19683 research outputs found
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Adopting and Adapting the Smart City Concept in Indonesian Cities: A Case Study of Governmentality vs. Improvisation in the Surabaya Smart City 2019 Competition
No full textSubmitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.</p
Can we Trust the Data? Strategies for Evaluating Data Quality and Information Integrity Documentation and Guidelines of Government Health Information Assets for Reuse Purposes
No full textSubmitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.</p
Hip muscle size and adiposity in football players with hip and groin pain
No full textA thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science to the La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre, School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.</p
Repairing disability access in competitive environments: drivers of inclusive service provision for people with intellectual disabilities
No full textIn many countries around the world, individualised budgets are replacing ‘block funding’ as the primary way in which disability service provision is funded. These models assume that dynamics of competition improve services for people with disabilities. This article presents the findings of research on the accessibility and inclusiveness of mainstream services for people with intellectual disabilities in four Australian cities in the wake of the rollout of individual support budgets. We use the concept of ‘repair’ and the conceptual framework of ‘landscapes of care and support’ to analyse interviews with mainstream service managers. Our findings reveal that not-for-profit organisations perform crucial tasks in persuading for-profit service providers to collaborate with them to improve their accessibility and inclusion. When these services collaborate to repair service access, not-for-profit organisations often take on associated responsibility, costs and risk to encourage reparative adjustments in for-profit services. Not-for-profit organisations are also more likely to be tasked with the relational and interpersonal work that is crucial for successful service repair. Our findings challenge assumptions that free-market competition is the main driver of more accessible and inclusive service delivery and suggest how policy can support more equitable collaborative repair work.</p
Shifting solutions: tracking transformations of drugs, health and the ‘human’ through human rights processes in Australia
No full textNo description supplied.</p
Neuropsychological outcomes following endovascular clot retrieval and intravenous thrombolysis in ischemic stroke
No full textObjectives: Cognitive impairment, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and dependence in instrumental activities of daily living (ADL) are common after stroke; however, little is known about how these outcomes may differ following treatment with endovascular clot retrieval (ECR), intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA), or conservative management. Methods: Patients were recruited after acute treatment and invited to participate in an outcome assessment 90–120 days post-stroke. The assessment included a cognitive test battery and several questionnaires. The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant disruptions in recruitment and data collection, and the t-PA and conservative management groups were combined into a standard medical care (SMC) group. Results: Sixty-two participants were included in the study (ECR = 31, SMC = 31). Mean age was 66.5 (20–86) years, and 35 (56.5%) participants were male. Participants treated with ECR had significantly higher National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores at presentation and significantly lower education. After adjusting for stroke severity, premorbid intellectual ability, and age, treatment with ECR was associated with significantly better performances on measures of cognitive screening, visual working memory, and verbal learning and memory. Participants treated with ECR also experienced less fatigue and were more likely to achieve independence in basic and instrumental ADLs. Despite this, cognitive impairment and fatigue were still common among participants treated with ECR and anxiety and depression symptoms were experienced similarly by both groups. Conclusions: Cognitive impairment and fatigue were less common but still prevalent following treatment with ECR. This has important practical implications for stroke rehabilitation, and routine assessment of cognition, emotion, and fatigue is recommended for all stroke survivors regardless of stroke treatment and functional outcome.</p
An electrophysiological correlate of sleep in a shark
No full textSleep is a prominent physiological state observed across the animal kingdom. Yet, for some animals, our ability to identify sleep can be masked by behaviors otherwise associated with being awake, such as for some sharks that must swim continuously to push oxygenated seawater over their gills to breathe. We know that sleep in buccal pumping sharks with clear rest/activity cycles, such as draughtsboard sharks (Cephaloscyllium isabellum, Bonnaterre, 1788), manifests as a behavioral shutdown, postural relaxation, reduced responsiveness, and a lowered metabolic rate. However, these features of sleep do not lend themselves well to animals that swim nonstop. In addition to video and accelerometry recordings, we tried to explore the electrophysiological correlates of sleep in draughtsboard sharks using electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography, and electrooculography, while monitoring brain temperature. The seven channels of EEG activity had a surprising level of (apparent) instability when animals were swimming, but also when sleeping. The amount of stable EEG signals was too low for replication within- and across individuals. Eye movements were not measurable, owing to instability of the reference electrode. Based on an established behavioral characterization of sleep in draughtsboard sharks, we offer the original finding that muscle tone was strongest during active wakefulness, lower in quietly awake sharks, and lowest in sleeping sharks. We also offer several critical suggestions on how to improve techniques for characterizing sleep electrophysiology in future studies on elasmobranchs, particularly for those that swim continuously. Ultimately, these approaches will provide important insights into the evolutionary confluence of behaviors typically associated with wakefulness and sleep.</p
‘De-Risking’, De-Banking and Denials of Bank Services: An Over-Compliance Dilemma?
No full textThis chapter considers the impact of drivers of over-compliance or so-called ‘gold plating’ on decisions of banks to terminate or restrict relationships with customers and counterparts. It draws on a South African study of factors that influenced overly-conservative design of anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing measures of South African banks in a rule-based context. It considers whether the identified drivers are still relevant in a risk-based context. The chapter concludes that the broad drivers remain relevant and that regulators that wish to limit risk-informed de-banking should avoid strengthening the drivers and consider how best to neutralise them.</p
Issue agenda-setting in the voice to parliament referendum: using big data to explain voice discourse on traditional and social media
No full textABSTRACT:
This article explores issue agenda-setting in Australia’s 2023 Voiceto Parliament referendum, analysing the dynamics of Yes and Nocampaigns in a diverse media ecosystem. We identify influentialmessages across this complex media environment using softclustering of sentence embeddings from large language models(LLMs). Drawing on 3.3 million documents and over 10 millionVoice specific sentences from mainstream and social mediasources, we identify the narrative configurations of thecampaigns, their audience size and engagement. Overall, the Yescampaign dominated with more diverse messaging and greateraudience size and engagement than No. Yet, the No caseprevailed. We find the narrower, mostly negative No campaignhelped sustain the issue agenda both online and offline, forcingYes to respond to it. The findings also challenge echo chambertheory, revealing most unique topics contained content fromboth #Yes and #No perspectives, indicating robust publicengagement rather than isolated filter bubbles.</p
‘George’s Gymnastics Program’, a Community Gymnastic Program for Children with a Disability: Perceptions of Participant Stakeholders
No full textBackground: The aim of this study is to understand what children with a disability like and dislike about participating in a gymnastics program, and to understand the views of the adults supporting the program. Methods: Children with a mild intellectual disability (aged 5–12) from a primary school providing special education participated in one of four gymnastics programs (1 h/week for 5 weeks) at a gymnastics centre. The program included ~25–50 children per group, with ~20 adults providing support, including gymnastics coaches, teachers, and adult students on placement. To evaluate the program, children (11–12-year-olds; n = 51) were invited to complete a written two-page reflection, and the adults were invited to participate in one of three focus groups. Results: 150 children attended one of four programs. Twenty-six 11–12-year-olds participated in the evaluation (n = 26/51, 51%), and, from the written responses, the themes of ‘individual preference’ and ‘resilience’ emerged. It was found that 96% (n = 25/26) reported they would like to do more gymnastics, 88% (n = 23/26) reported positive feelings during gymnastics, and 65% (n = 17/26) expressed concerns such as feeling tired or hot. Twenty-three adults participated in a focus group. Key themes included the positive impact the program delivery had on the children’s participation; and the positive impact on coaches, students, and teacher’s disability attitudes and knowledge. Conclusions: This gymnastics program was well-liked by children with a disability. To optimise participation, promoting individual choice and control may be of benefit.</p