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Gallium doped AlP monolayers: A promising architecture for gas sensing
No full textHarmful gases like CO2, SO, CO, SO2, and H2S can lead to serious environmental issues, making the development of effective sensors for their detection essential. This study used density functional theory (DFT)-based first-principles calculations to explore the structural, electronic, optical, and gas-sensing properties of a Ga-doped AlP monolayer towards the selected common pollutants, such as CO2, SO, CO, SO2, and H2S. Van der Waals corrected simulations were employed to find the most effective and sensitive sites for gas adsorption. The results revealed that SO adsorption on a Ga-doped AlP monolayer exhibited a chemical nature, unlike the physical nature observed for the other gases based on the adsorption energy values which were −0.319, −0.712, −0.110, −0.990, and -0.332 for CO2, SO2, CO, SO, and H2S gases respectively. Electron localization function (ELF) analysis of CO2, SO2, CO, and H2S on a Ga-doped AlP monolayer showed delocalized electrons in the interlayer region, indicating that there was no chemical bonding between these gas molecules and the Ga-doped AlP monolayer. Moreover, the adsorption processes were found to affect the optical properties of a Ga-doped AlP monolayer. Overall, the results highlight the promising potential of a Ga-doped AlP monolayer as a gas sensor for the studied gases
Teaching entomology online: Challenges, benefits and examples of effective hands-on activities
No full textTraditionally, teaching entomology to undergraduate students has relied upon conventional laboratory-style practical classes—where students are taught how to collect, identify and curate specimens, as well as understand the form and function of key insect groups using unsophisticated but specialised equipment. Entomology educators had to promptly adapt their methods of teaching in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the online delivery of courses that often largely relied on face-to-face teaching. This imposed limitations on what could be effectively taught outside of a lab setting, although in many cases these were mitigated through online technology that introduced opportunities to support entomology students. Here, we assess the learning objectives of a range of current entomology courses taught namely in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, the United States and Europe. We found that practical hands-on skills, such as identification and curation, and understanding of insect morphology and diversity, often taught via lab activities, are common across many courses. Given the perceived tension between current moves to online educational delivery and these common practical learning objectives in entomology, we present a series of four activities that can be taught via online or distance approaches. These exercises can be used to effectively teach key concepts and skills such as identification, form and function and ecological research skills related to insects. We also discuss some challenges and benefits associated with the online delivery of entomology courses, emphasising a number of equity and accessibility benefits that online approaches might deliver
Innovation in SMEs: the role of flexible work arrangements and market competition
No full textEmployee wellbeing is vital for their job satisfaction and motivation to achieve the long-term goals of their employers. Organisations provide flexible work arrangements (FWAs) as one of the strategies for attending to employee wellbeing. Despite the motivating role of FWAs, their links with firm level innovation are rarely considered. This study examines the relationships between FWAs and innovation. It also investigates how the competitive environment in which firms operate moderates the FWA-innovation relationship. Drawing upon a rich longitudinal data of 1513 Australian SMEs, our findings suggest that provision of flexitime and flexi-leave encourage innovation as they provide the mental space and diversity needed for knowledge creation, sharing and exploitation. Moreover, high market competition has limited effect on the positive associations between flexitime and flexi-leave, as FWAs, and innovation but attenuates the relationship between job-sharing and innovation. Our findings imply that SME managers should prioritize the provisions of flexitime and flexi-leave to their employees as these FWAs have pronounced effects on firm-level innovation
Detecting and classifying eco-anxiety: development of clinical cut-of scores for the climate change anxiety scale
No full textBackground Climate change anxiety, that is worry and fear in relation to the awareness of the impacts of climate change, is widely observed around the world. Some evidence suggests that while climate change anxiety can, at times, be adaptive, a growing body of research has reported that climate change anxiety is also related to a range of negative mental health outcomes and psychological distress. Currently, however, there is limited ability to assess for elevated levels of climate change anxiety and to identify those who may need support. The present study, therefore, aimed to develop clinical cut-of scores on a measure of climate change anxiety.Methods A largely representative sample of Australian young adults (aged 16–25 years) completed measures of psychological distress (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21) and the Climate Change Anxiety Scale. Markers of clinically meaningful psychological distress – elevated depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms—were used to classify cases. Receiver Operating Characteristics analyses were performed to assess the predictive ability of the indicators of psychological distress (mild, moderate, severe, and extremely severe thresholds of anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms) for detecting climate change anxiety and to ascertain optimal cut-of scores. Results The Area Under the Curve was acceptable to moderate for detecting climate change anxiety across all analyses. Across symptom severity thresholds and markers of psychological distress, based on consideration of balancing sensitivity and specifcity, results consistently suggested that a cut-score of 21 was indicative of mild-moderate climate change anxiety, with a cut-of score of 23 indicating severe-extremely severe climate change anxiety.Conclusions The proposed cut-ofs can feasibly be used to identify those with elevated climate change anxiety. Use of these cut-of scores can inform research as well as be used to guide screening, assessment, and inform clinical practice. Results also highlight a high rate of climate change anxiety in young adults
Molecular genetics and Development of Reagents for Ovine Mx2
No full textIntroduction: Mx genes belong to a family of dynamin-like large GTPases with intrinsic antiviral activities. These interferon-induced genes, have been identified as important components of the intracellular antiviral repertoire of mammalian cells, playing a significant role in the innate immune response. While the antiviral properties of human and mouse Mx proteins towards a wide range of viruses are well established, information regarding the function of sheep Mx proteins remains limited. Hypothesis and aims:The focus of this dissertation was to analyse genetic variation in the ovine Mx2 gene and to develop molecular tools which can be utilised in exploring the expression and localisation of the ovine Mx2 protein. It was hypothesised that ovine Mx2 protein exhibits potent antiviral activities in Australian Merino sheep population and the allelic variations within the Mx2 gene impact the antiviral efficacy of the Mx2 protein. It was also hypothesised that molecular probes which recognise ovine Mx2 protein can be generated and their specificity for Mx2 validated in multiple assays. Results: Sequence analysis revealed several previously identified SNPs within the promoter region, 3‘UTR, intergenic region and coding region of ovine Mx2 gene, including a nonsense SNP (W166*). Additionally, the analysis revealed six novel SNPs (Gln 177 His, Gln 178 His, Glu 184 Lys, Glu 184 Gln, Arg 190 His and an intergenic SNP at location 1:284841709) that had not been identified previously. The W166* mutation introduces a stop codon that potentially induces a putative N-terminal truncated 18.2 kDa Mx2 protein with unknown function. The SNPs within the promoter region (rs398952033 and rs421369730) and within the 3’UTR (rs1091765347, rs421460099 and rs605729076), are expected to affect the gene expression level and mRNA stability respectively. Phage display technology was used to develop probes that recognised the N-terminal truncated ovine Mx2 protein. Employing these probes in plate-based binding assay, revealed specific binding of the probes to the target molecules. Using the same probes, the subcellular localisation of ovine Mx2 protein in primary ovine fibroblast cultures was determined to be primarily cytoplasmic, suggesting that the ovine Mx2 protein mainly combats the viruses that replicate in the cytoplasm. However, the western blot and flow cytometry did not confirm the specific binding of the phage probes to the Mx2 antigens. Conclusions: The identified coding region SNPs are expected to affect the structure and the function of ovine Mx2 protein and therefore, sheep bearing the SNPs may be more susceptible to certain viral infections. Although the phage probes were shown to successfully bind the target Mx2 proteins in 96-well plate binding assays and immunocytochemistry, these probes bound to multiple non-Mx2 targets in western blots and flow cytometry. This lack of specificity was not unexpected given the high homology of the N-terminal domain of ovine Mx2 to other ovine proteins. Hence, future research will be required to optimise the experiment conditions for using these N-terminal Mx2 directed phage probes with assays such as immunoprecipitation, co-immunoprecipitation, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays
A new Australian development in trade marks and online infringement: The 'Mantra' case
No full textThe Federal Court's recent decision in 'Mantra Group v Tailly' provides an interesting illustration of how existing legal principles can be used to address the rapidly evolving area of trade mark law and online infringement. In 'Mantra', the court discussed how the internet operates within the context of trade mark infringement, whether there was use of words either substantially identical with or deceptively similar to registered trade marks in domain names and on websites, metatags and search engine keywords, inter alia. It is an important judgment as most of the case law in this area has emanated from either the United States or United Kingdom. This article will discuss the 'Mantra' case in detail, and also briefly outline some of the common types of trade mark infringement on the internet
UAVs’ Flight Control Optimization for Delivering Motion-Sensitive Blood Products
No full textThis paper proposes the rules of proper flight control and the design of an intelligent controller for the UAVs’ used for carrying blood and motion-sensitive medical equipment such as optical tubes that are used in industrial health monitors and glass vacuum tube structures. This equipment may be damaged if the device falls or vibrates. We proposed a new algorithm called UAVs’ Flight Optimization (DFO) that separates the couplings between the four main channels of the quadcopter, and in order to separate the rotational and roll motions from the yaw movement, we consider a new motion mechanism and the corresponding equations and relationships are extracted. The yaw movement of quadcopter during rotation and roll is eliminated. For this purpose, the nonlinear model of the quadcopter is extracted using Newton-Euler rules and the decision-making process is performed for this purpose to move to the desired point (target point) and the appropriate speed of the engines using the control rules. We simulated our algorithms over two controllers called proportional– integral–derivative (PID) and linear square adjusters (LQR) and compared our results against an adaptive slidingmode control algorithm. Simulation studies show that DFO has achieved minimum 91% less motion of yaw movements
Universities Australia 2017–2020 Indigenous Strategy: a meta-synthesis of the issues and challenges
No full textThe University Australia (UA) 2017–2020 Indigenous Strategy has offered Australian universities a focus that would work to increase Indigenous participation in the higher education sector in Australia. Despite the high-level involvement and detailed monitoring by Universities Australia as the sector’s peak body, Australia’s universities have not made significant progress in achieving the targets in the strategic plan. Using a meta-synthesis methodological approach, we provide an overview of published reviews and research on increasing Indigenous participation in the higher education sector in Australia, with particular reference to the three initiative foci and targets in the UA 2017–2020 Indigenous Strategy. Findings revealed that Indigenous students’ experiences at university, the shortage of Indigenous academics, and the embedment of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives are significant elements that affect the achievement of the UA targets. We conclude by discussing the implications and gaps in the existing UA strategies and offering recommendations to enable higher educator stakeholders to progress the Indigenous Strategy agenda
Diagnosis of study Urodynamics results of bladder disease based on deep learning
No full textProblems in the urinary tract can challenge the quality of life of humans, so that with proper and timely diagnosis of those problems, can be frequent urination, kidney stones and bladder stones or even prostate cancer or eliminate Prevented the kidneys from going. With the correct and quick diagnosis of the disease, the doctor can start the appropriate treatment and the patient will have a good quality of life. Today, to help doctors, artificial intelligence and computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) can play an important role, now deep learning has shown promising performance in computer vision systems [12]. However, no similar action has been taken so far, in this paper, we propose an enhanced approach for classifying diseases related to the urinary tract types using 1 dimensional convolutional neural network. A urologist clinic in Tehran, Iran, has donated the results of its research tests. We evaluate the proposed model on a benchmark dataset containing 1168 test of 3 Diseases related to the urinary tract types (Spastic Neurogenic Bladder, Neurogenic Bladder, and Flaccid Neurogenic Bladder). We have achieved 85 percent accuracy and so far no similar work has been done on this collection