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Determining health professional students’ self-perceived cultural capability following participation in clinical placement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples: A systematic review
No full textBackground: Collective evaluation of studies assessing students’ self-perceived cultural capability following clinical placement is required to help inform future cultural capability training for both university and healthcare service environments. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to evaluate studies investigating health professional students’ self-perceived cultural capability following participation in a clinical placement with First Nations Peoples. Methods: Electronic database searchers were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, PsychINFO, Pubmed, CINAHL and Informit. Hand Searches of grey literature were conducted including Lowitja institute, Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet, Menzies School of Health Research, Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Studies published in English that investigated health professional students’ self-perceived cultural capability before and after clinical placement undertaken with First Nations people in Australia were eligible for inclusion. Two authors independently screened potentially eligible studies and performed quality appraisal and data extraction. Results: A total of 14 studies were included (n = 307 participants). Studies included undergraduate students from podiatry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and mixed health professions. The results of this systematic review suggest that clinical placements in health services or settings for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples that involve elements of co-design are effective in increasing aspects of health professional students’ self-perceived cultural capability. This outcome was consistent across studies regardless of the location of clinical placements (urban or rural), type of clinical placement (health setting or Community), or length of placement. Conclusions: The findings from this systematic review suggest that clinical placement in health services or settings for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples may contribute to increased self-perceived cultural capability in health professions graduates. However, the impact of the placements on the cultural safety of student-led care, from a First Nations perspective, remains to be established.</p
Reporting hunger strikes in the context of climate action
No full textClimate activists have increasingly used hunger strikes to gather media attention to perceived inaction on the issue; however, there is little guidance for journalists about how they should approach such a story. Applying social responsibility theory to understand the media’s lack of action, and using a case study from an Australian climate hunger striker, this article set out to answer three questions: Should hunger strikes be treated by the media in the same way as suicide, or as a political protest action? Will providing coverage of a hunger strike encourage others to follow suit? And, if the media decides to cover a hunger strike, what if any mitigating factors could be used? Our work concludes that hunger strikes arise from political motivation, are newsworthy and should be covered, but editors must exercise caution, so as not to encourage imitation. Finally, we recommend that helplines should be included in reporting.</p
600 Series
No full textA collection of 37 films recorded in the Cho Tan Quy [Tan Quy market] HCMC. Part of the River Cities Network project.</p
Development and Control of Underactuated Parallel Rotary Double Inverted Pendulum System
No full textThe Parallel Rotational Double Inverted Pendulum System (PRDIP) is a new model in the pendulum family. And there are not many articles that propose and research this model at the moment. One of the interesting features of the PRDIP system is the presence of an underactuated link, which makes it challenging to control the system. This type of system has received increasing attention from researchers in recent years due to its applicability in many areas, such as robotics and control. This model is built by adding one more link parallel to the former link, which is placed at the ends of the arm. Because of the complexity of PRDIP, this model has not been widely proposed and investigated in both simulation and experiments. Therefore, this research is going to concentrate on investigating the PRDIP system and deploying Linear Quadratic Regular (LQR) algorithm in simulation and experiments for this system. The LQR controller is responsible for controlling and maintaining an arm and two pendulums, which work around the work points. Particularly, the working points of the two pendulums are totally different. The long pendulum will be controlled around the upward upright position, the short pendulum will be controlled around the downward upright position, and the arm will be controlled in a particular position. The result of this research shows that the LQR algorithm has been successfully deployed for the PRDIP system
Global Healthy and Sustainable City Indicators: Collaborative development of an open science toolkit for calculating and reporting on urban indicators internationally
No full textMeasuring and monitoring progress towards achieving healthy, equitable and sustainable cities is a priority for planners, policymakers and researchers in diverse contexts globally. Yet data collection, analysis, visualisation and reporting on policy and spatial indicators involve specialised knowledge, skills, and collaboration across disciplines. Integrated open-source tools for calculating and communicating urban indicators for diverse urban contexts are needed, which provide the multiple streams of evidence required to influence policy agendas and enable local changes towards healthier and more sustainable cities. This paper reports on the development of open-source software for planning, analysis and generation of data, maps and reports on policy and spatial indicators of urban design and transport features for healthy and sustainable cities. We engaged a collaborative network of researchers and practitioners from diverse geographic contexts through an online survey and workshops, to understand and progressively meet their requirements for policy and spatial indicators. We outline our framework for action research-informed open-source software development and discuss benefits and challenges of this approach. The resulting Global Healthy and Sustainable City Indicators software is designed to meet the needs of researchers, planners, policy makers and community advocates in diverse settings for planning, calculating and disseminating policy and spatial urban indicators.</p
Investigations on Rare Earth Manganites, Tantalates, and Vanadates under Extreme Conditions of Temperature and Pressure
No full textRare earth compounds contain rare earth elements along with other combination of elements, each having applications of strategic importance. The materials that we are investigating are manganites, tantalates, and vanadates. These materials have diverse applications which include thin films, microcircuits, passivation devices, field effect transistors, integrated circuits, capacitors, gate insulators, electrode materials in high-performance super-capacitors, as antioxidants in the biomedical industry, for selective hydrogenation, in sensing devices such as solar cells due to their extraordinary luminescence features, as buffer layers for gamma-ray shielding, in the generation of acoustic resonators, for making photoluminescence based gas sensors, as drug delivery agents etc. The wide-ranging applications of these materials underscore their significance; however, they are often subjected to extreme external influences such as pressure and temperature, which may affect their structure and properties. Understanding the stability and material behaviour in response to extreme conditions is crucial for their optimization and utilization in various technological applications across strategic sectors.
This thesis focuses on investigating the stability of a few rare earth compounds (manganites, tantalates & vanadates) under varying external temperature and pressure conditions and their related structural, magnetic and vibrational properties. A comprehensive study on Nd1-xSrxMnO3 (x=0.4, 0.5), La1-xRuxTaO4 (x=0,0.09,0.12,0.2), and GdVO4, has been undertaken, which is expected to lead to a multi-faceted understanding of the behavior of these rare earth compounds under extreme environments and provide valuable insights into the fundamental properties of these materials. The primary investigation tools are temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy and magnetization studies, which assisted in elucidating their mutual correlation, as well as to gain insights into the material's behaviour under different temperatures. Additionally, high-pressure X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies are also employed to study the pressure stability of structural phases.
To begin with, Manganites -Nd0.6Sr0.4MnO3 & Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 (NSMO) belonging to the Perovskite family with an orthorhombic structure were synthesized using solid-state reaction method. Magnetic measurements on these samples pointed towards the three magnetic transitions observed at 280 K, 150 K and at 40 K. Magnetic measurements and Raman measurements showed a direct correlation in terms of slope change. Further, pure and doped LTO (9,12 & 20% Ru doped LaTaO4) belonging to the Perovskite family with a polymorphic structure showed phonon softening with an increase in temperature from 80-460 K. Anharmonic constants showed dominancy of three-phonon decay process over four phonon process. Magnetic measurements pointed towards the diamagnetic nature of all the materials. GdVO4 belonging to the Perovskite family with zircon structure showed phonon softening with an increase in temperature. However, one mode interestingly showed phonon hardening. Anharmonic constants again showed dominancy of three phonon process over four phonon process. High pressure XRD investigations on NSMO-0.4 up to 33.6 GPa showed stability of the structure. The bulk modulus and its first derivative were estimated to be 214±1.4 GPa and 9.3± 0.13 respectively. High pressure studies on GdVO4 , upto 27.1 GPa revealed a structural transition from ambient zircon to scheelite phase which was found to be initiated at 0.4 GPa and completed at 12.2 GPa. The bulk modulus of zircon and scheelite phases were found to be 85.1 GPa and 145.2 GPa respectively.
High-pressure studies were also done on pure LTO up to 36.1 GPa, which showed a transition from the mixed (orthorhombic+monoclinic) phase to the new monoclinic phase. The orthorhombic phase has bulk modulus of 113 GPa with first derivative of 8, while the monoclinic phase demonstrated a bulk modulus of 145 GPa with first derivative of 6. On the other hand, the high-pressure monoclinic phase exhibited a bulk modulas of 241 GPa accompanied by the first derivative of 12.04.
Finally, in Raman metrology investigations, the effect of spectrometer calibration in various wavenumber ranges was investigated. The calibration of the spectrometer in the lower wavenumber was seen to affect the peak positions in the middle and higher wavenumber range. Likewise, middle wavenumber calibration leads to shift in the lower and higher wavenumber etc. However, after the linearity corrections of the spectrometer motors, these deviations were minimized.</p
All River cities 5.mp4
No full textThis video was exhibited as part of the River Cities Exhibition in 2024 at RMIT Vietnam campus Lygon gallery. It explores the intersections of water and traffic via sound and video of traffic events in HCMC.</p
A contingency-based approach to service robot design: Role of robot capabilities and personalities
No full textThe rise of service robots is changing how products and services are delivered, significantly affecting customer outcomes. However, research has yet to specifically examine how the design of a service robot to specific service contexts influences customer engagement and value co-creation. Our study adopts a contingency perspective to investigate how the design of robot capabilities and personalities aligned with specific service contexts impacts customer engagement and value co-creation intentions. We tested this proposition through three experiments carried out in the banking and restaurant service contexts. Our findings revealed the effectiveness of carefully designed robotic capabilities and personalities within a service infrastructure depends on the specific service contexts. The study findings have important implications for service firms in designing service robots through managing robot capabilities and personalities to align with specific service contexts.</p
Kestrel-Inspired Morphing and Actuation: Bird Flight Insights and Technological Applications
No full textThe atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) can be a challenging environment to fly in, mainly due to its inherent turbulence. Small Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (sUAVs) usually fly within the ABL and share this environment with flying animals such as birds, bats and insects. The performance of sUAVs, when any appreciable wind is present, is challenged by the dynamic inputs arising from the turbulence in the ABL. In contrast birds have evolved through millions of years and have techniques that enable them to cope far better than sUAVs in unsteady flow conditions. The difference in abilities between these two contrasting systems opens an opportunity to use avian strategies to improve the performance of sUAVs which is the focus of this research.
Whilst bird flight can be studied through the observation and measurement of their biomechanics in outdoor flight it is more convenient to perform tests in a controlled environment such as a wind tunnel. The foundations of this research rely on motion-tracking flight data from two Nankeen kestrels (Falco cenchroides) collected during numerous wind-tunnel flight experiments when performing non-flapping wind-hovering flights. A wind-hover is a “hanging” flight where the bird remains essentially stationary (despite the turbulent wind inputs) usually scanning the ground below for prey. This is commonly performed by this bird species and requires a high level of agility.
This work presents an investigation into the kinematics and morphing capabilities of kestrel wind-hovering flight, utilising the data set from the wind-tunnel study. Analysis revealed the importance of wrist extension (sweep) and other coupled kinematics for control and stability. Couplings between wings and tail were frequently observed, suggesting that kestrels balance aerodynamic forces between wing and tail motions. Behavioural differences were noted between the two birds highlighted the versatility of these birds in achieving stable flight through different morphing techniques.
To further understand the kinematics, including couplings, a high-fidelity robotic kestrel was designed which closely mimicked the live birds' morphing motions, validated against real kestrel data. Wind-tunnel force and moment data provided insights into the control benefits of different wing and tail morphing degrees of freedom (DoF) for stability tailoring and control redundancy. Area-changing DoF, uncommon in aircraft design, showed potential for optimizing performance in different flight stages and enabling gust mitigation.
In order to further understand why birds have greater levels of agility than equivalent-sized sUAVs measurements were made of the moments of inertia (MOIs) of a kestrel and compared with those of typical sUAVs. This knowledge, combined with a knowledge of the sUAVs control authorities (from control surface deflections) and similar avian control authorities provided insights into birds’ agility. Whilst sUAVs typically were found to exhibit higher control power than kestrels, the significantly lower moment of inertia of kestrel wings was found to be the main reason for birds’ greater agility.
Finally, the research explored the feasibility of implementing bird-inspired morphing into sUAV platforms, including the effectiveness of symmetrical and asymmetrical wing sweep for pitch and roll control and stability tailoring.
Overall, this research opens avenues for future morphing sUAV designs that leverage the agility and adaptability of birds, with potential applications for flight in complex urban environments and turbulent flow conditions. By implementing morphing, future aerial systems could achieve higher manoeuvrability and flight robustness, contributing to advances in surveillance, environmental monitoring, and search and rescue operations.</p
Optimisation of Lutein Extraction From Gac (<i>Momordica cochinchinensis</i>) Fruit Peel and Evaluation of In Vitro Eye Protective Effects of the Extracts
No full textLutein is a macular biopigment that can protect the retina from oxidative stress induced by chronic exposure to light and oxidants. The peel of gac fruit (Momordica cochinchinensis) contains high levels of lutein, but the extraction optimisation parameters are complex, requiring saponification, and the effects on ocular bioactivity are not well understood. This study is aimed at optimising parameters for lutein extraction validated using HPLC from gac peel to determine their protective effects on oxidatively stressed retinal cells. The factors investigated for optimisation were KOH concentration, time, and temperature using (1) single factor, (2) multiple factor response surface methodology, and (3) predictive modelling. The optimum conditions for lutein extraction using single factors were 9% KOH for 3 h at 60°C, multiple factors were 9% KOH for 3 h at 45°C, and predictive modelling was 18% KOH for 1.9 h at 39.9°C, with the maximum extraction of lutein at 12.37, 15.64, and 17.4 mg/g DW, respectively. The extracted lutein purity and chemical composition were compared using HPLC and FTIR and indicated high purity and similarities in all extracts including the commercially purified lutein. Lutein extracted exhibited benefits on oxidatively stressed retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells that reversed damage to baseline unstressed levels exceeding 80% viability, similar to purified lutein standards. The feasibility of gac lutein and extraction optimisation were discussed for commercial translational opportunities as a medicinal bioproduct with a focus on eye benefits.</p