University of the Sunshine Coast
USC Research Bank - University of the Sunshine CoastNot a member yet
28663 research outputs found
Sort by
Subcortical Volume Correlates of Psychological Distress in Early Adolescence
No full textThe hippocampus and amygdala have justifiably been the focus of much mental health research due to their putative roles in top-down processing control of emotion, fear, and anxiety. However, understanding the causal relationship between these regions and mental illness has been limited as current literature is lacking in the observation of neuro-structural changes preceding first episodes. Here, we report whole and sub-structural hippocampal and amygdala volume correlates of psychological distress in early adolescence. Automated hippocampal subfield and amygdala nuclei segmentation was carried out in 32 participants (12–13 years old) recruited for the Longitudinal Adolescent Brain Study (LABS) who had psychological distress scores measured by the Kessler-10. Partial correlation analyses revealed significant negative association between left whole amygdala volume and psychological distress. Sub-structure analysis revealed that smaller left hippocampal CA1 volume and left basal and accessory basal amygdala nuclei volumes were all significantly associated with higher levels of psychological distress. Four-month follow-up analysis also revealed an association between change in K10 and CA1 volume suggesting a continued relationship between this hippocampal substructure and psychological distress. Grey matter volume of subcortical sub-structures involved within the hippocampal-basolateral amygdala-prefrontal cortex loop are highly correlated and are significantly reduced in adolescents with higher levels of psychological distress, indicating these nuclei and subfields play an important role in the emergence of mental illness
Promoting sustainable and inclusive oceans management in Pacific islands through women and science
No full textThe question of how to efficiently and effectively manage ocean resources in a sustainable way has reached the forefront of discussion at an international level, but women's contributions to this process have been underestimated or unrecognized. Inclusive management plays a major role in the effective creation, use and adoption of environmental governance, necessitating efforts to measure, monitor and advance inclusivity. In many Pacific island states, there is a lack of disaggregated data collection and management to assist reliable and liable gender-responsive decision-making by national and regional authorities. This lack of information leads to unquantified female contributions and unexplored potential for women to actively contribute to sustainable ocean management as traditional leaders, researchers or science-based managers and in accordance with traditional customs, cultures and processes. This paper examines the contribution of gender-disaggregated data in both (1) effective management of natural resources and (2) measurement and monitoring of the active involvement of women in ocean management. We seek to shift the question from simply “(How) are oceans used by women?” to “How can we build a clear path towards inclusive oceans management using science?”, drawing data mainly from gender and ocean management practices in Pacific Small Island Developing States. This work also seeks to ground in reality the increasing national and international evocations about social equity and avoidance of gender discrimination. Given the existing relationships of Pacific peoples with the ocean and the emerging status of ocean science-based governance, wider integration of science and women in marine management can make an interesting and positive impact in this region
Using emerging hot spot analysis of stranding records to inform conservation management of a data-poor cetacean species
No full textConservation monitoring of highly mobile species in relatively inaccessible habitats presents a considerable challenge to wildlife biologists. Effective conservation strategies require knowledge of cetacean ecology that is often challenging and expensive to obtain. Despite their caveats, stranding data represent an underused resource to study the long-term dynamics of cetacean populations. Using long-finned pilot whale (LFPW; Globicephala melas edwardii) strandings on the New Zealand coast as a case study, we present a novel approach to demonstrate how stranding data can inform conservation management of data-poor species. A total of 8571 LFPWs stranded on the New Zealand coast within a 40-year period between January 1978 and December 2017. Overall, where sex was recorded, mass stranded adults were significantly biased towards females, while a significant male bias was observed in juveniles. Strandings occurred in all months, though significant seasonal variation was evident, with 66% of stranding events reported during austral spring and summer months (October–February). Hot spot analysis (ArcGIS) identified the majority of LFPWs stranded at Golden Bay, Great Barrier Island, Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands, with emerging hot spot analysis (ArcGIS) used to identify spatiotemporal trends. While emerging hot spot analysis revealed no significant temporal trend in the annual frequency of stranding events or numbers of individuals stranded, it did reveal a significant spatiotemporal trend, with the numbers of stranded individuals declining in areas of the Far North, Coromandel, Canterbury, Otago and the Chatham Islands, and increasing in Golden Bay and Stewart Island. When combined with other contextual information, such trends help identify the most significant clusters of LFPW strandings on the New Zealand coast, provide baseline ecological data on a poorly understood subspecies, and can be used to guide conservation management of G. m. edwardii in New Zealand waters
Three-Dimensional Technology: Evaluating the Use of Visualisation in Midwifery Education
No full textMidwifery learning and teaching resources have remained unchanged for decades. At a regional Queensland university, a 3D visualization resource was introduced in addition to books, lectures, and clinical skills laboratory sessions to enhance students' conceptual understanding of the physiological processes related to the birth of the placenta and hemostasis. Fourteen second-year midwifery students volunteered to participate in pilot evaluation. This study included an eight-item questionnaire using Likert scale rankings followed by three open-ended questions, to evaluate the 3D midwifery visualization resource (3DMVR) and its use with midwifery students. All participants believed the 3D visualization resource enabled them to gain a greater depth of understanding about the anatomy and physiology of the uterus and birth of the placenta and understanding of the processes of hemostasis. Research is needed to assess if students' learning and retention of knowledge is improved using this new technology
Time-based process mapping for lead time compression in the apparel supply chain: a case study
No full textFashion industries are highly globalized as designing, manufacturing, and selling are performed in different countries. As a result, it has a long supply chain and long lead time. Identification of value-added time through-out the supply chain is a key research area in apparel industries. This case study investigated detailed activities of thirty contracts of an apparel supply chain by considering the manufacturer as a coupling point of upstream (suppliers) and downstream (buyer). The contract frequencies were analyzed based on lead time and quantity. Each contract was analyzed using a time-based process mapping (TBPM). TBPMs of all contracts showed that overall 45% were non-value-added activities throughout the chain. It was also identified that the non-value activities were independent of the contract volume This study recommends time compression methodology to reduce the non-value-added activities by using advanced manufacturing technologies. The methodology and recommended time compression ways of this study can be applied to other supply chains
Henry Giroux’s vision of critical pedagogy: Educating social work activists for a radical democracy
No full textThe Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work traverses new territory by providing a cutting-edge overview of the work of classic and contemporary theorists, in a way that expands their application and utility in social work education and practice; thus, providing a bridge between critical theory, philosophy, and social work. Each chapter showcases the work of a specific critical educational, philosophical and/or social theorist including: Henry Giroux, Michel Foucault, Cornelius Castoriadis, Herbert Marcuse, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Joan Tronto, Iris Marion Young, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci and many others to elucidate the ways in which their key pedagogic concepts can be applied to specific aspects of social work education and practice. The text exhibits a range of research-based approaches to educating social work practitioners as agents of social change. It provides a robust and much needed, alternative paradigm to the technique-driven ‘conservative revolution’ currently being fostered by neoliberalism in both social work education and practice. The volume will be instructive for social work educators who aim to teach for social change, by assisting students to develop counter-hegemonic practices of resistance and agency, and reflecting on the pedagogic role of social work practice more widely. The volume holds relevance for both postgraduate and undergraduate/qualifying social work and human services courses around the world. [Book Synopsis
Psychological explanations
No full textWhat is crime? How much crime is there in our community? Why do people offend? How do we prevent crime? The text is written by leading Australian criminologists and aims to answer these questions.
This book is for university students (particularly suited to first-year students) and others interested in crime to the fields of criminology and criminal justice. Each chapter is written by one or more of Australia’s most widely respected authorities on criminology, lending this collection legitimacy and currency.
The contributors to this volume guide readers through contemporary research on crime and criminality from Australia and overseas. The large majority of chapters do not simply summarise current knowledge but include data from the authors’ original research, as well as offering distinctive insights and policy recommendations.
The content in the text is a blend of Australian and international research, content and context.
This text can be delivered via Revel, offering an interactive learning experience available on all devices. Revel is an additional cost and not included in the book's price. [Book Synopsis
Whose society, whose work? Seeking decolonised social work in Nepal
No full textThe Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Social Work reflects on and dissects the challenging issues confronting social work practice and education globally in the post-colonial era. By analysing how countries in the so-called developing and developed world have navigated some of the inherited systems from the colonial era, it shows how they have used them to provide relevant social work methods which are also responsive to the needs of a postcolonial setting. This is an analytical and reflexive handbook that brings together different scholars from various parts of the world – both North and South – so as to distill ideas from scholars relating to ways that can advance social work of the South and critique social work of the North in so far as it is used as a template for social work approaches in postcolonial settings. It determines whether and how approaches, knowledge-bases, and methods of social work have been indigenised and localised in the Global South in the postcolonial era. This handbook provides the reader with multiple new theoretical approaches and empirical experiences and creates a space of action for the most marginalised communities worldwide. It will be of interest to researchers and practitioners, as well as those in social work education. [Book Synopsis
Police, personality and the ability to deceive
No full textEffectiveness as an undercover operative or human source (informant) handler relies on the believability of police in fictious roles, yet the use of deception by law enforcement in covert fields of policing and criminal interviews remains relatively underexplored in the literature. Moreover, selection processes for these critical police roles do not currently include a test of deception ability. This study investigates the lie production and truth production ability of 50 Australian police officers-in-training by comparing their results on a game of deception with their personality traits as tested by the HEXACO-PI-R-100 item version, the Short-D3 and the MSCEIT. Results indicate that sex, age, dark triad traits and emotional intelligence have no relationship with either truth or lie production. HEXACO results indicate low social self-esteem was related to high lie production ability. Further research is needed to explore extraversion, social skills, and confidence as they relate to the credibility of a ‘storyteller’
Disaster-related prenatal maternal stress, and childhood HPA-axis regulation and anxiety: the QF2011 Queensland Flood Study
No full textBackground:
The fetal programming hypothesis suggests that prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) influences aspects of fetal development, such as the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) axis, enhancing susceptibility to emotional problems. No study (to our knowledge) has investigated this pathway considering development of preschool anxiety symptoms.
Using data from the Queensland Flood study (QF2011), our objective was to determine whether toddler HPA-axis functioning mediated the association between aspects of flood-related PNMS and child anxiety symptoms at 4-years, and whether relationships were moderated by the timing of the stressor in utero or by the child’s sex.
Methods:
Women, pregnant during the 2011 Queensland floods (N = 230), were recruited soon afterwards and completed questionnaires regarding their objective hardship (e.g., loss of personal property), subjective distress (post-traumatic-like symptoms) and cognitive appraisal of the disaster. At 16 months, indexes of the child’s diurnal cortisol rhythm (awakening response, total daily output, diurnal slope [N = 80]), and stress reactivity (N = 111), were obtained. At 4-years, N = 117 mothers reported on their own mood and their children’s anxiety symptoms; of these, N = 80 also had valid child cortisol reactivity data, and N = 64 had diurnal cortisol rhythm data.
Results:
A greater cortisol awakening response at 16 months mediated the relationship between subjective PNMS and anxiety symptoms at 4-years. Greater toddler daily cortisol secretion predicted more anxiety symptoms, independent of PNMS. The laboratory stressor did not elicit a cortisol response. PNMS effects were not dependent upon child sex nor on gestational timing of flood exposure.
Conclusions:
Indexes of diurnal cortisol in toddlerhood may represent vulnerability for anxiety symptoms in preschoolers, both independent of, and following, exposure to disaster-related prenatal maternal subjective distress