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Interstate dialogues : chronicles of rhythms of time and the art of self-care of a mobile academic
No full textIn this duo-ethnography, we as two scholars and close friends embark on a reflective journey as one transitions to a new job interstate, marking a significant shift in their collaboration and daily lives. Moving from Melbourne, Victoria, to Perth, Western Australia, dubbed as one of the most remote cities globally, we navigate the impact of this change on our friendship, work dynamics, and time utilization. Our writing serves as a live reflection, akin to a diary bound by the first three months or 11 working weeks from October to December 2023, capturing the essence of this transitional period and its profound effect on their perception of time and sense of wellbeing. Embracing dialogical writing as a methodological approach, we depart from traditional academic structures, exploring the rhythms of our new environment, the formation of habits, and the cultivation of collaborations, inviting readers to join in our raw exploration of creating spaces for self-care and wellbeing within academia. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Sharon McDonough and Narelle Lemo. All rights reserved
Mental health and religiosity in older latin american immigrants living in Australia
Get PDFAgeing in a non-native land brings numerous challenges that may complicate adaptation and health for older Latin American immigrants in Australia. While religiosity emerges as a protective factor for mental health, there is scarce research focused on exploring the multifaceted dimensions of religiosity in this population. As part of a broad Constructivist Grounded Theory study, the aim of this qualitative descriptive analysis was to explore and understand this population’s religious practices and experiences, focusing on the impact on their mental health. Following ethical approval, 23 Spanish-speaking Latin American immigrants aged 60 and older living in Australia were interviewed. Data analysis was performed on a constant comparative basis and concurrent with data collection to understand the findings. Three key categories were identified: “Being involved in religious groups and communities,” “Connecting with God,” and “Changing how one lives one’s faith.” Regardless of their religious practices, all participants engaged in social activities that helped them integrate into their communities. Several barriers to religious practices were identified. The findings add to the field of religiosity as a protective factor in older Latin American immigrants’ mental health. Future research should identify barriers to religious practices and targeted interventions. © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Educational leadership during a time of war in Ukraine
No full textPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how two educational leaders are leading their school communities during a time of war in Ukraine. Design/methodology/approach: Through the use of narratives, two of the co-authors of this paper explore the tensions and opportunities they have encountered, and continue to encounter, as educational leaders during a time of war in Ukraine. Particular emphasis is placed upon how the two co-authors are responding in contextually sensitive and productive ways to build a sense of safety and community in their schools. Findings: The two narratives in this paper demonstrate both leaders displaying a proclivity for building and sustaining collaborative and networked practices to build a sense of safety, stability and belonging for all members of their respective school communities. Originality/value: This paper offers international insights into school leadership, at all times but especially during the current state of war in Ukraine. © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited
End(e) games : adapting Michael Ende’s fantasy novel Momo for the stage as an experiential learning activity; offering scope for dialogic pedagogy, synergies of creative practice and improved educational outcomes post-pandemic
No full textExploring general practitioners’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards e-cigarette use/vaping in children and adolescents: a pilot cross-sectional study in Sydney
Get PDF(1) Background: The increasing use of e-cigarettes/vaping in children and adolescents has been recognised as a global health concern. We aim to explore the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of General Practitioners (GPs) in Sydney regarding the use of e-cigarettes in children and adolescents and identify the barriers to addressing this issue. (2) Methods: This pilot study was a cross-sectional study conducted using an electronic questionnaire with a Likert scale and free-text responses. (3) Results: Fifty-three GPs participated in the study (male = 24 and female = 29) with a mean age of 50 ± 5.5 years. There was strong agreement (mean 4.5) about respiratory adverse effects and addictive potential. However, there was less awareness of cardiac side effects and the occurrence of burns. There is a lack of conversation about e-cigarettes in GP practice and a deficit of confidence in GPs regarding managing e-cigarette use in children and adolescents. (4) Conclusions: Our pilot study has shown that GPs are somewhat knowledgeable about the potential adverse effects of the use of e-cigarettes in children and adolescents, though there is a lack of knowledge of the complete spectrum of adverse effects and more importantly, there is a paucity of a structured approach to discuss the use of e-cigarettes with children and adolescents, and there is a low level of confidence in addressing these issues. There is a need for educational interventions for GPs to increase awareness of the potential adverse effects of using e-cigarettes and build confidence in providing management to children and adolescents regarding the use of e-cigarettes. © 2024 by the authors
Ranking of modified early warning score using a novel pattern matching technique for continuous patient monitoring
Get PDFRemote Patient Monitoring (RPM) applications deploy sensors, fog, edge and cloud technologies to monitor diverse patients' health continuously. However, RPM is challenging, particularly when patients' signs are continually monitored due to difficulties in data stream visualisation, dealing with missing data and generating alerts. The thesis advances a systematic approach for alarm generation, a novel pattern-matching method for vital signs data, ranking of the patterns and sophisticated pre-processing methods as solutions to these problems. The main objective of these contributions is to improve patient care using emerging RPM applications. The thesis's initial contribution (1) involves a thorough examination of the RPM application challenges, primarily on the causes of false-positive alerts during continuous monitoring of patients. Usually, sensors in healthcare are susceptible and produce numerous alerts to identify any possible deterioration of health conditions, which tend to make numerous false positive alarms, leading to alarm fatigue. Based on the identified causes, (2) the thesis proposed an approach to provide a systematic framework for creating effective alarm generators, emphasising physiological data, clinical settings, medical sensor devices, and clinical knowledge. Data integrity is crucial in healthcare, and the widespread use of wearable sensors in RPM has produced significant health data. However, the effectiveness of analytical health data models is compromised by the missing data values, noise, and inconsistencies that frequently appear in health data. The thesis (3) contributes health data pre-processing techniques to manage these obstacles and offers quality data for trustworthy health data analysis. The acquisition of health data presents difficulties for continuous RPM, which could result in transmission errors. The thesis (4) contributes a unique computation pattern-matching method to determine patient risk. Data from a clinical field trial is used to assess the proposed technique, which shows that it can detect and forecast missing patterns comparable to machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, the thesis acknowledges the intricacy of incorporating physiological data obtained from wearable sensors into RPM. The focus is on continuously monitoring vital signs, blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen, and respiratory rate. One of the thesis's significant (5) contributions is the derived continuous vital signs sematic parameters known as Trust, Frequency, Slope, and Trend from the raw physiological RPM data readings. A practical clinical tool for quickly recognising and evaluating a patient's vital signs decline is the Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS), which standardises alerts for clinical intervention. The derived parameters and the standard MEWS support better-informed clinical decisions by improving data representation and enabling automated assessment of prioritised alerts. This thesis underscores the potential for enhancing RPM technology in various healthcare settings. By addressing issues such as false alarms, data quality, and data representation, the research aims to improve patient care and clinical decision-making, aligning with its primary objective.Doctor of Philosoph
The influence of patients’ beliefs about medicines and the relationship with suboptimal medicine use in community-dwelling older adults : a systematic review of quantitative studies
Get PDFBackground: Medication use in older adults is increasing, therefore, reducing the risk of suboptimal medicine use is imperative in achieving optimal therapeutic outcomes. Research suggests that factors such as personal beliefs and beliefs about medicines may be associated with non-adherence and inappropriate medicine use. Aim: To systematically review and identify quantitative research on the influence of beliefs about medicines and the relationship with suboptimal medicine use in older adults. Method: Searches were conducted on PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO for quantitative studies (inception to March 2023). Inclusion criteria: (1) exposure: participants’ beliefs (personal, cultural, and medication-related), (2) outcomes: polypharmacy, potentially inappropriate medicines use, or non-adherence, and (3) participants: community-dwelling adults 65 years or above. Study selection, data extraction and quality appraisal (Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal checklist) were completed independently by two investigators. Data were combined in a narrative synthesis and presented in a summary of findings table. Results: Nineteen articles were included: 15 cross-sectional and four cohort studies. Outcomes of included papers were as follows; adherence (n = 18) and potentially inappropriate medicine use (n = 1). Ten studies found stronger beliefs in the necessity of medicines and/or fewer concerns led to better adherence, with one paper contradicting these findings. Three studies did not find associations between adherence and beliefs. One study confirmed an association between unnecessary drug use and a lack of belief in a "powerful other" (e.g. doctor). Conclusion: Further investigation is necessary to (1) ascertain the importance of necessity or concern beliefs in fostering adherence and, (2) examine the influence of beliefs on polypharmacy and inappropriate medicine use. © The Author(s) 2024
Nature, significance, and the human perspective : refusing the choice between scientism and posthumanism
Get PDFThis paper criticises contemporary posthumanist theories of anthropocentrism by reading an early essay by Bertrand Russell alongside work by Rosi Braidotti and Jane Bennett. It argues that, despite appearances, scientism and posthumanism share key commitments in common, such that clarifying the problems with which Russell struggles regarding nature and significance can illuminate symmetrical problems in posthumanism. Against these alternatives, the paper draws on insights from Bernard Williams, contemporary Hegelian philosophy, and J. J. Gibson’s work on animal agency to sketch a picture of what it means to take a human perspective. It is the perspective of one species among others, with a particular evolutionary history; it is also the perspective of a species that, because of certain developments in that history, knows itself as such. That opens us to forms of answerability to the world that do not touch the lives of unselfconscious animals. Some critics of the theoretical discourse on anthropocentrism have argued that taking a human perspective is morally unobjectionable. This paper goes further: it is necessary for grasping our relation to the rest of nature and so our responsibilities for it. © The Author(s) 2024
Towards a pedagogy for noticing : piloting a novel intervention for health professions students
Get PDFTeaching students to ‘notice’ what is happening around them, to be more attuned to what is going on within themselves, and nurturing self-inquiry into one’s practice is desirable yet difficult to achieve. We sought to teach the metacognitive skill of ‘noticing’ to pre-registration health professions students in the context of interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP). A three-part curriculum was designed: an e-module focused on ‘noticing’ in IPCP; a team-based workplace learning observation and interprofessional debrief; and a written reflective assignment. We found that students concentrated on the disciplinary content of IPCP in the assignments, which ‘overshadowed’ the metacognitive content. We learned that: we had underestimated the challenges of retrofitting new content into existing curricula; that we had not paid enough attention to students’ perceptions about what they want to learn; and working with a large and diverse group of educators requires adequate preparation. The next iteration of this program will improve the constructive alignment between learning outcomes and assessments and provide better support for educators. In the future we will temper decisions to act quickly to implement curricular innovations. More broadly, we suggest that educational design that seeks to take account of qualitatively different but intersecting knowledge domains, such as IPCP and ‘noticing’, is worthy of further study. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Resiliency assessment and enhancement of renewable dominated edge of grid under high-impact low-probability events - a review
No full textThis research presents a detailed review of high-impact low-probability (HILP) events, like wildfires, earthquakes, windstorms, and floods, which have the potential to cause major damage to power systems. These events are inevitable and hard to predict. Moreover, the uncertainties arising from distributed renewable energy resources can decrease the effectiveness of conventional techniques that aim to enhance the power grid reliability against extreme events. This paper aims to conduct a thorough and critical evaluation of existing practices in modeling extreme events, system components, and system responses, all aiming to improve resiliency. This review serves as a crucial basis for developing modelling techniques that are not only comprehensive and accurate but also computationally efficient. Initially, the paper examines existing technologies used to model the spread of extreme events. Subsequently, it explores various approaches utilized to model the impact of these extreme events on power system components and responses. Additionally, the research addresses the gaps and challenges associated with current modeling approaches and proposes potential solutions to overcome these limitations. © 2024 IEEE