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The use of digital badges by undergraduate nursing students: a three-year study
Get PDFDuring a three-year study, 32% (n=67) in 2015, 16% (n=44) in 2016 and 55%
(n=161) of students in 2017 expressed an interest in using digital badges to enhance
their learning. But who are these students? This paper explores the features of
students who are interested in using digital badges as a motivational reward to
prepare for weekly face-to-face classes through engaging with online activities and
resources. This paper uses a first-year undergraduate Bachelor of Nursing
bioscience topic at an Australian university to report nursing students’ interests
around playing games, their digital badge history during the topic, and their selfreported
attitudinal interest in using digital badges to enhance and personalise their
learning. Overall, the results indicate that some students chose to enhance their
learning potential in class by earning digital badges prior to class. The results of this
paper are relevant for nursing educators and educational designers seeking to
integrate digital badges into motivational teaching practices, by evaluating the role
digital badges play as a motivational game-based learning design element
Demand for Colonoscopy in Colorectal Cancer Screening Using a Quantitative Fecal Immunochemical Test and Age-Sex-Specific Thresholds for Test Positivity
Get PDFBackground: Despite age and sex differences in fecal hemoglobin (f-Hb) concentrations, most fecal immunochemical test (FIT) screening programs use population-average cut-points for test positivity. The impact of age/sex-specific threshold on FIT accuracy and colonoscopy demand for colorectal cancer screening are unknown.
Methods: Using data from 723,113 participants enrolled in a Taiwanese population-based colorectal cancer screening with single FIT between 2004 and 2009, sensitivity and specificity were estimated for various f-Hb thresholds for test positivity. This included estimates based on a “universal” threshold, receiver-operating-characteristic curve–derived threshold, targeted sensitivity, targeted false-positive rate, and a colonoscopy-capacity-adjusted method integrating colonoscopy workload with and without age/sex adjustments.
Results: Optimal age/sex-specific thresholds were found to be equal to or lower than the universal 20 μg Hb/g threshold. For older males, a higher threshold (24 μg Hb/g) was identified using a 5% false-positive rate. Importantly, a nonlinear relationship was observed between sensitivity and colonoscopy workload with workload rising disproportionately to sensitivity at 16 μg Hb/g. At this “colonoscopy-capacity-adjusted” threshold, the test positivity (colonoscopy workload) was 4.67% and sensitivity was 79.5%, compared with a lower 4.0% workload and a lower 78.7% sensitivity using 20 μg Hb/g. When constrained on capacity, age/sex-adjusted estimates were generally lower. However, optimizing age/-sex-adjusted thresholds increased colonoscopy demand across models by 17% or greater compared with a universal threshold.
Conclusions: Age/sex-specific thresholds improve FIT accuracy with modest increases in colonoscopy demand.
Impact: Colonoscopy-capacity-adjusted and age/sex-specific f-Hb thresholds may be useful in optimizing individual screening programs based on detection accuracy, population characteristics, and clinical capacityGrant Support: This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST
103-2118-M-002-005-MY3)
The deficit doctorate: multimodal solutions to enable differentiated learning
Get PDFThis article is published in an open access journal. The Journal grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights.The doctoral space is intricate, complex and convoluted. It is torn between individual and institutional commitments, local and international relationships, standards and standardization. This paper does not atomise or discuss individual doctoral supervision, but instead explores how institutions around the world train supervisors, and also create expectations for student and supervisory relationships. The key is to move beyond experiential ideologies and individual relationships, to understand the supervisory relationship in the broader institutional context and the international environment for research
TEXT messages to improve MEDication adherence and Secondary prevention (TEXTMEDS) after acute coronary syndrome: a randomised clinical trial protocol
Get PDFNo commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Background Identifying simple, low-cost and scalable means of supporting lifestyle change and medication adherence for patients following a cardiovascular (CV) event is important.
Objective The TEXTMEDS (TEXT messages to improve MEDication adherence and Secondary prevention) study aims to investigate whether a cardiac education and support programme sent via mobile phone text message improves medication adherence and risk factor levels in patients following an acute coronary syndrome (ACS).
Study design A single-blind, multicentre, randomised clinical trial of 1400 patients after an ACS with 12 months follow-up. The intervention group will receive multiple weekly text messages that provide information, motivation, support to adhere to medications, quit smoking (if relevant) and recommendations for healthy diet and exercise. The primary endpoint is the percentage of patients who are adherent to cardioprotective medications and the key secondary outcomes are mean systolic blood pressure (BP) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Secondary outcomes will also include total cholesterol, mean diastolic BP, the percentage of participants who are adherent to each cardioprotective medication class, the percentage of participants who achieve target levels of CV risk factors, major vascular events, hospital readmissions and all-cause mortality. The study will be augmented by formal economic and process evaluations to assess acceptability, utility and cost-effectiveness.
Summary The study will provide multicentre randomised trial evidence of the effects of a text message-based programme on cardioprotective medication adherence and levels of CV risk factors.This work is funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council
(NHMRC) Project grant (ID APP1042290). CC is funded by a National Health
and Medical Research Council of Australia Career Development Fellowship
(APP1033478) co-funded by the Heart Foundation and a Sydney Medical School
Foundation Chapman Fellowship. JR is funded by a Career Development and Future
Leader Fellowship co-funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council
and the National Heart Foundation (APP1061793). KS is funded by a University
of Sydney International Postgraduate Scholarship. JT is funded by a University of
Sydney Australian Postgraduate Award. SJ is funded by a NHMRC senior research
fellowship (ID 1020430). RJ is funded by a Future Leader Fellowship funded by
the National Heart Foundation (APP100484). KR is funded by a County Council
of Östergötland international fellowship and the Swedish Medical Society
Born before arrival in NSW, Australia (2000–2011): a linked population data study of incidence, location, associated factors and maternal and neonatal outcomes
Get PDFNo commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Objectives To determine incidence, associated factors, outcomes and geographical occurrence of born before arrival (BBA) in New South Wales, Australia.
Design A linked population data study involving population-based surveillance systems was undertaken for the years 2000–2011.
Setting New South Wales, Australia.
Participants All women who underwent BBA compared with women who birthed in hospital/birth centre settings.
Results During the time period, there were 1 097 653 births and a BBA rate of 4.6 per 1000 births. The BBA rate changed from 4.2 to 4.8 per 1000 births over time (p=0.06). Neonates BBA were more likely to be premature (12.5% compared with 7.3%), of lower birth weight (209.8 g mean difference) and/or be admitted to a special care nursery or neonatal intensive care unit (20.6% compared with 15.6%). The perinatal mortality rate was significantly higher in the BBA cohort (34.6 compared with 9.3 per 1000 births). Women in the BBA cohort were more likely to be in the lowest socioeconomic decile, multiparous, have higher rates of smoking (30.5% compared with 13.8%) and more likely to suffer a postpartum haemorrhage requiring transfusion than the non-BBA cohort (1.5% compared with 0.7%). The most commonly occurring complications for neonates were suspected infection (6.9%), hypothermia (6.9%), respiratory distress (5.4%), congenital abnormality (4.0%) and neonatal withdrawal symptoms (2.4%). BBA more commonly occurred in geographical areas where the distance to a maternity unit is >2 hours drive and in coastal regions where there is also a high rate of homebirth.
Conclusion BBA occurs more frequently in multiparous women of lower socioeconomic status. There potentially is an effect of geography on the occurrence of BBA, as geographical area of high homebirth and BBA coexists, indicating that freebirth followed by an unplanned transfer to hospital may be occurring.This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the
public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors
‘That’s my job’: accounting for division of labour amongst heterosexual first time parents
Get PDFPlease note: Published version includes a French translation of the Abstract. “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by
Taylor & Francis in Community, Work & Family on 10 April
2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/
full/10.1080/13668803.2018.1462763”
This manuscript version is made available under the CCBY-
NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 18 month embargo from date of publication (April 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policy.For heterosexual couples who enter into parenthood, having a first child often has a significant impact on the ways in which their lives are organised. Importantly, women typically take on the greatest share of household and care work, reflecting broader cultural norms in relation to gender. Drawing on case studies of four Australian heterosexual couples, this article examines the ways in which the couples discussed the distribution of household and care work. By tracking the same couples from prior to pregnancy to after the birth of their child, we are able to focus on expectations and ideals in relation to unpaid and paid work, and how these relate to what happens in practice. The cases suggest four key issues, namely (1) the positioning of household and care work as not being work, (2) the positioning of women as ‘lucky’ if their male partner is ‘helpful’, (3) the primary orientation of men towards earning a paid income as a way of providing for their family, and (4) the unequal distribution of caring responsibility. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these issues with regard to how the division of labour is understood in the context of heterosexual first-time parents
The transition to parenthood for Australian heterosexual couples: expectations, experiences and the partner relationship
Get PDFOpen Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: The perinatal period precipitates significant intra- and inter- personal changes. How heterosexual
couples understand and account for such changes, however, has received relatively little attention.
Methods: Semi-structured individual interviews were undertaken as part of a longitudinal study on planned first-time
parenthood. This article reports on an inductive thematic analysis of a data corpus focused on six interview questions
(three from interviews conducted during pregnancy, and three from interviews conducted six months after the birth of
the child), derived from interviews with eight individuals (4 women and 4 men) comprising four couples.
Results: In antenatal interviews, the theme of intrapersonal changes differentiated participants by two sub-themes that
were then linked to postpartum experiences. Those who ‘prepared for the worst’ reported positive experiences after
the arrival of a child, whilst participants who during pregnancy viewed life after the arrival of a child as ‘an unknown’
experienced challenges. Similarly in terms of the theme of interpersonal change, antenatal interviews were linked to
postpartum experiences by two sub-themes, such that participants who approached the impending arrival of a child
as a team effort reported that the arrival of a child cemented their relationship, whilst participants who expected that
the couple relationship would buffer child-related stressors experienced challenges.
Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of a focus in antenatal education on the psychological effects of new
parenthood, and support for the couple relationship during the perinatal period.This work was supported by the Australian Research Council under a Future Fellowship (FT130100087) awarded to DR
The Knowledge Translation Complexity Network (KTCN) model: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - A response to recent commentaries
Get PDFPublished by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Evaluation needs to be continuous, both at the individual
and organizational level; it starts with reflective practice and
builds up into a wider systems process with multiple actors/
agents/actions involved. It is methodologically challenging
but with data and feedback, it can start to provide agents in
complex systems with approaches to understand how best to
act in order to achieve their goal.
This leads us to consider how individual reflections can be
validated by sharing and confirmation, refutation and pattern
recognition. These are the boundaries where individual
experiences can be aggregated into networks of shared
understanding, leading to what Sturmberg would describe as
wisdom. Does this reflect the nodes, hubs and networks in
action?
So, what are the next steps in this journey? Perhaps the best
way is to follow on from Kirchner et al, and do a post hoc
analysis of a previous problem. This sets the mental processes
in place enabling flexible navigation and application to a
currently unresolved wicked problem
Efficiency Improvement Using Molybdenum Disulphide Interlayers in Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube/Silicon Solar Cells
Get PDFThis article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) is one of the most studied and widely applied nanomaterials from the layered transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) semiconductor family. MoS2 has a large carrier diffusion length and a high carrier mobility. Combining a layered structure of single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) and MoS2 with n-type silicon (n-Si) provided novel SWCNT/n-Si photovoltaic devices. The solar cell has a layered structure with Si covered first by a thin layer of MoS2 flakes and then a SWCNT film. The films were examined using scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The MoS2 flake thickness ranged from 5 to 90 nm while the nanosheet’s lateral dimensions size ranged up to 1 μm2. This insertion of MoS2 improved the photoconversion efficiency (PCE) of the SWCNT/n-Si solar cells by approximately a factor of 2The support of the Australian Research Council Discovery Program
(DP150101354 and DP160101301) is gratefully acknowledged
Antiviral defense and innate immune memory in the oyster
Get PDFThis article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, is becoming a valuable model for investigating
antiviral defense in the Lophotrochozoa superphylum. In the past five years, improvements
to laboratory-based experimental infection protocols using Ostreid herpesvirus I (OsHV-1) from
naturally infected C. gigas combined with next-generation sequencing techniques has revealed that
oysters have a complex antiviral response involving the activation of all major innate immune
pathways. Experimental evidence indicates C. gigas utilizes an interferon-like response to limit
OsHV-1 replication and spread. Oysters injected with a viral mimic (polyI:C) develop resistance to
OsHV-1. Improved survival following polyI:C injection was found later in life (within-generational
immune priming) and in the next generation (multi-generational immune priming). These studies
indicate that the oyster’s antiviral defense system exhibits a form of innate immune-memory.
An important priority is to identify the molecular mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon. This
knowledge will motivate the development of practical and cost-effective treatments for improving
oyster health in aquaculture.The authors acknowledge funding provided to Timothy J. Green from the Canada Research
Chair Program and to Peter Speck by the Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre (Project No. 2011/758)