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Understanding the family business mindset: an evolutionary approach
No full textFamilies and businesses evolve. Families transition; businesses transform. This article strengthens the understanding of multi-generational family businesses by introducing a heterodox-economics-rooted perspective of family business mindset adapted from Nelson and Winter’s Lamarckian-inspired evolutionary theory of the firm.1 We add contextual richness by demonstrating how a third-generation business-owning family are concurrently orchestrating their generational transition and business transformation
CONTINUOUS GLUCOSE MONITORING – A NOVEL TOOL FOR BEHAVIOUR CHANGE IN RELATIVE ENERGY DEFICIENCY IN SPORT (REDS)?
No full textINTRODUCTION: Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) is a multi-factorial clinical condition associated with profound adverse long-term health and performance consequences. The predominate treatment for REDs is to increase energy availability (EA) via increasing energy intake (EI), with the athlete understanding their own EA equation playing a key role in their recovery. However, knowledge alone may not be enough to create the required behaviour modifications around increasing EI and/or improving EA across the day. Yet, there is a dearth of evidence regarding behaviour change to increase EA in those with, or at risk of REDs. This descriptive qualitative study investigated the acceptability of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in athletes clinically diagnosed with REDs, and how biofeedback from CGM may play a role in creating the required behaviour change for the recovery of REDs.METHODS: Females (n=8, 26.8 ± 6.4 years) with a diagnosis of REDs by an experienced medical specialist, participated in a seven-day trial whereby they wore an unblinded CGM sensor on their upper arm and were instructed to scan the sensor at least every eight hours. Participants were provided with only minimal information on what to expect in their glucose readings; no specific education was given as to how their glucose readings might reflect nutritional timing or choices. Participants also recorded their exercise data each day and their dietary intake for four days of the trial. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect qualitative data to gain an understanding of the participants’ experience of wearing a CGM. Data were analysed using thematic analysis inductively for key themes.RESULTS: Two main themes emerged from the data. The first theme, “Acceptable but aware”, captured the participants’ experience of wearing the CGM during their recovery of REDs. Participants found it easy to use, predominately unobtrusive, and showed low to no anxiety with regards to the continuous access to their interstitial glucose levels. The second theme, “Engagement with the data”, portrayed the spectrum to which participants connected with the CGM data and identified the potential of CGM to impact nutrition behaviour in the recovery of REDs, particularly in response to exercise. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: The CGM appeared to provide an ‘objective permission’ to some participants to change their nutritional intake behaviours. This was predominately regarding fuelling before training, having linked their subjective feelings to the objective metrics on the CGM. However, there is a clear need to ensure individuals understand the CGM data, particularly around exercise, to be able to make meaningful change. CGMs do not appear to create anxiety in those diagnosed with REDs. With an accompanying education, CGM may have a potential role in creating behaviour change with regards to nutrition around exercise.<br/
GatedFusion-Net: Per-Pixel Modality Selection in a Five-Cue Transformer for RGB-D-I-T-UV Fusion
No full textWe introduce GatedFusion-Net (GF-Net), built on the SegFormer Transformer backbone, as the first architecture to unify RGB, depth (D), infrared intensity (I), thermal (T), and ultraviolet (UV) imagery for dense semantic segmentation on the MM5 dataset. GF-Net departs from the CMX baseline via: (1) stage-wise RGB&#8211;intensity&#8211;depth enhancement that injects geometrically aligned D,I cues at each encoder stage, together with surface normals (N), improving illumination invariance without adding parameters; (2) per-pixel sigmoid gating, where independent Sigmoid Gate blocks learn spatial confidence masks for T and UV and add their contributions to the RGB+DIN base, trimming computational cost while preserving accuracy; and (3) modality-wise normalisation using per-stream statistics computed on MM5 to stabilise training and balance cross-cue influence. An ablation study reveals that the five-modality configuration (RGB+DIN+T+UV) achieves a peak mean IoU of 88.3%, with the UV channel contributing a 1.7-percentage-point gain under optimal lighting (RGB3). Under challenging illumination, it maintains comparable performance, indicating complementary but situational value. Modality-ablation experiments reveal strong sensitivity: removing RGB, T, DIN, or UV yields relative mean IoU reductions of 83.4%, 63.3%, 56.5%, and 30.1%, respectively. Sigmoid-Gate fusion behaves primarily as static, lighting-dependent weighting rather than adapting to sensor loss. Throughput on an RTX 3090 with a MiT-B0 backbone is real-time: (640 &#215; 480) at 74 fps for RGB+DIN+T, 55 fps for RGB+DIN+T+UV, and 41 fps with five gated streams. These results establish the first RGB&#8211;D&#8211;I&#8211;T&#8211;UV segmentation baselines on MM5 and show that per-pixel sigmoid gating is a lightweight, effective alternative to heavier attention-based fusion
Exploring home safety risk assessment tools for telehealth use in occupational therapy
Get PDFIntroduction: Australia is currently facing an ageing endemic with increasing challenges for primary health-care. Occupational therapists oversee home safety assessments to ensure that elderly patients will be safe in their home environment. These assessments are conducted in person; however, with the increase in accessibility to technology, alternative methods are being investigated. These include the use of smartphones, virtual reality, and3-D scanning technology. However, with the application of digital emergence, so are their limitations. One such limitation is an appropriate digital home safety assessment tool for occupational therapists to use when conducting home safety assessments. The current investigation has two studies whose objectives are to meet this limitation. Objective: To create an appropriate digital home safety assessment tool for occupational therapists to use when performing a digital home safety assessment. Method: The first study will conduct a scoping review incurrent home safety assessment tools available. Subsequently, the second study will create a digital home safety assessment tool from the scoping review. The digital home safety assessment tool will then be trialled for feasibility through focus groups of occupational therapists. Post-trial, the tool will undergo refinement based on the data from the focus groups. Results: Qualitative data will be collected from the focus groups. The data will undergo thematic analysis. This will support in refinement of the digital home safety assessment tool to make it fit for purpose. Summary: The current investigation aims to add to the growing evidence of alternative methods for occupational therapists to perform home safety assessments
A profile of injuries within an Australian State Emergency Service Agency: a retrospective study
Get PDFBackground: Injuries within the emergency services populations are unfortunately common. Effective injury reduction programs need to be designed based on the profile of common injuries. Therefore, this study aimed to profile the injuries suffered within a state Emergency Services Agency which comprised Ambulance, Fire and Rescue, Rural Fire, volunteer emergency State Emergency Services (SES), and the Communication Centre (CC).Methods: A retrospective cohort analysis was conducted on the entirety of an Australian State Emergency Service Agency injury database over a ten-year period (2012-2022). Records were extracted with details including (a) the total number; (b) the bodily site; (c) the nature; (d) and mechanism of injury. Total injuries were converted into injuries per 1000 full-time equivalent (FTE) years of service and incidence rate (IR) and ratios (IRR) were calculated per service.Results: In total, there were 2,703 physical injuries reported by the agency, with Ambulance Services sustaining over half the injuries (57.5%). The most common body site, nature of injury, and mechanism was the lower back (27.9%), soft tissue (59.7%), and body stressing (45.5%), respectively. Based on 1000 FTE years, SES had the highest IR of 2054.2 followed by Rural Fire (IR = 1295.1), Communications (IR = 753.7), Ambulance Services (IR = 566.3), and Fire and Rescue (IR = 183.7). State Emergency Services sustained the highest IRR of 3.64 [3.13-4.22] when compared to Ambulance Services. The age group most likely to be injured were 45-49 years of age (17%), with males suffering the majority (65%) of injuries.Conclusion: State Emergency Services present with injury rates above those of other emergency services personnel. These findings lay the groundwork for customised injury prevention strategies to promote better occupational safety across emergency service populations. Tailored injury prevention strategies may decrease subsequent time off due to injury.</p
Combatting disinformation online without removing content
No full textThe Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 was abandoned in late November 2024 as there was no clear pathway for the Bill to pass through the Senate. While government continues to pursue other proposals to address the issue, the spread of mis- and disinformation online continues to pose threats to the Australian community (deepfakes being an example of harmful content). While education campaigns and initiatives to support the development of digital literacy skills, media literacy skills and better awareness online continue to be important, this article asks what more can be done to tackle the spread of mis- and disinformation on digital platforms. In particular, this article considers a fact-checking and debunking initiative that operates in the European Union and whether a similar initiative could be adopted in Australia as an alternative measure to combatting mis- and disinformation on digital platforms
ESG investment among retail investors: a systematic literature review and future research agenda
No full textPurpose:Despite firms increasingly using ESG disclosures to signal their sustainability practices, there is limited understanding of how retail investors–an increasingly influential group–engage with ESG information in investment decision-making. This study addresses this gap by systematically examining literature at the intersection of ESG investing and retail investor behaviour.Design/methodology/approach:We adopt a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology, screening 7,768 publications from 2004 to 2024. Detailed bibliometric and content analyses are conducted on 57 highly relevant studies, all published in journals rated 3* or above in the Academic Journal Guide.Findings:Our review identifies key factors shaping retail investors' ESG engagement: (1) activation and awareness driven by major ESG events and information searching, (2) attitudes shaped by the credibility and transparency of ESG data, influenced by assurance practices, (3) actions influenced by behavioural biases, nudging, and institutional constraints and (4) portfolio adjustments in response to ESG information updates. We propose revamping the 5 A model to incorporate retail investor heterogeneity and combined theories to examine their influence and triggers across each stage of the process.Originality/value:This study presents the first SLR at the intersection of ESG investing and retail investor behaviour. We propose a novel classification based on issue focus (environmental, social, governance or integrated), revealing that retail investors typically treat ESG holistically. Key future research directions include cross-country and longitudinal analyses, applying machine learning to retail ESG data and further exploring how retail investors engage with different accounting-related ESG information, such as disclosures, sustainability reports, ratings and assurance
Intermittent-vigorous intensity physical activity as a strategy for recovery in severe mental illness: study protocol for a pragmatic clinical trial
Get PDFIntroduction:Achieving physical activity recommendations for health as part of mental healthcare for adults with severe mental illness (SMI) could enhance clinical, functional and quality of life outcomes. We have co-designed a protocol to evaluate the impact of an intervention which combines High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity (VILPA) on clinical, functional and quality of life outcomes in people who have SMI.Methods and analysis:Pragmatic clinical trial with an intervention and control arms. Participants will be recruited from two mental health services in two different cities in the same geographical area. Participants who meet the inclusion criteria (>18 years, SMI diagnosis, not at medical risk to practise vigorous physical activity, living in the community) will be included. Those from one service will be assigned to the intervention group and those from the other to the control group. The intervention will take place in the mental healthcare centre and will comprise 16 weeks of group-based HIIT, with transition to an individual lifestyle intervention VILPA over the next 12 weeks—for a total intervention period of 28 weeks. Primary outcome (clinical and functional and quality of life) measures and secondary (self-perception and device-measured fitness, physical activity and sedentary behaviour, and experience) measures will be assessed at baseline and at 16-week, 28-week and 40-week follow-ups. Group differences in change scores will be assessed using linear mixed-effects models with time, group and their interaction as fixed effects, accounting for within-subject correlations.Ethics and dissemination:The study was approved by the Human Ethics Committee of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Life and Health Sciences in Central Catalonia (Spain, CEIm code: 24/007). Data will be shared following publication of results with no end date. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and at national and international conferences and will inform the development of recovery protocols for people with SMI
Multiclass Prediction of Bitcoin Fear-Greed States Using Buy-and-Sell Pressure Induced Lagged Features in Machine Learning
No full textTrading decision-making is significantly influenced by psychological resistance that emerges under dynamic market conditions. Fear and greed states provide a quantifiable representation of these behavioral dynamics, serving as the basis for sentiment modeling. This study proposes a novel set of buy-and-sell pressure induced lagged features and integrates them with machine learning to predict multiclass fear–greed states in the Bitcoin market. To address severe class imbalance across five sentiment categories, we employ a one-step-ahead rolling window backtesting procedure. The predictive performance of extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), support vector regression (SVR), and long short-term memory (LSTM) networks is systematically evaluated. Results demonstrate that SVR combined with the proposed lagged features achieves the highest performance, yielding an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.93 and outperforming both XGBoost and LSTM. These findings underscore the effectiveness of feature engineering based on buy-and-sell pressure in enhancing sentiment forecasting for volatile cryptocurrency markets. Beyond predictive accuracy, the framework offers practical applicability, enabling data-driven trading strategies and integration into automated trading systems for continuous market monitoring and decision execution
General practice registrars’ current knowledge, awareness and utilisation of clinical prediction rules and other antimicrobial stewardship strategies in the context of respiratory infections: A qualitative study
No full textBackground and objective:Antimicrobial resistance is a growing public health crisis. A key factor in its reduction is general practitioner-led antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). During general practice training, general practice registrars (GPRs) learn evidence-based AMS strategies such as the use of clinical prediction rules (CPRs); however, there is a lack information on GPRs’ knowledge, awareness and use of CPRs.Methods:Semi-structured focus groups were held with a convenience sample of general practice registrars. The focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim and will be thematically analysed.Results:Four focus groups were conducted, with 16 participants to date (recruitment is ongoing). Data analysis will be completed after finalising recruitment.Discussion:The findings from this study will help us better understand GPRs’ current knowledge of attitudes towards and adoption of CPRs and other AMS strategies. These insights will have implications for future GPRs’ educational initiatives and the implementation of AMS strategies in general practice