18624 research outputs found
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Earth Fissures During Groundwater Depletion and Recovery: A Case Study at Shitangwan, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
Full text linkThe Shitangwan earth fissure is a resultant geological hazard due to prolonged groundwater depletion and land subsidence in Wuxi, China, since the 1980s. Initially observed in 1991, the earth fissure experienced continuous development over the next several decades. Employing a diverse array of techniques, including field monitoring via multilayered borehole extensometers, earth fissure monitoring for lateral and vertical movements, advanced geophysical exploration, and conventional geological investigations, this study aims to mitigate the risks associated with land subsidence and earth fissures. It is found that the groundwater has recovered to the levels in the 1980s, land subsidence and earth fissuring have ceased, and the earth fissuring is closely linked to the land subsidence. A bedrock ridge and a river course are underlying porous Quaternary sediments beneath the earth fissure. The formation of the earth fissure is the result of a combination of factors, including spatial and temporal variations in strata compression, rugged bedrock terrain, and the heterogeneity of the strata profile. Land subsidence is primarily attributed to the deep pumping aquifer and its adjacent aquitards, which are responsive to groundwater recovery with a time lag of a decade, and the land rebound accounts for 2% of the accumulated land subsidence. Estimations suggest that the depth of the earth fissure may have reached the bedrock ridge. The mechanism of the earth fissuring is the coupled effect of tension from the rotation of shallow soil strata along the bedrock ridge and shearing of strata driven by the differential compression of deep strata below the ridge level
A comparison of first year nursing students’ assessment journey at two universities; an exploratory mixed methods study
No full textDespite nursing programs needing to meet accreditation and professional standards of practice to ensure students will be eligible for registration at the completion of their program, universities have varying approaches to designing curricula and assessments within these requirements, which may impact students’ conceptions and experiences of assessments and future performance as a nurse. This study explored the conceptions and experiences of assessment of first-year nursing students from two universities with different curricula and assessment approaches. An exploratory mixed-methods study design was employed to collect data from first-year pre-registration undergraduate Bachelor of Nursing students at two universities. Two instruments were utilised: the Conceptions of Assessment (CoA), with 27 Likert scale questions, and the Assessment Experience Questionnaire (AEQ), with 28 statements rated using a five-point Likert scale. Open-ended questions explored students’ narrative responses. The CoA results revealed statistically significant results between mean rank conception scores. Students at university B had fewer positive but also fewer negative conceptions than those at University A. The median of differences between positive and negative conceptions across each university was statistically significant for both. Total assessment experience scores at University B were statistically higher than those at university A. Three themes were identified: role of assessment, students’ experience of assessment and assessment feedback. This study emphasises how differences in curricula design and approach to assessment can influence first-year nursing students’ experience of learning and assessment. This has implications for their future nursing practice as well as for educators in terms of designing and implementing assessments in future. © 2025 UCU
Tropical cyclones and wind damage
No full textThe risks caused by tropical cyclone (TC) wind hazard can vary substantially among countries, communities, and neighborhood due to different levels of their exposure and vulnerability. Even in the presence of a best-placed impact-based warning system, enduring socioeconomic inequities can make underserved groups, who often have the highest exposure to TC hazards and the fewest resources to respond, more vulnerable. Understanding the potential socioeconomic loss and damage requires not only timely impact-based warnings on TC wind hazard, but also a grasp of how the hazard will interact with changing exposures and vulnerabilities associated with social changes. In this chapter, I first provide an overview of TC wind hazard and current practices around their monitoring and warning systems. I then discuss socioeconomics of TC wind hazard in the context of both changing cyclone characteristics due to global warming and changing exposure and vulnerability due to societal changes. © 2025 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
Enhancing equity in clinical social work education : supporting indigenous queer and gender diverse students and researchers'
Full text linkFor Indigenous Australian Queer and Gender Diverse (QGD) Peoples, being acknowledged, recognised, and considered in frameworks, policies, and within organisations in the broader Australian context is rare. This article will explore some of the structures, systems, and policies that impact on Indigenous QGD peoples in Higher Education (HE). We will speak on social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) and how this knowledge may translate into clinical social work practice. We explore the ways in which HE can become conscious, motivated, and emboldened to enact clinical social workers of the future towards ultimately improving current recruitment, retention, which will contribute to individual and group change in Australia. © The Author(s) 2024
Indirect hazard evaluation by the prediction of backbreak distance in the open pit mine using support vector regression and chicken swarm optimization
Full text linkBackbreak is one of the undesirable phenomena in open-pit mines and causes several adverse hazards, such as lanslide, rock falling off and bench instability. Backbreak is influenced by many factors, such as rock properties, blasting design and local geology, so it is very difficult to assess and evaluate backbreak accurately. Therefore, controlling and accurate prediction of backbreak distance are crucial tasks to reduce hazards in open-pit mines. For this, soft computing-based techniques are considered to be an effective means, as they can integrate various sophisticated factors into a function to predict and evaluate backbreak distance. So, in this study, support vector regression (SVR) based techniques and three different types of bio-inspired meta-heuristic (BIMH) algorithms, such as chicken swarm optimization (CSO), whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and seagull optimization algorithm (SOA), are used to develop backbreak distance prediction models. The support vector regression is used as a regression tool and BIMH algorithms are used to optimize the hyper-parameters in the support vector regression. Four different types of evaluation metrics are utilized to assess the model performance, namely coefficient of determination (R2), mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and variance account for (VAF). An integrated evaluation system is adopted to provide overall performance for each backbreak prediction scenario. It can be indicated that CSO-SVR based backbreak prediction models can procure the best comprehensive performance and also show the best calculation efficiency. Detailed results include R2, VAF, MSE and MAE equal to 0.99475, 0.034, 99.477 and 0.1553 for a testing set and 0.97450, 0.1633, 97.466, and 0.1914 for a training set which can be said to be an excellent prediction result. By doing this, the hazard risk induced by backbreak can be indirectly assessed. In addition, it is also found that some superior performance can be obtained in some evaluation metrics compared with previous studies which utilized the same backbreak dataset for prediction. © 2024 The Author(s
Creating organisational working conditions where nurses can thrive : an international action research study
Full text linkBackground: Attracting and retaining sufficient numbers of nurses is an international challenge. The group most difficult to retain are newly qualified nurses within their first five years of practice or earlier. A recent US study reported that approximately 25 percent of nurses leave within the first year of graduation. Health organisations play a crucial role in providing workplace cultures where nurses feel empowered and can thrive. Research needs to focus on improving organisational culture, yet most approaches to supporting and retaining nurses have used top–down, management-designed interventions. This article describes a collaborative international programme of research. Methods: This innovative international theory-driven multi-site action research programme adopts a longitudinal co-design approach based on principles of appreciative inquiry to develop and implement organisational support for newly qualified nurses. It integrates the Institute for Health Improvement (IHI) Framework for Improving Joy at Work and the Thriving at Work model, both focused on improving the well-being of the healthcare workforce and health service outcomes. Each year, a new group of nurses during their first-year orientation is invited to participate. Over five years, each cohort will then participate in an annual survey, focus groups, and co-design meetings with nurse leaders/managers, generating new solutions developed through open dialogue for subsequent testing driven by these key stakeholders. Expected outcomes: This research will generate a new co-design management model to improve systems of support that may assist nurse retention and thriving that can be shared with other nursing organisations. It will provide an understanding of the effectiveness of current support for nurses by their employers from the perspective of those nurses whilst providing evidence about what extra support nurses would like from their employers. Conclusions: This international research programme gives agency to nurses and organisational nurse leaders/managers to co-design interventions for building positive work environments where early-career nurses can thrive. This programme will capture what works, where, how, and with whom, ultimately benefiting both individual nurses and the overall effectiveness and sustainability of healthcare systems. © 2025 by the authors
Co-occurrence of common biological and behavioral addictions : using network analysis to identify central addictions and their associations with each other
Full text linkThe present study used network analysis to examine the network properties (network graph, centrality, and edge weights) comprising ten different types of common addictions (alcohol, cigarette smoking, drug, sex, social media, shopping, exercise, gambling, internet gaming, and internet use) controlling for age and gender effects. Participants (N = 968; males = 64.3%) were adults from the general community, with ages ranging from 18 to 64 years (mean = 29.54 years; SD = 9.36 years). All the participants completed well-standardized questionnaires that together covered the ten addictions. The network findings showed different clusters for substance use and behavioral addictions and exercise. In relation to centrality, the highest value was for internet usage, followed by gaming and then gambling addiction. Concerning edge weights, there was a large effect size association between internet gaming and internet usage; a medium effect size association between internet usage and social media and alcohol and drugs; and several small and negligible effect size associations. Also, only 48.88% of potential edges or associations between addictions were significant. Taken together, these findings must be prioritized in theoretical models of addictions and when planning treatment of co-occurring addictions. Relatedly, as this study is the first to use network analysis to explore the properties of co-occurring addictions, the findings can be considered as providing new contributions to our understanding of the co-occurrence of common addictions. © The Author(s) 2023
Barriers, benefits, and enablers of acute home-based care (hospital in the home) in Australia for older people : a systematic review
Full text linkTo determine the barriers, benefits, and enablers of acute home-based care in Australia for older people (aged 65 and over). A systematic review for people aged 65 and over receiving acute home-based care in Australia was conducted using various databases (CINAHL, Medline, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Web of Science, PubMed, Informit) and citation searching in September 2023. The Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) was used to assess the quality of the evidence and a thematic analysis approach was utilized to narratively synthesize results. Ten studies were included, consisting mostly of cohort studies in metropolitan areas. Barriers included inefficacy, patient demographics, and carers. Benefits included efficacy, high satisfaction, and medical management. Enablers included education, holistic assessments, and support interventions. Within the literature there was a significant research gap regarding HITH for older people in rural areas of Australia. Patient outcomes were closely aligned with admission pathways. © The Author(s) 2024
Why should Indigenous peoples have anything to do with the western research system and who gets to decide?
No full textRecently, the Australian federal government has made several pivotal decisions that will impact Aboriginal research in the Australian context. In research, views of pedagogy, methodology, epistemology, ontology, axiology, impact, governance, and sovereignty continue to privilege and be viewed through a Eurocentric lens. This chapter discusses how Aboriginal Peoples are continually colonised and recolonised in Western research systems. We argue that whilst taking part in Western research processes, we must continue to explain, educate, re-explain, and re-educate the validity of our custodial research ethic and Aboriginal ways of valuing, knowing, doing, and being. Western research systems continue to ignore and silence our autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determination regarding our research practices, thus adding to our workload, time, energy, allostatic burden, and cultural load as Aboriginal researchers. As Aboriginal People and women, we are under-represented in these systems and continually have to pretzel ourselves to fit into a system that, for us, is broken but working for more privileged peoples (usually white and men). We contend the colonial system is working as it was designed to work - a set of systemically racist and violent processes aimed at silencing and eliminating Aboriginal women in the academy. In this chapter, we suggest some more equitable and inclusive ways forward for meaningful decolonisation and de-Westernisation in the academy and the implications this may have for social work in Australia. © The Editors and Contributing Authors Severally 2025. All rights reserved
The aquatic plant communities of the Pilbara region of Western Australia : a region of arid zone wetland diversity
No full textContext: Decision making in conservation depends on robust biodiversity data. Well-designed systematic and rigorous surveys provide consistent and taxonomically broad datasets needed for conservation planning. This is important in areas such as the Pilbara of Western Australia with extensive mining and pastoralism. The collection of biodiversity data for aquatic plants represents a major contribution to assist in conservation planning and management of the region's wetlands and rivers. Aims: We documented the diversity and major patterns in the aquatic flora of Pilbara wetlands and rivers, to provide data to inform conservation planning and manage impacts of major land uses such as mining and pastoralism. Methods: We undertook a systematic quadrat-based survey of the aquatic flora of 98 Pilbara wetlands and rivers. The full range of wetland types was sampled. Composition of charophytes and vascular aquatic plant communities were analysed against wetland permanence and water body type. Key results: A diverse aquatic flora with several novel taxa was discovered. Charophytes were a major component of the aquatic flora. Floristic composition was strongly related to wetland type and water permanence with permanent sites showing higher richness. Less permanent sites captured a distinct component of the Pilbara aquatic flora. Conclusions: The aquatic flora of the Pilbara represents a significant component of the region's biodiversity. Patterning was concordant with previous studies of the riparian plant communities and aquatic invertebrates of the region providing synergies in reserve system design and management efforts. Implications: High quality spatial biodiversity data particularly for poorly surveyed regions or biotic groups can provide major insights critical for effective conservation planning and management. © 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s))