¡Latin jazz! : a syncretic journey from Spain, Cuba, the United States and back

The creative work, ¡Latin Jazz! is a 50 minute radio documentary to be broadcast on ABC Classic FM. It looks at the evolution of Latin jazz from Spain, Cuba and the United States. It examines the social effects on the style and specifically on the syncretic movement between the countries. The documentary traces my travel to Madrid, Spain and looks at Latin jazz through a deconstruction of the style, musical examples and interviews with prominent artists. Artists interviewed were Chano Domínguez, a Spanish flamenco jazz pianist, Bobby Martínez an American saxophonist, Alain Pérez a Cuban bassist and Pepe Rivero a Cuban pianist. The exegesis supports the radio documentary by examining the style in more depth, and is broken into three main sections. First it traces the historical relationship that occurred through the Ida y Vuelta (To and Fro), the similarities and influences through the habanera, the decíma and the religion of Santería. This is followed by specific musical elements within Latin jazz such as instrumentation, clave, harmony and improvisation, whilst the third section looks at the influences of the new syncretic movement back to Spain.

The nature and extent of policing alcohol related crime and reducing violence in and around late night entertainment areas

The misuse of alcohol is well documented in Australia and has been associated with disorders and harms that often require police attention. The extent of alcohol-related incidents requiring police attention has been recorded as substantial in some Australian cities (Arro, Crook, & Fenton, 1992; Davey & French, 1995; Ireland & Thommeny, 1993). A significant proportion of harmful drinking occurs in and around licensed premises (Jochelson, 1997; Stockwell, Masters, Phillips, Daly, Gahegan, Midford, & Philp, 1998; Borges, Cherpitel, & Rosovsky, 1998) and most of these incidents are not reported to police (Bryant & Williams, 2000; Lister, Hobbs, Hall, & Winlow, 2000). Alcohol-related incidents have also been found to be concentrated in certain places at certain times (Jochelson, 1997) and therefore manipulating the context in which these incidents occur may provide a means to prevent and reduce the harm associated with alcohol misuse. One of the major objectives of the present program of research was to investigate the occurrence and resource impact of alcohol-related incidents on operational (general duties) policing across a large geographical area. A second objective of the thesis was to examine the characteristics and temporal/spatial dynamics of police attended alcohol incidents in the context of Place Based theories of crime. It was envisaged that this approach would reveal the patterns of the most prevalent offences and demonstrate the relevance of Place Based theories of crime to understanding these patterns. In addition, the role of alcohol, time and place were also explored in order to examine the association between non criminal traffic offences and other types of criminal offences. A final objective of the thesis was to examine the impact of a situational crime prevention strategy that had been initiated to reduce the violence and disorder associated with late-night liquor trading premises. The program of research in this doctorate thesis has been undertaken through the presentation of published papers. The research was conducted in three stages which produced six manuscripts, five of which were submitted to peer reviewed journals and one that was published in a peer reviewed conference proceedings. Stage One included two studies (Studies 1 & 2) both of which involved a cross sectional approach to examine the prevalence and characteristics of alcohol-related incidents requiring police attendance across three large geographical areas that included metropolitan cities, provincial regions and rural areas. Stage Two of the program of research also comprised two cross sectional quantitative studies (Studies 3 & 4) that investigated the temporal and spatial dynamics of the major offence categories attended by operational police in a specific Police District (Gold Coast). Stage Three of the program of research involved two studies (Studies 5 & 6) that assessed the effectiveness of a situational crime prevention strategy. The studies employed a pre-post design to assess the impact on crime, disorder and violence by preventing patrons from entering late-night liquor trading premises between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. (lockout policy). Although Study Five was solely quantitative in nature, Study Six included both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The approach adopted in Study Six, therefore facilitated not only a quantative comparison of the impact of the lockout policy on different policing areas, but also enabled the processes related to the implementation of the lockout policy to be examined. The thesis reports a program of research involving a common data collection method which then involved a series of studies being conducted to explore different aspects of the data. The data was collected from three sources. Firstly a pilot phase was undertaken to provide participants with training. Secondly a main study period was undertaken immediately following the pilot phase. The first and second sources of data were collected between 29th March 2004 and 2nd May 2004. Thirdly, additional data was collected between the 1st April 2005 and 31st May 2005. Participants in the current program of research were first response operational police officers who completed a modified activity log over a 9 week period (4 week pilot phase & 5 week survey study phase), identifying the type, prevalence and characteristics of alcohol-related incidents that were attended. During the study period police officers attended 31,090 alcohol-related incidents. Studies One and Two revealed that a substantial proportion of current police work involves attendance at alcohol-related incidents (i.e., 25% largely involving young males aged between 17 and 24 years). The most common incidents police attended were vehicle and/or traffic matters, disturbances and offences against property. The major category of offences most likely to involve alcohol included vehicle/traffic matters, disturbances and offences against the person (e.g., common & serious assaults). These events were most likely to occur in the late evenings and early hours of the morning on the weekends, and importantly, usually took longer for police to complete than non alcohol-related incidents. The findings in Studies Three and Four suggest that serious traffic offences, disturbances and offences against the person share similar characteristics and occur in concentrated places at similar times. In addition, it was found that time, place and incident type all have an influence on whether an incident attended by a police officer is alcohol-related. Alcohol-related incidents are more likely to occur in particular locations in the late evenings and early mornings on the weekends. In particular, there was a strong association between the occurrence of alcohol-related disturbances and alcohol-related serious traffic offences in regards to place and time. In general, stealing and property offences were not alcohol-related and occurred in daylight hours during weekdays. The results of Studies Five and Six were mixed. A number of alcohol-related offences requiring police attention were significantly reduced for some policing areas and for some types of offences following the implementation of the lockout policy. However, in some locations the lockout policy appeared to have a negative or minimal impact. Interviews with licensees revealed that although all were initially opposed to the lockout policy as they believed it would have a negative impact on business, most perceived some benefits from its introduction. Some of the benefits included, improved patron safety and the development of better business strategies to increase patron numbers. In conclusion, the overall findings of the six studies highlight the pervasive nature of alcohol across a range of criminal incidents, demonstrating the tremendous impact alcohol-related incidents have on police. The findings also demonstrate the importance of time and place in predicting the occurrence of alcohol-related offences. Although this program of research did not set out to test Place Based theories of crime, these theories were used to inform the interpretation of findings. The findings in the current research program provide evidence for the relevance of Place Based theories of crime to understanding the factors contributing to violence and disorder, and designing relevant crime prevention strategies. For instance, the results in Studies Five and Six provide supportive evidence that this novel lockout initiative can be beneficial for public safety by reducing some types of offences in particular areas in and around late-night liquor trading premises. Finally, intelligent-led policing initiatives based on problem oriented policing, such as the lockout policy examined in this thesis, have potential as a major crime prevention technique to reduce specific types of alcohol-related offences.

Employee engagement : the development of a three dimensional model of engagement; and an exploration of its relationship with affective leader behaviours

This study was designed to examine affective leader behaviours, and their impact on cognitive, affective and behavioural engagement. Researchers (e.g., Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005; Moorman et al., 1998) have called for more research to be directed toward modelling and testing sets of relationships which better approximate the complexity associated with contemporary organisational experience. This research has attempted to do this by clarifying and defining the construct of engagement, and then by examining how each of the engagement dimensions are impacted by affective leader behaviours. Specifically, a model was tested that identifies leader behaviour antecedents of cognitive, affective and behavioural engagement. Data was collected from five public-sector organisations. Structural equation modelling was used to identify the relationships between the engagement dimensions and leader behaviours. The results suggested that affective leader behaviours had a substantial direct impact on cognitive engagement, which in turn influenced affective engagement, which then influenced intent to stay and extra-role performance. The results indicated a directional process for engagement, but particularly highlighted the significant impact of affective leader behaviours as an antecedent to engagement. In general terms, the findings will provide a platform from which to develop a robust measure of engagement, and will be helpful to human resource practitioners interested in understanding the directional process of engagement and the importance of affective leadership as an antecedent to engagement.

Characterisation of soluble components and PAH in PM10 atmospheric particulate matter in Brisbane

Fours sets of PM10 samples were collected in three sites in SEQ from December 2002 to August 2004. Three of these sets of samples were collected by QLD EPA as a part of their regular air monitoring program at Woolloongabba, Rocklea and Eagle Farm. Half of the samples were used in this study for the analysis of water-soluble ions, which are Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, NH4 +, Cl-, NO3 -, SO4 2-, F-, Br-, NO2 -, PO4 -3 and the other half was retained by QLD EPA. The fourth set of samples was collected at Rocklea, specifically for this study. A quarter of the samples obtained from this set of samples were used to analyse water-soluble ions; a quarter of the sample was used to analyse Pb, Cu, Al, Fe, Mn and Zn; and the rests were used to analyse US EPA 16 priority PAHs. The water-soluble ions were extracted ultrasonically with water and the major watersoluble anions as well as NH4 + were analysed using IC. Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+ Pb, Cu, Al, Fe, Mn and Zn were analysed using ICP-AES while PAHs were extracted by acetonitrile and analysed using HPLC. Of the analysed water-soluble ions, Cl-, NO3 -, SO4 2-, Na+, K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+ were high in concentration and determined in all the samples. F-, Br-, NO2 -, PO4 -3 and NH4 + ions were lower in concentration and determined only in some samples. Na+ and Cl- were high in all samples indicating the importance of a marine source. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to examine the temporal variations of the water-soluble ions at the three sites. The results indicated that there was no major difference between the three sites. However, comparing the average concentrations of ions and Cl-/Na+ it was concluded that Woolloongabba had more marine influence than the other sites. Al, Fe and Zn were detected in all samples. Al and Fe were high in all samples indicating the significance of a source of crustal matter. Cu, Mn and Pb were in low concentrations and were determined only in some samples. The lower Pb concentrations observed in the study than in previous studies indicate that the phasing-out of leaded petrol had an appreciable impact on Pb levels in SEQ. This study reports for the first time, simultaneous data on the water-soluble, metal ion and PAH levels of PM10 aerosols in Brisbane, and provides information on the most likely sources of these chemical species. Such information can be used alongside those that already exist to formulate PM10 pollution reduction strategies for SEQ in order to protect the community from the adverse effects of PM pollution.

Accounts of the visual art classroom : catering for artistically talented students

Inclusive education practices call for the diverse and individual needs of all students to be met satisfactorily. The needs and experiences of artistically talented students in Australian visual art classrooms are currently unknown. This study addresses this gap in research through an inquiry into the experiences of artistically talented students and their teachers in visual art classrooms, by examining the accounts of a group of students and teachers at one high school in South East Queensland. This study is significant as it provides teachers, parents and others involved in the education of artistically talented students with additional means to plan and cater for the educational needs of artistically talented students. Teacher and student accounts of the visual art classroom in this study indicated that identification processes for artistically talented students are unclear and contradictory. Furthermore, teacher and student accounts of their experiences presented a wide variety of conceptions of the visual art classroom and point towards an individualised approach to learning for artistically talented students. This study also discovered a mismatch between assessment practices in the subject visual art and assessment of art in the ‘real world’. Specifically, this study proposes a renewal of programs for artistically talented students, and recommends a revision of current procedures for the identification of artistically talented students in visual art classrooms.

A phenomenological study of contemplative experiences : implications for interior design

This research reports on a project concerned with the relationship between the person and the environment in the context of achieving a contemplative or existential state – a state which can be experienced either consciously or subconsciously. The need for such a study originated with the desire to contribute to the design of multicultural spaces which could be used for a range of activities within the public and the personal arena, activities including contemplation, meditation and prayer. The concept of ‘sacred’ is explored in the literature review and in primary interviews with the participants of this study. Given that the word ‘sacred’ is highly value-laden and potentially alienating for some people, it was decided to use the more accessible term ‘contemplative’. The outcomes of the study inform the practice of interior design and architecture which tends currently to neglect the potential for all spaces to be existentially meaningful. Informed by phenomenological methodology, data were collected from a diverse group of people, using photo-elicitation and interviews. The technique of photo-elicitation proved to be highly effective in helping people reveal their everyday lived experience of contemplative spaces. Reflective analysis (Van Manen 2000) was used to explore the data collected. The initial stage of analysis produced three categories of data: varying conceptions of contemplation, aspects of the person involved in the contemplation, and aspects of environment involved in contemplation. From this, it was found that achieving a state of contemplation involves both the person and the environment in a dialectic process of unfolding. The unfolding has various physical, psycho-social, and existential dimensions or qualities which operate sequentially and simultaneously. Two concepts emerged as being central to unfolding: ‘Cleansing’ and ‘Nothingness’. Unfolding is found to comprise the Core; Distinction; Manifestation; Cleansing; Creation; and Sharing. This has a parallel with Mircea Eliade’s (1959) definition of sacred as something that manifests itself as different from the profane. The power of design, re-contextualization through utility and purpose, and the existential engagements between the person and environment are used as a basis for establishing the potential contribution of the study to interior design. In this way, the study makes a contribution to our understanding of how space and its elements inspire, support and sustain person environment interaction – particularly at the existential level – as well as to our understanding of the multi-dimensional and holistic nature of this interaction. In addition, it points to the need for a phenomenological re-conceptualisation of the design/client relationship. In summary, the contributions of this research are: the exploration of contemplative experience as sacred experience; an understanding of the design of space as creating engagement between person and environment; a rationale for the introduction of a phenomenological approach to the relationship between designer and clients; and raising awareness of the spiritual in a holistic approach to design.

Evaluating information systems

The book within which this chapter appears is published as a research reference book (not a coursework textbook) on Management Information Systems (MIS) for seniors or graduate students in Chinese universities. It is hoped that this chapter, along with the others, will be helpful to MIS scholars and PhD/Masters research students in China who seek understanding of several central Information Systems (IS) research topics and related issues. The subject of this chapter - ‘Evaluating Information Systems’ - is broad, and cannot be addressed in its entirety in any depth within a single book chapter. The chapter proceeds from the truism that organizations have limited resources and those resources need to be invested in a way that provides greatest benefit to the organization. IT expenditure represents a substantial portion of any organization’s investment budget and IT related innovations have broad organizational impacts. Evaluation of the impact of this major investment is essential to justify this expenditure both pre- and post-investment. Evaluation is also important to prioritize possible improvements. The chapter (and most of the literature reviewed herein) admittedly assumes a blackbox view of IS/IT1, emphasizing measures of its consequences (e.g. for organizational performance or the economy) or perceptions of its quality from a user perspective. This reflects the MIS emphasis – a ‘management’ emphasis rather than a software engineering emphasis2, where a software engineering emphasis might be on the technical characteristics and technical performance. Though a black-box approach limits diagnostic specificity of findings from a technical perspective, it offers many benefits. In addition to superior management information, these benefits may include economy of measurement and comparability of findings (e.g. see Part 4 on Benchmarking IS). The chapter does not purport to be a comprehensive treatment of the relevant literature. It does, however, reflect many of the more influential works, and a representative range of important writings in the area. The author has been somewhat opportunistic in Part 2, employing a single journal – The Journal of Strategic Information Systems – to derive a classification of literature in the broader domain. Nonetheless, the arguments for this approach are believed to be sound, and the value from this exercise real. The chapter drills down from the general to the specific. It commences with a highlevel overview of the general topic area. This is achieved in 2 parts: - Part 1 addressing existing research in the more comprehensive IS research outlets (e.g. MISQ, JAIS, ISR, JMIS, ICIS), and Part 2 addressing existing research in a key specialist outlet (i.e. Journal of Strategic Information Systems). Subsequently, in Part 3, the chapter narrows to focus on the sub-topic ‘Information Systems Success Measurement’; then drilling deeper to become even more focused in Part 4 on ‘Benchmarking Information Systems’. In other words, the chapter drills down from Parts 1&2 Value of IS, to Part 3 Measuring Information Systems Success, to Part 4 Benchmarking IS. While the commencing Parts (1&2) are by definition broadly relevant to the chapter topic, the subsequent, more focused Parts (3 and 4) admittedly reflect the author’s more specific interests. Thus, the three chapter foci – value of IS, measuring IS success, and benchmarking IS - are not mutually exclusive, but, rather, each subsequent focus is in most respects a sub-set of the former. Parts 1&2, ‘the Value of IS’, take a broad view, with much emphasis on ‘the business Value of IS’, or the relationship between information technology and organizational performance. Part 3, ‘Information System Success Measurement’, focuses more specifically on measures and constructs employed in empirical research into the drivers of IS success (ISS). (DeLone and McLean 1992) inventoried and rationalized disparate prior measures of ISS into 6 constructs – System Quality, Information Quality, Individual Impact, Organizational Impact, Satisfaction and Use (later suggesting a 7th construct – Service Quality (DeLone and McLean 2003)). These 6 constructs have been used extensively, individually or in some combination, as the dependent variable in research seeking to better understand the important antecedents or drivers of IS Success. Part 3 reviews this body of work. Part 4, ‘Benchmarking Information Systems’, drills deeper again, focusing more specifically on a measure of the IS that can be used as a ‘benchmark’3. This section consolidates and extends the work of the author and his colleagues4 to derive a robust, validated IS-Impact measurement model for benchmarking contemporary Information Systems (IS). Though IS-Impact, like ISS, has potential value in empirical, causal research, its design and validation has emphasized its role and value as a comparator; a measure that is simple, robust and generalizable and which yields results that are as far as possible comparable across time, across stakeholders, and across differing systems and systems contexts.

Reciprocity : where art meets the community : action research in response to artistic encounters and relationships

This practice-led research project examines some of the factors and issues facing artists working in the public domain who wish to engage with the community as audience. Using the methodology of action research, the three major creative projects in this study use art as a socio-political tool with the aim of providing an effective vehicle for broadening awareness, understanding forms of social protest and increasing tolerance for diversity. The three projects: Floodline November 7, 2004, Look in, Look out, and The Urban Terrorist Project, dealt with issues of marginalisation of communities, audiences and graffiti artists respectively. The artist/researcher is outlined as both creator and collaborator in the work. Processes included ephemeral elements, such as temporary installation and performance, as well as interactive elements that encouraged direct audience involvement as part of the work. In addition to the roles of creator and collaborator, both of which included audience as well as artist, the presence of an outside entity was evident. Whether local, legal authorities or prevailing attitudes, outside entities had an unavoidable impact on the processes and outcomes of the work. Each project elicited a range of responses from their respective audiences; however, the overarching concept of reciprocity was seen to be the crucial factor in conception, artistic methods and outcomes.

A brush with the real world : the future of inertial motion capture in live performance

3D Motion capture is a medium that plots motion, typically human motion, converting it into a form that can be represented digitally. It is a fast evolving field and recent inertial technology may provide new artistic possibilities for its use in live performance. Although not often used in this context, motion capture has a combination of attributes that can provide unique forms of collaboration with performance arts. The inertial motion capture suit used for this study has orientation sensors placed at strategic points on the body to map body motion. Its portability, real-time performance, ease of use, and its immunity from line-of-sight problems inherent in optical systems suggest it would work well as a live performance technology. Many animation techniques can be used in real-time. This research examines a broad cross-section of these techniques using four practice-led cases to assess the suitability of inertial motion capture to live performance. Although each case explores different visual possibilities, all make use of the performativity of the medium, using either an improvisational format or interactivity among stage, audience and screen that would be difficult to emulate any other way. A real-time environment is not capable of reproducing the depth and sophistication of animation people have come to expect through media. These environments take many hours to render. In time the combination of what can be produced in real-time and the tools available in a 3D environment will no doubt create their own tree of aesthetic directions in live performance. The case study looks at the potential of interactivity that this technology offers.

Recommending best answer in a collaborative question answering system

The World Wide Web has become a medium for people to share information. People use Web-based collaborative tools such as question answering (QA) portals, blogs/forums, email and instant messaging to acquire information and to form online-based communities. In an online QA portal, a user asks a question and other users can provide answers based on their knowledge, with the question usually being answered by many users. It can become overwhelming and/or time/resource consuming for a user to read all of the answers provided for a given question. Thus, there exists a need for a mechanism to rank the provided answers so users can focus on only reading good quality answers. The majority of online QA systems use user feedback to rank users’ answers and the user who asked the question can decide on the best answer. Other users who didn’t participate in answering the question can also vote to determine the best answer. However, ranking the best answer via this collaborative method is time consuming and requires an ongoing continuous involvement of users to provide the needed feedback. The objective of this research is to discover a way to recommend the best answer as part of a ranked list of answers for a posted question automatically, without the need for user feedback. The proposed approach combines both a non-content-based reputation method and a content-based method to solve the problem of recommending the best answer to the user who posted the question. The non-content method assigns a score to each user which reflects the users’ reputation level in using the QA portal system. Each user is assigned two types of non-content-based reputations cores: a local reputation score and a global reputation score. The local reputation score plays an important role in deciding the reputation level of a user for the category in which the question is asked. The global reputation score indicates the prestige of a user across all of the categories in the QA system. Due to the possibility of user cheating, such as awarding the best answer to a friend regardless of the answer quality, a content-based method for determining the quality of a given answer is proposed, alongside the non-content-based reputation method. Answers for a question from different users are compared with an ideal (or expert) answer using traditional Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing techniques. Each answer provided for a question is assigned a content score according to how well it matched the ideal answer. To evaluate the performance of the proposed methods, each recommended best answer is compared with the best answer determined by one of the most popular link analysis methods, Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS). The proposed methods are able to yield high accuracy, as shown by correlation scores: Kendall correlation and Spearman correlation. The reputation method outperforms the HITS method in terms of recommending the best answer. The inclusion of the reputation score with the content score improves the overall performance, which is measured through the use of Top-n match scores.

Introducing Mr Perky : subverting the fantasy trope of immortality in contemporary speculative fiction

The Tide Lords series of fantasy novels set out to examine the issue of immortality. Its purpose was to look at the desirability of immortality, specifically why people actively seek it. It was meant to examine the practicality of immortality, specifically — having got there, what does one do to pass the time with eternity to fill? I also wished to examine the notion of true immortality — immortals who could not be killed. What I did not anticipate when embarking upon this series, and what did not become apparent until after the series had been sold to two major publishing houses in Australia and the US, was the strength of the immortality tropes. This series was intended to fly in the face of these tropes, but confronted with the reality of such a work, the Australian publishers baulked at the ideas presented, requesting the series be re-written with the tropes taken into consideration. They wanted immortals who could die, mortals who wanted to be immortal. And a hero with a sense of humour. This exegesis aims to explore where these tropes originated. It will also discuss the ways I negotiated a way around the tropes, and was eventually able to please the publishers by appearing to adhere to the tropes, while still staying true to the story I wanted to tell. As such, this discussion is, in part, an analysis of how an author negotiates the tensions around writing within a genre while trying to innovate within it.

Drama and the dreaming : framing the play West of West Wirrawong

This thesis consists of two parts, a stageplay "West of West Wirrawong" and an accompanying exegesis. The exegesis works as preface to the stageplay and interrogates via self-reflective analysis the various theoretical and practical notions that shaped the creative process. The exegesis has a special focus in ideas of indigenous myth and Nietzsche.

Structuring free-form tagging in online news

Tagging has become one of the key activities in next generation websites which allow users selecting short labels to annotate, manage, and share multimedia information such as photos, videos and bookmarks. Tagging does not require users any prior training before participating in the annotation activities as they can freely choose any terms which best represent the semantic of contents without worrying about any formal structure or ontology. However, the practice of free-form tagging can lead to several problems, such as synonymy, polysemy and ambiguity, which potentially increase the complexity of managing the tags and retrieving information. To solve these problems, this research aims to construct a lightweight indexing scheme to structure tags by identifying and disambiguating the meaning of terms and construct a knowledge base or dictionary. News has been chosen as the primary domain of application to demonstrate the benefits of using structured tags for managing the rapidly changing and dynamic nature of news information. One of the main outcomes of this work is an automatically constructed vocabulary that defines the meaning of each named entity tag, which can be extracted from a news article (including person, location and organisation), based on experts suggestions from major search engines and the knowledge from public database such as Wikipedia. To demonstrate the potential applications of the vocabulary, we have used it to provide more functionalities in an online news website, including topic-based news reading, intuitive tagging, clipping and sharing of interesting news, as well as news filtering or searching based on named entity tags. The evaluation results on the impact of disambiguating tags have shown that the vocabulary can help to significantly improve news searching performance. The preliminary results from our user study have demonstrated that users can benefit from the additional functionalities on the news websites as they are able to retrieve more relevant news, clip and share news with friends and families effectively.

A comparison of two procedures for increasing spontaneous requests in children with autism

The missing-item format and interrupted behaviour chain strategy have been used to increase spontaneous requests among children with developmental disabilities, but their relative effectiveness has not been compared. The present study compared the extent to which each strategy evoked spontaneous requests and challenging behaviour in three children with autism. Sessions where a needed item was withheld (missing-item format) were compared to sessions involving the removal of a needed item (interrupted behaviour chain strategy). Comparisons were conducted across three activates in an alternating treatments design. Both strategies evoked spontaneous requests with no significant difference in effectiveness. Few differences were obtained in the amount of challenging behaviour evoked but the two conditions, although a moderate inverse relationship between spontaneous requesting and challenging behaviour was observed. The results suggest that theses two procedures yield similar outcomes. Concurrent use of both strategies may enable teachers to create a greater number of opportunities for requesting.

Socio-environmental factors and suicide in Queensland, Australia

Suicide has drawn much attention from both the scientific community and the public. Examining the impact of socio-environmental factors on suicide is essential in developing suicide prevention strategies and interventions, because it will provide health authorities with important information for their decision-making. However, previous studies did not examine the impact of socio-environmental factors on suicide using a spatial analysis approach. The purpose of this study was to identify the patterns of suicide and to examine how socio-environmental factors impact on suicide over time and space at the Local Governmental Area (LGA) level in Queensland. The suicide data between 1999 and 2003 were collected from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Socio-environmental variables at the LGA level included climate (rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature), Socioeconomic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) and demographic variables (proportion of Indigenous population, unemployment rate, proportion of population with low income and low education level). Climate data were obtained from Australian Bureau of Meteorology. SEIFA and demographic variables were acquired from ABS. A series of statistical and geographical information system (GIS) approaches were applied in the analysis. This study included two stages. The first stage used average annual data to view the spatial pattern of suicide and to examine the association between socio-environmental factors and suicide over space. The second stage examined the spatiotemporal pattern of suicide and assessed the socio-environmental determinants of suicide, using more detailed seasonal data. In this research, 2,445 suicide cases were included, with 1,957 males (80.0%) and 488 females (20.0%). In the first stage, we examined the spatial pattern and the determinants of suicide using 5-year aggregated data. Spearman correlations were used to assess associations between variables. Then a Poisson regression model was applied in the multivariable analysis, as the occurrence of suicide is a small probability event and this model fitted the data quite well. Suicide mortality varied across LGAs and was associated with a range of socio-environmental factors. The multivariable analysis showed that maximum temperature was significantly and positively associated with male suicide (relative risk [RR] = 1.03, 95% CI: 1.00 to 1.07). Higher proportion of Indigenous population was accompanied with more suicide in male population (male: RR = 1.02, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.03). There was a positive association between unemployment rate and suicide in both genders (male: RR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.06; female: RR = 1.07, 95% CI: 1.00 to 1.16). No significant association was observed for rainfall, minimum temperature, SEIFA, proportion of population with low individual income and low educational attainment. In the second stage of this study, we undertook a preliminary spatiotemporal analysis of suicide using seasonal data. Firstly, we assessed the interrelations between variables. Secondly, a generalised estimating equations (GEE) model was used to examine the socio-environmental impact on suicide over time and space, as this model is well suited to analyze repeated longitudinal data (e.g., seasonal suicide mortality in a certain LGA) and it fitted the data better than other models (e.g., Poisson model). The suicide pattern varied with season and LGA. The north of Queensland had the highest suicide mortality rate in all the seasons, while there was no suicide case occurred in the southwest. Northwest had consistently higher suicide mortality in spring, autumn and winter. In other areas, suicide mortality varied between seasons. This analysis showed that maximum temperature was positively associated with suicide among male population (RR = 1.24, 95% CI: 1.04 to 1.47) and total population (RR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.00 to 1.32). Higher proportion of Indigenous population was accompanied with more suicide among total population (RR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.13 to 1.19) and by gender (male: RR = 1.07, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.13; female: RR = 1.23, 95% CI: 1.03 to 1.48). Unemployment rate was positively associated with total (RR = 1.40, 95% CI: 1.24 to 1.59) and female (RR=1.09, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.18) suicide. There was also a positive association between proportion of population with low individual income and suicide in total (RR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.10 to 1.48) and male (RR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.23 to 1.72) population. Rainfall was only positively associated with suicide in total population (RR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.04 to 1.19). There was no significant association for rainfall, minimum temperature, SEIFA, proportion of population with low educational attainment. The second stage is the extension of the first stage. Different spatial scales of dataset were used between the two stages (i.e., mean yearly data in the first stage, and seasonal data in the second stage), but the results are generally consistent with each other. Compared with other studies, this research explored the variety of the impact of a wide range of socio-environmental factors on suicide in different geographical units. Maximum temperature, proportion of Indigenous population, unemployment rate and proportion of population with low individual income were among the major determinants of suicide in Queensland. However, the influence from other factors (e.g. socio-culture background, alcohol and drug use) influencing suicide cannot be ignored. An in-depth understanding of these factors is vital in planning and implementing suicide prevention strategies. Five recommendations for future research are derived from this study: (1) It is vital to acquire detailed personal information on each suicide case and relevant information among the population in assessing the key socio-environmental determinants of suicide; (2) Bayesian model could be applied to compare mortality rates and their socio-environmental determinants across LGAs in future research; (3) In the LGAs with warm weather, high proportion of Indigenous population and/or unemployment rate, concerted efforts need to be made to control and prevent suicide and other mental health problems; (4) The current surveillance, forecasting and early warning system needs to be strengthened, to trace the climate and socioeconomic change over time and space and its impact on population health; (5) It is necessary to evaluate and improve the facilities of mental health care, psychological consultation, suicide prevention and control programs; especially in the areas with low socio-economic status, high unemployment rate, extreme weather events and natural disasters.