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Mentoring our way for the future of Indigenous scholarship
No full textProfessor Tristan Kennedy examines and reflects upon the role and potential value of formal and informal mentorship for Indigenous ECRs. He highlights the collegiality and collaboration of Indigenous mentorship, but points to the current scarcity of senior Indigenous scholars which can make it more challenging to find an Indigenous mentor to help develop that next part of a career. Professor Kennedy explores the pitfalls of institutional mentorship programs which are developed by and feature non-Indigenous people, with worthwhile insights for program developers who want to support the career trajectories of Indigenous ECRs. His steadfast rebuttal of Indigenous deficiency is refreshing and should be a guide for non-Indigenous readers concerned with Indigenous career development.</p
A cross population study of retinal aging biomarkers with longitudinal pre-training and label distribution learning
Get PDFRetinal age has emerged as a promising biomarker of aging, offering a non-invasive and accessible assessment tool. We developed a deep learning model to estimate retinal age with enhanced accuracy, leveraging retinal images from diverse populations. Our approach integrates self-supervised learning to capture chronological information from both snapshot and sequential images, alongside a progressive label distribution learning module to model biological aging variability. Trained and validated on healthy cohorts (34,433 participants from the UK Biobank and three Chinese cohorts), the model achieved a mean absolute error of 2.79 years, surpassing previous methods. When applied to broader populations, analysis of the retinal age gap—the difference between retina-predicted and chronological age—revealed associations with increased risks of all-cause mortality and multiple age-related diseases. These findings highlight the potential of retinal age as a reliable biomarker for predicting survival and aging outcomes, supporting targeted risk management and precision health interventions.</p
An evidence-based digital prescription opioid safety toolkit for national dissemination:co-design and user testing
Get PDFIntroduction: Australia has one of the highest rates of opioid prescribing and prescription opioid-related harm in the world. Although effective for pain relief, the use of prescription opioids is a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Barriers exist for consumers identifying their own risk factors, accessing naloxone (opioid overdose antidote) and overdose prevention education. This study aimed to co-design a digital Opioid Safety Toolkit for national dissemination through pharmacies to encourage three consumer opioid safety behaviours: (1) uptake of naloxone, (2) creating a safety plan, and (3) discussing their use of opioids, including any concerns with their healthcare professional. Methods: The digital Toolkit was co-designed and developed using a novel approach to digital health intervention design combining the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and Double-Diamond design process. Co-design involved a series of seven iterative workshops with consumers (4) and professionals (3). Workshops focused on identifying factors influencing opioid safety behaviours, exploring design preferences, sense-checking, and ideation of the user flow. User testing was conducted with the penultimate version of the Toolkit. Results: 13 consumers with lived experience of prescription opioid use and 14 professionals including prescribers, pharmacists, pain specialists, researchers and consumer advocates participated in up to three separate workshops. 15 consumers participated in user testing interviews. Analysis of workshops identified factors promoting safety behaviours including increased public awareness of naloxone, understanding personal risk (TDF domain of Knowledge); healthcare professional's role in education and consumers' experience of stigma (Social/professional role and identity); use of conversational aids to scaffold conversations, material resources and data ownership (Environment, context and resources). User testing elicited feedback pertaining to the information and resources on the website and the overall user interface and experience. Discussion: The Toolkit was co-designed with consumers and professionals to facilitate opioid safety behaviours. The Toolkit includes evidence-based information, tools for risk assessment and screening, opioid use monitoring, conversation aids, and a safety plan. The Toolkit is being disseminated nationally through Australian pharmacies following a randomized controlled trial that demonstrated the Toolkit promotes safety behaviours, is easy to use and acceptable to those with lived experience of prescription opioid use and professionals.</p
The bright side of the GDPR:welfare-improving privacy management
Get PDFWe study the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)’s opt-in requirement in a model with a firm that provides a digital service and consumers who are heterogeneous in their valuations of the firm’s service and the privacy costs incurred when sharing personal data with the firm. We show that the GDPR boosts demand for the service by allowing consumers with high privacy costs to buy the service without sharing data. The increased demand leads to a higher price but a smaller quantity of shared data. If the firm’s revenue is largely usage based rather than data based, then both the firm’s profit and consumer surplus increase after the GDPR, implying that the GDPR can be welfare improving. But if the firm’s revenue is largely from data monetization, then the GDPR can reduce the firm’s profit and consumer surplus.</p
Education quality and energy poverty:evidence from Chinese elite universities
No full textUsing China’s higher education expansion as a natural experiment, we examine the causal effect of education quality on the proclivity to be in energy poverty. We find that education causes a reduction in the likelihood of being in energy poverty and that the point estimates are largest for those that attended elite universities, followed by those who attended non-elite universities and colleges. This finding is robust to alternative ways of measuring energy poverty, as well as a series of sensitivity checks. We find that cognitive ability, employment status, generalised trust and income mediate the relationship between education and energy poverty
How is remittance related to prices and output? New evidence from Fiji's data
Get PDFThis article uses a dynamic macroeconomic model to analyze how remittances affect Fijian prices and output. We find that remittance growth enhances price factor growth and decreases inflation using time-series data. Remittance increase also hurts output factor growth, which has major economic effects. Due to Fiji's particular reliance on remittances, single-country analysis is needed to explain macroeconomic dynamics. We integrate remittances into a business cycle framework and simulate their effects on prices and output to add to the research and inform fiscal and monetary policy in remittance-dependent nations.</p
Aphantasia and the unconscious imagery hypothesis
No full textUntil recently, mental imagery has largely been regarded as an exclusively conscious phenomenon. However, recent empirical results suggest that mental imagery can also occur unconsciously. People who report having no experiences of mental imagery often perform similar to controls on behavioural tasks thought to require imagery. A surprising number of them also display significant levels of imagery-based priming, and recent neural decoding studies have shown that imagery-related information is being processed in their visual cortex. However, investigating unconscious imagery empirically is not straightforward. One challenge is to establish that imagery is genuinely unconscious as opposed to merely going unreported due to response biases. Another is to clarify how imagistic and indirect perceptual processing needs to be to qualify as imagery. In this paper, we take a closer look at the evidence for unconscious imagery, argue that it is not as compelling as it initially appears, and outline a strategy for advancing research on this question.</p
Mandated media innovation impacts on knowledge dissemination in workplace training
No full textThis conceptual paper examines voluntary versus mandatory cloud-based training, generating recommendations to harmonise the complementarity of face-to-face and online media in future careers. Technological change was already accelerating when the COVID-19 pandemic response turbocharged transformations of knowledge dissemination in training, thus impacting learning and competency development for the future. The methodology applies comprehensive, structured literature review following PRISMA guidelines with development of a novel conceptual framework illuminating facets of knowledge dissemination. Exploring the context of workplace training and the future of careers with aid of NVivo it was found that altered social cues in cloud training are generating changes in learner attention span, engagement, and peer-to-peer interaction, potentially increasing contract cheating. It is hence recommended that stakeholders demarcate theoretical and practical learning outcomes to develop hybrid cloud media and face-to-face knowledge dissemination to accentuate professional accreditation requirements, engagement and etiquette in virtual spaces, and improve understanding of work-home balance.</p
Forms of agency enacted by international Ph.D. holders in Australia and Ph.D. returnees in China to negotiate employability
Get PDFThe notion of agency has been widely used in various disciplines but is relatively new in the field of employability of international graduates and returnees. This discussion paper addresses this gap by unpacking the determinants that influence the enactment of agency of international Ph.D. graduates in Australia and Ph.D. returnees in China. In essence, the key determinants in Australia include permanent residency, high expectations and discrimination from some local employers, and the development of multiple identities of international Ph.D. graduates. In contrast, the signifiers in China are Ph.D. returnees’ residency status, work experience, and the social networks that they establish with the authorities in organisations. To navigate these determinants, international Ph.D. graduates in Australia often enact three forms of agency: essential needs-response agency, structure-navigating agency, and strengths-based agency, whereas Ph.D. returnees in China are engaged with two forms of agency including extreme structure-navigating agency and social capital-based agency.</p