Digital Commons Network^™

Why Are Some Mitochondria More Powerful Than Others: Insights From Comparisons Of Muscle Mitochondria From Three Terrestrial Vertebrates, Helga Guderley, Nigel Turner, Paul Else, Anthony J. Hulbert

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

We studied the molecular composition of muscle mitochondria to evaluate whether the contents of cytochromes or adenine nucleotide translocase (ANT) or phospholipid acyl compositions reflect differences in mitochondrial oxidative capacities. We isolated mitochondria from three vertebrates of similar size and preferred temperature, the rat (Rattus norvegicus), the cane toad (Bufo marinus) and the bearded dragon lizard (Pogona vitticeps). Mitochondrial oxidative capacities were higher in rats and cane toads than in bearded dragon, whether rates were expressed relative to protein, cytochromes or ANT. Inter-specific differences were least pronounced when rates were expressed relative to cytochrome …

The Relationship Between Self-Esteem And Academic Achievement In High Ability Students: Evidence From The Wollongong Youth Study., Wilma Vialle, Patrick C. L. Heaven, Joseph Ciarrochi

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement is one that is regarded by many educators as a well-established fact. This belief has been often invoked in order to argue against the provision of ability grouping for gifted students. Refuting that commonly-held belief, this research examined the relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement in 65 high-ability secondary students, a sample drawn from a longitudinal study of over 900 students. The research demonstrated that there were no differences in measured selfesteem between the gifted and non-gifted students. More contentiously, though, the research found no correlation between self-esteem and academic achievement for the …

Dietary Fats And Membrane Function: Implications For Metabolism And Disease, Anthony J. Hulbert, Nigel Turner, Leonard H. Storlein, Paul Else

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Lipids play varied and critical roles in metabolism, with function dramatically modulated by the individual fatty acid moities in complex lipid entities. In particular, the fatty acid composition of membrane lipids greatly influences membrane function. Here we consider the role of dietary fatty acid profile on membrane composition and, in turn, its impact on prevalent disease clusters of the metabolic syndrome and mental illness. Applying the classical physiological conformer-regulator paradigm to quantify the influence of dietary fats on membrane lipid composition (i.e. where the membrane variable is plotted against the same variable in the environment - in this case dietary …

Predictors Of Men's Acceptance Of Modern Contraceptive Practice: Study In Rural Vietnam, Bui Thi Thu Ha, Rohan Jayasuriya, Neville Owen

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Studies have shown family planning adoption is likely to be more effective for women when men are actively involved. The transtheoretical model of behavior change was used to examine mens involvement in general contraception and intrauterine device (IUD) use by their wives. The study was carried out in rural Vietnam with 651 eligible participants. Cons of IUD use for men in precontemplation and contemplation/preparation were significantly higher than those in the action/maintenance stages, whereas the reverse was true for pros of IUD. The self-efficacy for convincing wife to have IUD in precontemplation was significantly lower than for those in higher …

Young People's Help-Seeking For Mental Health Problems., Debra Rickwood, Frank P. Deane, Coralie J. Wilson, Joseph V. Ciarrochi

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper summarises an ambitious research agenda aiming to uncover the factors that affect help-seeking among young people for mental health problems. The research set out to consider why young people, and particularly young males, do not seek help when they are in psychological distress or suicidal; how professional services be made more accessible and attractive to young people; the factors that inhibit and facilitate help-seeking; and how community gatekeepers can support young people to access services to help with personal and emotional problems. A range of studies was undertaken in New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT, using both …

Case Managers' Use Of Homework Assignments, Peter Kelly, Frank P. Deane

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: Homework refers to between-session activities that are tied to therapeutic goals. Homework has been suggested as being an important clinical adjunct to case management practices, however to date research has not examined case managers’ use of homework. Aims: To identify the degree that case managers use homework within their clinical practice and explore the way it is administered with people diagnosed with a persistent and recurring psychiatric illness. Method: A survey was completed by 122 case managers comprising of nurses, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists and welfare/support workers. Results: Ninety-three percent of case managers implement homework, but only 15% …

Overweight Consumers' Salient Beliefs On Omega-3-Enriched Functional Foods In Australia's Illawarra Region, C. Patch, Linda C. Tapsell, P. G. Williams

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective: To determine consumer salient beliefs toward functional foods enriched with omega-3 fatty acids. Design: Focus group interviews with adult consumers using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework. Setting: Community-based residents living in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. Participants: Forty-two overweight participants (29 female; 13 male) aged 30-80y recruited by advertisement and attending one of six focus groups which were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis: Content analysis was carried out and sub-categories were developed to capture the emerging themes according to the TPB model. Results: Most participants were aware of a range of …

Development Of A Computer-Assisted Dietary Assessment Tool For Use In Primary Healthcare Practice: Perceptions Of Nutrition And Computers In A Sample Of Older Adults With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Y. C. Probst, C. Krnavek, L. Lockyer, Linda C. Tapsell

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

As part of a larger study developing dietary software, this study aims to evaluate a sample of potential users for their experience and comfort with computers and assess the preferred program design and navigation features for the development of the automated diet history interview. A telephone-based questionnaire and focus groups were employed to evaluate the perceptions, beliefs and attitudes of 37 older adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Participants were also shown a range of existing dietary assessment programs and asked to state their perceptions of each. Data was coded and thematically analysed based on computer use, software features, dietary …

Using Market Segmentation Theory To Select Target Markets For Sun Protection Campaigns, Sandra C. Jones, L. Rees, Danika Hall, A. Tang

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper describes the initial steps in target market segmentation and evaluation as part of an industry-linked research project to develop a social marketing program for sun protection. The Project Reference Group developed a set of segmentation evaluation criteria based on recommendations from marketing and health promotion literature, as well as adding criteria specifically relevant to the industry partner. The process enabled an informed, representative and defensible selection of a primary target market as an initial starting point for further target market research and segmentation. It also demonstrated that bridging terminology from the fields of marketing and health promotion as …

Western Australians' Perceptions Of The Survivability Of Different Cancers: Implications For Public Education Campaigns, Robert J Donovan, Owen Bj Carter, Geoffrey Jalleh, Sandra C. Jones

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Study On The Effect Of Positive (Warmth Appeal) And Negative (Guilt Appeal) Print Imagery On Donation Behaviour In Animal Welfare, M. Haynes, Jennifer Thornton, Sandra C. Jones

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Very few studies in social marketing empirically compare the effectiveness of positive and negative appeals. This study examines the effect of positive (warmth appeal) and negative (guilt appeal) print imagery on donation behaviour to an animal welfare organisation. A quasiexperimental design was used to test the appeals, using a convenience sample of 282 university students, with each experimental group being exposed to only one type of appeal. The results indicated that negative imagery which evoked guilt was more effective than positive imagery which evoked warmth, on intention to donate money and time to the animal welfare organisation.

Are Current Social Marketing Campaigns Getting Through To Undergraduate University Students?, Sandra C. Jones

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In this study, we conduct a survey of health behaviours among undergraduate university students. The health behaviours include weight control, exercise, smoking, alcohol consumption, use of illicit drugs, and safe-sex practices. By comparing the results with national survey results, we test the hypothesis that university students – who have completed high school, with better than average grades – are more likely to exhibit healthy behaviours and avoid unhealthy or unsafe behaviours than the general population. Detailed information on the health behaviours of university students is not currently available (see Australia’s Health 2000, in which there are no reports of health …

Believability And Effectiveness Of Young Adult Safe-Drinking Messages, N. Breen, Sandra C. Jones

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study investigates eight safe-drinking messages, using appeals to the ‘self’ versus appeals about ‘others’, in combination with either a low or high physical threat, or a low or high social threat. The participants were18-25 year old second-year university marketing students. An experimental design was used for data collection, which involved 196 participants, with the groups comprised of participants with homogenous demographic characteristics and drinking behaviour. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the believability and effectiveness of the messages. It was determined that messages about ‘others’ were perceived as more believable and effective than the corresponding appeals used …

Linking The Structure And Perception Of 3-D Faces: Gender, Ethnicity And Expressive Posture, Guillaume Vignali, Harold C. Hill, Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

A statistical study of human face shape is reported whose overall goal was to identify and characterise salient components of facial structure for human perception and communicative behaviour. A large database of 3-D faces has been constructed and analysed for differences in ethnicity, sex, and posture. For each of more than 300 faces varying in race/ethnicity (Japanese versus Caucasian) and sex, nine postures (smiling, producing vowels, etc) were recorded. Principal components analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were used to reduce the dimensionality of the data and to provide simple, yet reliable reconstruction of any face from components corresponding …

Report On The Consumpton Of Vegetables And Fruit In Nsw, Victoria M. Flood, Debra Hector, Liz Story

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Increasing vegetable and fruit consumption in the New South Wales population is a key public health priority. There is little dispute that high vegetable and fruit consumption confers significant health benefits. Epidemiological evidence indicates that increasing intakes of vegetables and fruit decreases the risk of major chronic diseases including cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, diverticulitis, cataracts, macular degeneration, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. For optimal health benefits, the importance of consuming a variety of vegetables and fruit is stressed. It is also important that there appears to be a dose-response relationship between vegetable and fruit consumption and …

Comparing Solid Body With Point-Light Animations, Harold C. Hill, Yuri Jinno, Alan Johnston

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The movement of faces provides useful information for a variety of tasks and is now an active area of research. We compare here two ways of presenting face motion in experiments: as solid-body animations and as point-light displays. In the first experiment solid-body and point-light animations, based on the same motion-captured marker data, produced similar levels of performance on a sex-judgment task. The trend was for an advantage for the point-light displays, probably in part because of residual spatial cues available in such stimuli. In the second experiment we compared spatially normalised point-light displays of marker data with solid-body animations …

What Australians Eat For Breakfast: An Analysis Of Data From The 1995 National Nutrition Survey, P. G. Williams

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective To analyse data on the patterns of food consumption at breakfast reported in the 1995 National Nutrition Survey.

Design The Australian Bureau of Statistics was commissioned to undertake additional analysis of data on food intake collected using 24-hour recall interviews, a food frequency questionnaire and a food habits questionnaire.

Subjects Nationally representative sample of 13 858 Australians, from age 2 years, surveyed in the 1995 National Nutrition Survey.

Main outcome measures Percentage of people eating breakfast regularly, mean amount of food groups consumed at breakfast, the percentage of respondents consuming each food item, and the mean serve sizes.

Statistical …

Relative Bias In Diet History Measurements: A Quality Control Technique For Dietary Intervention Trials, Gina S. Martin, Linda C. Tapsell, Marijka Batterham, Kenneth G. Russell

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective: Investigation of relative bias in diet history measurement during dietary intervention trials.

Design: Retrospective analysis of human dietary data from two randomised controlled trials examining modified fat diets in the prevention and treatment of type II diabetes mellitus.

Setting: Wollongong, Australia.

Subjects: Thirty-five overweight, otherwise healthy subjects in trial 1 and 56 subjects with diabetes in trial 2.

Interventions: Diet history interviews and three-day weighed food records administered at one-month intervals in trial 1 and three-month intervals in trial 2.

Results: In a cross-sectional bias analysis, graphs of the association between bias and mean dietary intake showed that bias …

Can Motivational Signs Prompt Increases In Incidental Physical Activity In An Australian Health-Care Facility?, A L. Marshall, A E. Bauman, C Patch, J Wilson, J Chen

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study aimed to evaluate whether a stairpromoting signed intervention could increase the use of the stairs over the elevator in a health-care facility. A time-series design was conducted over 12 weeks. Data were collected before, during and after displaying a signed intervention during weeks 4–5 and 8–9. Evaluation included anonymous counts recorded by an objective unobtrusive motion-sensing device of people entering the elevator or the stairs. Self-report data on stair use by hospital staff were also collected. Stair use significantly increased after the first intervention phase (P 0.02), but after the intervention was removed stair use decreased back towards …

P300 Amplitude Is Determined By Target-To-Target Interval, C. J. Gonsalvez, J. Polich

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

P300 event-related brain potential (ERP) measures are affected by target stimulus probability, the number of nontargets preceding the target in the stimulus sequence structure, and interstimulus interval (ISI). Each of these factors contributes to the target-to-target interval (TTI), which also has been found to affect P300. The present study employed a variant of the oddball paradigm and manipulated the number of preceding nontarget stimuli (0, 1, 2, 3) and ISI (1, 2, 4 s) in order to systematically assess TTI effects on P300 values from auditory and visual stimuli. Number of preceding nontargets generally produced stronger effects than ISI in …

The Effect Of Individual Psychological Characteristics In The Use Of Computerised Information Systems, Farideh Yaghmaie, Peter Caputi, Rohan Jayasuriya

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Investments in computerised information systems in the health industry in evident in most parts of the world. In hospitals and other Healthcare settings, increasingly, hands-on computer use is becoming an important behaviour for effective job perfonnance for health professionals. As the pre-employment (professional) training is provided at a number of different settings the exposure health workers have to computing will vary. Providing training and support to such end-users becomes a complex problem. In addition, based on their prior exposure to computer technology in their work place individuals will have different experiences that make implementation of such systems more complex. Individual …

Dealing With Diversity: Incorporating Cultural Sensitivity Into Professional Midwifery Practice, Moira Williamson, Lindsey Harrison

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In the Australian College of Midwives, Code of Ethics, Section 11. Practice of Midwifery, the following is stated "A. Midwives provide care for women and childbearing families with respect for cultural diversity while also working to eliminate harmful practices within those same cultures." However, it is difficult to know what is meant by "respect for cultural diversity". This paper presents the results of a critical review of the health literature. There is surprisingly little consensus about the meaning of terms such as cultural sensitivity and cultural appropriate care. Nor are there reflections on incorporating these concepts into practice. It could …

Believability Of Anti-Drug Advertising As A Function Of Marijuana Usage Experience, Sandra C. Jones, John R. Rossiter

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Marijuana use is on the increase in Australia, particularly among teenagers. Information dissemination is likely to become the main vehicle for minimizing the harms associated with marijuana use, so there is a clear need to develop informative and convincing communication strategies to target young (potential and incipient) marijuana users. However, the Federal Government’s “zero tolerance” approach to drug use is accompanied by anti-drug messages that may lack credibility with young people who already use, or have used, marijuana. Cognitive dissonance theory, as well as research with warning labels on other products such as cigarettes, suggests that young people who currently …

Use Of Self-Report To Monitor Overweight And Obesity In Populations: Some Issues For Consideration, Victoria M. Flood, Karen Webb, Ross Lazarus, Glen Pang

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective: To examine the validity of self reported height and weight data reported over the telephone in the 1997 NSW Health Survey, and to determine its accuracy to monitor overweight and obesity in population surveys. Method: Self-reported and measured heights and weights were collected from 227 people living in Western Sydney, who had participated in the NSW Health Survey 1997. Results: Self-reported (SR) weights and heights led to misclassification of relative weight status. BMI, based on measured weights and heights, classified 62% of males and 47% of females as overweight or obese, compared with 39% and 32%, respectively, from self-report. …