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On the integration of a vibration source and horizontal vacuum belt filtration systems to improve dewatering efficiency
No full textEffective dewatering of fine and ultra-fine mineral slurries is a critical challenge in modern mineral processing. Traditional vacuum belt filtration (HVBF) systems often struggle with low-permeability filter cakes, high residual moisture content, and limited throughput. These limitations are particularly acute for materials such as iron ore fines, flotation coal, magnetite concentrates, and spodumene residues—materials which are increasingly central to the resource sector and energy transition. This thesis investigates the integration of vibration into HVBF systems through the development and deployment of the Viper Filtration technology, a novel hybrid dewatering solution designed to improve both moisture removal and processing efficiency.The study adopts a multi-scale approach, progressing from theoretical modelling to bench-scale trials, followed by pilot-scale experimentation, and culminating in full-scale industrial validation. A coupled theoretical framework was developed, incorporating Darcy's Law, capillary entry pressure, Saffman–Taylor instability, and liquefaction theory to explain the dynamic effects of vibration on water removal from porous filter cakes. Bench-scale tests confirmed that vibration frequency significantly enhances dewatering under vacuum by reducing cake porosity and disrupting capillary water retention. Compressive loading was found to have a secondary or negligible effect within the tested range, while future work has been presented to validate the data collected.Pilot-scale trials replicated these findings in semi-industrial conditions using real mining materials. Notable improvements included moisture reductions of up to 8.9% w/w and throughput gains of up to 60% over baseline HVBF configurations. The pilot system also demonstrated that material-specific responses to vibration—driven by differences in particle size distribution, cake compressibility, and rheology—necessitate tailored vibration parameters. Full-scale deployment at an industrial magnetite operation confirmed the scalability of the technology, achieving product moisture reductions from ~13.5% to ~9% w/w and validating the predictive modelling approach. A parametric model based on exponential and logistic functions was proposed to describe moisture evolution along the belt, with modifications presented for multiple Viper modules.This work establishes vibration-assisted vacuum filtration as a viable pathway for significantly enhancing the performance of conventional HVBF systems. The integration of mechanical vibration addresses longstanding dewatering limitations, enabling lower moisture contents, higher throughput, and improved tailings management. The findings hold substantial implications for energy efficiency, water reuse, and cost reduction in mineral beneficiation. Future work will focus on real-time process optimisation, multi-material model generalisation, and the development of advanced control systems to industrialise this technology further.</p
Development and evaluation of a novel approach to optimise schoolteacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing
No full textSchools are ideal settings for health promotion. However, the health promoting capacity of schools greatly depends on the buy-in and capability of over 74 million teachers globally whose health and wellbeing are contributing factors. Over, the past decade, research has increasingly attempted to define, measure and understand teacher wellbeing. Despite this, one of the most fundamental lifestyle factors, a healthy diet to support positive health and wellbeing, has not yet received the attention it deserves.This thesis outlines the importance of including diet and contributing food and nutrition (FN) factors, such as teacher food agency in the measurement of teacher health and wellbeing. To this end, a new screening tool, the teacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing questionnaire (TFNQ), was developed and validated specifically for teachers. The TFNQ enables a systematic and evidence-based approach to collect data on teacher food, nutrition and wellbeing factors. Cross-sectional data collected with the TFNQ enabled exploratory analysis to uncover correlations of interest between the FN factors of food skills confidence and food agency with teacher diet quality, burnout and professional FN confidence. Food skills confidence demonstrated amoderate positive correlation with teacher diet quality, particularly vegetable intake. Whereas food agency in the domains of work-life balance and food preparation, was negatively correlated with burnout. In contrast, food agency, in the domains of teacher self-efficacy in food preparation, was positively correlated with professional FN confidence, including being a positive FN role model.Teacher wellbeing is multifaceted, yet the findings within this thesis highlight the association between FN factors such as food agency and food skills confidence and aspects of teacher health, wellbeing and professional FN competence. However, further research is needed to establish causal pathways. The evidence-based TFNQ developed within this thesis and findings from the correlation analysis provide a foundation for further research into the role of FN factors on teacher wellbeing. The TFNQ is an output of this PhD research that will be used to collect baseline and follow-up data in my postdoctoral research, which aims to develop an intervention to improve teacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing. It can also potentially be used by other researchers, as well as by Principals and other education-based program developers for their specific needs in understanding teacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing and how it changes over time.</p
The frequency and duration of seclusion for women in a secure forensic hospital and their experiences of seclusion - a mixed methods study
No full textBackground/Introduction: Seclusion is widely accepted as being associated with negative consequences for the person being secluded and human rights violations. Seclusion use for women in secure forensic hospitals is an under-researched area with much of the research focusing on men, despite increasing numbers of women being incarcerated and requiring forensic mental health care. Women in secure settings are highly vulnerable, and have extensive histories of mental ill health and trauma. Their voices and experiences are often not heard. With more women requiring forensic mental health service input, alongside the need to reduce and safely eradicate the use of seclusion, an understanding of women who may be at higher risk of seclusion is needed in order to better inform sex-specific reduction strategies and address the specific needs of women in secure forensic hospitals. Aim: This Doctoral study aimed to explore the use, frequency, and duration of seclusion for women in a secure forensic hospital, and the woman's experience of seclusion. Methods: A concurrent mixed methods study design with three components was used to address the study aims. The components included a retrospective and prospective cohort study involving the collection of demographic and clinical characteristics for women admitted during the study timeframes. Where women experienced seclusion, seclusion data were also collected. Women who participated in the prospective study and who experienced seclusion were invited to discuss their experiences of seclusion. Quantitative data were analysed descriptively, with associations between categorical variables measured using chi-squared tests. Logistic regression models were used to determine characteristics associated with seclusion use, negative binomial regression models were used to measure the association between characteristics and the frequency of seclusion, and generalised linear mixed effects models were used to measure the association between characteristics and the duration of seclusion. Qualitative data were analysed thematically. Results: The retrospective study had a total of 111 admissions involving 82 individual women, and a total of 232 seclusion events. The prospective study had a total of eight women participate, and a total of three seclusion events, accounted for by two women. Quantitative results found that women who experience seclusion during an admission to a secure forensic hospital are typically single, have child/ren, have a history of trauma, specifically childhood abuse or neglect, and have been diagnosed with a schizophrenia-type disorder and/or a personality disorder. Women with a diagnosis of a schizophrenia-type or a personality disorder and/or a substance use/abuse disorder, previous contact with mental health services, and a history of experiencing more than two different types of trauma are more frequently secluded. Indigenous Australian women and women who have a history of experiencing more than two different types of trauma have shorter seclusion events. One woman participated in an interview to discuss her experience of seclusion with the following four themes generated from the data: defensive practice, torture and punishment, an embarrassing and degrading ordeal, and hard lessons. Her experience of seclusion was largely negative; she felt clinicians used seclusion as a punishment and a type of torture. Her experiences were exacerbated by a poorly maintained environment which impacted her ability to communicate effectively with clinicians. Conclusion: This is the first study to have solely focused on seclusion use and experience of seclusion for women in a secure forensic hospital. Some research findings reflect the existing literature; however, this study highlights new areas of knowledge that warrant further investigation. The findings reinforce the compounding impacts of trauma and human rights violations in the context of seclusion use for women in secure forensic hospitals. With the increasing numbers of women, especially Indigenous women, in prison and requiring forensic mental health care, targets for seclusion eradication, coupled with the paucity of literature in this area, future research is needed. This study begins to address a gap in current research and provides a basis for future studies that can provide a deeper understanding and evidence to the development of sex-specific interventions and to address the human rights issues and risks for trauma exacerbation associated with seclusion for women in secure forensic settings.</p
The antagonism between western and Islamic cultures in Iranian English textbooks
No full textDue to its worldwide usage, the necessity of teaching the English language is undeniable even in Islamic and religious countries like Iran. However, in order to avoid ‘cultural invasion’, the Iranian government decided to ban teaching English in the official curriculum of primary schools and asked a team of experts chosen by the Organization for Educational Research and Planning to design localized English textbooks for students in K12. Thus, in response to curriculum changes and the vital role of textbooks in language education, a plethora of Iranian scholars quantitively investigated the locally designed textbooks in language education focusing on objectives, content, culture, gender representation, and improvement of students’ language skills. However, the previous literature does not con-sider the role of visual content in transmitting the target language culture. Thus, in this study, we investigated the cultural references and cultural dimensions of visual content representation in two series of English language textbooks called ‘English for Schools’ (Prospect 1-3 and Vision 1-3). Due to the nature of the study, we applied qualitative visual content analysis for grouping and categorizing data. The analysis of the visual content of the textbooks revealed that the utmost portion of all six books has been devoted to the source culture of Iran, and the focus on aesthetic dimension had been exaggerated. Also, great attention has been paid to the semantic dimension, especially the Islamic ideology. The findings revealed the hegemony of Islamic cultures and ideology in English textbooks which is opposed to the vital role of teaching culture as the fifth language skill in language education
AI-enabled defect detection in industrial products: A comprehensive survey, key insights and future research challenges
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Order effects in task-free learning: Tuning to information-critical sound features
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Maternal asthma and lung function, childhood asthma and growth, the MAESTRO-Child study
No full textAim
Maternal asthma is associated with childhood asthma and low birthweight. We investigated whether maternal asthma, allergic asthma and lung function are associated with childhood asthma and growth.
Method
Data from a Swedish pregnancy cohort, [Maternal Asthma Events Stress and Offspring (MAESTRO)] was linked to data from the children [MAESTRO-Child] and to national health registers [529 mother/child pairs]. Pre- and post-bronchodilator FEV1, FVC, FEV1/FVC and bronchodilator response were measured in pregnancy. Maternal asthma, childhood asthma and childhood growth [at birth, 6, 12, 18, and 36 months] were defined from self/parent-reported questionnaires and/or register data. Maternal allergic asthma was defined as asthma and allergic sensitisation [positive PhadiatopTM in pregnancy]. Associations between maternal asthma, allergic asthma, or lung function and childhood asthma and growth were estimated using multivariable regression models.
Results
For maternal allergic asthma, there was an increased risk of “asthma ever by six years” [adjRR 2.07 (95% CI: 1.33, 3.22)]. Increasing pre- and post-bronchodilator FEV1 was associated with a reduced risk for childhood asthma [adj RR 0.50 (95% CI: 0.30, 0.81) and 0.45 (95% CI: 0.29, 0.69) respectively for “asthma ever by six years”]. No significant relationship was found for FVC, FEV1/FVC, bronchodilator response, or between maternal measures and childhood growth.
Conclusion
Maternal asthma and allergic asthma are risk factors for childhood asthma. Higher lung function in pregnancy may be associated with a lower risk for childhood asthma in the offspring. Maternal measures did not have a statistically significant association with childhood growth in the offspring
Interconnected Architectural Wellbeing: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy & Siegfried Ebeling
No full textThis paper investigates how architectural theories from the Bauhaus in the 1920s have the opportunity to influence approaches to wellbeing through the built environment today. Through a literature review, the study examines work and writings by primarily Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy and German architect Siegfried Ebeling, as well as their contemporaries and predecessors at the Bauhaus. The research identifies a gap in architectural history where past architectural theories and practices have been underexplored in relation to wellbeing, particularly in early modernist discourse. By analyzing Moholy-Nagy and Ebeling writings, this paper reveals how their work prefigures and expands contemporary concerns in wellness design. The key finding is: in the examined works there are clear links between metaphysical thinking, environmental conditions, construction innovation and wellbeing. This study contributes to architectural discourses by: firstly proposing that metaphysically informed design thinking can offer valuable insights for architectural practices aiming to enhance occupant wellbeing; secondly, recontextualizing historical ideas within present-day design challenges, and thirdly offering future research directions for developing understandings of wellbeing in relation to architecture
UAV Accident Forensics via HFACS-LLM Reasoning: Low-Altitude Safety Insights
No full textUAV accident investigation is essential for safeguarding the fast-growing low-altitude airspace. While near-daily incidents are reported, they were rarely analyzed in depth as current inquiries remain expert-dependent and time-consuming. Because most jurisdictions mandate formal reporting only for serious injury or substantial property damage, a large proportion of minor occurrences receive no systematic investigation, resulting in persistent data gaps and hindering proactive risk management. This study explores the potential of using large language models (LLMs) to expedite UAV accident investigations by extracting human-factor insights from unstructured narrative incident reports. Despite their promise, the off-the-shelf LLMs still struggle with domain-specific reasoning in the UAV context. To address this, we developed a human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS)-guided analytical framework, which blends structured prompting with lightweight post-processing. This framework systematically guides the model through a two-stage procedure to infer operators’ unsafe acts, their latent preconditions, and the associated organizational influences and regulatory risk factors. A HFACS-labelled UAV accident corpus comprising 200 abnormal event reports with 3600 coded instances has been compiled to support evaluation. Across seven LLMs and 18 HFACS categories, macro-F1 ranged 0.58–0.76; our best configuration achieved macro-F1 0.76 (precision 0.71, recall 0.82), with representative category accuracies > 93%. Comparative assessments indicate that the prompted LLM can match, and in certain tasks surpass, human experts. The findings highlight the promise of automated human factor analysis for conducting rapid and systematic UAV accident investigations
More and more Australian families are homeschooling. How can we make sure they do it well?
No full textAcross Australia, more families are choosing to homeschool.
According to NSW figures released late last month, homeschooling registrations in the state more than doubled between 2019 and 2024, from 5,907 to 12,762.
What is fuelling this growth and how do we support families to do it well