Digital Commons Network^™

A Stirring Of Cultures: The Contest For Place, Belonging And Identity In Australia, Garry Stewart Henderson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The creative work, The Wounded Sinner, and the accompanying exegesis, form a volume of writing that considers aspects of place and belonging in a contemporary Australian context through the agencies of Aboriginality, migration and homelessness. While these issues are present and, at times, contentious in the structure of modern Australian society they have roots in past eras of empire building, racism and the movement from agrarianism to industrialisation. The characters are drawn from my own experiences and, as such, validate both the creative work and give the exegesis substance.

Jeanie Bayona is an Aboriginal woman who was raised, from …

Redefining Internal Audit Performance: Impact On Corporate Governance, Razimah Binti Abdullah

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

One of the preventive measures to situations akin to world financial crises increasingly forwarded is effective internal audit function (IAF) (e.g., Imhoff, 2003; Mohamad & Muhamad Sori, 2011). Internal audit, a component of corporate governance, continues to evolve due to changes in business strategies and requirements placed on it by legislators. The roles of internal auditors and audit committees (ACs), the key personnel in IAFs, are changing to a more value-added approach as business strategies move towards corporate sustainability and organisational excellence. Suggestions forwarded to improve the performance or determining the quality of IAF include effective involvement of ACs in …

The Identity Of The Heart Patient In The Context Of The Gift Economy: Heartnet And Media Framing, Lynsey Uridge

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This health communication research examines the identity levels of the heart patient on a therapeutic website HeartNET through an empirical investigation of site interactions as manifestations of a gift economy. The thesis also explores the media’s representation of heart health in both television and print.

This research utilised a longitudinal qualitative ethnographic and netnographic approach involving twenty-six participants who completed two in-depth interviews. The first one-on-one interview occurred during the early stages of the participants’ heart journey, explored their heart story and use of interactive technology for heart health support. The second interview occurred six to twelve months later, and …

Tego - A Framework For Adversarial Planning, Daniel Ashlock, Philip Hingston

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study establishes a framework called ∗-Tego for a situation in which two agents are each given a set of players for a competitive game. Each agent places their players in an order. Players on each side at the same position in the order play one another, with the agent's score being the sum of their player's scores. The planning agents are permitted to simultaneous reorder their players in each of several stages. The reordering is termed competitive replanning. The resulting framework is scalable by changing the number of players and the complexity of the replanning process. The framework is …

Exploring A Visual/Sonic Representational Continuum, Lindsay Vickery

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper explores the relationships between sound and its visualisation, focussing upon the issues surrounding representation and interpretation of music through both performative and machine processes. The discussion proceeds in the context of five recent works by the author exploring the representation of sound and musical notation and their relationship to and with performance: unhörbares wird hörbar (the inaudible becomes audible) [2013], EVP [2012], Lyrebird: environment player [2014], Nature Forms I [2014] and sacrificial zones [2014]. Issues examined include: re-sonification of spectrograms, visualisation of spectral analysis data, control of spatialisation and audio processing using spectral analysis data, and reading issues …

A Method To Optimize A Typology-Based Classification System, Christopher Schnitzler, James Croft, Chris Button, Mats Ulmers, Keith Davids

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study sought to provide guidelines for implementing typology-based qualitative analysis of human movement patterns. Fifteen participant-analysts were instructed how to classify treading water behaviours into eight different categories using a training set of videos. They were later provided with two additional sets of videos called validation, and test sets. Results first identified reliable (n=9), and not reliable (n=6) analysts. A decision study outlined that one analyst was sufficient to reliably categorize the behaviours in the 'reliable' analyst group, whereas up to four were necessary in the 'unreliable' group. These data provided new insights into more objective qualitative analysis methods …

Risk Factors For Cerebrovascular Disease Mortality Among The Elderly In Beijing: A Competing Risk Analysis, Zhe Tang, Tao Zhou, Yanxia Luo, Changchun Xie, Da Huo, Lixin Tao, Lei Pan, Fei Sun, Huiping Zhu, Xinghua Yang, Wei Wang, Aoshuang Yan, Xia Li, Xiuhua Guo

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Objective: To examine the associations of combined lifestyle factors and physical conditions with cerebrovascular diseases (CBVD) mortality, after accounting for competing risk events, including death from cardiovascular diseases, cancers and other diseases. Methods: Data on 2010 subjects aged over 55 years were finally analyzed using competing risk models. All the subjects were interviewed by the Beijing Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA), in China, between 1 January 1992 and 30 August 2009. Results: Elderly females were at a lower risk of death from CBVD than elderly males (HR = 0.639, 95% CI = 0.457-0.895). Increasing age (HR = 1.543, 95% CI …

Protocol For The Rt Prepare Trial: A Multiple-Baseline Study Of Radiation Therapists Delivering Education And Support To Women With Breast Cancer Who Are Referred For Radiotherapy, Georgia Halkett, Moira O'Connor, Sanchia Aranda, Michael Jefford, Nigel Spry, Therese Shaw, Rachael Moorin, Penelope Schofield

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Introduction: There is limited evidence to guide the preparation of patients for radiotherapy. This paper describes the protocol for an evaluation of a radiation therapist led education intervention delivered to patients with breast cancer in order to reduce psychological distress. Methods: A multiple-baseline study is being used. Usual care data is being collected prior to the start of the intervention at each of three sites. The intervention is delivered by radiation therapists consulting with patients prior to their treatment planning and on the first day of treatment. The intervention focuses on providing sensory and procedural information to patients and reducing …

Reaching Perinatal Women Online: The Healthy You, Healthy Baby Website And App, Lydia Hearn, Margaret Miller, Leanne Lester

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Overwhelming evidence reveals the close link between unwarranted weight gain among childbearing women and childhood adiposity. Yet current barriers limit the capacity of perinatal health care providers (PHCPs) to offer healthy lifestyle counselling. In response, today's Internet savvy women are turning to online resources to access health information, with the potential of revolutionising health services by enabling PHCPs to guide women to appropriate online resources. This paper presents the findings of a project designed to develop an online resource to promote healthy lifestyles during the perinatal period. The methodology involved focus groups and interviews with perinatal women and PHCPs to …

A Systematic Review Of Episodic Volunteering In Public Health And Other Contexts, Melissa K. Hyde, Jeff Dunn, Paul A. Scuffham, Suzanne K. Chambers

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Episodic volunteers are a critical resource for public health non-profit activities but are poorly understood. A systematic review was conducted to describe the empirical evidence about episodic volunteering (EV) in the public health sector and more broadly. Study location, focus and temporal trends of EV research were also examined. Methods. Twelve key bibliographic databases (1990-April week 2, 2014) were searched, including Google Scholar. Empirical studies published in English in peer-reviewed journals that identified participants as EVs who volunteered to support Not-for-Profit organisations in the health and social welfare sectors were included. EV definitions, characteristics, economic costs, antecedents and outcomes …

Predictors Of Grandparental Investment Decisions In Contemporary Europe: Biological Relatedness And Beyond, David A. Coall, Sonja Hilbrand, Ralph Hertwig

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Across human cultures, grandparents make a valued contribution to the health of their families and communities. Moreover, evidence is gathering that grandparents have a positive impact on the development of grandchildren in contemporary industrialized societies. A broad range of factors that influence the likelihood grandparents will invest in their grandchildren has been explored by disciplines as diverse as sociology, economics, psychology and evolutionary biology. To progress toward an encompassing framework, this study will include biological relatedness between grandparents and grandchildren, a factor central to some discipline's theoretical frameworks (e.g., evolutionary biology), next to a wide range of other factors in …

Reducing Depression During The Menopausal Transition: Study Protocol For A Randomised Controlled Trial, Osvaldo P. Almeida, Kylie Marsh, Leon Flicker, Martha Hickey, Andrew Ford, Moira Sim

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: The menopausal transition (MT) is a biological inevitability for all ageing women that can be associated with changes in mood, including depressive symptoms. There is tentative evidence that women who develop depression during the MT have greater risk of subsequent depressive episodes, as well as increased health morbidity and mortality. Thus, preventing depression during the MT could enhance both current and the future health and well-being of women. This study aims to test the efficacy of a client-centred health promotion intervention to decrease the 12-month incidence of clinically significant symptoms of depression among women undergoing the MT.Methods/Design: This randomised …

Improving Sexual Health In Men With Prostate Cancer: Randomised Controlled Trial Of Exercise And Psychosexual Therapies, Prue Cormie, Suzanne K. Chambers, Robert U. Newton, Robert A. Gardiner, Nigel Spry, Dennis R. Taaffe, David Joseph, M Akhlil Hamid, Peter Chong, David Hughes, Kyra Hamilton, Daniel A. Galvão

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Despite being a critical survivorship care issue, there is a clear gap in current knowledge of the optimal treatment of sexual dysfunction in men with prostate cancer. There is sound theoretical rationale and emerging evidence that exercise may be an innovative therapy to counteract sexual dysfunction in men with prostate cancer. Furthermore, despite the multidimensional aetiology of sexual dysfunction, there is a paucity of research investigating the efficacy of integrated treatment models. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to: 1) examine the efficacy of exercise as a therapy to aid in the management of sexual dysfunction in men …

Mental Models For The Negation Of Conjunctions And Disjunctions, Guillermo Macbeth, Eugenia Razumiejczyk, María C. Crivello, Claudia Bolzán, Carolina I. Pereyra Girardi, Guillermo Campitelli

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study investigates why reasoning that involves negation is extremely difficult. We presented participants with reasoning problems containing sentences with negation of conjunctions and disjunctions in order to test predictions derived from the Mental Models Theory of human thought. According to this theory, reasoning consists of representing and comparing possibilities. Different sentential forms would require different cognitive demands. In particular, responses to a sentential negation task would be modulated by working memory load. This prediction would hold for correct responses but also for the general pattern of responses that includes incorrect responses when the task offers different response options. A …

Reporting On The Seminar - Risk Interpretation And Action (Ria): Decision Making Under Conditions Of Uncertainty, Emma E. Doyle, Shabana Khan, Carolina Adler, Ryan C. Alaniz, Simone Athayde, Kuan H. Lin, Wendy Saunders, Todd Schenk, Fabiola Sosarodriguez, Victoria Sword-Daniels, Olayinka Akanle, Marie A. Baudoin, Chiung T. Chang, Karianne D. De Bruin, Riyanti Djalante, Christine Eriksen, Hsiang C. Lee, Jyoti Mishra, Victor O. Okorie, David R. Olanya, Goda Perlaviciute, Naxhelli Ruizrivera, Suzanne Vallance, Xinlu Xie, Lun Yin, Sarah Beaven, Charles Ebikeme, Richard Eiser, David Johnston, Christine Kenney, Douglas Paton, Sarah Schweizer, Vivi Stavrou

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The paper reports on the World Social Science (WSS) Fellows seminar on Risk Interpretation and Action (RIA), undertaken in New Zealand in December, 2013. This seminar was coordinated by the WSS Fellows program of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the RIA working group of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) program, the IRDR International Center of Excellence Taipei, the International START Secretariat and the Royal Society of New Zealand. Twenty-five early career researchers from around the world were selected to review the RIA framework under the theme of 'decision-making under conditions of uncertainty', and develop novel theoretical approaches …

Freedom In Surrender, Vahri G. Mckenzie

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: The work is an artists’ profile of Claudia Alessi published in dancewest, the WA edition of the Australian Dance Council magazine. Alessi is a leading independent dancer and choreographer. It draws on my case study of Alessi to show how embodied knowledge and physical sensation inform her current choreographic process, and the transmission of this knowledge. As a dancer and researcher I use archival, field research and self-reflection to ask: how do we make creative processes explicit when they’re experienced as sudden insight?

Contribution: I was invited to contribute a series of artists’ profiles to dancewest. The research draws …

Australian Youth Work Education: Curriculum Renewal And A Model For Sustainability For Niche Professions, Trudi Cooper, Judith Bessant, Robyn Broadbent, Jen Couch, Kathy Edwards, Jayne Jarvis, Cath Ferguson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The four main purposes of this project were to:

• Renew the curriculum for Australian youth work professional education, applying the approach to curriculum outlined by Barnett and Coate (2005)

• Investigate the potential for cross-institutional sharing of courseware and educational materials that will facilitate future benchmarking, inter-sectoral and inter-professional pathways, and international qualification recognition

• Promote long-term change through the establishment of a cross-sectoral youth work educators network

• Suggest starting points for a sustainability model for other niche professions.

Factors Influencing Pacing In Triathlon, Sam Shi Xuan Wu, Jeremiah P. Peiffer, Jeanick Brisswalter, Kazunori Nosaka, Chris Abbiss

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Triathlon is a multisport event consisting of sequential swim, cycle, and run disciplines performed over a variety of distances. This complex and unique sport requires athletes to appropriately distribute their speed or energy expenditure (ie, pacing) within each discipline as well as over the entire event. As with most physical activity, the regulation of pacing in triathlon may be influenced by a multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The majority of current research focuses mainly on the Olympic distance, whilst much less literature is available on other triathlon distances such as the sprint, half-Ironman, and Ironman distances. Furthermore, little is …

Personality Traits In Australian Business Graduates And Implications For Organizational Effectiveness, Denise A. Jackson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The Five-Factor model is widely accepted as a robust model of personality that influences workplace behaviour and performance. Given evidence of persistent skills gaps in Australia, it is important to explore personality traits in business graduates to understand whether they have the necessary characteristics to enable the country to perform successfully nationally and to compete on a global level, particularly during periods of economic uncertainty. This study examines personality traits in 674 Australian business graduates, using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), and variations in traits across demographic/background characteristics. The results indicate that graduates are relatively high in extroversion, conscientiousness and …

A Combination Of Physical Activity And Computerized Brain Training Improves Verbal Memory And Increases Cerebral Glucose Metabolism In The Elderly, Tejal Shah, Giuseppe Verdile, Hamid R. Sohrabi, A Campbell, E Putland, C Cheetham, S Dhaliwal, M Weinborn, P Maruff, D Darby, Ralph N. Martins

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Physical exercise interventions and cognitive training programs have individually been reported to improve cognition in the healthy elderly population; however, the clinical significance of using a combined approach is currently lacking. This study evaluated whether physical activity (PA), computerized cognitive training and/or a combination of both could improve cognition. In this nonrandomized study, 224 healthy community-dwelling older adults (60-85 years) were assigned to 16 weeks home-based PA (n = 64), computerized cognitive stimulation (n = 62), a combination of both (combined, n = 51) or a control group (n = 47). Cognition was assessed using the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning …

“Keeping It Together, Keeping Their Heads Above Water”: Western Australian Child Health Nurses’ Understanding Of Resilience In Postpartum Mothers, Rachael O. Collins, Julie Ann Pooley, Myra F. Taylor

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Assessing the well-being of postpartum mothers is an important aspect of postnatal nursing care. For this reason, Child Health Nurses (CHNs) are charged with the responsibility of identifying postpartum mothers who do/not manifest resilient behavioral qualities. However, little is known about CHNs’ conceptualization of resilience or how they assess resilience in postpartum mothers. This exemplar study addressed this knowledge shortfall by conducting semi-structured interviews with eight practicing CHNs. The study’s findings reveal that although CHNs’ conceptual understanding of resilience is congruent with current theoretical thinking, some variance does exist in the ways in which CHNs assess postpartum resilience, particularly, in …

Inclusive Services For Children And Families From Cald Backgrounds In An Australian Context, Margaret Sims, Anna U. Targowska, Judith C. Kulisa, Susan C. Teather

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The current Australian government is proposing an agenda focused around social inclusion in an attempt to address the complex issues associated with inequality evident in this country. Despite valiant attempts, many agencies struggle to offer inclusive services, particularly to families who have migrated to Australia from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds. In this study, we surveyed a range of programs identified by key informants as offering inclusive service delivery with the aim of identifying those aspects of their practice they believed facilitated successful inclusion. We then attempt to position our findings within recently emerging critiques of the concept of …

An Information-Theoretic Measure For Face Recognition: Comparison With Structural Similarity, Asmhan Flieh Hassan, Zahir Hussain, Dong Cai-Lin

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Automatic recognition of people faces is a challenging problem that has received significant attention from signal processing researchers in recent years. This is due to its several applications in different fields, including security and forensic analysis. Despite this attention, face recognition is still one among the most challenging problems. Up to this moment, there is no technique that provides a reliable solution to all situations. In this paper a novel technique for face recognition is presented. This technique, which is called ISSIM, is derived from our recently published information - theoretic similarity measure HSSIM, which was based on joint histogram. …

Stability And Accuracy Of Long-Term Memory For Musical Pitch [Journal Article], Alyce K. Hay, Craig P. Speelman

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Existing research gives an inconsistent picture of the nature of the cognitive processes underlying memory for musical information. A study was conducted to investigate the stability and accuracy of long-term memory for pitch amongst individuals who have not had musical training. Excerpts from well-known pop songs were used as stimuli. Participants heard one long sequence of excerpts, each of which had been raised or lowered in pitch by one semitone, or left unaltered. After hearing each excerpt, participants were asked to detect whether it was different from the original version of the song they remembered. Participants were significantly worse at …

Development Of A Patient-Administered Self-Assessment Tool (Satp) For Follow-Up Of Colorectal Cancer Patients In General Practice, Irene M. Ngune, Moyez Jiwa, Alexandra Mcmanus, Jeff Hughes, Richard Parsons, Rupert Hodder, Fiona Entriken

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Treatment for colorectal cancer (CRC) may result in physical, social, and psychological needs that affect patients’ quality of life post-treatment. A comprehensive assessment should be conducted to identify these needs in CRC patients post treatment, however, there is a lack of tools and processes available in general practice. Aims: This study aimed to develop a patient-completed needs screening tool that identifies potentially unmet physical, psychological, and social needs in CRC and facilitates consultation with a general practitioner (GP) to address these needs. Methods: The development of the self-assessment tool for patients (SATp) included a review of the literature; face …

Visual Recognition Difficulties: Identifying Primary School Students' Directional Confusion In Writing Letters And Numbers, Janet E. Richmond, Myra F. Taylor

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Occupational therapists often assess primary school learners for letter and number reversal tendencies using scales which require recognition of reversed letters and numbers; however, these scales do not generally look at learners’ written production of letters and numbers to measure their reversal tendencies. This study aimed to determine whether learners reverse the same letters and numbers in reading and in writing. Method: This study utilised the Richmond Reversal Rating (RRR) Scale to identify which language symbols 118 primary school learners found difficult to recognise as being reversed when reading a series of letters and numbers and writing 20 letters …

Toward A New, Musical Paradigm Of Place: The Port River Symphonic Of Chester Schultz, Robin Ryan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In privileging music as a focus for applied ecology, the goal of this essay is to deepen perspectives on the musical representation of land in an age of complex environmental challenge. As the metaphor driving public narration of environmental crises, the notion of Earth as our home—signified by the prefix “eco”—brings with it a critical expectation for the musical academy to retreat from bland talk about a “sense of place.” Based on the premise that damaged ecologies are a matter of concern to many people, Indigenous and Settler; and building on the late Val Plumwood’s theory of “shadow” or “denied” …

The 'Oldest Tricks In The Book' Do Not Work! Reports Of Burglary By Duma Detainees In Western Australia, Natalie J. Gately, Jennifer Fleming, Nathalie Mcginty, Anthony M. Scott

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Foreword : Research investigating the methods and motivations of burglars has typically focused on incarcerated offenders. The Australian Institute of Criminology’s Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program provided an opportunity for the authors to explore the methods and motivations of those actively involved in committing burglaries, whether or not they had actually been caught or detained for that offence. The findings support Routine Activity Theory, indicating that offenders consider a number of factors in determining whether a property will be targeted for a break and enter offence. As might be expected, opportunistic burglars choose easy to access properties, stay …

Student Perceptions Of Online Interactive Versus Traditional Lectures; Or How I Managed Not To Fall Asleep With My Eyes Open, John A. O'Rourke, Susan J. Main, Martin G. Cooper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Universities are increasingly experimenting with the online domain to connect with busy and digital-savvy students and counter the decline in face-to-face lecture attendance More often than not universities are offering videoed lectures or PowerPoints with lecturer voice-overs as a way of delivering content. Evidence suggests that while these techniques may provide the flexibility required, some content needs more personalised delivery. In this article the authors explore the development and delivery of an online lecture format. Using a combination of video, text and interactive cell technology, this online offering was trialed in a unit focused on the education of students with …

Educational Innovations And Pedagogical Beliefs: The Case Of A Professional Development Program For Indonesian Teachers, Cher Ping Lim, Jo Tondeur, Hendrati Nastiti, Jeremy E. Pagram

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study aimed to explore the impact of a professional development program on the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices. More specifically, the program endeavoured to design a prototype for teacher professional development in Indonesia that was sustainable and scalable. This one-year program built upon the participating teachers’ existing practices, reinforced with the concept of reflection as a tool for ongoing inquiry of their own practices. The three major components of this program were: action research, peer-coaching and leadership support. By using a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative data collection, this study examined the changes in the participating teachers’ beliefs …