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Background statement: Accurate completion of a Neurological Assessment including the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is of the upmost importance in identifying and escalating neurological deterioration. This assessment must be standardised to ensure patient safety and quality care. Aim: This paper aims to review the standardisation of the GCS inclusive of a comprehensive Neurological Assessment in metropolitan hospitals in Australia. Existing literature on this tool in clinical practice, will be further explored in this review. It will primarily focus on efficacy, standardisation and accuracy of completing a Neurological Assessment on an Adult. Methods: A comprehensive review of the topic was undertaken, to reveal literature that supports the aim of this paper. Medline and Embase were accessed, with the use of Boolean operators to ensure literature met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: Five articles were selected as appropriate and relevant to meet the needs and expectations of this review. Research suggests inconsistency and validity of the tool, which may affect patient safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative education is one of the key contributors in achieving the goal of sustainability. Several studies mention that the sustainability curriculum and educators can play an immense role in developing awareness in practicing the concept of sustainability. Relatively there is no comprehensive study to typify the recent contributions of teacher education for sustainability. In this light, the aim of the study is to understand the progress of the research on teacher education for sustainability (TES) in terms of growth, evolution, influence and significant research themes. To achieve the aim of the study, 1782 documents indexed in the Scopus database over three decades starting from 1991 to 2020 were analyzed by using bibliometric analysis. The data are visualized in the paper by using VOSviewer and Tableau. Results show that there has been a significant increase in yearly publications and citations over the years, trending research papers, productive authors, institutions and countries and thematic areas of research. Most frequently published journal has a considerable cite score and quartile. Universities from Australia published the most. The most commonly published themes are education for sustainability, Agenda 21, sustainable development education, environmental education, and later the focus is shifted to teacher training, teachers, education, values, teaching and education policy, sustainability competencies. Future research should focus on blended learning, digital learning, other modern tools and techniques to achieve the goal of sustainable development as well as to address the issue of teaching sustainability during uncertainty conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numbers coming out of education departments in Australia suggest that, even though most Australian schools are open, and families are able to send their children to them, increasing numbers of parents are deciding to keep their children at home for their education (Queensland Government: Department of Education, 2020). It may be that, as the president of Australia's home education representative body stated during the pandemic, Covid school closures offered a "risk-free trial" of home education (Lever, 2020) by providing an a-posteriori experience of education outside of schools. Building on the Covid experiences, this paper suggests that 'accidentally falling into' home education may be significant in understanding parents' home education choices. Using numbers of home educators from Australia, and the associated data on their location and ages, this paper argues responsibilisation (see Doherty & Dooley, 2018) provides a suitable lens to examine how parents may decide, after an a-posteriori experience such as Covid school closures and previous, often negative, experiences of schooling, to home educate in the medium to long term. This paper proposes that increasing numbers of home educators will be seen in various jurisdictions where families perceive themselves responsibilised to home educate due to Covid as an a-posteriori experiences of home education. The paper proposes these families are 'accidental' home educators (English, 2021). By contrast, much more stable is the 'deliberate' home education population, those whose choices are based in a-priori beliefs about schooling. The paper proposes that the accidental home education category may be better able to explain the growing numbers of home educators in Australia and across the world, providing a means for governments to respond to the needs of this cohort, and the policies required to manage this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case of traumatic brain injury, this paper explores 1) challenges to academic and ethical integrity when in the role of clinician-researcher, and 2) potential strategies to enhance ethical qualitative research involving people with possible physical and/or emotional trauma and temporary or permanent cognitive disruption. When undertaking qualitative research with patients, families, and/or health professionals, a researcher's clinical background may stimulate insightful and relevant research questions, interviews, and/or field observations of care to inform meaningful and translatable practice improvements. However, there may be tension between clinician versus researcher values, and these priorities affect what the clinician sees and interprets in the field. A clinician's ingrained values and professional socialisation can make it difficult to hold their professional assumptions about various phenomena at bay. The principles of human research merit and integrity, justice, beneficence, and respect, along with methodological clarity, can provide a rigorous foundation for discussion of ethical research in traumatic brain injury. This paper discusses challenges and strategies through: 1) examining clinical assumptions; 2) determining capacity for consent; 3) considering dependent or unequal power relationships; 4) determining the scope for field observations; 5) responding to unprofessional practice; 6) discriminating between research interviews and clinical conversations; and 7) critically reflecting on research data. Implications for clinical research are evident: seeing past one's own construct of understanding is challenging for clinician-researchers aiming to illuminate both patient and family experiences of care, and nuanced clinical skills. Careful ethical and methodological planning can protect participants while illuminating elements of specialist practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Huntington's disease (HD) is a rare, progressive, neuropsychiatric disorder that is inherited. Although there are treatment options for some of the symptoms, currently there is no cure, despite much research. In addition to medical, nursing and allied health care, a person with HD needs a great deal of support. Until now, this support, for individuals and their families, has been facilitated by Huntington's Disease Associations in each Australian state and territory. It has been a long-held dream to merge these Associations to form a national body, so as to provide better and more equitable support, increased resources, greater sustainability and create consistent educational material for everyone impacted by HD. The ultimate goal is to help people impacted by the condition live their best life. This dream is about to be realised as 5 states and 2 territories will merge to create Huntington's Australia, planning to begin operations later this year. The journey over the last 3 years towards this dream is described in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Neuroscience patients can present with agitation due to a number of factors such as the presence of cerebral abnormalities, tumours, trauma, or medications. Agitation among neuroscience patients that escalates to violence and aggression appears to be increasing and highly challenging for neuroscience nursing practice across Australasia. Neuroscience wards or units endeavour to effectively manage patients who are affected by agitation and provide appropriate training for clinical and non-clinical staff. Following a workshop through Australasian Neuroscience Nurses' Association (ANNA), a group of neuroscience nurses, passionate about improving the care of neuroscience patients presenting with agitation and the safety of the staff; collaborated and researched the most effective prevention and management strategies that can be used to ensure that care delivery for these patients is therapeutic and effective. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to share recommendations that can guide the prevention and management of agitation among neuroscience patients from the perspective of neuroscience nurses in Australasia. Discussion: These recommendations have been discussed from hospitals across Australasia including Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and Wellington in the hope that other cities can make changes in their own hospitals to inform neuroscience nurses and allied clinicians, improve guidelines and provide effective education for staff members that interact with neuroscience patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how an introduction of paid parental leave (PPL) affects maternal labor market outcomes in the short run. Using a reform in Australia, the PPL scheme, that gave the primary caregiver of a child born or adopted on or after January 1 2011, $672.70 a week for a maximum of 18 weeks, this paper develops theoretical predictions of the effect of PPL on maternal labor market outcomes, and tests these predictions using confidential data from the Australian Pregnancy and Employment Transitions Survey. The theoretical results imply that after the introduction of PPL, hours of work in the pre-birth period should decrease for mothers who will qualify for PPL, and increase for mothers who are attempting to qualify for PPL. Post birth, the theoretical results imply that more mothers are out of work and on leave than would have been in the absence of PPL. The empirical results suggest that the PPL scheme had no significant effect on labor market outcomes pre birth or post birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how an introduction of paid parental leave (PPL) affects maternal labor market outcomes in the short run. Using a reform in Australia, the PPL scheme, that gave the primary caregiver of a child born or adopted on or after January 1 2011, $672.70 a week for a maximum of 18 weeks, this paper develops theoretical predictions of the effect of PPL on maternal labor market outcomes, and tests these predictions using confidential data from the Australian Pregnancy and Employment Transitions Survey. The theoretical results imply that after the introduction of PPL, hours of work in the pre-birth period should decrease for mothers who will qualify for PPL, and increase for mothers who are attempting to qualify for PPL. Post birth, the theoretical results imply that more mothers are out of work and on leave than would have been in the absence of PPL. The empirical results suggest that the PPL scheme had no significant effect on labor market outcomes pre birth or post birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

250,000 people in Australia live with Epilepsy and more than 40% of those are children. Medication is a first line, effective treatment. However, not all patients have the desired outcome of seizure reduction or cessation. In fact, 1 in 3 do not gain full seizure control with medication alone. Epilepsy surgery, while not a new concept of treatment for seizure management, has gained significant traction in the past decade and has become a particular focus of the Neurology Department at The Children's Hospital, Westmead. This is evident by the expansion of the Neuroscience ward for the precise purpose of surgical intervention for the treatment of Epilepsy and other seizure conditions. The paediatric patient journey to surgery is a complex and intricate one. It involves a collaborative approach of the multidisciplinary teams from diagnosis and beyond, whilst maintaining a high standard of holistic, family centred care. This paper aims to discuss this journey and the impact it has on the patients, families and the nurses involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on personal statements written by 23 Year 11 students about what outdoor recreational activities they participated in and their sense of cultural identity in the culturally plural context of Australia.. A sociological approach of inductive analysis of their comments was employed to investigate the extent to which those of culturally diverse identities were actually participating in outdoor recreational activities. The respondents came from six Adelaide co-educational secondary schools which agreed to participate in the study. The responses given to the guideline questions provided evidence of participation in twelve different outdoor recreational activities, some involving individual pursuits and others group activities. Twelve students identified themselves as 'mainstream Australian', while eight claimed identities linked to other European and Asian cultural groups and three reported no sense of cultural identification. The evidence from this exploratory study was that those of culturally diverse identities were actually participating in outdoor recreational activities. However, they were more likely to be involved in individual rather than group activities. Furthermore they preferred land-based activities to those requiring water skills. The paper discusses the significance of the findings, implications for making future initiatives and policies in outdoor recreational activities more inclusive, as well as directions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Open, Distance & E-Learning is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

250,000 people in Australia live with Epilepsy and more than 40% of those are children. Medication is a first line, effective treatment. However, not all patients have the desired outcome of seizure reduction or cessation. In fact, 1 in 3 do not gain full seizure control with medication alone. Epilepsy surgery, while not a new concept of treatment for seizure management, has gained significant traction in the past decade and has become a particular focus of the Neurology Department at The Children's Hospital, Westmead. This is evident by the expansion of the Neuroscience ward for the precise purpose of surgical intervention for the treatment of Epilepsy and other seizure conditions. The paediatric patient journey to surgery is a complex and intricate one. It involves a collaborative approach of the multidisciplinary teams from diagnosis and beyond, whilst maintaining a high standard of holistic, family centred care. This paper aims to discuss this journey and the impact it has on the patients, families and the nurses involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a speciality practice area, neuroscience nursing is internationally recognised. In 2014 the Australasian Neuroscience Nurses Association celebrated its 40th anniversary. For Indonesian neuroscience nurses, 2014 marked the inaguration of the Indonesian Neuroscience Nurses Association. The following paper provides an overview of health care in Indonesia and development of neuroscience nursing as a specialty through educational and regional collaboration. Postgraduate educational opportunities are open to all nurses in Australia, including neuroscience as a specialty for nurses. However within Indonesia, the focus has been on meeting basic nursing demands, with postgraduate specialisation still in its infancy. The focus on training and producing large numbers of nurses at a basic level has resulted in little regard for the ongoing development and acknowledgement of speciality practice areas, such as neuroscience nursing. The following paper outlines the challenges faced by Indonesian nurses as they strive towards the recognition of neuroscience nursing as a speciality. Through the provision of an overview of current nursing and the health care system in Indonesia, this paper will explore the geographical, economic, political and cultural factors that require consideration when translating experience and expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storm-water management is a common concern in rural catchments where development-related growth causes increases of storm-water flows. Greater magnitude and frequency of storm-water create greater challenges for mitigating storm-water damage and improving water quality. The concept of Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) as a solution incorporates a wide range of applicable components with the aim of minimizing the effect of catchment development on flow regimes without changing the watershed morphology. BGI components manage storm-water by decreasing impermeable cover and expanding natural and semi-natural systems to store water or recharge and filter storm-water into the ground. In this paper, guidelines for designing a pond as a component of BGI are provided and, configuration and size of the pond are determined. Moreover, the impacts of the designed pond on storm-water peak flow and quality are assessed for the Tarwin catchment, State of Victoria, Australia. The results indicate that the introduction of the pond would have reduced outfall inflow by 94 % and would have achieved the reduction of 88.3, 75.5 and 50.7 % for total suspended solids, total phosphorus, and total nitrogen respectively, during the extreme weather event in June 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of people applying for school based religious education leadership positions is scarce in most regions throughout Australia as well as other geographical regions. Drawing on the insights from key stakeholders associated with religious education leadership in schools this qualitative study aimed to identify factors which militated against sustaining school based religious education leadership. This paper reports on the findings emanating from the study and proceeds to outline practical solutions that may contribute to attracting and sustaining future generations of religious education leaders. The key factors impacting on the sustainability of religious education leaders include feelings of disconnection, excessive demands associated with the role and a lack of structural support. Practical recommendations are outlined to contribute to sustaining school based religious education leadership. The recommendations include a review of teacher appraisal processes, equity in terms of industrial conditions and the inclusion of middle leadership positions that support the leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No industry has influenced the transformation of the Australian Football League (AFL) into a professional, commercial business more than the media. Today, the AFL players are paid more than ever and are used as marketing tools to promote and sell the game, often to new fans in new markets of Australia - namely New South Wales and Queensland - who haven't traditionally played Australian Football, preferring the rugby codes instead. But perhaps the biggest change in the AFL is that the play element is now used as function of business. Put simply, winning leads to more money. As such, the play element is now manipulated more than ever. The game has more coaches implementing more tactics, strategies, game plans and set plays than ever before. These changes can be linked back to the media's influence on the game. This paper utilises the combined observations and theories of Johan Huizinga and Pierre Bourdieu to create a theoretical lens through which we can understand the media's growing influence in sport and its impact on play's transformation. The theory will then be expounded through an extensive analysis of the media's influence in the AFL, particularly its play element. This analysis will be supported with insights and views from AFL fans, members, commentators and theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global temperature trends provided by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology are artificially exaggerated due to subjective and unidirectional adjustments of recorded values. The present paper aims to promote the use of the raw stations' data corrected only for urban heat island formation. The longer temperature records of Australia exhibit significant oscillations with a strong quasi-60 years' signature of downward phases 1880 to 1910, 1940 to 1970 and 2000 to present, and upwards phases 1910 to 1940 and 1970 to 2000. A longer oscillation with downward phase until 1910 and an upwards phase afterwards is also detected. The warming since 1910 occurred at a nearly constant rate. Over the full length of the long Australian records since the end of the 1800s, there is no sign of warming or increased occurrence of extreme events. The monthly highest and mean maximum temperatures do not exhibit any positive trend. The differences between monthly highest and lowest, or monthly mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures, are all reducing because of urban heat island formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is unknown what teaching styles (range of pedagogies) coaches are employing during coaching sessions and whether these teaching styles are associated with recommended pedagogical principles advocated by sport and coaching scholars. It is unknown whether twenty years of coach education has shifted coaching practice as the insights into the pedagogical diversity and preference of teaching styles that underpin and inform the coaches' decisions to employ particular teaching strategies during coaching sessions are undetermined. This paper addresses these unknowns in the field of tennis coaching in Australia by reporting the findings of a study that address the lack of information on the teaching styles employed by tennis coaches by asking the following research question: What teaching styles are junior coaches in Australia actually using during coaching sessions? This study used The Spectrum (Mosston & Ashworth, 2008) of teaching styles as a tool to assess the observed teaching styles of twelve junior coaches. Contrary to the educational convictions of Australian sport coach education materials the results from this study indicated that the coaches in this study potentially did not offer players developmental opportunities beyond a limited range (i.e., motor skill development in the physical learning domain) due to a narrow pedagogical mix in their coaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While critical scholarship on listening as a political practice has flourished in recent years, there remains much work to do on theorising listening as a situated practice in specific contexts, including as a practice that might unsettle settler-colonial relations. In this paper, we extend Bickford's (1996) work on political listening and our own theorisation of situated listening to offer provisional thoughts on the generative potential of refusal, discomfort, attunement and yielding - prompted by the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart and the broader conditions of listening and being heard in settler colonial Australia. We locate listening within a decolonial framework to extend and unsettle conventional liberal democratic and deliberative modes of listening. First, we argue it is vital to listen to First Nations histories and practices of refusal. Next, we offer attunement to register our differently situated listening positions within colonial networks of privilege and power. Third, we explore the transformative potential of yielding to First Nations' authority to set the terms, frames and limits of being heard - within, against, and beyond liberal democratic frameworks. Finally, we offer dwelling in discomfort as a location from which to build more just futures, with the sovereignty of First Nations people placed at its heart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) have more hospital admissions, longer hospital stay, more complications and worse outcomes compared with similar patients without PD. Limited understanding about PD among healthcare professionals and medication management are key issues for individuals with PD. Methods: This study presents a collaborative clinical practice improvement project that was implemented in a hospital in New South Wales, Australia (September 2015 to May 2018) to resolve issues for patients with PD on admission to hospital. Innovative interventions were implemented to address specific issues identified in the study setting, including an emergency department patient tracking icon, early referral to pharmacists and measures to ensure on-time medication administration and avoidance of contraindicated medications. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through focus group discussions with PD support group members, surveys involving nurses and patients/carers and a chart audit. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results: These initiatives resulted in practice improvements including identification of 100% of patients with PD presenting/admitted to hospital within 4 hours of presentation/admission, a 19% increase in patients receiving medications on time, an 89% reduction in prescription of contraindicated medications and reduced length of hospital stay. In addition, 80% of patients/carers reported they were very satisfied with their medication management. Conclusion: Patient safety was improved and clinical staff expressed satisfaction with care provision. The initiatives were also standardised across the hospital in a clinical guideline for the care of patients with PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental monitoring networks such as the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) in Europe, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) in the U.S., or the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) in Australia deploy different sampling schemes for in situ measurements. We report on the intercomparison of measurements of the canopy gap fraction with different digital hemispherical photography setups adopting ICOS, NEON, and TERN sampling schemes. The test was carried out at the Järvselja Radiation Transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) birch stand. Results show that spreading out sampling points which cover more of the plot is important for a good representation of the forest as a whole. The NEON tower plot layout scheme may be more prone to errors in overall canopy properties estimation than ICOS or TERN due to its compact sampling layout and should always be used in conjunction with its distributed plots. Different camera setups involving different camera operators, camera bodies, lenses and settings yield slightly varied results, and it is important to ensure that the images are taken in such a way that they would not be over or underexposed, or out of focus. As a conclusion we recommend always to carry out intercomparison measurements with old and new cameras when devices are upgraded. Our study contributes towards establishing the uncertainty and evaluating potential error budget stemming from collecting in situ measurements using different sampling schemes and camera setups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to identify common themes from archival records related to innovation in the Australian Public Service (APS). A thematic analysis was conducted to review and evaluate archival records which consisted of transcripts from senior manager presentations at Innovation Month seminars from 2014 to 2018 and other related official documents. This empirical study addressed innovation from the leaders’ perspective, reflecting upon their experience. Analysing themes within archival records helped to gain insights from various perspectives of leaders on how they regard an innovation agenda for the APS. Three themes emerged from archival records: (1) innovation characteristics; (2) drivers of innovation; and (3) barriers to innovation. Synthesis of these drivers and barriers can provide important insights for senior APS managers on how they can enhance their organisations’ ability to innovate in order to respond to digital disruption challenges and opportunities. Variety of perspectives with leader’s perceptions informs about authors’ selection of the research question among consistent patterns and legitimates the salient themes as input for QSR NVivo 11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine and coastal biodiversity is crucial to the planet's functioning and offers ecosystem services that guarantee the health, wealth, and well-being of the entire humanity. This is why, evaluating the current body of research on coral reefs is essential for understanding the unprecedented growth of this field, which covers many topics including climate change, biotic interactions, bioresources, future bioprospecting, and biodiversity in general. Such an evaluation requires both descriptive summaries and co-citation analyses to understand the expansive nature of this particular research and identify research gaps. Given the importance of the topic and the fact that it is insufficiently addressed, this study fills in a gap regarding coral reefs studies. We analyzed coral reef research published in the Web of Science Core Collection database between 1970 and 2021, using the CiteSpace software. This gave a total of 20,362 records, focusing on variables including the list of contributors (author, affiliation, and country), total publications over time, dual map overlay, co-citation analysis (co-cited author and documents), cluster networks, and popular keywords and their burstness. We found that coral reef publications increased over time, with coastal countries (the USA, Australia, and Japan) being among the highest contributors. Researchers from Australia, New Zealand, and the USA are the top producers of coral reef research worldwide. Unsurprisingly, the journal Coral Reefs was the most productive journal. Interestingly, we found that keywords such as "great barrier reef," "climate change," and "predation" were among the top cited and most influential in coral reef science. To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify trends in coral reef research using scientometric analyses based on the CiteSpace software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes one school's response to the inclusion and education of refugee and asylum seeker students within a mainstream educational setting. Australian government statistics released on 31 March 2016 stated that there were presently 50 children being held on Nauru, 17 children held in detention on the mainland and 317 children held in community detention on the mainland (ChilOut, 2016). Refugee and asylum seeking students are subject to the impact of war and conflict; the cumulative time spent in detention may severely limit a young person's access to formal education. Whilst it is understood that children will benefit from access to education, the reality is that "little appears to have been written on asylum seekers" in an educational context (Reakes, 2007, p. 94). This represents a concern when it is acknowledged that "sustaining teachers in culturally and linguistically diverse schools has been a prominent issue for yearsî (Williams, Edwards, Kuhel, & Lim, 2016, p. 17). This article responds to the limitations of current literature by articulating considerations that would likely assist other schools seeking to establish similar inclusive frameworks. Specifically, the thematic grouping of staff observations seek to articulate the cultural considerations that likely influence the sustainability of an inclusive and liberating approach to integrative school enrolment. This paper draws on the authors' observations and experiences in schools, the published literature and the observations of the two authors - specifically, drawing on their educational and therapeutic expertise. These observations are then grouped into themes outlined by Akinsulure-Smith and OíHara (2012) as key reasons for therapeutic referral, namely: employment barriers, medical challenges, language barriers, social services and legal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been significant social and political changes in Australian society since federation in 1901. The issues that are considered politically salient have also changed significantly. The purpose of this article is to examine changes in the style and content of election campaign speeches over the period 1901-2016. The corpus consists of 88 election campaign speeches delivered by the Prime Minister and Opposition leader for the 45 elections from 1901 to 2016. I use natural language processing to extract from the speeches a number of linguistic variables which serve as independent variables and use the year of delivery as the dependent variable. I then use machine learning to develop a regression model which explains 77 per cent of the variance in the dependent variable. Examination of the salient independent variables shows that there have been significant linguistic changes in the style and content of election speeches over the study period. In particular speeches have become less linguistically complex, less introspective, more focused on work and the home,and contain more visual and social references. I discuss these changes in the context of changes in Australian society over the study period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's "Transition to Retirement Income Streams" (TRIS) program aims to prolong labor force participation for older workers (aged 55–65 years) by offering early access to a worker's compulsory retirement savings (superannuation). Using a difference-in-differences design, our results suggest a small labor supply response, which increases after the program's initial years. The size of the effects appears to be consistent with the program adoption profile, which was low initially. For this reason, our estimates should be viewed as a lower bound for the true effects. We find that individuals with higher incomes are more likely to adopt TRIS. At least half of the program participants appear to be using strategies to minimize tax, a behavioral response that seems at odds with the program's intent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Swiss Journal of Sociology / Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The global pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had mental health consequences such as fear. Scholars have argued that when people are fearful, they may use substances to escape from fear, and demographic variables can have implications on how to target interventions to people. To date, little is known about how the fear of COVID-19 and demographic factors may contribute to substance use amid the COVID-19 pandemic. From 3 June to 10 June 2020, a cross-sectional study was conducted with 202 residents (Mean age = 41.77 ± 11.85; age range = 18-70 years) in 14 countries. A standardized questionnaire was utilized for data collection, SPSS (version 22.0) was utilized for data analysis, and p < .05 implied statistical significance. Descriptive statistics revealed that residents in Canada scored the highest mean score in the fear of COVID-19 scale, while residents in Australia scored highest in the substance use scale. Further, fear of COVID-19 had a negative nonsignificant relationship with substance use (r = -.07; df = 200; p > .05). Males (Mean = 18.21) scored significantly higher than females (Mean = 14.06) in substance use [t (200) = 1.9; p < .05]. The younger age group (18-28 years) scored the highest mean score in substance use compared to older age groups (29-39 years, 40-50 years, 51-61 years, and 62-72 years); however, it was not significant [F (4, 197) = 2.04; p > .05]. These data contribute to informing future studies that add more questions regarding how different variables may contribute to substance use during subsequent waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global flows and their geopolitical power relations powerfully shape the environments in which children lead their everyday lives. Children's images, imaginations and ideas of distant places are part of these global flows and the everyday activities children perform in preschool. Research explores how through curricula young children are moulded into global and cosmopolitan citizens and how children make sense of distant places through globally circulating ideas, images and imaginations. How these ideas, images and imaginations form an unproblematised part of young children's everyday preschool activities and identity formation has been much less explored, if at all. I use Massey's (2005) concept of a 'global sense of place' in my analysis of ethnographic data collected in an Australian preschool to explore how children produce global qualities of preschool places and form and perform identities by relating to distant places. I pay special attention to how place, objects and children become entangled, and to the sensory aspects of their emplaced experiences, as distant spatialities embed in and as children's bodies inhabit the preschool place. To conclude, I call for critical pedagogies to engage with children's use of these constructions to draw similarities or contrast aspects of distant places and self, potentially reproducing global power relations by fixing representations of places and through uncritically enacting stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is an analysis of the representation of Australian nurses in Thomas Keneally 2012 First World War novel, The Daughters of Mars. Inspired by rigorous research, Keneally fictionalizes the lives of two nursing sisters in the Middle East, on a hospital ship in the Dardanelles, as well as in hospitals and casualty clearing stations on the Western Front. His novel thus reclaims an important facet of the medical history of the First World War. The author of the article situates her analysis in the context of historical research on the First World War and the Australian Anzac myth, illuminating the specifically Australian elements in Keneally's portrait of the Durance sisters. She demonstrates that The Daughters of Mars celebrates the achievements of "Anzac girls", negotiating a place for them in the culture of commemoration. Yet, at the same time, Keneally attempts to include his female protagonists in the "manly" world of Anzac values, privileging heroism over victimization. Consequently, they become "misfits of war", eagerly accepting imperial and nationalist ideologies. Thus, in a way characteristic of Australian First World War literature, The Daughters of Mars fuses the tropes of affirmation and desolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the migration movements of power couples (couples where both members have at least a college degree), half-power and no-power couples within Australia. We explicitly allow for potential association of these movements with local labour market features including perceived job insecurity. The results support an urbanisation hypothesis; partnered college graduates like to live in major cities regardless of their gender or the qualifications of their partner. JEL Classification: J3, J7 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effect of level of Spirulina supplementation on the fatty acid (FA ) compositions of subcutaneous adipose, longissimus dorsi muscle, kidney, heart, and liver tissues in purebred and crossbred Australian Merino sheep. Forty-eight lambs sired by Black Suffolk, White Suffolk, Dorset and Merino rams were assigned into 4 treatment groups of daily Spirulina supplementation levels per lamb of 0 mL (control), 50 mL (low), 100 mL (medium) and 200 mL (high) referred to as 0, 5, 10 and 20% groups. The lambs were slaughtered after 9 weeks of supplementation and heart, kidney, adipose, liver and muscle tissue samples were collected. The results demonstrated significant variations in growth and body conformation traits and tissue and organ FA composition in response to the Spirulina supplementation. The medium-level Spirulina treatment group increased the ω-3 and ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA ) composition in all tissues and organs significantly. The results suggest the use of medium level (100 mL/head/day) of Spirulina supplementation in order to increase lamb production with more ω-3 and ω-6 PUFA and therefore higher nutritional meat quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]