At home on the outstation : barriers to home Internet in remote Indigenous communities

Indigenous Australians living in remote areas have little access to the Internet and make little use of it. This article investigates the various dimensions of Internet take-up in remote Indigenous communities in Australia and considers the implications for broadband policy. It focuses specifically on the circumstances and experiences of three remote Indigenous communities in central Australia. Residents in these communities provided significant insight into the social, economic and cultural aspects of communications access and use. This evidence is used to examine the drivers and barriers to home Internet for remote Indigenous communities and to discuss a complex set of issues, including: the dynamics of remote living, economic priorities, cultural engagement with technology, and the characteristics of domestic life in remote Indigenous communities.

Chasing the great Australian dream : definition of "an ideal home" among baby boomers

In Australia, the idea of home ownership or The Great Australian Dream is still perceived as the main achievement of every Australian’s life. Perception of an ideal home is changing over the decades. Each generation has special requirements criteria which foster their dwelling space. This research identifies and compares three generations’ (Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y) demographics, special requirements and perceptions regarding their ideal home. The examination of previous research and literature into the Queensland context reveals that the Baby Boomers population of people 65 and older is currently 11.8% of the state population and is expected to grow to almost one quarter of the population by 2051. This is the highest growth rate among these three generations. Further analysis of these three generations’ status and requirements shows that aging is the most critical issue for the housing systems. This is especially the case for Baby Boomers due to their demand for support services and health care in the home. The study reveals that ‘ageing in place’, is a preferred option for the aged. This raises questions as to how well the housing system and neighbourhood environments are able to support ageing in place, and what aging factors should be taken into consideration when designing Baby boomer’s home to facilitate health and wellbeing. Therefore, this research designed a qualitative approach to investigate Australian Baby Boomers homes around Queensland, predominantly in the Brisbane area, using semi-structured interviews and observations. It aims to find out the level of satisfaction of Australian Baby Boomers with their current home and their preferences and requirements in light of their ideal home. The findings contribute new knowledge in the light of ideal home mechanisms. A set of strategies has been developed from the findings that may help improve the level of comfort, safety and satisfaction that Baby Boomers experience in their current and future homes.

Model-driven service engineering in home telecare

Health care systems are highly dynamic not just due to developments and innovations in diagnosis and treatments, but also by virtue of emerging management techniques supported by modern information and communication technology. A multitude of stakeholders such as patients, nurses, general practitioners or social carers can be integrated by modeling complex interactions necessary for managing the provision and consumption of health care services. Furthermore, it is the availability of Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) that supports those integration efforts by enabling the flexible and reusable composition of autonomous, loosely-coupled and web-enabled software components. However, there is still the gap between SOA and predominantly business-oriented perspectives (e.g. business process models). The alignment of both views is crucial not just for the guided development of SOA but also for the sustainable evolution of holistic enterprise architectures. In this paper, we combine the Semantic Object Model (SOM) and the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) towards a model-driven approach to service engineering. By addressing a business system in Home Telecare and deriving a business process model, which can eventually be controlled and executed by machines; in particular by composed web services, the full potential of a process-centric SOA is exploited.

The feasibility of a home-based moderate-intensity physical activity intervention in obese children and adolescents

Objective To explore the feasibility of conducting a 10-week home-based physical activity (PA) programme and evaluate the changes in insulin sensitivity (S I) commensurate with the programme in obese young people. Design Open-labelled intervention. Setting Home-based intervention with clinical assessments at a tertiary paediatric hospital. Subjects 18 obese (body mass index (BMI)>International Obesity Task Force age and sex-specifi c cut-offs) children and adolescents (8-18 years, 11 girls/7 boys) were recruited. 15 participants (nine girls/six boys, mean±SE age 11.8±0.6 years, BMI-SD scores (BMI-SDS) 3.5±0.1, six prepubertal/nine pubertal) completed the intervention. Intervention The programme comprised biweekly home visits over 10 weeks with personalised plans implemented aiming to increase moderate-intensity PA. Pedometers and PA diaries were used as self-monitoring tools. The goals were to (1) teach participants behavioural skills related to adopting and maintaining an active lifestyle and (2) increase daily participation in PA. Outcome measures Mean steps/day were assessed. SI assessed by the frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test and other components of the insulin resistance syndrome were measured. Results Mean steps/day increased significantly from 10 363±927 (baseline) to 13 013±1131 (week 10) (p<0.05). S I was also significantly increased, despite no change in BMI-SDS, and remained so after an additional 10-week follow-up. Conclusions The results suggest that such a homebased PA programme is feasible. S I improved without changes in BMI-SDS. More rigorous evaluations of such programmes are warranted.

Nutrition and physical activity policies and practices in family child care homes in oregon : baseline findings from the healthy home child care project

Baseline findings from the Healthy Home Child Care Project include data from Family Child Care Providers (FCCPs) in Oregon (n=53) who completed assessments of nutrition and physical activity policies and practices and BMI data for children in the care of FCCPs (n=205). Results show that a significant percentage of FCCPs failed to meet child care standards in several areas and that 26.8% of children under the care of FCCPs were overweight or obese. These data supported the development of an Extension-delivered intervention specific to FCCPs in Oregon and highlight areas of concern that should be addressed through targeted trainings of FCCPs.

Endothelial precursor cells home to a vascularized tissue engineering chamber by application of the angiogenic chemokine CXCl12

Tissue engineering of vascularized constructs has great utility in reconstructive surgery. While we have been successful in generating vascularized granulation-like tissue and adipose tissue in an in vivo tissue engineering chamber, production of other differentiated tissues in a stable construct remains a challenge. One approach is to utilize potent differentiation factors, which can influence the base tissue. Endothelial precursor cells (EPCs) have the ability to both carry differentiation factors and home to developing vasculature. In this study, proof-of-principle experiments demonstrate that such cells can be recruited from the circulation into an in vivo tissue engineering chamber. CXC chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12)/stromal cell-derived factor 1 was infused into the chamber through Alzet osmotic pumps and chamber cannulation between days 0 and 7, and facilitated recruitment of systemically inoculated exogenous human EPCs injected on day 6. CXCL12 infusion resulted in an eightfold increase in EPC recruitment, 2 (p = 0.03) and 7 days postinfusion (p = 0.008). Delivery of chemotactic/proliferation and/or differentiation factors and appropriately timed introduction of effective cells may allow us to better exploit the regenerative potential of the established chamber construct. © Copyright 2009, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2009.

Formal home health care, informal care, and family decision making

We use the 1993 wave of the Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) data set to estimate a game-theoretic model of families' decisions concerning the provision of informal and formal care for elderly individuals. The outcome is the Nash equilibrium where each family member jointly determines her consumption, transfers for formal care, and allocation of time to informal care, market work, and leisure. We use the estimates to decompose the effects of adult children's opportunity costs, quality of care, and caregiving burden on their propensities to provide informal care. We also simulate the effects of a broad range of policies of current interest. © (2009) by the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

Sense of home, sense of place : a morpho-typological comparative study of Florida and Queensland

Cities in the 21st century have become layered and complex systems not only in terms of physical form, but also social and cultural structure. Consolidated tools to analyze the urban environment have today to be improved including a strong interdisciplinary perspective in order to understand and manage the unprecedented complexity our cities are facing. Redevelopments, new estates, internal and external migrations are all dynamics which are deeply modifying the built environment directly or indirectly also affecting local identity, culture and social structure. This paper investigates the relationship between urban form and social behaviors, with particular attention to the perception of the built environment and its use by long term residents, recent migrants as well as tourists. A comparative study is suggested between South East Queensland and Florida; this two regions share common features such as subtropical climate, similar lifestyle, leisure cities and canal estates. Neighborhoods on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts have been designed using the communities of Florida, such as Celebration or Seaside, as models. These regions share also significant migration processes, similar social problems and high crime rates, which directly affect the local economies. Comparing Florida and SEQ could provide an understanding of different strategies adopted and how urban development and lifestyle can be managed maintaining social equity and security. This study, investigates people’s perception of built form and how this affects the use of public space. The relationship between built environment and social behaviour has been previously investigated, for example by environmental psychology; the innovation proposed by this research is to study the perception of place in leisure cities at multiple levels. Locals, migrants and tourists have different understanding of the built form in the same location; this understanding affects the use of space and the attitude to visit or avoid some precincts. The research methodology integrates traditional morpho-typological investigations with qualitative methods; data are collected in the first phase through online surveys about perception of urban forms. Findings guide then the selection of neighbourhoods to be investigated in detail through questionnaires and Nolli maps, specifying morphological regions as well as recurrent building typologies. A final phase includes interviews with selected stakeholders. Major urban projects are discussed addressing how they are used and perceived by locals, migrants or tourists; the comparison between SEQ and Florida allows the identification of strategies to address migration issues in both regions with particular attention to urban form and placemaking dynamics.

A contextual analysis of secondary home economic teachers' agency in a time of mandatory curriculum change

This qualitative research explored secondary Home Economics teachers' perceptions of their teacher agency to influence classroom, department and school level curriculum decision making. Teachers responded to curriculum change with proactive, reactive and/or passive agency. Findings indicated that teachers' perceptions of their classroom agency remained high. However, agency decreased at department and school levels. Recent changes in schools as a result of the Australian Curriculum; NAPLAN and Queensland Studies Authority have resulted in changes that have been detrimental to teacher agency. Agency was enacted differently depending on whether change was teacher initiated or mandated by authority.

Regulating supply-chains to address the occupational health and safety problems associated with precarious employment: The case of home-based clothing workers in Australia

Over the past 20 years the labour market, workforce and work organisation of most if not all industrialised countries have been significantly refashioned by the increased use of more flexible work arrangements, variously labelled as precarious employment or contingent work. There is now a substantial and growing body of international evidence that many of these arrangements are associated with a significant deterioration in occupational health and safety (OHS), using a range of measures such as injury rates, disease, hazard exposures and work-related stress. Moreover, there is an emerging body of evidence that these arrangements pose particular problems for conventional regulatory regimes. Recognition of these problems has aroused the concern of policy makers - especially in Europe, North America and Australia - and a number of responses have been adopted in terms of modifying legislation, producing new guidance material and codes of practice and revised enforcement practices. This article describes one such in itiative in Australia with regard to home-based clothing workers. The regulatory strategy developed in one Australian jurisdiction (and now being ‘exported’ into others) seeks to counter this process via contractual tracking mechanisms to follow the work, tie in liability and shift overarching legal responsibility to the top of the supply chain. The process also entails the integration of minimum standards relating to wages, hours and working conditions; OHS and access to workers’ compensation. While home-based clothing manufacture represents a very old type of ‘flexible’ work arrangement, it is one that regulators have found especially difficult to address. Further, the elaborate multi-tiered subcont racting and diffuse work locations found in this industry are also characteristic of newer forms of contingent work in other industries (such as some telework) and the regulatory challenges they pose (such as the tendency of elaborate supply chains to attenuate and fracture statutory responsibilities, at least in terms of the attitudes and behaviour of those involved).

Supporting family caregivers with palliative symptom management: A qualitative analysis of the provision of an emergency medication kit in the home setting

Purpose The purpose of this qualitative analysis was to examine the experiences of family caregivers supporting a dying person in the home setting. In particular, it explores caregivers’ perceptions of receiving palliative care at home when supplied with an emergency medication kit (EMK). Results Most family caregivers described preexisting medication management strategies that were unable to provide timely intervention in symptoms. The EMK was largely viewed as an effective strategy in providing timely symptom control and preventing readmission to inpatient care. Caregivers reported varying levels of confidence in the administration of medication. Conclusion The provision of an EMK is an effective strategy for improving symptom control and preventing inpatient admissions of home-dwelling palliative care patients.

The use of emergency medication kits in community palliative care: An exploratory survey of views of current practice in Australian home-based palliative care services

Improving symptom management for palliative care patients has obvious benefits for patients and advantages for the clinicians, as workload demands and work-related stress can be reduced when the emergent symptoms of patients are managed in a timely manner. The use of emergency medication kits (EMKs) can provide such timely symptom relief. The purpose of this study was to conduct a survey of a local service to examine views on medication management before and after the implementation of an EMK and to conduct a nationwide prevalence survey examining the use of EMKs in Australia. Most respondents from community palliative care services indicated that EMKs were not being supplied to palliative care patients but believed such an intervention could improve patient care.