Digital Commons Network^™

Role Of Area-Level Access To Primary Care On The Geographic Variation Of Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Distribution: A Multilevel Analysis Of The Adult Residents In The Illawarra—Shoalhaven Region Of Nsw, Australia, Renin Melkias Baby Selvi Toms, Xiaoqi Feng, Darren J. Mayne, Andrew D. Bonney

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Background: Access to primary care is important for the identification, control and management of cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRFs). This study investigated whether differences in geographic access to primary care explained area-level variation in CMRFs. Methods: Multilevel logistic regression models were used to derive the association between area-level access to primary care and seven discrete CMRFs after adjusting for individual and area-level co-variates. Two-step floating catchment area method was used to calculate the geographic access to primary care for the small areas within the study region. Results: Geographic access to primary care was inversely associated with low high density lipoprotein (OR …

Semi-Automated Analysis Of Digital Photographs For Monitoring East Antarctic Vegetation, Diana H. King, Jane Wasley, Michael B. Ashcroft, Ellen Ryan-Colton, Arko Lucieer, Laurie A. Chisholm, Sharon A. Robinson

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: Part B

Climate change is affecting Antarctica and minimally destructive long-term monitoring of its unique ecosystems is vital to detect biodiversity trends, and to understand how change is affecting these communities. The use of automated or semi-automated methods is especially valuable in harsh polar environments, as access is limited and conditions extreme. We assessed moss health and cover at six time points between 2003 and 2014 at two East Antarctic sites. Semi-automatic object-based image analysis (OBIA) was used to classify digital photographs using a set of rules based on digital red, green, blue (RGB) and hue-saturation-intensity (HSI) value thresholds, assigning vegetation to …

Factors Associated With Under-Five Mortality In Bhutan: An Analysis Of The Bhutan National Health Survey 2012, Tashi Dendup, Yun Zhao, Deki Dema

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: As an important marker for health equity and access, under-five mortality (UFM) is a primary measure for socioeconomic development. The importance of reducing UFM has been further emphasized in an ambitious target under Sustainable Development Goals. The factors influencing UFM are not adequately understood in Bhutan. Methods: The most recent dataset of the Bhutan National Health Survey (BNHS) 2012 was used in this study. Multiple logistic regression analysis using a backwards elimination approach was performed to identify significant factors influencing UFM. All statistical analyses were adjusted for the complex study design due to the multistage stratified cluster sampling used …

Whole Grain Intake Of Australians Estimated From A Cross-Sectional Analysis Of Dietary Intake Data From The 2011-13 Australian Health Survey, Leanne M. Galea, Eleanor J. Beck, Yasmine Probst, Chris Cashman

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

Objective: The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend Australians choose mostly whole-grain and/or high-fibre varieties within the grains (cereal) foods category, with other groups specifying a whole grain Daily Target Intake of 48 g for Australians aged 9 years or above. The USA and UK report estimates of whole grain intake that are low and declining, and no comprehensive studies on whole grain intake in the Australian population are available. The present study aimed to determine national estimates of whole grain intake, compared with current recommendations. Design: A recently updated whole grain database was applied to the most current population dietary intake …

Further Examining The Relationship Between Mental Toughness And Dispositional Flow In Sport: A Mediation Analysis, Patricia C. Jackman, Lee Crust, Christian F. Swann

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The purpose of the study was to further examine the relationship between mental toughness (MT) and dispositional flow in sport. A sample of 256 athletes (M age = 23.65 years, SD = 5.43), competing at international (n = 59), national (n = 77), and club/university (n = 120) levels completed questionnaires assessing MT and dispositional flow. A significant and positive correlation was found between MT and dispositional flow (r = 0.50, p < 0.001). Mediation analysis revealed that MT had a significant direct effect on the flow dimensions of challenge-skills balance, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, sense of control and concentration on the task at hand, and significant indirect effects on concentration on the task at hand, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, action-awareness merging and autotelic experience. Findings suggest that MT has direct and indirect effects on the characteristics of flow, offering new insights regarding optimal human functioning

The Value Of Psychological Treatment For Borderline Personality Disorder: Systematic Review And Cost Offset Analysis Of Economic Evaluations, Denise Meuldijk, Alexandra Mccarthy, Marianne E. Bourke, Brin F. S Grenyer

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Aim Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a common mental health condition with high patterns of service utilisation of inpatient and community treatment. Over the past five years there has been significant growth in research with economic data, making this systematic review a timely update.

Methods Empirical studies written in English or German, published up to December 2015, and cited in major electronic databases were examined using the PRISMA systematic review method. Papers were included that had one of the following: data related to cost of BPD to society, the individual, the carer or families; cost benefits of interventions. Reported cost …

Cereal Fibre Intake In Australia: A Cross Sectional Analysis Of The 2011-12 National Nutrition And Physical Activity Survey, Eden Barrett, Yasmine Probst, Eleanor J. Beck

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

Extensive evidence supports health benefits of cereal fibre, however globally no national intake data exists. This study aimed to determine estimates of intake and food sources of cereal fibre, and relationships to dietary fibre intake in an Australian sample population. A cereal fibre database was applied to dietary intake data from the 2011-12 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (n ¼ 12,153). Usual intake based on 2-day intake data was weighted to infer population results. Median daily cereal fibre intake was 6.4 g/d (9.7 g/10 MJ/d) for adults (19-85 years) and 6.2 g/d (10.2 g/10 MJ/d) for children/adolescents (2-18 years). …

Cjcheck Stage 1: Development And Testing Of A Checklist For Reporting Community Juries - Delphi Process And Analysis Of Studies Published In 1996-2015, Rae Thomas, Rebecca Sims, Christopher J. Degeling, Jackie M. Street, Stacy M. Carter, Lucie Rychetnik, Jenny Whitty, Andrew Wilson, Paul Ward, Paul Glasziou

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background Opportunities for community members to actively participate in policy development are increasing. Community/citizen's juries (CJs) are a deliberative democratic process aimed to illicit informed community perspectives on difficult topics. But how comprehensive these processes are reported in peer‐reviewed literature is unknown. Adequate reporting of methodology enables others to judge process quality, compare outcomes, facilitate critical reflection and potentially repeat a process. We aimed to identify important elements for reporting CJs, to develop an initial checklist and to review published health and health policy CJs to examine reporting standards. Design Using the literature and expertise from CJ researchers and policy …

Parent-Focused Childhood And Adolescent Overweight And Obesity Ehealth Interventions: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Megan Hammersley, Rachel A. Jones, Anthony D. Okely

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: Effective broad-reach interventions to reduce childhood obesity are needed, but there is currently little consensus on the most effective approach. Parental involvement in interventions appears to be important. The use of eHealth modalities in interventions also seems to be promising. To our knowledge, there have been no previous reviews that have specifically investigated the effectiveness of parent-focused eHealth obesity interventions, a gap that this systematic review and meta-analysis intends to address. Objective: The objective of this study was to review the evidence for body mass index (BMI)/BMI z-score improvements in eHealth overweight and obesity randomized controlled trials for children …

Spatiotemporal Variations In Lung Cancer Mortality In China Between 2006 And 2012: A Multilevel Analysis, Yunning Liu, Thomas E. Astell-Burt, Jiangmei Liu, Peng Yin, Xiaoqi Feng, Jinling You, Andrew Page, Maigeng Zhou, Lijun Wang

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

We investigated temporal trends and geographical variations in lung cancer mortality in China from 2006 to 2012. Lung cancer mortality counts for people aged over 40 years were extracted from the China Mortality Surveillance System for 161 disease surveillance points. Negative binomial regression was used to investigate potential spatiotemporal variation and correlations with age, gender, urbanization, and region. Lung cancer mortality increased in China over the study period from 78.77 to 85.63 (1/100,000), with higher mortality rates evident in men compared to women. Median rate ratios (MRRs) indicated important geographical variation in lung cancer mortality between provinces (MRR = 1.622) …

Analysis Of Health Service Amenable And Non-Amenable Mortality Before And Since China's Expansion Of Health Coverage In 2009, Xiaoqi Feng, Yunning Liu, Thomas E. Astell-Burt, Peng Yin, Andrew Page, Shiwei Liu, Jiangmei Liu, Lijun Wang, Maigeng Zhou

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective To explore early impacts of China's health reforms in 2009 on mortality. Methods Annual mortality counts were obtained from 161 counties across all 31 provinces of mainland China between 2006 and 2012. We examined time-series of health service amenable mortality counts, including separate analyses for deaths from stroke and ischaemic heart diseases (IHD). Non-amenable mortality counts, including separate models for oesophageal and pancreatic cancers, were also analysed as part of a negative-outcome strategy to provide stronger foundations for falsification. Deaths due to amenable causes were hypothesised to decrease, whereas non-amenable causes of mortality would remain uninfluenced. All analyses were …

Gender, Ethnicity And Sustainable Mobility: A Governmentality Analysis Of Migrant Chinese Women's Daily Trips In Sydney, Gordon R. Waitt, Sophie-May Kerr, Natascha Klocker

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The automobile is acknowledged as an urgent environmental sustainability issue in cities where it remains pivotal to everyday life and society. We explore the potential of migrants - from societies where urban spaces and everyday life are not centred on the automobile - to elucidate pathways for reducing car dependence. This paper explores the sustainability implications of everyday mobility decisions in Sydney, Australia, through the mobility discourses of female migrants from China. Our governmentality analyses suggest a preference, among female Chinese migrants, to initially walk and cycle after arriving in Sydney. Many expressed a fear rather than a love of …

Individual-Level Simulation Model For Cost Benefit Analysis In Healthcare, Nagesh Shukla, Vu Lam Cao, Van Hoang Phuong, Marian D. Shanahan, Alison Ritter, Pascal Perez

SMART Infrastructure Facility - Papers

Illicit drug use creates significant burden at societal, family and personal levels. Every year substantial resources are allocated for treatment and the consequences of illicit drug use in Australia and around the world. Heroin is one of the major forms of illicit drugs. Several independent heroin treatment strategies or interventions exist and state-of-the art research demonstrates their efficacy and relative costeffectiveness. However, assessing total potential gains and burden from providing all treatment interventions or varying the mix of heroin treatments has never been attempted. This paper proposed an individual-level simulation model (ISM) which addresses net social benefit over a lifetime …

Cloud Computing Adoption Decision Modelling For Smes: A Conjoint Analysis, Salim Al Isma'ili, Mengxiang Li, Jun Shen, Qiang He

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Cloud computing is an emerging technology that promises competitive advantages, cost savings, enhanced business processes and services, and various other benefits to enterprises. Despite the rapid technological advancement, the adoption of cloud computing is still growing slowly among small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs). This paper presents a model to support the decisionmaking process, using a multi-criteria decision method PAPRIKA for the socio-technical aspects influencing SMEs cloud adoption decision. Due to the multifaceted nature of the cloud computing adoption process, the evaluation of various cloud services and deployment models have become a major challenge. This paper presents a systematic approach to …

Governing Food Choices: A Critical Analysis Of School Food Pedagogies And Young People's Responses In Contemporary Times, Deana Leahy, Jan Wright

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Recently a proliferation and intensification of school programmes that are directed towards teaching children and young people about food has been witnessed. Whilst there is much to learn about food, anxieties concerning the obesity epidemic have dramatically shaped how schools address the topic. This article draws on governmentality to consider 'the conditions of possibility' for teaching about food in contemporary times. In particular the form that knowledge about food takes in the midst of an obesity epidemic, the authorities on which it draws for its legitimacy and the learnings made possible are considered. To do this two Australian studies investigating …

A Community To Call Home: An Analysis Of The Southern Youth And Family Services' (Syfs) Approaches To Reducing Youth Homelessness And Disadvantage, Lynne M. Keevers

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The NSW government's stated approach to the reduction and prevention of homelessness is focused on ensuring service approaches are evidenced-based and funding is needs-based (NSW Department of Family & Community Services, 2012). Despite the recognition of homelessness in the research and policy agenda, relatively little has been published about the practices effective in assisting young people to avoid or exit homelessness. The findings from this study build on previous research and inform this developing policy and research area by contributing to the evidence on what works well in supporting young people who are homeless or at risk ofhomelessness

Using Rasch Analysis To Explore What Students Learn About Probability Concept, Zamalia Mahmud, Anne L. Porter

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Students’ understanding of probability concepts have been investigated from various different perspectives. This study was set out to investigate perceived understanding of probability concepts of forty-four students from the STAT131 Understanding Uncertainty and Variation course at the University of Wollongong, NSW. Rasch measurement which is based on a probabilistic model was used to identify concepts that students find easy, moderate and difficult to understand. Data were captured from the e-learning Moodle platform where students provided their responses through an on-line quiz. As illustrated in the Rasch map, 96% of the students could understand about sample space, simple events, mutually exclusive …

Comparison Of Rehabilitation Outcomes For Long Term Neurological Conditions: A Cohort Analysis Of The Australian Rehabilitation Outcomes Centre Dataset For Adults Of Working Age, Lynne Turner-Stokes, Roxana Vanderstay, Tara L. Stevermuer, Frances D. Simmonds, Fary Khan, Kathy Eagar

Australian Health Services Research Institute

Objective

To describe and compare outcomes from in-patient rehabilitation (IPR) in working-aged adults across different groups of long-term neurological conditions, as defined by the UK National Service Framework.

Design

Analysis of a large Australian prospectively collected dataset for completed IPR episodes (n = 28,596) from 2003-2012.

Methods

De-identified data for adults (16–65 years) with specified neurological impairment codes were extracted, cleaned and divided into ‘Sudden-onset’ conditions: (Stroke (n = 12527), brain injury (n = 7565), spinal cord injury (SCI) (n = 3753), Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) (n = 805)) and ‘Progressive/stable’ conditions (Progressive (n = 3750) and Cerebral palsy (n = …

A New Bio-Cryptosystem-Oriented Security Analysis Framework And Implementation Of Multibiometric Cryptosystems Based On Decision Level Fusion, Cai Li, Jiankun Hu, Josef Pieprzyk, Willy Susilo

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Biometric cryptosystems provide an innovative solution for cryptographic key generation, encryption as well as biometric template protection. Besides high authentication accuracy, a good biometric cryptosystem is expected to protect biometric templates effectively, which requires that helper data does not reveal significant information about the templates. Previous works predominantly follow an appropriate entropy definition to measure the security of biometric cryptosystems. In this paper, we point out limitations of entropy-based security analysis and propose a new security analysis framework that combines information-theoretic approach with computational security. In addition, we construct a fingerprint-based multibiometric cryptosystem using decision level fusion. Hash functions are …

Health Reform And Mortality In China: Multilevel Time-Series Analysis Of Regional And Socioeconomic Inequities In A Sample Of 73 Million, Thomas Astell-Burt, Yunning Liu, Xiaoqi Feng, Peng Yin, Andrew Page, Shiwei Liu, Jiangmei Liu, Lijun Wang, Maigeng Zhou

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Chinas 2009 expansion of universal health insurance has received global interest, but little empirical investigation. This epidemiological study was a first attempt to assess potential impacts on population health and health equity. Multilevel negative binomial regression was used to analyse all-cause and non-communicable disease (NCD) mortality between 2006 and 2012 from a representative sample including all 31 provinces. The age-standardised ratios (per 100,000) in 2006 were 860.4 and 732.9 for mortality from all-causes and NCDs respectively. These ratios decreased over time to 737.5 (all-causes) and 642.9 (NCD) by 2012. Modelling indicated these trajectories were curvilinear, dipping more rapidly from 2009 …

Corporate Social Responsibility Programs Of Big Food In Australia: A Content Analysis Of Industry Documents, Zoe Richards, Samantha L. Thomas, Melanie J. Randle, Simone Pettigrew

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective: To examine Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) tactics by identifying the key characteristics of CSR strategies as described in the corporate documents of selected 'Big Food' companies. Methods: A mixed methods content analysis was used to analyse the information contained on Australian Big Food company websites. Data sources included company CSR reports and web-based content that related to CSR initiatives employed in Australia. Results: A total of 256 CSR activities were identified across six organisations. Of these, the majority related to the categories of environment (30.5%), responsibility to consumers (25.0%) or community (19.5%). Conclusions: Big Food companies appear to be …

Innovation Determinants And Barriers: A Tri-Perspective Analysis Of It Appropriation Within An Early Childhood Education And Care Organisation, Melinda Plumb, Karlheinz Kautz

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Empirical studies on information technology (IT) in early childhood education and care organisations are scant, despite an increasing number of these organisations choosing to innovate with IT. This paper presents a framework to understand the appropriation of IT as an innovation within such an organisation. The framework consists of three perspectives on innovation: an individualist, a structuralist and an interactive process perspective. While the first focuses on concepts such as leadership, IT champions, previous IT exposure, the second focuses on organisation size, parents as stakeholders, competitors, government compliance and regulatory requirements. The third perspective views the innovation as a dynamic …

The Marketing Of Wagering On Social Media: An Analysis Of Promotional Content On Youtube, Twitter And Facebook, Samantha L. Thomas, Amy Bestman, Hannah Pitt, Emily Deans, Melanie J. Randle, Melissa Stoneham, Mike Daube

Australian Health Services Research Institute

Social media is increasingly used as a platform to promote products and services. Research on tobacco and alcohol has shown the extent to which dangerous consumption industries are moving from traditionally highly regulated media platforms, such as television, to marketing channels that are not subject to existing government regulation, and which governments appear much more reluctant to regulate.

Content Analysis Of Food Advertising In Iranian Children's Television Programs, Maryam Amini, Nasrin Omidvar, Heather Yeatman, Shadab Shariat-Jafari, Maryam Eslami-Amirabadi, Malihe Zahedirad

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: Advertisements can influence children's health related behaviors. Television advertisements are the main avenues directing commercials at children in Iran. This study aimed to explore the content of food advertisement during children's television programs in 2007-8 and to compare it with those reported in 2000. Methods: All advertisements broadcasted before, during, and after children's programs aired on two major Iran national television networks were videotaped for a period of 4 weeks during 2007- 8. For each advertisement, type of product(s) and mode of presentation (s) were coded. Results: A total of 229 television advertisements were broadcasted. Food commercials were the …

A Multimodal Analysis Of The Environment Beat In A Music Video, Carmen Daniela Maier, Judith Leah Cross

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The global impact of demanding environmental concerns is visible in almost all contexts of contemporary communication and across geographical borders. An increasing range of multimodal texts surface continuously in various media in order to facilitate public understanding of irreversible environmental changes, to educate future generations in ecoliteracy, to promote green or disclose greenwashed corporate images and practices, or to entertain and facilitate appropriate actions as well as responses. Simultaneously, research in environmental communication tries to keep up with this rapid pace by examining environment-focused multimodal texts from the context of journalism (Doyle, 2011; Lester & Cottle, 2009), education (Maier, 2010; …

Identifying The Impact Of Local Crime On Mental Health: A Longitudinal Fixed Effects Analysis, Thomas Astell-Burt, Xiaoqi Feng, Gregory Kolt, Bin Jalaludin

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the Society for Social Medicine 58th Annual Scientific Meeting, 10-12 September 2014, Oxford, United Kingdom

Speech Analysis For Alphabets In Bangla Language: Automatic Speech Recognition, Asm Sayem

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper presents a technique for recognizing spoken letter in Bengali Language. We first derive feature from spoken letter. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) has been used to characterize a feature. Dynamic time warping (DTW) employed to calculate the distance of an unknown letter with the stored ones. K-nearest neighbors (KNN) algorithm is used to improve accuracy in noisy environment.

Changes In Attitudes Toward Seeking Mental Health Services: A 40-Year Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis, C Mackenzie, J Erickson, Frank Deane, M Wright

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Although rates of treatment seeking for mental health problems are increasing, this increase is driven primarily by antidepressant medication use, and a majority of individuals with mental health problems remain untreated. Helpseeking attitudes are thought to be a key barrier to mental health service use, although little is known about whether such attitudes have changed over time. Research on this topic is mixed with respect to whether helpseeking attitudes have become more or less positive. The aim of the current study was to help clarify this issue using a cross-temporal meta-analysis of scores on Fischer and Turner's (1970) helpseeking attitude …

Innovation Within An Early Childhood Education And Care Organisation: A Tri-Perspective Analysis Of The Appropriation Of It, Melinda Plumb, Karlheinz Kautz

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Empirical studies on information technology (IT) in early childhood are scant, despite an increasing number of early childhood education and care organisations choosing to innovate with IT. This paper presents a framework to understand the appropriation of IT as an innovation within such an organisation. The framework consists of three perspectives on innovation: an individualist, a structuralist and an interactive process perspective. While the first focuses on concepts such as leadership, IT champions, previous IT exposure, the second focuses on organisation size, parents as stakeholders, competitors, government compliance and regulatory requirements. The third perspective views the innovation as a dynamic, …

The Contribution Of Focus Group Discussions To Aboriginal Australian Health Service Research: A Content Analysis Of Practice And Experience, Angela Dawson, John Daniels, Kathleen F. Clapham

Australian Health Services Research Institute

Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) are a common way of gathering qualitative data in Aboriginal health services research; however there have been no studies on the question of whether they are appropriate research tools in such contexts, nor are there are specific guidelines available to ensure that FGDs are delivered to collect data in ways that are consistent with Aboriginal approaches to consultation, ownership and ways of knowing. Furthermore, there is a lack of clarity concerning the theoretical and methodological perspectives that could be operationalised by FGDs to gather data, guide analysis and interpretation in ways that are culturally appropriate, ethically …