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Message Stick Protocols: Fostering First Nations’ Cultural Empowerment in the Built Environment
No full textThis research explores "Message Stick Protocols" to integrate First Nations' Cultural Knowledge within Australia's built environment. Through formal and informal observations, it documents experiences and outcomes with First Nations' Communities to create a framework that incorporates Indigenous cultural protocols into architectural practice. The aim is to foster Cultural empowerment, ensuring First Nations' perspectives are foundational in built environment projects. The study advocates for shifting from Eurocentric norms to a culturally informed architectural approach, emphasising reciprocal relationships and Community-centric outcomes. Case studies and reflective practices highlight architecture's potential as a tool for social justice, underscoring the importance of culturally inclusive design. This work contributes to a transformative understanding of architecture, proposing a future where First Nations' Cultural narratives and values are central to design and construction, promoting Cultural integrity and sustainability.</p
Keeping Clothes Out of Landfill: A landscape survey of Australian consumer practices
No full textThis report presents findings from a landscape survey of Australian consumers’ clothing disposal and use practices. A national survey of 3080 participants was conducted to understand how and why consumers dispose of their clothing, as well as how they acquire, care for, and repair their clothing. The findings of this report are intended to inform decision makers in industry and government on how best to support Australian consumers to embrace practices that will support clothing circularity. To move to a circular economy for clothing will require changed consumer behaviour to slow the overall rate of consumption, to keep clothing in active use as long as possible, and to ensure that at the end of its useful life, clothing material can be recycled.</p
Examining the Usage of Persuasive System Design to Drive Motivation for Learning Programming
No full textLearning to program is challenging, and the dropout and pass rates in programming courses have remained an issue for several decades. Many students experience difficulties in gaining the necessary programming skills. Hence, students in programming courses need to be motivated to maintain the required effort to develop programs. The current problem is that not all students—in particular, non-computer-science majors—have the same motivation or interest to pursue programming as part of their studies. Therefore, there is a need to keep students motivated while they pursue programming activities.
Accordingly, this research aimed to examine the impact of applying persuasive system design (PSD) principles to develop the instructional design of a programming course in order to improve students’ motivation for learning programming. This study followed the design science research (DSR) methodology by adapting Peffers et al.’s (2007) model to develop the instructional design for an introductory online programming course, into which it incorporated PSD principles. The programming course was deployed in a free Canvas account and covered the fundamental topics in introductory programming.
Mixed methods were employed for data collection, encompassing pre-test and post-test assessments, log-system analysis and semi-structured interviews with voluntary participants to assess the influence of the course design on their motivation. First, a Programming Motivation Questionnaire, adapted from the Science Motivation Questionnaire-II, was used to measure their motivation before and after they took the designed programming course. This adapted questionnaire consists of five subscales: intrinsic motivation, career motivation, self-efficacy, self-determination and grade motivation. Second, a thematic analysis was conducted to identify the themes that emerged from the interviews.
The results showed that the intervention had a positive impact on the participants’ motivation. Analysis of data from the 89 participants completed pre- and post-questionnaires revealed a significant enhancement of their motivation level (from a mean of 3.62 and median of 3.96, respectively, to a mean of 4.08 and median of 4.28, respectively). Further, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed a statistically significant increase in motivation after taking this course, with a medium effect size. Moreover, the thematic analysis identified various themes, which supported the quantitative results. The themes identified that the effects of the course on the participants’ experience, such as motivation, encouragement, self-efficacy and satisfaction, were prevalent among the 10 interviewees.
Thus, this research contributes to the literature that addresses issues surrounding learning programming. It provides an alternative solution to stimulate students’ motivation and avoid increasing instructors’ workload. This study also reveals the role of various PSD principles in developing the instructional design and the impact of an instructional design decision on students’ motivation.
Future research should examine the application of PSD in traditional courses in higher education. Conducting the study during an academic semester will provide a more comprehensive understanding of how PSD influences the motivation of students from various domains.</p
Improving the Processability & Functional Properties of Thermoplastic Polymers for Fused Filament Fabrication
No full textAdditive Manufacturing (AM), often referred to as 3D printing, is recognized as a transformative technology for its capacity to efficiently fabricate complex parts using multiple materials while minimizing material wastage. However, despite its versatility, challenges such as limited portfolio of available polymeric materials, lack of functional materials, and absence of standardization & certifications of testing processes remain significant challenges to its widespread adoption. Overcoming these challenges is crucial for unlocking the full potential of AM in improving manufacturing efficiency and sustainability. This thesis investigates methods to enhance the processability and functional properties of thermoplastic polymers, with a specific focus on Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and thermoplastic polyimides (TPIs) within the realm of Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF). Initial investigation offers a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in AM, specifically concentrating on FFF 3D printing, its principles, advantages, and limitations. It also provides an in-depth analysis of various thermoplastic polymer materials, particularly PLA, TPI, as well as their blends and composites in the context of FFF. Further investigation concentrates on developing functional PLA composite filaments for FFF, emphasizing the preparation of a PLA ternary biocomposite with well-balanced mechanical properties. This involves the synthesis and modification of cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) with 1-Pyrenebutyric acid (PBA). The study thoroughly investigates the enhanced mechanical properties of the printed ternary biocomposite through various
characterization techniques. Additionally, this study explores the solid-state fluorescence emission of the PLA biocomposite, suggesting potential applications in the 3D printing of fluorescence-based sensors and optical devices. Furthermore, the synthesis of PLA-PEG-PLA triblock copolymer and its blending with PLA are discussed as a strategy to address the inherent brittleness commonly observed in 3D printed PLA. The research demonstrates the blend's miscibility, resulting in improved toughness without phase separation, distinguishing it from other PLA blends with soft polymers and plasticizers. A detailed investigation into the crystallization behavior of the printed PLA blend is conducted, including studies on nucleation efficiency and sph erulite morphology. Subsequent studies highlight the successful production of 3D printable TPI filaments and studied change in viscosity with processing temperature over a consistent time period. Mechanical and thermal properties of 3D printed TPI filaments in different build orientations are assessed, along with an examination of their solid-state quantum yield to analyze fluorescence properties. This research reveals the potential of TPI as a high-performance polymer for advanced FFF applications requiring high-temperature stability, intricate shapes, and fluorescence properties. Finally, subsequent investigation summarizes the overall findings and outlines potential directions for future research. This investigation lays the groundwork for developing functionalized filaments capable of meeting diverse industrial requirements while promoting sustainability and efficiency in manufacturing processes.</p
External Shocks and Household Welfare: Evidence from Vietnam
No full textIn today’s rapidly changing world, shocks have become part of lives. Households are facing unexpected events and sudden changes on a daily basis. Whether they cause positive or negative outcomes, the effects of shocks on households vary widely, depending on many factors, such as income level, education and access to resources. This thesis focuses on examining the effects of various shocks, including weather, policy and the COVID‑19 pandemic, on household behaviours in Vietnam.
Chapter 2 combines a rich satellite rainfall data set with longitudinal data from the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey to examine the effects of weather shocks on social trust in rural Vietnam. While floods significantly increase the possibility of trust, droughts statistically reduce it. However, providing a good irrigation system that meets the water demand of households can help improve social trust during droughts. In addition, public transfers and support from relatives are found to increase social trust in the aftermath of droughts, whereas support from the Women’s Union mediates the positive effects of floods on social trust.
Chapter 3 studies the effects of Land Law 2013 in Vietnam that extended land-use rights for annual crop, aquacultural land and pasture from 20 years to 50 years. The effects on household access to credit are examined. Specifically, a difference-in-difference methodology is used to identify the causal effects of the increased land tenure on households’ debt-to-income ratios. Results suggest that the extension in land usufructs has had positive effects on the loan amounts received by rural households. The results remain robust after using various definitions to construct treatment and control groups and using a full sample that has a triple difference-in-difference approach. The effect is larger for households that had no loans prior to the reform and for households in Vietnam’s Northern provinces.
Chapter 4 investigates the causal relationship between home isolation because of the COVID‑19 pandemic and the consumption of demerit goods, specifically, tobacco and alcohol, in Vietnam during the first year of the pandemic (2020). Employing new COVID‑19 cases detected in communities as an instrumental variable for mobility, it is found that prolonged periods of home isolation increase tobacco consumption. The observed impact is more pronounced in households that have female and divorced heads. Further, staying at home results in less beer consumption. The study, however, finds no significant statistical impact on the intake of spirits.
The findings from the thesis are valuable for policymakers to foster community trust after natural shocks, to enhance credit access in rural areas and to reduce side effects of isolation in the pandemic. They offer guidance for shaping policies to reduce negative impacts and promote positive impacts of shocks, particularly in Vietnamese context.</p
Young Adult and Stakeholder Perspectives of Sexuality Education in Australia: Implications for Sexual Violence Primary Prevention
No full textIn Australia, there has been a notable surge in efforts, funding, and policy initiatives aimed at reducing sexual violence over the past decade. Considerable attention has been directed towards school-based relationships and sexuality education (RSE) as a primary prevention strategy for addressing sexual violence among young people. This thesis investigated this phenomenon, focusing on the role of RSE in preventing sexual violence. While criminological and feminist scholarship highlights the importance of incorporating young people’s perspectives into prevention strategies, there is a lack of Australian research exploring young adults’ retrospective viewpoints on RSE. Additionally, existing research has largely overlooked the insights of outsourced professional stakeholders involved in delivering or shaping RSE programs. This thesis was primarily informed by the frameworks of intersectionality and the continuum of sexual violence and employed qualitative semi-structured interviews as the method of data collection. The perspectives of 15 professional outsourced stakeholders engaged in RSE were gathered, focusing on the effective features of and barriers to comprehensive RSE. Additionally, 20 young adults aged 18 to 30 were interviewed to explore their perspectives and experiences regarding RSE and sexual experiences. A reflexive thematic analysis was conducted to analyse and interpret the data.
This research presents three dominant findings, with several key themes generated from the stakeholder’s and young adults’ perspectives. Firstly, it revealed that the development, implementation, and delivery of RSE in Australia remains inadequate. Both stakeholders and young adults advocated for a shift in approach from risk and harm reduction to a more comprehensive strategy that addresses broader structural influences on sexual experiences. This included incorporating sex-positive topics such as sexual pleasure, sexual wellbeing, and effective communication strategies into RSE to equip young people to navigate ethical sexual experiences. Secondly, the diverse practices of ethical and consensual sex among young adults highlighted the varied contexts, circumstances, and societal and cultural norms influencing their sexual experiences. The young adults’ understandings of consent were largely shaped by their exposure to sexual violence, whether through lived experiences or media consumption, such as news stories on sexual violence cases. Acknowledging the diverse influences on sexual experiences highlights the importance of tailoring RSE and sexual violence prevention strategies to meet the unique needs and circumstances of young people.
Lastly, this research highlights the potential for adopting an ecological approach to inform RSE programs. Insights gathered from the stakeholders and young adults revealed that RSE must go beyond its narrow focus on individual-level behaviours to address broader sociocultural and contextual structures that shape sexual experiences. Current programs often overlook issues related to ethics, power dynamics, social and cultural norms and assumptions, and personal agency. There is a critical need for RSE to embrace a framework that acknowledges and addresses the complex nature of sexuality and sexual violence. This research advocates for a review and reformation of current approaches to RSE to better equip young people with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to engage in safer, more ethical and fulfilling sexual experiences.</p
Antimicrobial Polymer Design by Machine Learning
No full textPolymers are an important class of materials with vast arrays of physical and chemical properties and have been widely used in many applications and industrial products. The rapid growth of resistant microorganisms has caused serious public health issue and poses great pressure on the current healthcare system. In this environment, the necessity of new antibiotic materials is even more prominent. Antimicrobial polymers are a type of polymers that has the ability to eradicate or impede the proliferation of microbes on their surfaces or within their surrounding environment. The mechanism of action of antibacterial polymers makes them a perfect fit for medical devices. Although there have been many successful polymer design studies, the design of new antibacterial polymer with desired antimicrobial properties is still challenging. The pace of material discovery research can be accelerated to meet the high demand for new, functional materials. With the advanced development of artificial intelligence, the use of machine learning has shown great potential in data-driven design and the discovery of polymers up to date. Several polymer datasets have been compiled, allowing robust Machine Learning models to be trained and provide accurate predictions of various polymer properties. Such models are useful for screening promising candidate polymers with high-performing properties prior to lab synthesis.
In this project, we focus on the most critical components of polymer design using molecular descriptors and machine learning algorithms. A summary of existing polymer databases and machine learning algorithms is provided, the different categories of polymer descriptors are discussed in detail and multiple past polymer studies cases are analysed. Additionally, we explored ChatGPT, an advanced language model with remarkable capabilities for understanding and responding to text input for polymer design. Furthermore, multiple predictive models were designed and trained based on our database to classify the antimicrobial properties of these polymers.</p
Supplementary Figures
No full textSupplementary Figure 1. Gating strategy for thoracic aorta single cell suspension at 30 and 60 (d.p.i). T cells were gated from live cells, which were gated from CD45+ Lymphocytes. CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were further gated into CD44+, CD69+, naïve cells, TCM cells, and TEM cells. CD8+ T cells were also gated to reveal CD44+IAV-Specific CD8+ T cells, and the TCM or TEM cell phenotypes within the IAV-Specific CD8+ T cell population. Supplementary Figure 2. IAV infection in pregnancy is associated with increased pup deaths. Pregnant mice infected with PBS or HKx-31(x-31) at 104 PFUs was assessed for the following pregnancy outcomes: gestation at delivery, litter sizes and number of pup deaths 24 h after birth. Data shown represent PBS, n = 44 litters and X-31, n = 56 litters across the study. Results are presented as mean ± SEM. Unpaired Student’s t-test was used for statistical analysis against respective PBS controls. ****P Supplementary Figure 3. Area under the curve responses of aorta in IAV infected mice. Vascular function was measured in isolated thoracic aortic rings of non-pregnant mice infected with PBS or HKx-31(x-31) at 104 PFUs for assessment of (A) endothelium dependent vasodilation to acetylcholine (Ach) and (B) endothelium independent vasodilation to sodium nitroprusside (SNP; B) at 12, 30 and 60 d.p.i. Area under the curve was calculated to determine the total vascular response to Ach and SNP. Data shown represent PBS, n = 6; X-31, n = 5; of at least two independent experiments. Results are presented as mean ± SEM. Unpaired Student’s t-test was used for statistical analysis against their respective PBS controls. *P Supplementary Figure 4. CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are not persistently elevated in the aorta of non-pregnant mice. Non-pregnant and pregnant 8-12 week old mice were inoculated with PBS or HKx-31 (X-31) at 104 PFUs. Mice were culled at 30 and 60 d.p.i and aorta single cell suspensions were assessed via flow cytometry for the proportion of live CD45+ leukocytes that are CD4+ or CD8+ T cells, the number of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, the proportion of CD8+ T cells that are CD44+ and DbPA224 tetramer+ and number of CD8+ CD44+ DbPA224 tetramer+ T cells recovered from aortic tissue. All data shown represent pregnant PBS, n = 4-7; pregnant X-31, n = 4-10; of at least two independent experiments. All cell populations are measured as absolute number of cells per 25,000 counting beads. Results are presented as mean ± SEM. Unpaired Student’s t-test was used for statistical analysis against respective PBS controls. *P Supplementary Figure 5. Naïve, TCM, TEM and putative TRM subsets within CD4+ and CD8+ T cell populations in the aorta post viral clearance. Non-pregnant and pregnant 8-12 week old mice were infected with PBS or HKx-31 (X-31) at 104 PFUs and culled at 30 and 60 d.p.i. Aorta single cell suspensions were assessed via flow cytometry for the numbers of CD4+ naïve (CD44-CD62L+), TCM (CD44+CD62L+), TEM CD44+CD62L-) cells and putative CD4+ TRM (CD44+CD69+) or numbers of CD8+ naïve (CD44-CD62L+), TCM (CD44+CD62L+), TEM (CD44+CD62L-) and putative CD8+ TRM (CD44+CD69+) cells in the aorta. Data shown represent pregnant PBS, n = 4-7; pregnant X-31, n = 4-10; of at least two independent experiments. All cell populations are measured as absolute number of cells per 25,000 counting beads. Results are presented as mean ± SEM. Unpaired Student’s unpaired t-test was used for statistical analysis against respective PBS controls. *P < 0.05.</p
School As Learning Organisations: The Influence of Educational Leadership, Organisational Knowledge Circulation, and School Culture Over Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Vietnamese K-12 Schools
No full textThe chaotic situation of today’s VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) and TUNA (Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel, Ambiguous) world is bringing more and more active and passive reforms, including positive and negative aspects, that reform business models. Educational institutions are not exceptional. Regarding the nature of educational institutions’ operation in today’s rapidly changing context, school leaders also need to raise concerns similar to those of business managers from other industries: “How do their institutions continuously renovate to adapt to tomorrow’s world?” Thus, based on organisational learning theories, this project aims to establish a framework to evaluate educational leadership’s influence on the organisational knowledge circulation effectiveness within the K-12 education context. The study combines a structured literature review, bibliometrics analysis, and high-order structural equation model analysis on the survey for teachers among Vietnamese public and private K-12 schools. First, this project proposed and validated a toolset to measure educational leadership as a combination of principalship and teacher leadership. Second, it revealed new insights about the impacts of educational leadership, knowledge circulation, and school culture on teachers’ job satisfaction. The project also offers insights into teachers’ professional development activities across various school types and grade levels in Vietnam, which contribute to further continuous renovation of Vietnamese K-12 schools, and diversify the corpus of educational leadership studies. This project’s results extended the applications of organisational learning theories in K-12 education, as well as can be adopted to establish further knowledge management frameworks in other settings such as higher education or vocational education.</p
Mapping cross-national conceptions of essential energy to advance housing energy justice – Urban tour photos - Leeds
No full textThe project entailed qualitative research from focus groups and urban tours. The study leveraged the cross-national collaboration of the WELLBASED project. WELLBASED was a European Union Horizon 2020 project that was trialling energy poverty interventions between 2021 and 2025 across six cities: Leeds (UK), Valencia (Spain), Heerlen (Netherlands), Edirne (Turkey), Obuda (Hungary) and Jelgava (Latvia). The study captured and compared the WELLBASED professionals’ perceptions of essential energy.This dataset contains the photos of the urban tour in Leeds, United Kingdom, in the summer of 2023.</p