Digital Commons Network^™

A Case Study Of Anxiety In The Spanish Classroom In Australia, Glenda Mejía

Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice

This study investigates the links between anxiety during oral activities in the Spanish language classroom and the teacher’s role, as well as the strategies students use to cope with their anxiety. Most of the studies on language anxiety have focused on beginner groups; however, such anxiety is not limited to just that group. As this study has found, second-year students learning Spanish also experience a certain level of anxiety, many times caused by different factors from those that might have caused them anxiety in their first year of learning. This study uses different methodologies to investigate those factors, including a …

Lessons About Best Interests Duty, Aaron Bruhn, Michael Miller

Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal

Financial advice is essentially a credence good, whose value is hard to assess. Yet in the Australian context the need for quality advice is growing, with self-sufficiency a growing trend and individuals facing significant complexity in their financial affairs. Recent regulatory proposals and reforms have been offered as a means to provide some comfort for consumers about the quality advice that they might receive, yet the challenge remains about what is meant by ‘quality’ in this area. By referring to recent high profile collapses, we describe some factors and features that are generally considered as examples of poor quality advice. …

Preference In Presentation Or Impression Management: A Comparison Study Between Chairmen’S Statements Of The Most And Least Profitable Australian Companies, Zilan Cen, Rongchang Cai

Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of impression management in corporate annual reports in an Australian context. To contribute to this topic, a research question is investigated: do the most profitable Australian companies, assessed by percentage change in profit before tax, organise the chairmen’s statements of their corporate annual reports and disclose information in a way that is significantly different from those least profitable companies?

In terms of the methodology, this research has selected the top 50 most and least profitable companies in ASX 500 as at 30th June 2009 respectively. For reference and comparison purposes, …

National Electronic Health Records And The Digital Disruption Of Moral Orders, Karin Garrety, Ian Mcloughlin, Rob Wilson, Gregor Zelle, Mike Martin

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The digitalisation of patient health data to provide national electronic health record systems (NEHRS) is a major objective of many governments. Proponents claim that NEHRS will streamline care, reduce mistakes and cut costs. However, building these systems has proved highly problematic. Using recent developments in Australia as an example, we argue that a hitherto unexamined source of difficulty concerns the way NEHRS disrupt the moral orders governing the production, ownership, use of and responsibility for health records. Policies that pursue digitalisation as a self-evident 'solution' to problems in healthcare without due regard to these disruptions risk alienating key stakeholders. We …

Case Study: Transfield And Tenex: Endurance And Weakness In Two Migrant Family Businesses In Australia, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Transfield is one of Australia's most prominent construction companies. The name itself: "trans" meaning across and "field", which suggests open spaces, reflects the firm's origins as a venture founded by two Italian emigrants, Carlo Salteri and Franco Belgiorni-Nettis, who crossed huge distances to Australia before establishing their own firm.

A Uniform Land Tax In Australia: What Is The Potential For This To Be A Reality Post The "Henry Tax Review"?, John A. Mclaren

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Land tax was one of the main issues examined by Dr Ken Henry in his review on "Australia's Future Tax System" and the review recommended its increased importance in raising revenue in Australia. The classical economists such as Smith, Ricardo and Mill recommended the imposition of a tax on land. Henry George also strongly advocated a tax on land instead of a tax on labour or capital. They also contended that such a tax was both efficient and equitable. This paper will examine the current position with land tax in Australia and the views of the early economists advocating the …

What Happens When Digital Information Systems Are Brought Into Health And Social Care? Comparing Approaches To Social Policy In England And Australia, Susan Baines, Penelope Hill, Karin Garrety

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This review article offers a brief comparative overview of approaches to the application of public sector information systems in England and Australia, with particular reference to health and social care. Since the 1990s, reforms to the public sector in both countries have looked to information and communication technologies (ICTs) from the private sector as the key to modern, citizen-centred services. These efforts have been conducted in the wider context of New Public Management, with the emphasis on the marketisation of government services, reducing the size of the state, and improvements in efficiency. Both countries are typically seen as being at, …

The Current Retirement System In Australia Needs To Be More Attuned To A Mobile International Workforce: A Case For Reform, Rhys Cormick, John A. Mclaren

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Dealing with the fiscal impacts of Australia's ageing population is potentially the most important issue for the next 30 years. The majority of countries in the developed world are facing an ageing population due to sustained low fertility and increased life expectancy. In order to reduce the fiscal burden following this decreased labour force participation and increased age-related spending, governments must appropriately design retirement savings systems to protect their budget, the taxpayers and the elderly. Individuals are increasingly taking up employment in foreign countries. Such international labour mobility provides a number of economic benefits for both the home and host …

Middle Pleistocene To Holocene Sea-Level Changes And Coastal Evolution On The Mount Gambier Coastal Plain, Southern Australia, Amy Blakemore

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

Reconstruction of palaeo-sea levels provides a framework for determining Quaternary ice volumes and assisting in modelling predictions of future sea-level change. Commonly, records of palaeo-sea level derived from past shorelines only extend back to the last interglacial, marine isotope stage (MIS) 5e, due to erosion of older coastal successions by successive sealevel changes on tectonically stable coastlines. On the Mount Gambier coastal plain, southern Australia, palaeo-shorelines of the Bridgewater Formation, a succession of aeolianite barriers, are preserved by the gentle uplift of the region and the strongly indurated calcrete horizons which blanket the regional landscape, and provide a sea-level archive …

Weather-Ways: Experiencing And Responding To Everyday Weather, Eliza De Vet

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

Climates are changing, yet how these changes will affect individuals in their everyday lives is unclear. In climate change research, weather and climate (change) have largely been represented quantitatively. Such representations offer individuals, societies and institutions limited tangible explanation of future climate change, impeding efforts to develop and implement effective climate change responses. In order to comprehend the realities of climate change and potential adaptation capacities, research must recognise how individuals and societies currently relate to weather in context of everyday life.

This thesis contributes to research on weather relations by exploring the role of weather in everyday life in …

Motivations, Learning Activities And Challenges: Learning Mandarin Chinese In Australia, Xiaoping Gao

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Mandarin Chinese is ane of the priority languages in the Australian Government's {2012} 'Australia in the Asian Century' White Paper. However the number of Australian learners of Mandarin remains the smallest among six commonly taught foreign languages in Australia. What are Australian learners' motivations and preferred learning activities for learning Mandarin Chinese? What challenges do teachers face when promoting this language? To answer these questions, this study conducted surveys with 149 school students and with 18 principals and language teachers in New South Wales. Results show that the Australian students' study of Mandarin was primarily driven by extrinsic motivation although …

Discretionary Benefit Or Entitlement? Hospitality Workers And The Ownership Of Customer Tips In Australia, Amelia Gow, Andrew Frazer

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The tipping of hospitality workers by customers is an increasingly common custom in Australia. Tips are a substantial (though unquantified) part of the income of hospitality workers. Such workers are often casual and vulnerable young employees. Tipping occurs in a tripartite relationship between the business operator, the customer and the worker. It is almost completely unregulated by the labour law instruments of awards and enterprise agreements. This is a ‘regulatory space’ where labour law and consumer protection law may potentially intersect.

Who owns tips? While customers may reasonably assume that service workers will receive all the tips they leave, either …

The Experience Of Melanoma Follow-Up Care: An Online Survey Of Patients In Australia, Janine Mitchell, Peta Callaghan, Jacqueline M. Street, Susan Neuhaus, Taryn Bessen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Investigating patients' reports on the quality and consistency of melanoma follow-up care in Australia would assist in evaluating if this care is effective and meeting patients' needs. The objective of this study was to obtain and explore the patients' account of the technical and interpersonal aspects of melanoma follow-up care received. An online survey was conducted to acquire details of patients' experience. Participants were patients treated in Australia for primary melanoma. Qualitative and quantitative data about patient perceptions of the nature and quality of their follow-up care were collected, including provision of melanoma specific information, psychosocial support, and imaging tests …

Retrofitting Cities: Local Governance In Sydney, Australia, Robyn Dowling, Pauline M. Mcguirk, Harriet Bulkeley

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Transforming cities to a lower carbon future is one of the key challenges of contemporary urban governance. Retrofitting the city - or modifying existing urban infrastructures, buildings and daily life to suit different energy sources and different expectations of energy consumption - is essential to this transformation. In urban studies, little focus has yet been applied to the shape and character of urban governance frameworks and mechanisms required to successfully retrofit cities. In this paper we address this lacuna by exploring the logics, practices and dynamics of retrofitting governance in the Australian city. Using a governmentality perspective, the paper identifies …

Repositioning Urban Governments? Energy Efficiency And Australia's Changing Climate And Energy Governance Regimes, Pauline M. Mcguirk, Robyn Dowling, Harriet Bulkeley

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Urban local governments are important players in climate governance, and their roles are evolving. This review traces the changing nexus of Australia's climate policy, energy policy and energy efficiency imperatives and its repositioning of urban local governments. We characterise the ways urban local governments' capacities and capabilities are being mobilised in light of a changing multi-level political opportunity structure around energy efficiency. The shifts we observe not only extend local governments' role in implementing climate change responses but also engage them as partners in conceiving and operationalising new measures, suggesting new ground is being opened in the urban politics of …

First Recorded Evidence Of Subaqueously-Deposited Late Pleistocene Interstadial (Mis 5c) Coastal Strata Above Present Sea Level In Australia, Amy Blakemore, Colin Murray-Wallace, Terry Lachlan

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Significant differences in the elevation of late Pleistocene interstadial coastal strata have been noted at the global scale resulting from the combined effects of tectonism, proximity of field sites to Pleistocene ice sheets, and the variable effects of glacio-hydro-isostatic adjustment processes. Here we report the first recorded example of subaqueously deposited late Pleistocene interstadial coastal sediments above present sea level in Australia, in a far-field location to Pleistocene ice sheets and characterised by minimal to modest rates of vertical crustal movements. Located at Port MacDonnell, in Southern Australia, the sedimentary succession is represented by a flint conglomerate beach facies with …

Late-Holocene Climatic Variability Indicated By Three Natural Archives In Arid Southern Australia, Luke A. Gliganic, Timothy J. Cohen, Jan-Hendrik May, John D. Jansen, Gerald C. Nanson, Anthony Dosseto, Joshua R. Larsen, Maxime Aubert

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Three terrestrial climate proxies are used to investigate the evolution of Holocene palaeoenvironments in southern central Australia, all of which present a coherent record of palaeohydrology. Single-grain optically stimulated luminescence from sediments supplemented by 14C from charcoal and lacustrine shells was obtained to date shoreline deposits (Lake Callabonna) and the adjacent Mt Chambers Creek alluvial fan. Our findings are complemented by a U/Th-based record of speleothem growth in the Mt Chambers Creek catchment, which we interpret to reflect increased precipitation. Together, these archives shed light on the timing of, and possible sources of water for, Holocene pluvial intervals. We identified …

Salt Intake Assessed By 24 H Urinary Sodium Excretion In A Random And Opportunistic Sample In Australia, Mary-Anne Land, Jacqui Webster, Anthea Christoforou, D Praveen, Paul Jeffery, John Chalmers, Wayne Smith, Mark Woodward, Federica Barzi, Caryl A. Nowson, Victoria Flood, Bruce Neal

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Objective: The gold standard method for measuring population sodium intake is based on a 24 h urine collection carried out in a random population sample. However, because participant burden is high, response rates are typically low with less than one in four agreeing to provide specimens. At this low level of response it is possible that simply asking for volunteers would produce the same results.

Setting: Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia.

Participants: We randomly selected 2152 adults and obtained usable 24 h urine samples from 306 (response rate 16%). Specimens were also collected from a further 113 volunteers. Estimated salt …

Cross Sectional Survey Of Human-Bat Interaction In Australia: Public Health Implications, Beverley J. Paterson, Michelle T. Butler, Keith Eastwood, Patrick M. Cashman, Alison Jones, David N. Durrheim

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Background Flying foxes (megachiroptera) and insectivorous microbats (microchiroptera) are the known reservoirs for a range of recently emerged, highly pathogenic viruses. In Australia there is public health concern relating to bats' role as reservoirs of Australian Bat Lyssavirus (ABLV), which has clinical features identical to classical rabies. Three deaths from ABLV have occurred in Australia. A survey was conducted to determine the frequency of bat exposures amongst adults in Australia's most populous state, New South Wales; explore reasons for handling bats; examine reported practices upon encountering injured or trapped bats or experiencing bat bites or scratches; and investigate knowledge of …

Depositional History And Archaeology Of The Central Lake Mungo Lunette, Willandra Lakes, Southeast Australia, Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons, Nicola Stern, Colin V. Murray-Wallace

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Lake Mungo, presently a dry lake in the semi-arid zone of southeastern Australia, preserves a unique record of human settlement and past environmental change within the transverse lunette that built up on its downwind margin. The lunette is >30 km long and the variable morphology along its length suggests spatial variability in deposition over time. Consequently this presents differential potential for the preservation of past activity traces of different ages along the lunette. Earlier work at Lake Mungo focused primarily on the southern section of the lunette, where two ritual burials of considerable antiquity were found. Here we describe the …

Theatrical Jurisprudence And The Imaginary Lives Of Law In Pre-1945 Australia, Marett Leiboff

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

If there is anything like an imagined pre-1945 past in Australia, it is one steeped in an Anglophone legal ascendancy. But this is an imaginary past in so many ways. Non-British Europeans came to Australia long before 1945. These earlier Europeans were marked by differences of voice and face, but were eager British subjects, as likely to actively take advantage of law as they were to be subjected to its strictures. By theatricalising their ordinary and extraordinary legal lives through archive and memory, we are reminded that there is more to law of the South than formal accounts which have …

Climate Change And Australia, Lesley Head, Michael Adams, Helen Mcgregor, Stephanie Toole

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Australia has had a variable and mostly arid climate as long as humans have been on the continent. Historically observed trends toward increased warming, with rainfall increases in many tropical areas and rainfall decreases in many temperate areas, are projected to continue. Impacts will be geographically variable but mostly negative for biodiversity, agriculture, and infrastructure. Extreme events such as bushfires and floods will increase in frequency and intensity, concentrated in summer. With an economy heavily dependent on coal for domestic electricity generation and as an export commodity, Australians are high per capita contributors to anthropogenic climate change. A quarter-century of …

Reliability And Validity Of A Short Ffq For Assessing The Dietary Habits Of 2-5-Year-Old Children, Sydney, Australia, Victoria Flood, Li Ming Wen, Louise Hardy, Chris Rissel, J Simpson, Louise Baur

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective A simple FFQ which ranks young children's dietary habits is necessary for population-based monitoring and intervention programmes. The aim of the present study was to determine the reliability and validity of a short FFQ to assess the dietary habits of young children aged 2–5 years.

Design Parents completed a seventeen-item FFQ for their children by telephone on two occasions, two weeks apart. Sixty-four parents also completed 3 d food records for their children. The FFQ included daily servings of fruit and vegetables, frequency of eating lean meat, processed meats, take-away food, snack foods (biscuits, cakes, doughnuts, muesli bars), potato …

Geographical Fire Research In Australia: Review And Prospects, Christine Eriksen, Lesley Head

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

'You live in the bush. You live by the rules of the bush, and that's it.' These were the reflective words of Mrs Dunlop upon seeing the blackened rubble of her home, which made headline news the morning after the first, and most destructive, fire front tore through the Blue Mountains in New South Wales on 17 October 2013 (Partridge and Levy, 2013). While seemingly a simple statement, it goes right to the heart of heated public and political debates - past and present - over who belongs where and why in the fire-prone landscapes that surround Australia's cities. Bushfire …

Emerging Geographies Of Conservation And Indigenous Land In Australia, Heather Moorcroft, Michael Adams

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

International examples of interactions between Indigenous peoples and the new conservation paradigm come mainly from developing countries and suggest divisions over priorities. As a Western settler society, Australia is at a critical time in conservation and Indigenous peoples' rights. Innovative approaches to conservation are promoted. The role and influence of non-governmental organisations is increasing. Indigenous peoples' rights to land are recognised and Indigenous involvement in conservation is growing. Yet, despite Australia being considered a leader in these arenas, particularly the latter, there has been little analysis of the relationship between innovative approaches to conservation and Indigenous Australians under the new …

The Retention, Revival, And Subjugation Of Indigenous Fire Knowledge Through Agency Fire Fighting In Eastern Australia And California, Christine Eriksen, Don L. Hankins

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article explores the potential impact of training and employment with wildfire management agencies on the retention of Indigenous fire knowledge. It focuses on the comparative knowledge and experiences of Indigenous Elders, cultural practitioners, and land stewards in connection with ''modern'' political constructs of fire in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, and California in the United States of America. This article emphasises the close link between cross-cultural acceptance, integration of Indigenous and agency fire cultures, and the ways in which knowledge types are shared or withheld. While agency fire fighting provides an opportunity for Indigenous people to connect and …

Outback Elvis: Musical Creativity In Rural Australia, John Connell, Christopher Gibson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

However cartographies of music are constructed, they invariably suggest some authentic relationship between particular sites of vernacular musical creativity and a social and economic context that has contributed to a certain distinctiveness. Thus, the literature is replete with accounts of supposedly distinctive Mersey and Otago sounds, New Orleans jazz or Nashville country, and the 'mutually generative relations of music and space' (Leyshon et al., 1995, p. 424). In the conventional narrative, styles are generally deemed to have originated from particular individual and collective scenes associated with key musicians and bands, and talked up as a means of promoting these styles …

Inclusion Of Mobile Telephone Numbers Into An Ongoing Population Health Survey In New South Wales, Australia, Using An Overlapping Dual-Frame Design: Impact On The Time Series, Margo Barr, Raymond A. Ferguson, David G. Steel

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

No abstract provided.

Changing Accuracy Of Self-Reported Bmi Over Time In Nsw, Australia, Margo Barr, David G. Steel, Raymond A. Ferguson

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

No abstract provided.

South Australia: Patient Outcomes In Palliative Care: July - December 2013: Report 16, Alanna M. Holloway, Samuel Allingham, Carol Hope, Sabina Clapham, Linda Foskett

Australian Health Services Research Institute

The Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) assists services to improve the quality of the palliative care they provide through the analysis and benchmarking of patient outcomes. In this, the sixteenth PCOC report, data submitted for the July to December 2013 period are summarised and patient outcomes benchmarked to enable participating services to assess their performance and identify areas in which they may improve.