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Prevalence and Correlates of (Internet) Gaming Disorder among Young Adults in Singapore
No full textThere is a lack of estimates of prevalence rates of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and gaming disorder (GD) among young adults in Singapore. Consequently, the current study aimed to examine the prevalence rates of IGD and GD, and their relationships with known correlates. Participants were a representative sample of 1008 young adults in Singapore. They completed instruments that assess IGD, GD, gaming motivations, negative emotional states, and sleep quality. The results showed a prevalence rate of 10.3% for IGD and 5.0% for GD. Males had a higher IGD and GD prevalence rate (14.6% and 7.2%) than females (6.2% and 2.8%). Furthermore, participants with IGD or GD reported higher gaming time, and higher scores on gaming motivations, negative emotional states, and sleep quality than their counterparts with no IGD or GD. The higher prevalence rates in this study compared to other global studies suggest that problematic gaming is a social issue in Singapore. Known correlates relating to gender, gaming time, motivations, and emotions were confirmed in the current study. The finding that participants with IGD or GD had better sleep quality was inconsistent with previous studies and could be due to the use of a single item to assess sleep quality. Limitations include the use of a cross-sectional correlational design. Future research could develop and evaluate prevention programs or intervention programs to alleviate the symptoms and negative consequences of problematic gaming
Photo-id as an alternative to monitor marine turtles in the Gulf of Venezuela
No full textConservation management programs have used diverse methods to monitor populations of threatened species that vary in effectiveness, duration, and costs; making its implementation a challenge. The present study was carried out to test the use of photo-identification as an economical and efficient alternative for marine turtle monitoring in the Gulf of Venezuela. The implementation of this protocol is possible due to the unique and unrepeatable facial scales pattern of individuals in the marine turtles. We created a database of photo-identifiable profiles available from records of turtles captured, tagged, and released in the Gulf of Venezuela from 2000 to 2017 (n = 118). Likewise, we used two photo-matching software (I3S Pattern and Nature Pattern Match) to optimize the process of compatibility of individuals and we evaluated their efficiency in comparison with the non-assisted manual method (“by human eye” or "by naked eye"). We found that I3S Pattern was more effective during the matching process than NPM (90% and 65% accuracy respectively), while the manual method was much more accurate than the software. However, the former method is impractical when working with large databases. Our results indicate that I3S Pattern represents the most efficient software of image matching by reducing the time needed and simplifying the manual “by human eye” analysis. We recommend incorporating more photos in the database in order to verify the effectiveness of both studied software, and regularly to corroborate the results generated by the software assessed on this research using the “human eye” manual method
Situating Narratives of Decline: Surveying the Literature of Crisis from a Regional Humanities Student Perspective
No full text[Extract] As first-in-family university graduates from regional northern and far-northern Queensland, both of us have found the work of this essay to be a challenging—and upsetting—exercise. We care deeply for the regional university which has provided us with educations in the humanities, but the feelings of anger, disappointment, and despondency we endure when considering the future of our disciplines at regional institutions such as the one we attended are difficult to translate into clear-headed academic prose. Our stories are different, but our lived experiences demonstrate what will be—and has already been—lost when regional Bachelor of Arts programs are repeatedly restructured, reoriented, refocused, refreshed, or cut entirely.
Jade was born in Cairns, in the far-north of Queensland, but was raised in the smaller, regional town of Innisfail. Her father had left high school after Year 10 to pursue employment and Jade’s mother had been unable to continue schooling at the age of fourteen. Despite the interruption, Jade’s mother had taken a less-conventional pathway to completing her high school education later in life and subsequently worked her way up into professional roles. Straight out of school, Jade moved south to Townsville to start a double degree in arts and science. She struggled to adjust to university studies and found herself failing subjects for the first time in her life. Away from home and dealing with difficult personal circumstances in addition to the challenges of university, Jade returned home to Innisfail. In 2021 she decided to follow her passion for literature and transitioned into a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English, remaining enrolled at the same regional university but now studying externally. Settling into her work, Jade gained momentum. Maintaining good grades and finally having an opportunity to network with like-minded people, she even had the chance to co-author a paper with a lecturer and fellow classmates as an undergraduate. Earlier this year at her graduation, she was recognised for achieving the highest aggregate result for first-year English literature
Methane and carbon dioxide production and emission pathways in the belowground and draining water bodies of a tropical peatland plantation forest
No full textPeatlands are crucial yet vulnerable carbon stores. Here, we investigated carbon biogeochemical processes in tropical peatlands converted to plantations. We measured carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) concentrations, stable isotope ratios and radiocarbon content in an experimental Acacia crassicarpa plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. We found exceptionally high levels of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), CO2, and CH4 in porewater and drainage networks, indicating that Acacia plantations are carbon hotspots due to their high productivity and exposed carbon‐dense substrates. Stable isotope models revealed that while CO2 and CH4 are produced belowground, CH4 contribution was lower than in natural undrained peatlands. Radiocarbon analysis suggested that remobilized carbon contributed to the carbon pool, with a median age of ∼470 years before present. These findings constrain the links between land‐use, water table levels, and carbon dynamics, with implications for carbon management in plantation peatlands
The Evolving Tourism Marketplace: Changing Tourist Shopping Markets
No full textGlobal mass tourism is a relatively recent phenomenon emerging at the start of the twenty first century with the rise of budget airlines, aircraft capable of longer flights with larger capacities, globalization and decreased travel restrictions and the enthusiasm of Chinese consumers to take up opportunities for international travel (Buckley et al., 2015). While tourism has a much longer history the scale and diversity of truly global mass tourism is limited to the last 30 years. Although this is not a long time in any historical context it does mean that at a large proportion of the world’s human population have never lived without global tourism. Not surprisingly then a question asked at a tourism academic conference in 2019 about imagining a world without international tourism resulted in an extensive pause and much consternation. Less than 6 months after this question was posed the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic essentially shut down international travel and much domestic travel. This resulted in an avalanche of academic predictions on the future of tourism, many of which have not yet been subjected to any critical analysis. These discussions fell into two main categories- once the pandemic was under control tourism would/should return to its pre-pandemic levels and quickly grow beyond those, or tourism would/should return but in a much-changed form (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020). While to date neither of these two extremes appear to be correct, on closer inspection with more critical analysis, changing trends and emerging forces for change can be identified.
This chapter seeks to explore these changing trends and emerging forces and their impact on tourist shopping markets. For the purposes of this chapter tourist shopping will be defined “as a recreational activity in which tourists browse, select and purchase goods to take home during their travel” (Jin et al., 2017, p. 121). This definition includes people who take shopping focussed tours/trips as well as tourists who buy personal items and souvenirs as part of a trip. There is considerable overlap between leisure shopping and tourism. Both are hedonic, recreational activities that involve discretionary expenditure (Backstrom, 2011). For some leisure shopping is a prime feature of tourist activities and for others the two phenomena are substitutes for each other. After outlining key trends and forces in both the retail shopping and tourism systems, the chapter will use social practice theory from sociology as the basis for identifying and analysing changing and emerging tourist shopping markets It will conclude the analysis with some initial implications for both research into tourist shopping and for tourism practitioners
Scoping the suitability of water-tolerant species of trees for swamp restorations across Australia and its Great Barrier Reef catchment
No full textWetlands are vital for humanity and include some of the most productive, diverse, and service-rich ecosystems in the world. Service provided include food production (e.g., fish, birds, and vegetables), protection from flooding and storm surge inundation, provision of clean water and climate stability, and timber resources for construction. Despite these benefits, vast areas of wetlands have been drained across the globe, including in Australia. With growing awareness of the value of wetlands, there is increasing push to restore wetlands and the values they support, such as carbon sequestration. A major challenge for restoration practitioners is to identify what land parcels could be restored and what species they could support. This study scoped the environmental suitability of 125 water-tolerant species of trees across Australia, using random forest modeling to relate records observed within the Atlas of Living Australia database with spatial datasets of soil and climatic characteristics and water observations from space. Of the 125 species of trees examined, 105 species were modeled with excellent performance. Models were then used to predict tree suitability for existing wetlands nationally, as well as across potentially suitable restoration sites within the Great Barrier Reef catchment, given the strong push for wetland restoration to improve water quality. Within the Great Barrier Reef catchment, over 2200 land parcels covering over 20,000 ha were identified as being potentially suitable for restoration with diverse tree swamps. This study allows restoration practitioners to identify where swamp restoration could occur and potentially suitable trees for planting at those locations
Explicit Abnormality Extraction for Unsupervised Motion Artifact Reduction in Magnetic Resonance Imaging
No full textMotion artifacts compromise the quality of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pose challenges to achieving diagnostic outcomes and image-guided therapies. In recent years, supervised deep learning approaches have emerged as successful solutions for motion artifact reduction (MAR). One disadvantage of these methods is their dependency on acquiring paired sets of motion artifact-corrupted (MA-corrupted) and motion artifact-free (MA-free) MR images for training purposes. Obtaining such image pairs is difficult and therefore limits the application of supervised training. In this paper, we propose a novel UNsupervised Abnormality Extraction Network (UNAEN) to alleviate this problem. Our network is capable of working with unpaired MA-corrupted and MA-free images. It converts the MA-corrupted images to MA-reduced images by extracting abnormalities from the MA-corrupted images using a proposed artifact extractor, which intercepts the residual artifact maps from the MA-corrupted MR images explicitly, and a reconstructor to restore the original input from the MA-reduced images. The performance of UNAEN was assessed by experimenting with various publicly available MRI datasets and comparing them with state-of-the-art methods. The quantitative evaluation demonstrates the superiority of UNAEN over alternative MAR methods and visually exhibits fewer residual artifacts. Our results substantiate the potential of UNAEN as a promising solution applicable in real-world clinical environments, with the capability to enhance diagnostic accuracy and facilitate image-guided therapies. Our codes are publicly available at https://github.com/YuSheng-Zhou/UNAEN
Bridging the gap: Comparative Analysis of Academic Support and Teacher-student Relationships in Faith-based Schools Across Regional and Urban Contexts
No full textThis article investigates the association between teachers providing academic support to their students and student's perceptions of their relationships with their teachers, with a focus on the role of geographical location. Utilising the Revised School Climate Measure, this pilot study surveyed 522 students across four Australian faith-based schools—two urban, and two regional schools. The data were analysed using a combination of correlations, one-way MANOVA and binomial regression. The results indicate that academic support is a contributing factor to students in regional schools reporting stronger relationships with their teachers compared to their urban peers. This study provides a foundation for future research and could be replicated on a larger scale. The implications offer school leaders and policymakers additional information to help address areas of disadvantage within regional Australian schools, while also highlighting the need for further investigation in this area
Leaf warming in the canopy of mature tropical trees reduced photosynthesis due to downregulation of photosynthetic capacity and reduced stomatal conductance
No full textTropical forests play a large role in the global carbon cycle by annually absorbing 30% of our annual carbon emissions. However, these forests have evolved under relatively stable temperature conditions and may be sensitive to current climate warming. Few experiments have investigated the effects of warming on large, mature trees to better understand how higher temperatures affect these forests in situ. We targeted four tree species (Endiandra microneura, Castanospermum australe, Cleistanthus myrianthus and Myristica globosa) of the Australian tropical rainforest and warmed leaves in the canopy by 4°C for 8 months. We measured temperature response curves of photosynthesis and respiration, and determined the critical temperatures for chloroplast function based on Chl fluorescence. Both stomatal conductance and photosynthesis were strongly reduced by 48 and 35%, respectively, with warming. While reduced stomatal conductance was likely in response to higher vapour pressure deficit, the biochemistry of photosynthesis responded to higher temperatures via reduced Vcmax25 (−28%) and Jmax25 (−29%). There was no shift of the Topt of photosynthesis. Concurrently, respiration rates at a common temperature did not change in response to warming, suggesting limited respiratory thermal acclimation. This combination of physiological responses to leaf warming in mature tropical trees may suggest a reduced carbon sink with future warming in tropical forests
Radio: Supporting older adult well-being as a social surrogate
No full textSocial surrogacy can provide a sense of belonging, develop attachments overtime, and represent real social bonds (Schäfer & Eerola, 2020). Music and radio listening can function as a social surrogate, engendering feelings of connection and community in the absence of direct interaction (Krause, 2020). Radio itself draws high engagement from large audiences in Australia and is considered to be “perfectly placed to tackle the far-reaching social issue of loneliness” (Order, 2017, p. 244). This is important given social isolation and loneliness are ever-pressing societal concerns, especially as the impact on our health is comparable to that of sedentary lifestyles, obesity, and smoking (House, et al., 1988). This presentation will focus on how the radio might be used as a free and widely accessible tool for promoting social connection and, thus, quality of life for older adults.
It draws on recent research on radio engagement for older adult well-being as a case study. From interviews and focus-groups conducted with radio personnel and older adult listeners, results indicate that radio acts as a social surrogate in people’s lives, proving information, entertainment, and companionship. Radio presenters keep listeners company through perceived relationships, built and sustained over time, that facilitate a sense of friendship as well as connection with the greater community. This underpins the radio’s ability to support listener well-being. Findings have implications for discussions on creatively promoting the well-being of individuals and communities in cost effective and accessible ways