources. The research methodology is longitudinal and draws from both positivist and interpretive traditions. lt includes an initial census of the two hundred secondary schools in four local education authorities, a final survey of the same population, and four case studies, using both interview methods and documentation. Two modes of innovation are discerned. In respect of administrative use a rationalising, controlling mode is identified, with local education authorities developing standardised computer-assisted administrative systems for use in schools. In respect of curricular use, in contrast, teachers have been able to maintain an indeterminate occupational knowledge base, derived from an ideology of professionalism in respect of the classroom use of the technology. The mode of innovation in respect of curricular use has been one of learning and enabling. The resourcing policies of central and local government agencies affect the extent of use of the technology for teaching purposes, but the way in which it is used is determined within individual schools, where staff with relevant technical expertise significantly affect the course of the innovation.

Content-based VLE designs improve learning efficiency in constructivist statistics education

Background: We introduced a series of computer-supported workshops in our undergraduate statistics courses, in the hope that it would help students to gain a deeper understanding of statistical concepts. This raised questions about the appropriate design of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in which such an approach had to be implemented. Therefore, we investigated two competing software design models for VLEs. In the first system, all learning features were a function of the classical VLE. The second system was designed from the perspective that learning features should be a function of the course's core content (statistical analyses), which required us to develop a specific-purpose Statistical Learning Environment (SLE) based on Reproducible Computing and newly developed Peer Review (PR) technology. Objectives: The main research question is whether the second VLE design improved learning efficiency as compared to the standard type of VLE design that is commonly used in education. As a secondary objective we provide empirical evidence about the usefulness of PR as a constructivist learning activity which supports non-rote learning. Finally, this paper illustrates that it is possible to introduce a constructivist learning approach in large student populations, based on adequately designed educational technology, without subsuming educational content to technological convenience. Methods: Both VLE systems were tested within a two-year quasi-experiment based on a Reliable Nonequivalent Group Design. This approach allowed us to draw valid conclusions about the treatment effect of the changed VLE design, even though the systems were implemented in successive years. The methodological aspects about the experiment's internal validity are explained extensively. Results: The effect of the design change is shown to have substantially increased the efficiency of constructivist, computer-assisted learning activities for all cohorts of the student population under investigation. The findings demonstrate that a content-based design outperforms the traditional VLE-based design. © 2011 Wessa et al.

Automatic summary assessment for intelligent tutoring systems

Summary writing is an important part of many English Language Examinations. As grading students' summary writings is a very time-consuming task, computer-assisted assessment will help teachers carry out the grading more effectively. Several techniques such as latent semantic analysis (LSA), n-gram co-occurrence and BLEU have been proposed to support automatic evaluation of summaries. However, their performance is not satisfactory for assessing summary writings. To improve the performance, this paper proposes an ensemble approach that integrates LSA and n-gram co-occurrence. As a result, the proposed ensemble approach is able to achieve high accuracy and improve the performance quite substantially compared with current techniques. A summary assessment system based on the proposed approach has also been developed.

School children's attitudes towards computers as a fucntion of gender, course subjects and availability of home computers

The attitudes of 328 British Secondary School children towards computers were examined in a cross-sectional survey. Measures of both general attitudes towards computers and affective reactions towards working with computers were examined in relation to the sex of the subject, courses studied (computer related/noncomputer related) and availability of a home computer. A differential pattern of results was observed. With respect to general attitudes towards computers, main effects were found for all three independent variables indicating that more favourable attitudes increased as a function of being male, doing computer courses and having a home computer. In contrast to this, affective reactions to working with computers was primarily related to doing computer courses, such that those doing computer courses reported more positive and less negative reactions. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

An eMathTeacher Tool for Active Learning Fleury’s Algorithm

An eMathTeacher [Sánchez-Torrubia 2007a] is an eLearning on line self assessment tool that help students to active learning math algorithms by themselves, correcting their mistakes and providing them with clues to find the right solution. The tool presented in this paper is an example of this new concept on Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) resources and has been implemented as a Java applet and designed as an auxiliary instrument for both classroom teaching and individual practicing of Fleury’s algorithm. This tool, included within a set of eMathTeacher tools, has been designed as educational complement of Graph Algorithm active learning for first course students. Its characteristics of visualization, simplicity and interactivity, make this tutorial a great value pedagogical instrument.

On the Error-Correcting Performance of some Binary and Ternary Linear Codes

In this work, we determine the coset weight spectra of all binary cyclic codes of lengths up to 33, ternary cyclic and negacyclic codes of lengths up to 20 and of some binary linear codes of lengths up to 33 which are distance-optimal, by using some of the algebraic properties of the codes and a computer assisted search. Having these weight spectra the monotony of the function of the undetected error probability after t-error correction P(t)ue (C,p) could be checked with any precision for a linear time. We have used a programm written in Maple to check the monotony of P(t)ue (C,p) for the investigated codes for a finite set of points of p € [0, p/(q-1)] and in this way to determine which of them are not proper.

Institutions, policies, and arguments:context and strategy in EU policy framing

Studies of framing in the EU political system are still a rarity and they suffer from a lack of systematic empirical analysis. Addressing this gap, we ask if institutional and policy contexts intertwined with the strategic side of framing can explain the number and types of frames employed by different stakeholders. We use a computer-assisted manual content analysis and develop a fourfold typology of frames to study the frames that were prevalent in the debates on four EU policy proposals within financial market regulation and environmental policy at the EU level and in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The main empirical finding is that both contexts and strategies exert a significant impact on the number and types of frames in EU policy debates. In conceptual terms, the article contributes to developing more fine-grained tools for studying frames and their underlying dimensions.