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Beyond decolonising doctoral education: Alternatives for doctoral scholars
No full textHigher education institutions, doctoral scholars and advisors are increasingly turning to decolonising theories as way to interrogate dominant knowledge production practices. While this theoretical paradigm enables scholars to ask questions around who has benefited from research, the scholarship is constrained by conceptual limitations often left unexamined. This chapter examines the decolonising doctoral education movement, mapping the opportunities and limitations for those wanting to engage with colonialism’s aftermath, and outlines alternatives for doctoral students wanting to move beyond decolonising paradigms. By engaging with a broader range of theoretical tools, we argue that possibilities exist for doctoral students to contribute to a scholarship that can navigate the legacy of colonial knowledge production without becoming trapped by or trying to escape these legacies
Marine reserves contribute half of the larval supply to a coral reef fishery
Get PDFMarine reserves deliver impressive increases in the abundance and size of exploited species on protected reefs, but larval dispersal makes it difficult to estimate their wider benefits. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) contains an extensive network of marine reserves. By combining GBR-wide fish surveys, larval dispersal models, and commercial fishery catch data, we calculate the system-wide ecological and economic contributions of these reserves for coral groupers (Plectropomus spp.), the region’s most important line fishery. Despite covering only 30% of reef habitat, the GBR’s marine reserve network contains half of the species’ biomass and generates most of its reproductive output (55%), half of the system’s larval settlement (50%), and almost half of the total fishery yield (47%)
Exploring Australian nursing and midwifery informatics roles: A scoping review
No full textBackground:
Digital health technologies are changing the context of nursing and midwifery practice. There are varying degrees of knowledge and adoption of digital health technologies in Australian healthcare systems. While nursing and midwifery informatics is an emerging specialty within Australia, little is known about the scope, roles, and benefits of informatics roles in Australia.
Review question:
What are the scope, responsibilities, benefits, and limitations of nursing and midwifery informatics roles throughout Australia?
Methods:
A scoping review was used to address the review question, and the mixed-methods appraisal tool was used to guide generalisability and interpretation of included records. Five healthcare and digital health databases, as well as grey literature, reference lists, and published resources related to nursing and midwifery informatics between 2010 and 2024 were searched.
Findings:
Four records were identified that partially addressed the review question. The scope, roles, and responsibilities of nursing and midwifery informaticians remain poorly understood.
Discussion:
Nurses and midwives need further education about digital health technologies and their place in an ever-changing work environment. Professional development activities that enhance understanding about digital health and informatics would be beneficial to address this gap, regardless of nurses’ and midwives’ current educational level or role. A standardised approach to defining Australian nursing and midwifery informatics, including the scope, roles, and responsibilities of informaticians, would support better understanding, applicability, and usability within the workforce.
Conclusion:
Despite literature supporting the need for dedicated nursing and midwifery informatics roles, the evidence and value of these roles are yet to be defined and quantified
Exploring the Role and Skill Requirements of Registered Nurses Working in Rural and Remote Areas. A Scoping Review
Get PDFIntroduction: Registered nurses (RN)s account for the majority of the rural and remote health workforce and require different skills, knowledge and working practices compared to their metropolitan counterparts. Given the complexity and diversity of the rural and remote work environment, it is important to investigate the contemporary literature on the role and skill requirements of the RNs in these locations.
Methods: A scoping review was undertaken in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews. With the permission of the authors, this scoping review extends the work by Muirhead and Birks (2020) who explored the RN role in these locations in 2017. Database searches were conducted in the Cumulative Index for Allied Health and Nursing Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane, JBI, OVID (Emcare), Proquest, PubMed, Scopus and Rural and Remote Health Database. Studies published from November 2017 to June 2024 were included to reflect the current international roles of rural and remote RNs.
Results: A total of 74 articles were included in the study. The overarching categories identified were clinical roles and non-clinical roles. Ongoing analysis established the subcategories of fundamental/foundational, specialist, management roles, support roles and ancillary roles. Four tensions within the rural and remote context were also identified; Generalist and specialist role; Poorly prepared or unprepared; Extended scope of practice; and Role uncertainty.
Discussion: Registered Nurses in rural and remote locations conduct a wide variety of skills and tasks. Their role is expansive, context-dependant, and dynamic. Analysis of the literature found that globally, similarities exist for the role, including comparable challenges, barriers and opportunities Resource availability in a country impacts RN preparation, emphasising the need for systemic improvements to ensure equitable outcomes, especially in rural and remote areas
Methane and carbon dioxide production and emission pathways in the belowground and draining water bodies of a tropical peatland plantation forest
Get PDFPeatlands are crucial yet vulnerable carbon stores. Here, we investigated carbon biogeochemical processes in tropical peatlands converted to plantations. We measured carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) concentrations, stable isotope ratios and radiocarbon content in an experimental Acacia crassicarpa plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. We found exceptionally high levels of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), CO2, and CH4 in porewater and drainage networks, indicating that Acacia plantations are carbon hotspots due to their high productivity and exposed carbon‐dense substrates. Stable isotope models revealed that while CO2 and CH4 are produced belowground, CH4 contribution was lower than in natural undrained peatlands. Radiocarbon analysis suggested that remobilized carbon contributed to the carbon pool, with a median age of ∼470 years before present. These findings constrain the links between land‐use, water table levels, and carbon dynamics, with implications for carbon management in plantation peatlands
AgeGen Bio Track: Continuous Mouse Behavioral Biometrics-Based Age and Gender Profiling in Online Education Platforms
No full textMouse behavioral biometric-based authentication systems have attracted significant attention as they are considered a more secure alternative to conventional online assessment fraud detection systems. This is attributed to their ability to continuously authenticate users non-intrusively by analyzing their distinctive mouse operating behavior. Most behavioral biometric-based research studies focus on predicting user identity as the primary objective for online assessment fraud detection. However, they do not consider predicting other user-centric parameters like age and gender. Furthermore, there is a need to identify the best segmentation approach and mouse behavior feature set for age and gender classification. We propose the AgeGen Bio track system, a continuous mouse behavioral biometric-based age and gender tracking system for online education platforms. To accomplish this, we first collect novel mouse behavior data with user demographic information. We then evaluate the efficacy of different segmentation approaches, feature sets, and machine learning models for age and gender classification. Experimental results show that the random forest algorithm paired with the three mouse-movement segmentation approach and user characteristic feature set are the best approaches that need to be incorporated into the system, as they achieved promising results
The autonomy paradox, working from home and psychosocial hazards
Get PDFThis article investigates the experience of knowledge workers in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand their exposure to psychosocial hazards, specifically: workload and work pace; the work-home interface and social isolation. We explored how the increased autonomy afforded by working from home fitted with workers’ actual experience during the pandemic. Drawing on interviews with 33 NSW remote workers and 19 line-managers conducted in early 2021, this article argues that the increased autonomy afforded to employees by remote work is paradoxical. Many interviewees worked longer hours and experienced work intensification, as well as an unwelcome blurring of the work and home spheres. The phenomenon of greater work output was bound up in the trust between workers and line management. Further, interviewees experienced a sense of social isolation. The potential for work intensification, blurring, and social isolation all featured in the working from home literature before COVID-19. This article provides a novel application of the autonomy paradox’ concept, by integrating it within the framework of psychosocial workplace hazards
Explicit Abnormality Extraction for Unsupervised Motion Artifact Reduction in Magnetic Resonance Imaging
No full textMotion artifacts compromise the quality of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pose challenges to achieving diagnostic outcomes and image-guided therapies. In recent years, supervised deep learning approaches have emerged as successful solutions for motion artifact reduction (MAR). One disadvantage of these methods is their dependency on acquiring paired sets of motion artifact-corrupted (MA-corrupted) and motion artifact-free (MA-free) MR images for training purposes. Obtaining such image pairs is difficult and therefore limits the application of supervised training. In this paper, we propose a novel UNsupervised Abnormality Extraction Network (UNAEN) to alleviate this problem. Our network is capable of working with unpaired MA-corrupted and MA-free images. It converts the MA-corrupted images to MA-reduced images by extracting abnormalities from the MA-corrupted images using a proposed artifact extractor, which intercepts the residual artifact maps from the MA-corrupted MR images explicitly, and a reconstructor to restore the original input from the MA-reduced images. The performance of UNAEN was assessed by experimenting with various publicly available MRI datasets and comparing them with state-of-the-art methods. The quantitative evaluation demonstrates the superiority of UNAEN over alternative MAR methods and visually exhibits fewer residual artifacts. Our results substantiate the potential of UNAEN as a promising solution applicable in real-world clinical environments, with the capability to enhance diagnostic accuracy and facilitate image-guided therapies. Our codes are publicly available at https://github.com/YuSheng-Zhou/UNAEN
Impact of environmental taxation, green innovation, economic growth, and renewable energy on green total factor productivity
No full textThe issue of environmental degradation and depletion of resources is getting serious despite multiple meetings and commitments by world leaders. This research argues that nations cannot achieve green productivity goals without imposing substantial penalties on carbon emissions and limiting economic growth. Using the data from twelve Chinese provinces, this research studies the role of environmental tax, renewable energy, green innovation, and economic growth in green total factor productivity (GTFP). The data is analyzed from 2010 to 2021 using Fully Modified and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares econometric techniques. The robust analyses indicated that strong environmental taxes are significantly facilitating the Chinese government to push firms toward green productivity. Moreover, green innovation and capitalizing on renewable energy also build Chinese firms' momentum towards GTFP. However, the enormous economic growth rate is a significant hurdle toward GTFP and impacts it negatively. The findings encourage the developing nations to follow China's footprints by taxing companies for carbon emissions and capitalizing on renewable liveliness and green innovation to counter ecological challenges and achieve green financial development
Are the synergy of stable energy supply, robust financial service and strong economic growth achievable? Evidence from 134 countries
No full textPurpose: This study tests convergence in energy diversification, per-capita income and financial development and explores their interrelationships.
Design/methodology/approach: Club convergence tests, Granger tests and panel regressions are employed on 134 countries from 1995 to 2019.
Findings: While overall convergence is absent across the entire sample, countries have converged within specific clubs. Low- and lower-middle-income countries show convergence in energy diversification and per-capita income. Positive bidirectional relationships are found between energy diversification and per-capita income, and between financial development and per-capita income. A U-shaped relationship between oil prices and energy diversification is identified.
Research limitations/implications: The findings suggest that achieving a shared equilibrium in energy diversification, economic prosperity and financial development is feasible through technological progress within convergence clubs. Investments in human capital and technology are crucial prerequisites for sustainable development.
Originality/value: This study pioneers testing energy diversification, per-capita income and financial development convergence, investigating the tri-directional relationship between them, and exploring the U-shaped relationship between oil prices and energy diversification