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Advancing the Use of Minimum Input Building Simulation Models for Resilient and High-Performing Thermal Retrofits in Residential Buildings
No full textGlobal warming presents an urgent challenge, with residential buildings playing a significant role in driving climate change, through operational energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions [1]. Heating and cooling systems account for a substantial proportion of energy use in dwellings worldwide. Advances in building regulations and broad uptake of energy-efficient technologies have improved the performance of new buildings. However many nations are faced with considerable existing stock of thermally inefficient dwellings, which require substantial heating and cooling energy to maintain habitable conditions. Improving the energy performance and resilience to temperature extremes of these dwellings is essential, not only for reducing energy consumption, but also for lowering residential peak demand and mitigating the need for additional renewable generation capacity in the transition to a decarbonised energy network.Retrofitting for improved energy efficiency and thermal comfort is a complex task. Building performance simulation is widely used to evaluate and optimise retrofit strategies, with best-practice approaches leveraging data-driven calibration methods to enhance model predictive accuracy. This approach aims to reduce uncertainty by aligning simulated performance with observed data to enable the design of optimal and tailored improvements. However, traditional data-driven calibration approaches face significant challenges. The complexity of building systems, coupled with numerous unknown or poorly understood variables such as material properties, construction quality and occupant behaviour often lead to inaccuracies or uncertainties in model predictions [2]. Additionally, these models are typically calibrated using limited observed data, which can fail to fully represent the as-built conditions of dwellings.</p
The Association between Community Food Environments and Health Outcomes in High-Income Countries: A Systematic Literature Review
No full textPurpose of the Review: Unhealthy diets are a major modifiable factor contributing to chronic noncommunicable diseases and are highly influenced by the surrounding community food environment. This review aimed to summarize and synthesize the existing published evidence on the relationship between the community food environment and health outcomes in high-income countries. Recent Findings: A systematic literature review using five databases was conducted and reported according to PRISMA guidelines (Registration number: CRD42023463886). Data were extracted from 55 studies and summarised using narrative synthesis due to heterogeneity. A harvest plot was used to depict the associations between the community food environment and health outcomes for various “healthy” and “unhealthy” food environment metrics. Among 55 included studies, the most researched health outcomes were diabetes (n = 31; 56.4%), cardiovascular diseases (n = 22; 40%) and chronic disease-associated mortality (n = 8; 14.6%). The density of fast-food outlets was predominantly positively associated with diabetes (n = 14/24 associations), cardiovascular diseases (n = 14/27), and chronic disease-associated mortality (n = 5/6). Similarly, the presence of fast-food outlets (n = 7/9), the density of convenience stores (n = 7/13), and the ratio/proportion of unhealthy food outlets (n = 4/4) were predominantly positively associated with diabetes. Conversely, the density of full-service restaurants (n = 8/12) was predominantly negatively associated with diabetes. Summary: Emerging evidence suggests an association between the community food environment and health outcomes, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic disease-associated mortality. A lack of consistency in metrics used to characterise the community food environment remains a significant challenge to informing evidence-based policies and programs to improve community health outcomes.</p
Children and antibiotics: Factors influencing parental stewardship behaviours
No full textAntibiotics are crucial medicines in the treatment and prevention of bacterial disease. However, the overuse and misuse of antibiotics drives antimicrobial resistance. The emergence and spread of drug resistance is a major concern for public health leading to antibiotics being inefficacious in the treatment of infections caused by resistant bacteria. Children who are predisposed to both bacterial and viral illness use significant quantities of antibiotics. Thus, parents who are responsible for obtaining and managing the proper use of their children’s medication, play an essential role in paediatric antibiotic use. Accordingly, this research used a theoretical framework to examine the antibiotic use decisions of parents, with a particular focus on identifying the drivers of parents self-initiating antibiotic use with their children. The studies of this thesis took into consideration contextual factors that may contribute to antibiotic use decisions, such as the limitations in healthcare resources associated with living in rural or remote settings.The first study explored the attitudes and behaviours of parents living in remote areas of the Northern Territory of Australia towards their children’s use of antibiotics. Ten mothers took part in online focus group interviews. The themes generated from discussions with mothers highlighted that decisions about their children’s antibiotic use were driven by fear of severe illness, attitudes and beliefs about the effectiveness of antibiotics, and the social context, irrespective of holding accurate knowledge of the role of antibiotics. Fear of illness progression redirected decisions towards antibiotic use, which was compounded by a lack of timely and affordable access to health services in remote areas of Australia.The insights gained from Study 1 provided a foundation to investigate the decisional processes of parents located in rural communities more broadly by conducting a systematic review of the literature. The review incorporated 25 studies from 14 countries after 5 databases and unpublished material were systematically searched. A narrative synthesis of the findings produced 6 themes (symptoms, external influences, parent determinants, healthcare barriers, access to antibiotics and socio-demographic factors), which inter-related and motivated parents to seek antibiotics for their children and influenced autonomous practices with antibiotics.The first two studies highlighted that parents living in rural and remote locations often relied on the advice of others in their network to inform their decisions about their children’s antibiotic use, and demonstrated that parents may be driven to use antibiotics outside of appropriate medical advice to save time and money accessing health services. Study 3 aimed to determine the drivers of intended antibiotic use/misuse behaviour on a larger sample of parents using a revised version of the validated Antibiotic Use Questionnaire adapted for parents and carers. A total of 509 parents and caregivers completed an anonymous online survey. Recruitment was stratified between parents residing in rural and metropolitan locations across Australia. The results showed that attitudes/beliefs, social norms, perceived behavioural control and knowledge were the most significant predictors of parents’ intentions to self-initiate the use of antibiotics with their children. Social norms had by far the strongest influence on the intentions of parents to use antibiotics without visiting a doctor in both the rural and metropolitan cohorts sampled. Overall, the results of studies 1 to 3 identified a number of variables that drove the antibiotic use decisions of parents. Notably, the normative social influence of other people was the most significant factor found in this research to influence the antibiotic use and misuse decisions of parents. Future AMR interventions can be guided by the findings to more uniquely attend to the influence of the social environment on the antibiotic use practices of parents, as a step towards enhancing the use of antibiotics.</p
Injuries and risk factors in male adolescent community rugby union in Australia
No full textIntroduction: Rugby union is a fast-paced team sport with positional roles suited to a range of anthropometric profiles. Due to the nature and frequency of contact events at all levels of the game, injuries can occur. Following the establishment of the rugby union injury consensus statement, injury surveillance methods provide consistent reporting on elite, semi-professional and amateur standards of men’s competition. However, adolescent males are distinct from adult men based upon the stage and individual timing of somatic maturation that occurs during the teenage years. This stage of adolescent growth may be associated with injury risks and has been the source of public concern. Although data from within adolescent rugby populations exist, it is predominantly from representative academies and schools. Thus, research adhering to the consensus statement in adolescent community rugby union data were lacking. Therefore, this thesis aimed to: i) report injury incidence, severity, location, type and mechanisms according to age-grade and position (forward or back) as per recommended consensus definitions, ii) describe the anthropometric profiles and maturity offset, and iii) investigate injury risk associations with height, body mass and maturity offset within male adolescent community rugby union. An additional aim was to: iv) investigate the attitudes and perceptions of coaches in adolescent rugby union regarding injury risk and injury prevention.Methods: Prospective injury surveillance throughout three community rugby union seasons from multiple clubs including players from under 13 to under 17 age-grades using sports trainers as primary data collectors. Rugby union consensus injury definitions were used to report injury and severity data (Chapter 2), alongside the collection of anthropometric profiles using field-based equipment midway through the competitive season to describe height, body mass and maturity offset (Chapter 3) for further investigation as potential injury risk factors (Chapter 4). Additionally, an electronic survey was distributed to accredited rugby union coaches in Australia (Chapter 5) to ascertain their attitudes and perceptions to injury risk, risk factors and use of exercises from within the Activate injury prevention programme (IPP).Results: Any physical complaint included 1134 injuries (205.1/1000 hours), with 321 medical attention injuries (57.7/1000 hours) and 152 time-loss injuries (27.6/1000 hours). Head/neck injuries had the highest injury incidence rate (11.8/1000 hours), ~90% of injuries were due to contact mechanisms, mostly as a result of being tackled, and concussion was the injury type with the highest injury burden. Forwards had significantly greater injury burden associated with being tackled and collisions, and backs had greater injury burden associated with ruck injury. Forwards were also significantly taller and more mature in U13-U15 age-grades, with a significantly larger body mass than backs across all age-grades. Backs were significantly shorter with a lower body mass. A lower body mass was associated with increased time-loss, medical attention and physical complaint injury risk and burden, when accounting for height and position. A taller stature was associated with increased medical attention and physical complaint injury incidence and burden, when accounting for body mass and position. Coaches reported that contact and non-contact injuries are preventable but ranked lack of time as the greatest barrier to running an IPP with their team. Coaches also perceived that not warming up, poor fitness and low skill were the main injury risk factors. Awareness of the Activate IPP was low and most exercises were not incorporated at training or in match warm-up.Conclusion: This thesis appears to be the first to report on the “any physical complaint” definition as described in the rugby consensus statement within adolescent community rugby. Non-time loss and low severity injuries contribute greatly to the overall incidence in adolescent community rugby. The public perception of smaller players being at risk is somewhat confirmed by the incidence and burden associated with a lower body mass, however, taller stature was also significantly associated with injury risk. Differences in injury burden and injury mechanisms were observed between forwards and backs, suggesting that injury is also associated with positional demands, frequency of exposure to contact injury mechanisms and skill. Although the Activate IPP may reduce injury incidence and burden, coaches identified skill development as a priority in adolescent community rugby union. Thus, the findings of this thesis suggest that a national injury surveillance network is required to report injury aetiology and the efficacy of injury prevention strategies. Face-to-face training and consultation with coaches is also required to ensure that implementation is achievable within their team environment, with opportunities to contribute to the refinement and development of injury risk mitigation strategies.</p
Curvature Flows With an Ambient Vector Field
No full textWe study the problem of the evolution of planar curves driven by their curvature and an external force field. We derive conditions on both the initial curve and the vector field such that the behaviour of the solution is similar and different to the well studied curve shortening flow (CSF). We adapt pre-existing methods for similar flows to show that a sufficiently convex curve will shrink to a round point, provided the vector field is smooth. On the other hand, we construct a case where a strictly convex curve will lose convexity. The construction is based upon the sign of a quantity involving the second derivative of the vector field. We then characterise vector fields such that this quantity is zero and convexity is consequently preserved. For these flows we derive conditions highlighting the interaction between the location and shape of the curve such that solutions shrink to a point. Finally, we consider the flow as a method of evolving one curve to a given “target curve”. We construct a vector field such that, curves that are graphical in a tubular neighbourhood of the target, exponentially converge to the target. The proof uses classical methods from partial differential equations (PDEs) as we analyse the PDE the associated graph function satisfies.</p
Nutrition and physical activity practices in family day care: A cross-sectional survey of Australian family day care educators
No full textIssue Addressed: Munch & Move is a New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Health program offering family day care (FDC) educators training to support children's healthy behaviours. This study examined educators' nutrition, physical activity and screen time practices and relationships between Munch & Move training and professional development (PD) on these practices. Methods: NSW FDC educators (n = 186) completed an online survey from July 2020–June 2021. Differences between groups based on Munch & Move training (trained; not trained) and PD (those who completed PD ≥1 time per year; those who completed PD </p
University Councils: Composition, Consultancies, and Corporatisation
No full textThis submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee Inquiry into the Quality of Governance at Australian Higher Education Providers focuses on the governance structures of Australian universities, particularly their University Councils. It highlights the significant presence of corporate and consulting backgrounds among council members, raising concerns about conflicts of interest and transparency. The submission highlights the substantial consultancy spending by universities and argues that the corporate orientation of university councils may undermine their public mission. It calls for greater transparency in consultancy spending and tendering processes, increased representation of staff and students on councils, and the inclusion of members with specialised knowledge in higher education to ensure effective governance. The submission emphasises the need for reforms to ensure transparency, accountability, and effective leadership in higher education governance.</p
A study on the formability, mechanical and tribological properties of the Mn8/SS400 composite
No full textThe abstract for this item has not been populated.</p
Trustworthy battery state of charge estimation enabled by multi-task deep learning
No full textThe accurate estimation of state of charge (SOC) is critical for the reliable operation and safety of lithium-ion batteries. However, unexpected operating conditions, such as dynamic temperature variations and sensor faults, pose significant challenges to the reliability of data-driven estimation methods. This work addresses these challenges by proposing a novel multi-task deep neural network (DNN) framework that integrates a plug-and-play anomaly detection module to enable trustworthy SOC estimation. The proposed model employs an encoder to capture temporal dependencies from input voltage and current signals, followed by two parallel modules for SOC estimation and anomaly detection. The anomaly detection module reconstructs the input voltage using the learnt features and current sequence, identifying unreliable SOC estimations based on large reconstruction errors. Experimental validation using 188,157 discharging data points demonstrates the model's robustness under diverse unexpected conditions. The SOC estimation root mean squared error (RMSE) is reduced from 4.38 % to 0.86 % under temperature variations, and significant improvements are also observed in the presence of sensor faults. Additionally, its generalisation capability is demonstrated through validation on a public dataset featuring a different battery type. These results highlight the proposed method's effectiveness in enhancing both the accuracy and reliability of SOC estimation. The predictive performance is further rationalised by visualising the extracted latent features, providing deeper insights into the model's capabilities. The proposed multi-task learning paradigm has the potential to be adapted for trustworthy estimation of other battery states.</p
Adherence to the WHO movement behaviour guidelines and associations with health and development among young children in Ethiopia
No full textBackground: In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep for children under five years of age. Most studies informing these guidelines originated from high-income countries, raising concerns as 90% of children in this age group live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Few studies have been published on these behaviours among preschool-aged children in Africa and none from Ethiopia. This thesis aimed to bridge this gap with three primary objectives: first, it assessed the feasibility and acceptability of studying adherence to the WHO guidelines in Ethiopia and explored the associations between guideline compliance and health and development among children; second, it examined locally appropriate strategies and disseminated the study findings; and third, it reviewed existing literature on movement behaviours among forcibly displaced children in conflict or disaster settings.Methods: The thesis comprised six studies. The first study assessed the feasibility and acceptability of the study protocol. The second study examined adherence to the WHO movement behaviour guidelines and their associations with socio-demographic factors. The third study investigated the relationship between guideline compliance and health and development outcomes. The fourth study focused on the correlates of meeting the WHO guidelines. The fifth study explored locally tailored strategies for disseminating research findings. The sixth study was a scoping review on movement behaviours and health outcomes among forcibly displaced children in conflict or disaster settings. The first four studies of the thesis employed a cross-sectional study design involving Ethiopian children (3-5 years), recruited from kindergartens in Adama city and rural villages in the Lume District. Physical activity and sleep were measured using ActiGraph accelerometers, while screen time was parent-reported. Additional measurements included height and weight (BMI z-score), and assessments of motor skills (NIH Toolbox) and executive functions (Early years Toolbox). Study 5 translated the findings from Studies 2 and 3 using a Community-Engaged Research Dissemination Framework. The scoping review was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute methods for scoping reviews and reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extensions for Scoping Reviews.Results: The initial study confirmed the feasibility and acceptability of the study protocol in Ethiopian context, with an 89% compliance rate for accelerometer wear and complete data for all measurements. In the second study, 58% of children met all the WHO guidelines, with a higher proportion meeting the physical activity (96%) and sleep (92%) guidelines compared to the screen time guideline (64%). A higher proportion of rural children met the guidelines for screen time, sleep and all the three combined compared to their urban counterparts (85% vs 38%, 99% vs 84% and 81% vs 30%, respectively) with minimal differences between boys and girls. The third study found that longer sleep duration correlated with lower adiposity, while both total physical activity (TPA) and moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) were associated with better muscular strength. Outdoor play was positively associated with higher TPA and MVPA, longer sleep, and reduced screen time. Children of educated parents had lower TPA and MVPA and higher sedentary time compared to those with uneducated parents. Children using screens for educational purposes had less MVPA, shorter sleep, and more screen time. Girls participated in less physical activity (both TPA and MVPA) and more sedentary behaviour than boys. The fifth study highlighted the importance of translating research through culturally and contextually informed strategies in Ethiopian settings. The strategies identified included sharing tailored individual results with parents, sharing summary findings with educators and local stakeholders, conducting a dissemination workshop and holding a media briefing. Finally, the scoping review identified significant evidence gaps in movement behaviours among forcibly displaced children, who had low levels of physical activity and high sedentary behaviour, which was associated with adverse health outcomes such as increased obesity risk, weaker muscular strength, and increased developmental delays.Conclusion: This thesis proved the feasibility of conducting research on 24-hour movement behaviours and health outcomes among young children in Ethiopia. It found that rural children had higher compliance with WHO guidelines than urban children, indicating a need for targeted strategies in urban areas. Future research should involve larger, representative samples across more regions in Ethiopia. The effective dissemination strategies employed lay a strong foundation for future knowledge translation efforts in LMICs. In displacement contexts, immediate action is essential to improve movement behaviours and uphold the right to play for forcibly displaced children.</p