Monash University Research Portal
Not a member yet
41460 research outputs found
Sort by
Energy policy distractions to renewable programs:a comparative assessment
No full textThis article reviews renewable energy programs and policies as a result of the resurgence in demand for fossil fuels. Australia and selected countries are considered through the lens of energy justice. The range of countries evidence a resurgence in demand for fossil fuels, such as coal and gas, in the wake of disruptive global events. For example, the war in Ukraine, Middle East conflicts and pandemics such as COVID, can be seen as major global disruptors of renewable energy policies and projects. While Australia’s renewable energy in contrast to non-renewable energy is the focus, a mix of selected countries are chosen as comparators. The selected countries capture how governments are navigating the fiscal/economic, political and environmental tensions between renewable and non-renewable energy sources, policies, programs and laws. The two research questions ask ‘What current and proposed policy and laws address the energy justice economic, environmental and political aspects of the climate-related transition plans to renewable energy?’ as well as ‘Can the mix of non-renewable and renewable energy resources be quantitively ranked against economic, political and environmental pressures?’ The first question adopts the method of desktop research, conducted to produce policy and legislation data that are linked together with the qualitative method of narrative. For instance, the Australian legislative focus will be taxation law. For the second question, a quantitative method using the ‘energy justice metric’ is adopted. In particular, the research builds and adapts the parameters of the energy justice metric for all comparator countries. The results are plotted on a ternary phase diagram. The highlights of this article include the raising of awareness of energy policy distractions to renewable programs as a result of the resurgence in demand for fossil fuels, such as coal and gas, in the wake of disruptive global events. The essence of the article points towards how energy justice principles can enable resilience in policy decisions despite these disruptor issues and countries can continue to move towards a just transition to a low carbon economy
Diverging Assessment:A Student Perspective
No full textDiverging assessment maintains a common question set for all students but varies the input data so that each student has a unique problem to solve. It is an approach in student assessment that offers a unique and authentic learning experience. Although such assessments have been implemented in computing courses, their effectiveness and students' perceptions in different contexts remain unexplored. In this paper, we investigate student perspectives on diverging assessment. We surveyed students in four courses across three different universities. Each surveyed student was enrolled in one of the four courses on networking, operation systems, digital forensics or ethical hacking. Each course featured at least one diverging assessment. The students' overall perceptions about diverging assessments and three different aspects of diverging assessment, namely authenticity, assessment-as-learning, and academic integrity, are surveyed, reported, and analyzed.</p
Navigating ethical challenges in generative AI-enhanced research:the ETHICAL framework for responsible generative AI use
No full textThe rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in research presents both opportunities and ethical challenges that should be carefully navigated. Although GenAI tools can enhance research efficiency by automating tasks such as literature reviews and data analysis, their use raises concerns about aspects including data accuracy, privacy, bias, and research integrity. This paper proposes the ETHICAL framework, which is a practical guide for responsible GenAI use in research. Employing a multi-stage single case study design, we examine multiple GenAI tools in real research contexts to develop the ETHICAL framework, which consists of seven key principles: Examine policies and guidelines, Think about social impacts, Harness understanding of the technology, Indicate use, Critically engage with outputs, Access secure versions, and Look at user agreements. Applying these principles will enable researchers to uphold research integrity while leveraging the benefits of GenAI. The framework addresses a critical gap between awareness of ethical issues and practical action steps, providing researchers with concrete guidance for ethical GenAI integration. This work has implications for research practice, institutional policy development, and the broader academic community as researchers adapt to an AI-enhanced research landscape. The ETHICAL framework can also serve as a foundation for developing AI literacy in academia and promoting responsible GenAI adoption in research settings
LLM Reading Tea Leaves:Automatically Evaluating Topic Models with Large Language Models
No full textTopic modeling has been a widely used tool for unsupervised text analysis. However, comprehensive evaluations of a topic model remain challenging. Existing evaluation methods are either less comparable across different models (e.g., perplexity) or focus on only one specific aspect of a model (e.g., topic quality or document representation quality) at a time, which is insufficient to reflect the overall model performance. In this paper, we propose WALM (Word Agreement with Language Model), a new evaluation method for topic modeling that considers the semantic quality of document representations and topics in a joint manner, leveraging the power of Large Language Models (LLMs). With extensive experiments involving different types of topic models, WALM is shown to align with human judgment and can serve as a complementary evaluation method to the existing ones, bringing a new perspective to topic modeling. Our software package is available at https://github.com/Xiaohao-Yang/Topic_Model_Evaluation.</p
A configural approach to leadership using latent profile analysis:a key to addressing construct proliferation
No full textIn this paper we explore a configural perspective of leadership. From this configural perspective, leadership is not conceptualized or modelled as distinct styles, but rather provides a way to encompass a broad range of leadership approaches arising from the co-occurrence of the same underlying leadership behaviours. As initial support of our theorizing, in two samples, an online sample from the United States (n = 1025) and an organizational sample from The Netherlands (n = 193), we found that the profiles emerging from our data could be mapped onto existing leadership styles. These promising initial results indicate the potential of a configural approach to leadership–which we theorize in our discussion section. We suggest that more attention should be devoted to developing and studying a taxonomy of leader behaviour categories, and subsequently how they combine, rather than siloed leadership styles. Applying a configural approach such as this addresses the construct redundancy and proliferation problems in leadership research.</p
<i>Avengers assemble!</i> When digital piracy increases box office demand
No full textWe show how the content of information goods changes the substitutability or complementarity effects of copyright infringement. Leveraging the quasi-random timing of the appearance of a high-quality pirated movie after its release in-theaters, alongside an instrumental-variables approach, we find that digital piracy complements box-office revenue for “spectacle”-oriented films, where the value of the good is linked to in-theater viewing. For “story”-oriented films, where the value is inherent—unenhanced by in-theater viewing—piracy displaces sales. Our findings suggest the value of creative content is linked to its distribution context, with relevance for commercialization and value capture strategies in creative industries with experience-goods properties.</p
A systematic evaluation and comparison of the consistency of infant safer sleep messaging in Australia
No full textTo reduce the occurrence of sudden infant death, organisations have created recommendations about infant safer sleep and shared sleep. With the considerable volume of documents, consistency in messaging is paramount to reduce caregiver confusion and to reduce engagement in practices deemed to be unsafe for their infant. This review aimed to systematically compare documents that contain recommendations on infant safer sleep, including shared sleep, in Australia. Documents were identified by researchers with subject matter expertise, and through a systematic webpage search. A total of n = 32 eligible documents were included from n = 26 organisations. If an organisation had a separate document for shared sleeping, both documents were included and reviewed together. Consistency of recommendations were evaluated against the recommendations within the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death’s (ISPID)‘s guidelines, while the approach taken to discuss shared sleep from via Risk Minimisation vs. Risk Elimination was also evaluated using a coding framework. No organisation’s document/s contradicted ISPID’s guidelines, although there was variation in the quantity included. The approaches taken towards shared sleep by organisations were diverse between Risk Elimination and Risk Minimisation. Strategies to engage in safer shared sleep were provided by less than half of the organisations, as was the acknowledgement of familial, cultural, or logistical preferences for shared sleep, or that shared sleep may also occur unintentionally. Most organisations recommended that infants be breastfed but did not discuss the bi-directional link between breastfeeding and shared sleeping. Organisations need to provide consistent messaging on infant safer sleep to avoid public confusion. The adoption of a Risk Minimisation approach with clearer messaging provides considerations for informed choice, and strategies for safer shared sleeping; intentional or unintentional.</p
Italian adaptation of the no-mobile-phone-phobia questionnaire:factorial validity with the ESEM technique and population-based cut-off scores
No full textNomophobia is a multifaceted phenomenon characterized by fear and anxiety when individuals feel disconnected from their technological environment. Its assessment remains difficult due to limited tools and lack of empirically supported cut-off points. This study aimed to contribute to the Italian validation of the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q), testing a four-factor structure and establishing normative data by age and gender. Data were collected from 1447 participants. Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) assessed different factorial configurations. A bifactor ESEM (B-ESEM) with a four-factor solution showed the best fit (CFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.94; RMSEA = 0.06), offering a more accurate representation than the three-factor model. Scores were computed for the 1st and the 99th percentile and for each ventile; the 80th and 95th percentiles indicate risk and presence of nomophobia, respectively. Females scored highest across age groups, while older adults reported the lowest levels. These findings support the NMP-Q’s reliability and use in the Italian context.</p
Agentic imagination in joint play in a home setting
No full textThere is a growing body of study advocating young children’s agency in play and care. Yet little attention has been directed towards addressing how to extend children’s agency to develop a meaningful learning experience for them in a family setting. We used a cultural-historical theoretical framework to investigate six infant-toddlers’ engagement in play and learning at home and early learning centres over a 7-month period. We applied the wholeness approach (Hedegaard, Studying children: A cultural-historical approach, Open University Press, 2008) to interpret the infant-toddlers’ play and their engagement with peers and adults. This approach considers the children’s perspectives, including their body language, gestures, choices, initiatives and movements, and the adults’ pedagogical choices, positioning and demands in play. Visual narrative analysis (Ridgway et al., Video J Educ Pedagogy 1:1–18, 2016) enabled us to capture and map the toddlers’ interactive patterns, non-verbal language and embodied movements and intentions in the play activity settings. Drawing on visual narrative methodology, cultural-historical concepts of imagination and agency were applied to explore El’s, a 21-month-old boy, joint truck play with his parents before dinner time in a home activity setting. The toddler’s agency and how he developed agentic imagination within the joint play under the support of his parents is discussed here. The study argues that adults need to acknowledge toddlers’ agency and motives in play while meeting parents’ demands. The focus child, El, used gesture and simple words to express his intention in continuing joint truck play, although his father explained to El that it was time for dinner and his father was getting tired of continually pushing the truck. In such a conflict, what can adults do to support the child’s intentions and meet adults’ demands? This problem gives rise to a pedagogical intention to think about how to sustain and afford children’s agency in play, thus addressing the conflict when the adults’ demands do not align with the child’s initiative in play. We argue agentic imagination can be a solution to sustain children’s play and meet adults’ agenda.</p
Shareholder litigation rights, CEO turnover, and board monitoring
No full textWe investigate how shareholder litigation rights impact CEO turnover decisions and board oversight. We exploit an unexpected court ruling that increased hurdles for shareholders of Ninth Circuit firms to initiate securities class action lawsuits. After the ruling, the sensitivity of forced CEO turnover to performance decreases for firms in the Ninth Circuit. Additionally, board independence declines and directors of Ninth Circuit firms attend fewer meetings and hold more external board positions after the decision. These effects are exacerbated in firms that lack monitoring from institutional shareholders. For firms dependent on shareholder litigation, the reduction in litigation rights was economically significant and led to a 9.72 % decline in firm value.</p