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The unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic have required the global world to adapt swiftly and cope with the demands. The pandemic, in particular, has caused severe disruptions to young children's learning experiences, requiring a closer examination of teacher resilience. This complex, individual and context-driven quality requires educators to adapt, negotiate existing challenges and endure in adverse stress-inducing environments. Drawing on two models of teacher resilience, with a specific emphasis on protective factors, we present the empirical findings of a study that involved 284 early childhood educators from Australia, Bangladesh, India, Norway and Singapore. Participant experiences in their professional contexts indicate the role of protective factors, which include both individual and contextual factors, that facilitated quality teacher-child interactions during the pandemic. The data highlight personal strength and learning situated in their heritage cultures as crucial components of developing a strong sense of professionalism. In addition, the findings reveal the importance of professional development opportunities as an enabler of teacher resilience.

The age of information and communication technology (ICT) has witnessed the prevalence of computer-based reading. Previous studies yielded mixed results concerning the relationship between ICT perceived competence, ICT use and digital reading performance, and the underlying mechanism was rarely explored. This study aimed to explore the relationship between ICT perceived competence and adolescents' digital reading performance and the potential mediating roles of three types of ICT use. Multilevel mediation analyses were conducted for 199,646 15-year-old students from 29 OECD countries/regions in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, in which digital reading performance was assessed by multistage adaptive computer-based testing. The results revealed that (a) ICT perceived competence and digital reading performance were positively correlated; (b) ICT use significantly mediated the relationship; (c) students with higher-level ICT perceived competence tended to use ICT for leisure at home more frequently, which led to better digital reading performance; (d) the suppression effects were revealed, indicating the need to consider the interrelationship between ICT perceived competence and ICT use. These findings provided new evidence for the self-determination theory and the ICT engagement model, suggesting that appropriate ICT use driven by high-level ICT perceived competence might help improve adolescents' digital reading performance.

Knowledge and abilities with social media technologies are perceived as critical premises for human development. Familiarity with different types of social media technologies has become pivotal for collaborative learning and successfully solving problems. This study examined the impact of social media technologies, compartmentalized into social media usage and students' attitudes towards social media usage, on their collaborative problem-solving (CPS) achievement by adopting the sample from the PISA 2015 dataset across 37 countries/regions. A three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was adopted to identify the significant factors related to CPS achievement. Results indicated that social media usage had a significant impact on CPS achievement and they are varied in terms of different learning contexts, different social media types (e.g., e-mails, social networking sites), and different purposes of social media use (leisure or academic use). Furthermore, students who had a more positive attitude toward social media were more likely to achieve higher CPS performance.

This study compares the mental-state talk of infant educators in Australia and China in order to determine the nuanced differences in the ways that they use this talk with the infants in their room. Participants are 44 native English-speaking Australian educators from centres in Sydney, Australia and 30 native Chinese-speaking infant educators recruited from centres in and around Hangzhou, China. Twenty-minute samples of each educators' naturally occurring play interactions with infants during play were coded to determine the frequency of their desire, emotion, perception, cognition and modulation of assertion talk. Each mental-state term was also coded according to the referent of that mental-state. We examined the extent to which Australian and Chinese educators' use mental-state talk and how the referents of such talk differed by mental-state talk type and culture. Australian educators used significantly more mental-state talk than their Chinese counterparts. Different patterns of referent use across cultural cohorts and mental-state talk types were identified. Findings have implications for the socialisation of very young children into culturally specific ways of talking and thinking about the mind.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted countries across the globe. The pandemic has created a completely new teaching-learning environment of interaction for early childhood educators. In many countries, face-to-face teaching has been replaced by remote teaching, while in others, there have been intermittent lockdowns and limited interruptions to regular teaching norms. Given the play-based nature of preschool teaching-learning activities in most countries, educators are required to reimagine the sociocultural relationships to their pedagogical practices in their everyday teaching-learning contexts. This paper sheds light on educators' experiences and the dramatic shift in their indoor-outdoor teaching-learning environment due to the evolving health measures. The study draws on notions of teachers' identities and Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept of social situation of development (Vygotsky, 1994) to capture the new forms of relationships that early childhood educators experienced with their pedagogical environments across different countries during the pandemic. Data were collected from preschool teachers across five countries--Australia, Bangladesh, Norway, Singapore and India using online surveys which included open- and close-ended questions. Findings reveal the on-ground realities and teachers' adaptations to new pedagogies emerging across the five countries. The new digital environments provided an equally new dimension for change. These changes were seen in interactions, relationships within the everyday pedagogical contexts, as well as the shifting physical and social environment of early years educators.

This case study investigates two Chinese children's shared reading experiences in both home and preschool contexts. The parents and the educators were interviewed about their general attitudes and practices relating to shared reading for promoting the Chinese children's bilingual development. Detailed observations were undertaken to record the parents and the educators' interactions with the children during shared reading. The language use of the parents and the educators was analyzed with systemic functional linguistic theories. The findings demonstrate significant differences between the two cases, although the two children shared the same cultural and language learning background. The educators played a critical role in shaping the children's shared reading experiences in the preschool and the nature of educator-parent cooperation. The mothers provided rich language learning opportunities for their children through active interactions in shared reading; however, the positive home learning experiences could not contribute to the children's language learning in their preschools without effective educator-parent cooperation. This study suggests there are significant opportunities and strategies for the parents and the educators to capitalize on the educational functions of shared reading for facilitating Chinese children's bilingual development based on mutual understanding and close cooperation.

Families' mealtime talk has significant implications for children's language development. This study investigated five middle-class Australian Chinese families that differ in their lifestyles and meal routines. It aims to explore: (1) the nature of the Chinese parents' language use in interactions with children at mealtime; and (2) the factors that may impact the quality of mealtime talk. Drawing on systemic functional linguistic theory, the parents' language was analysed in terms of interpersonal functions and cohesive patterns. The findings show distinctive differences among the families. The parents sitting with children for meals generated a higher quality of language that contained informational functions, expanded in various cohesive patterns, than the families where parents were positioned separately from children or where fathers were absent from dinner. This study indicates the diversity of Chinese children's language experiences at home. Lifestyles and meal routines could be a mediator affecting the nature of mealtime talk.

A practical for students to experience a process plant is presented, based on operating a solvent absorption plant for carbon dioxide capture. The student must operate the plant in assigned roles that closely identify with a chemical plant environment, to achieve specific performance targets. Students must overcome technical challenges that require them to translate their theoretical understanding into practical outcomes. This ensures students take ownership of the class and act semi-independently of the demonstrators.

Research Findings: Grounded on personification storytelling, this intervention study introduced a science program including extensive astronomy concepts to 24 children (4-5 years). The storytelling attributes personal characteristics to cosmic bodies with metaphors relating to children's lives in explaining the scientific concepts, for example, the star explosion is presented as "a big vomit." Drawing on such storytelling combined with follow up hands-on activities and free drawing, the children showed significant improvement in their understanding of the astronomy concepts. The children's understanding was assessed with means of triangulation, including the analysis on pre- and post-intervention interviews, educators' documentations, and children's work samples. The analysis was based on Vygotsky's sociocultural notion of children's development of understanding from everyday concepts to scientific concepts. This study demonstrates preschool children's potential in understanding abstract astronomy concepts that were considered unsuitable to them. Practice or Policy: The pedagogical function of storytelling in science education is widely recognized, yet its application is impaired by the fact that writing stories is difficult. The personification storytelling would inspire the story writing employing the similar strategies for the promotion of science education. This study confirms the claim that preschool children are capable of developing conceptual understanding in "real astronomy." Practice or Policy

The meta-analysis presented in this paper was conducted with the aim of clarifying the differences in the research on the relationship between father involvement and problem behaviour among preschool children, and also to analyze the reasons behind these research differences. By applying a literature retrieval and screening strategy, 41 studies were sourced, with a total of 269 independent samples and 22635 participants. The meta-analysis found a low negative correlation between positive father involvement and the externalizing problem behaviour of preschool children, and the same correlation between such involvement and internalizing problem behaviour. Negative father involvement was found to be moderately positively correlated with the latter behaviour. The moderating effects of each variable emerged as different, complex, and interactive. The implications of these findings are that families, kindergartens, communities and the government should work together to guarantee father involvement and improve the quality of the latter.

To gain an in-depth understanding of the causes of the often implicit misunderstandings between Western supervisors and their Chinese doctoral students, we examined my lived experiences as a Chinese international doctoral student under the supervision of my Australian supervisors. Our data revealed how misunderstandings arose and evolved from mismatched assumptions that are rooted in the home and host cultures. We found that I was able to gain new insight in three key ways: developing self-confidence in driving my own research; re-conceptualising 'critical thinking'; and re-evaluating my own gendered social construction as an independent researcher. We reconsidered the possible roles of misunderstandings as catalysts for positive development of independent judgment.

Cognitive load theory seeks to generate novel instructional designs through a focus on human cognitive architecture including a limited working memory; however, the potential for enhancing learning through non-visual or non-auditory working memory channels is yet to be evaluated. This exploratory experiment tested whether explicit instructions to trace out elements of geometry worked examples with the index finger would enhance learning, as measured by error rates and problems solved. Compared to a non-tracing condition, students in the tracing condition correctly solved more practice problems, and made fewer errors on a subsequent test. Recommendations for subsequent more sensitive experiments are made.

This study compared the profile of those who, after initial failure to be selected, choose to reapply to study medicine with those who did not reapply. It also evaluates the chance of a successful outcome for re-applicants. In 2013, 4007 applicants to undergraduate medical schools in the largest state in Australia were unsuccessful. Those who chose to reapply (n = 665) were compared to those who did not reapply (n = 3342). Results showed that the odds of re-applying to medicine were 55% less for those from rural areas, and 39% more for those from academically-selective schools. Those who had higher cognitive ability and high school academic performance scores in 2013 were also more likely to re-apply. Socioeconomic status was not related to re-application choice. Re-applicants' showed significant improvements in selection test scores and had a 34% greater probability of selection than first-time applicants who were also interviewed in the same selection round. The findings of this study indicate that re-testing and re-application improves one's chance of selection into an undergraduate medical degree, but may further reduce the diversity of medical student cohorts in terms of rural background and educational background.

This study investigated the manner in which 56 infant educators used language to direct the behaviour of infants (defined as children aged birth to two years), on the basis that the ways in which educators frame their commands represent an important component of young children's learning experiences. Underpinned by systemic functional linguistic theory, the study analysed the frequency and type of command produced by educators with university, diploma and certificate qualifications. "Suggestive" and "indirect" commands convey a sense of negotiation, as if the addressees' subjective opinions and thoughts are considered, while "nonsuggestive" and "direct" commands foreground the speakers' power and authority. The findings demonstrate that commands feature frequently in educators' talk to infants, with nonsuggestive and direct commands being most commonly used. Individual differences were related to the qualifications of staff. University-qualified early childhood teachers used significantly fewer nonsuggestive and direct commands than did diploma and certificate-qualified educators, and they were more likely to provide infants with a reason for the command. These findings have implications for the way in which learning opportunities are created by the language that educators use, and for the overall quality of infant early childhood programmes.

Research Findings: This study examines the frequency of reasoning talk used by 56 educators during their naturally occurring play interactions with infants in their early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers. Using Hasan's semantic framework, reasons were coded as social (based on social rules) or logical (based on rules of nature). The communicative function of reasoning talk was coded as regulatory (when the reason served to regulate infants' behavior) or non-regulatory. On average, educators' reasoning talk comprising only 4.43% of their total talk, with social reasoning used slightly more frequently than logical reasoning. Educators used significantly more social reasoning when regulating infants' behavior, whereas logical reasoning occurred more frequently during non-regulatory interactions. Educators' qualification level explained individual differences. Bachelor-qualified educators used significantly more reasoning talk than lower-qualified educators, and this finding was explained by their more frequent use of both social and logical reasoning when regulating infants' behavior. Practice or Policy: The study identifies reasoning talk as an important element of language environment quality in ECEC infant rooms, and highlights the learning potential of language used for different communicative purposes. Findings demonstrate that well-qualified educators appear well versed to capitalize on the educative potential of this type of talk.

In the past few decades, the additional revenues available via higher education exports (through both relatively higher prices and increased enrolments) have attracted the attention of providers in many developed countries, not least in Anglophone countries like the USA, the UK, Canada and Australia. However, while the revenue case is strong, the institutional cost structures underlying the provision of higher education services for international students remain relatively unknown at the sector level. Accordingly, we offer a comprehensive analysis of the cost economies underlying higher education provision for international students using a sample of 37 Australian public universities over the period from 2003 to 2012. The findings suggest that it is appealing to enrol additional overseas students given their lower average and marginal costs and the significant economies of scale prevailing in higher education generally. Further, while we find evidence of economies of scope for overseas students only in smaller institutions, there is no evidence of diseconomies of scope, implying the current number of overseas students and their joint production with domestic students at the least does not lead to unnecessarily higher overall costs.

Career goal feedback provides information about career goal suitability, adequacy of goal progress, and whether changes are needed to reach the goals. Feedback comes from external (e.g., parents, peers) and internal sources (e.g., self-reflection), and plays an important role in the career development of young people. As there is no existing measure that adequately captures this construct, we devised and validated a 24-item inventory for use with young adults. In Study 1, initial items were developed, expert reviewed, and administered to a sample of Chinese university students (N = 1,055; M[subscript AGE] = 19 years). We used exploratory factor analysis to test the factor structure and confirmatory factor analysis on a holdout sample to validate a third-order solution (one third-order factor manifested by three second-order factors). In addition, we provided evidence for convergent and incremental validity. In Study 2, we confirmed the factor structure on Australian university students (N = 184; M[subscript AGE] = 19 years).

Research is increasingly recognised as a key component of medical curricula, offering a range of benefits including development of skills in evidence-based medicine. The literature indicates that experienced academic supervision or mentoring is important in any research activity and positively influences research output. The aim of this project was to investigate the human research ethics experiences and knowledge of three groups: medical students, and university academic staff and clinicians eligible to supervise medical student research projects; at two Australian universities. Training in research ethics was low amongst academic staff and clinicians eligible to supervise medical student research. Only two-thirds of academic staff (67.9 %) and students (65.7 %) and less than half of clinicians surveyed (47.1 %; p = 0.014) indicated that specific patient consent was required for a doctor to include patient medical records within a research publication. There was limited awareness of requirements for participant information and consent forms amongst all groups. In the case of clinical trials, fewer clinicians (88.4 %) and students (83.3 %) than academics (100 %) indicated there was a requirement to obtain consent (p = 0.009). Awareness of the ethics committee focus on respect was low across all groups. This project has identified significant gaps in human research ethics understanding among medical students, and university academic staff and clinicians. The incorporation of research within medical curricula provides the impetus for medical schools and their institutions to ensure that academic staff and clinicians who are eligible and qualified to supervise students' research projects are appropriately trained in human research ethics.

Western Australian schools are expected to educate beyond the classroom context, promoting the health of students, their families and their communities. Little is known about the frequency with which schools employ newsletters to communicate health messages. This content analysis draws from a sample of 70 newsletters from 46 diverse Western Australian schools, to explore the frequency with which health messages were communicated. Across an average of 1.3 newsletters per school during the November period, 48 instances of a health-promoting message were identified, giving an average of 0.69 health-promoting messages per newsletter. This result suggests that school newsletters may be under-utilised as a mechanism for health promotion within school communities. While mental health issues were explored to the greatest extent, a number of areas, such as smoking, alcohol and substance abuse and sun safety received limited attention. Health-promoting messages about driver road safety were comparatively highly represented in the sample, which was unanticipated. While this paper offers insight into the frequency of health message communication through newsletters, and the kinds of messages being transmitted, longitudinal research in this area could provide further insight, in addition to examination of parental perceptions of school newsletter mediated health messages.

This article explores parents' use of private tutoring services for their primary school children in Sydney, Australia's largest city. Using Bernstein's theories of invisible and visible pedagogies, we look, through the eyes of a small group of middle-class Chinese-background interviewees, at the tensions between certain pedagogic forms associated with private tutoring and schooling in contemporary contexts of educational competition. We show how some parents are openly seeking more explicit, visible forms of instruction through using private tutoring, to compensate for the perceived "invisible", pedagogically progressive approach of Australian primary schooling. We argue that these parents' enlistment of supplementary tutoring is a considered approach to their identification of a mismatch between (apparently) relaxed, child-centred classroom practices, and the demands of the more traditional examinations that regulate entry points to desired educational sites such as academically selective high schools and prestigious universities. Our findings show how paid tutoring is a contemporary pedagogic strategy for securing educational advantage, not just a "cultural" practice prevalent among certain migrant communities, as it is often characterised. We suggest that an analytic focus on pedagogy can help connect issues of class, culture and competition in research on home-school relationships, offering a productive way for the field to respond to the tensions these issues engender.

The everyday conversations that occur between mothers and children, particularly those involving reasoning, are a major vehicle for the transmission of information and values to young children. This study explored the manner in which five Australian Chinese mothers engaged in reasoning talk with their preschool-aged children. A total of 83 instances of spontaneous reasoning talk were identified and analysed according to the manner in which the mothers justified their claims or statements, using Hasan's reasoning structure framework to underpin the analysis. Both regulatory and nonregulatory contexts were analysed. The analysis revealed that in regulatory contexts, where a child's behaviour is being controlled (for example, "eat up your dinner quickly"), mothers provided more socially based reasons to justify their directives. In nonregulatory contexts, such as shared reading, they used more logical reasoning based on universal laws of nature. The findings suggest that the reasoning talk that takes place between mothers and children provides a rich opportunity for mothers to convey their values to their children, with implications for children's learning across a number of domains.

Inclusive education focuses on addressing marginalisation, segregation and exclusion within policy and practice. The purpose of this article is to use critical discourse analysis to examine how inclusion is represented in the education policy and professional documents of two countries, Australia and China. In particular, teacher professional standards from each country are examined to determine how an expectation of inclusive educational practice is promoted to teachers. The strengthening of international partnerships to further support the implementation of inclusive practices within both countries is also justified.

This article reports on a deep investigation of five Australian Chinese families regarding their preschool-aged children's bilingual experiences and development. Each family was visited 3 to 5 times by the first author. The mothers were interviewed about their attitudes toward their child's bilingualism and their practices to promote it. A detailed observation lasting 4 to 5 hours was undertaken of each family to record the interaction between parents and children. The findings suggest that Chinese parents have positive attitudes toward bilingualism for pragmatic reasons, such as future career success and ease of communication with family members. Yet they also expressed concern that their child's development of the home language would have a negative effect on their child's English language development. Observations demonstrated that parents' interactions with their children were frequently playful and informal, and English language was frequently used. Many of the materials parents provided to support their child's home language, such as picture books and DVDs, were actually rooted in English culture. These findings suggest there is room for Chinese parents to increase their awareness of bilingual development in children, including the relationship between first and second language development and strategies for facilitating their children's learning.

This study investigated five Australian early childhood educators' negotiation of the complex terrain of working in partnership with Chinese parents regarding their children's language usage in early childhood settings. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken to explore educators' views on children's language usage in early childhood settings, their perception of Chinese parents' language expectations and their strategies in resolving the tension between parental expectation and educator views on children's language usage under the current regulatory frameworks. Educators reported that many Chinese parents expected their children to use only English in early childhood settings. Such a practice would not align with educators' views of permitting children to use languages freely. The educators developed different strategies to address the tension between their desire to achieve positive outcomes for children and their need to work in partnership with families. Implications for the further preparation of educators are discussed.

This pilot project investigates second language (L2) learners' attitudes towards three varieties of English: American (AmE), British (BrE) and Australian (AuE). A 69-word passage spoken by a female speaker of each variety was used. Participants were 30 Chinese students pursuing Masters or Doctoral degrees in the United States, who listened to each of the three recordings and evaluated six language-related qualities and 12 person-related qualities about the three varieties of English on seven-point Likert scales. They also evaluated each speaker's teaching suitability. The results suggest that L2 learners have more positive attitudes towards the varieties of English they have been exposed to, i.e. AmE and BrE. However, their attitudes do not seem to be related to the understandability of the passage delivered by the speakers of the three varieties.

In this paper, the authors review more than 300 reports of students in New Zealand, Australia, China, Singapore and South Korea who have participated in a global action-learning program to teach entrepreneurship and free market economics to their respective communities, through Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE). The authors use the results of this work to comment on the applicability of the PETE (Practical Entrepreneurship Teaching Engagement) model, which describes ingredients of an interactive action-learning program and seeks to explain that the presence of several factors can improve the effectiveness of action learning. There are significant differences in how students in different cultures view the overall program outcomes, suggesting that although the program is highly effective overall, action-learning effects of this specific program could be improved through country/culture-specific fine-tuning. The authors conclude that although the initial reports of this action learning are encouraging, follow-up work would be helpful to determine the sustainability of the students' work and to investigate whether the reported enhancement of job prospects for the SIFE students have materialized after the students graduated. (Contains 8 figures.)

Unconscionability is one of the three exceptions injuncting calls upon unconditional undertakings to pay on demand given under construction contracts. This article examines the Australian approach to the unconscionability exception, empirically by extracting four indicia from decisions granting or rejecting injunction applications, and comparatively by juxtaposing Australia's eclectic position with Singapore courts' vigorous use of the exception and English market's reservation about the instrument itself. In doing so, this article proposes to demonstrate that Australia's self-restrained approach to the unconscionability exception prescribes a normative standard of "conduct", not merely proscribing a matrix of unfair, unreasonable or unjust "result". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares the written English of Chinese ESL students and native English-speaking Australian students. Analyzes the texts for four semantic components: experiential; interpersonal, textual, and logical. Also analyzes the errors made by both groups. (EKN)

Environmental protection and economic growth are two indicators of sustainable global development. This study aims to investigate the performance of environmental protection and economic growth by measuring carbon productivity in the construction field. Carbon productivity is the amount of gross domestic product generated by the unit of carbon emissions. The log mean Divisia index method is used to investigate influential factors including carbon intensity, energy intensity and regional adjustment that impact on changes of carbon productivity. The study utilises a range of data from the Australian construction industry during 1995-2004 including energy consumption, industry value added and carbon dioxide equivalent consumption. The research indicates carbon productivity in the Australian construction industry has clearly increased. Energy intensity plays a significant positive role in promoting carbon productivity, whereas carbon intensity and regional adjustment have limited influence. Introducing advanced construction machinery and equipment is a feasible pathway to enhance carbon productivity. The research method is generic and can be used to measure other performance indicators and decomposing them into influential factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is urgent need to consider energy consumption when measuring total-factor productivity in the construction industry. This paper adopts the Malmquist index method to investigate the factors affecting the energy productivity of the Australian construction industry and compares them with those decomposed from the total-factor productivity. An input-oriented distance function and a contemporaneous benchmark technology are employed to develop the data envelopment analysis models. The Malmquist productivity index is decomposed into the technological change, pure technical efficiency change and activity effect to gain comprehensive insights into changes of construction productivity in the Australian states and territories over the past two decades. Research results show that both energy productivity and total-factor productivity improved in Australia, particularly related to technological development. The pure technical efficiency and activity indices changed slightly over time or across regions. This study demonstrates that there exists a linkage between energy productivity and total-factor productivity through their technological and technical efficiency changes. The Australian construction industry could enhance these two productivities by introducing advanced technologies and implementing them efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan and Australia are non-Parties to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH Convention). However, as the first two non-Parties in the East Asia region, both have incorporated the spirit and letter of the UCH Convention into their respective domestic laws, with minor exceptions to fit into their respective historical and cultural contexts, as well as their administrative and judicial settings. This paper traces and compares the very different origins of these two pieces of UCH specific domestic legislation. A comparative analysis is also made of the structure and content, similarities and differences of each piece of legislation as well as deviations between them and between the UCH Convention. The paper argues that the Taiwanese and Australian experience demonstrates models for the successful incorporation of the UCH Convention for States striving for the preservation, protection and management of UCH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frog population has been experiencing rapid decreases worldwide, which is regarded as one of the most critical threats to global biodiversity. Therefore, large volumes of frog recordings have been collected for assessing this decline. Most previous studies focused on the syllable segmentation based frog call classification, which is sensitive to the background noise. Our recent study has used 1D-CNN and cross-entropy loss for frog call classification. However, the use of 1D-CNN is sensitive to the background noise and the imbalance of the number of different frog species is not considered. Therefore, this study aims to investigate loss functions and imbalance learning for bioacoustic signal classification in continuous recordings. Specifically, four types of loss functions are compared including cross-entropy loss, weighted cross-entropy loss, focal loss, and twin loss, which are combined with three CNN architectures: 1D-CNN, 2D-CNN, and 1D-2D-CNN. In addition, random oversampling is used for improving the classification performance of two imbalanced datasets. Experimental results show that (1) 1D-2D-CNN model can achieve the performance for classifying both Australia and Brazil frog calls. (2) Focal loss is the best among four loss functions for classifying low SNR recordings. (3) The highest macro F1-score for classifying both Australia and Brazil frog recordings are 89.26%±0.36% and 93.47%±0.28%. • Compare different loss function and CNN for improved frog call classification. • Two data sets are explored for frog call classification. • CNN based frog call classification under noisy environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study investigated whether the monitoring and control of clinical parameters are better among patients with newly compared with past recorded diabetes diagnosis., Design: Retrospective cohort study., Setting: MedicineInsight, a national general practice database in Australia., Participants: 101 875 'regular' adults aged 18+ years with past recorded (2015-2016) and 9236 with newly recorded (2017) diabetes diagnosis., Main Outcome Measures: Two different groups of outcomes were assessed in 2018. The first group of outcomes was the proportion of patients with clinical parameters (ie, glycated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), blood pressure (BP), total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, estimated glomerular filtration rate and albumin-to-creatinine ratio) monitored at least once in 2018. The second group of outcomes were those related to diabetes control in 2018 (HbA1c ≤7.0%, (BP) ≤140/90 mm Hg, total cholesterol <4.0 mmol/L and LDL-C <2.0 mmol/L). Adjusted ORs (OR adj ) and adjusted probabilities (%) were obtained based on logistic regression models adjusted for practice variables and patients' socio-demographic and clinical characteristics., Results: The study included 111 111 patients (51.7% men; mean age 65.3±15.0 years) with recorded diabetes diagnosis (11.0% of all 1 007 714 adults in the database). HbA1c was monitored in 39.2% (95% CI 36.9% to 41.6%) of patients with newly recorded and 45.2% (95% CI 42.6% to 47.8%) with past recorded diabetes (OR adj 0.78, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.82). HbA1c control was achieved by 78.4% (95% CI 76.7% to 80.0%) and 54.4% (95% CI 53.4% to 55.4%) of monitored patients with newly or past recorded diabetes, respectively (OR adj 3.11, 95% CI 2.82 to 3.39). Less than 20% of patients with newly or past recorded diabetes had their HbA1c, BP and total cholesterol levels controlled (OR adj 1.08, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.21)., Conclusions: The monitoring of clinical parameters was lower among patients with newly than past recorded diabetes. However, diabetes control was similarly low in both groups, with only one in five monitored patients achieving control of all clinical parameters., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Introduction: Living in an urban environment may increase the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It is unclear if this observation is seen globally. We conducted a population-based study to assess the relationship between urbanization and incidence of IBD in the Asia-Pacific region., Methods: Newly diagnosed IBD cases between 2011 and 2013 from 13 countries or regions in Asia-Pacific were included. Incidence was calculated with 95% confidence interval (CI) and pooled using random-effects model. Meta-regression analysis was used to assess incidence rates and their association with population density, latitude, and longitude., Results: We identified 1175 ulcerative colitis (UC), 656 Crohn's disease (CD), and 37 IBD undetermined (IBD-U). Mean annual IBD incidence per 100 000 was 1.50 (95% CI: 1.43-1.57). India (9.31; 95% CI: 8.38-10.31) and China (3.64; 95% CI, 2.97-4.42) had the highest IBD incidence in Asia. Incidence of overall IBD (incidence rate ratio [IRR]: 2.19; 95% CI: 1.01-4.76]) and CD (IRR: 3.28; 95% CI: 1.83-9.12) was higher across 19 areas of Asia with a higher population density. In China, incidence of IBD (IRR: 2.37; 95% CI: 1.10-5.16) and UC (IRR: 2.63; 95% CI: 1.2-5.8) was positively associated with gross domestic product. A south-to-north disease gradient (IRR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.91-0.98) was observed for IBD incidence and a west-to-east gradient (IRR: 1.14; 95% CI: 1.05-1.24) was observed for CD incidence in China. This study received IRB approval., Conclusions: Regions in Asia with a high population density had a higher CD and UC incidence. Coastal areas within China had higher IBD incidence. With increasing urbanization and a shift from rural areas to cities, disease incidence may continue to climb in Asia.

Impacts of floods on human society have been drawing increasing human concerns in recent years. In this study, flood observations from EM-DAT (Emergency Events Database) and DFO (Dartmouth Flood Observatory) datasets were analyzed to investigate frequency and intensity of floods, and flood-induced mortality, flood-affected population as well during 1975-2016 across the globe. Results indicated that: (1) occurrence rate of floods, flood-induced mortality and flood-affected population were generally increasing globally. However, flood-induced mortality and flood-affected people per flood event were in slight decrease, indicating that flood-induced mortality and flood-affected people due to increased floods exceeded those by individual flood event; (2) annual variation of mortality per flood event is highly related to floods with higher intensity. Specifically, the flood frequency and flood-induced mortality are the largest in Asia, specifically in China, India, Indonesia and Philippine; while significantly increased flood-affected population and mean annual mortality was detected in China, USA and Australia; (3) tropical cyclones (TC) are closely related to flood-induced mortality in parts of the countries along the western coast of the oceans. The frequency of channel floods in these regions is the largest and large proportion of flood-induced deaths and the highest flood-induced mortality can be attributed to TC-induced flash floods; (4) Population density and GDP per unit area are in significantly positive correlation with the number of flood-related victims per unit area, number of deaths and economic losses with exception of low-income countries. However, the flood-affected population and flood-induced mortality increase with decrease of per capita GDP; while the per capita economic loss increases with the increase of per capita GDP, indicating that the higher the population density and GDP per unit for a region, the higher sensitivity of this area to flood hazards., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background & Aims: The incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is increasing in Asia, but little is known about disease progression in this region. The Asia-Pacific Crohn's and Colitis Epidemiology Study was initiated in 2011, enrolling subjects from 8 countries in Asia (China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand) and Australia. We present data from this ongoing study., Methods: We collected data on 413 patients diagnosed with IBD (222 with ulcerative colitis [UC], 181 with Crohn's disease [CD], 10 with IBD unclassified; median age, 37 y) from 2011 through 2013. We analyzed the disease course and severity and mortality. Risks for medical and surgical therapies were assessed using Kaplan-Meier analysis., Results: The cumulative probability that CD would change from inflammatory to stricturing or penetrating disease was 19.6%. The cumulative probabilities for use of immunosuppressants or anti-tumor necrosis factor agents were 58.9% and 12.0% for patients with CD, and 12.7% and 0.9% for patients with UC, respectively. Perianal CD was associated with an increased risk of anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy within 1 year of its diagnosis (hazard ratio, 2.97; 95% confidence interval, 1.09-8.09). The cumulative probabilities for surgery 1 year after diagnosis were 9.1% for patients with CD and 0.9% for patients with UC. Patients with CD and penetrating disease had a 7-fold increase for risk of surgery, compared with patients with inflammatory disease (hazard ratio, 7.67; 95% confidence interval, 3.93-14.96). The overall mortality for patients with IBD was 0.7%., Conclusions: In a prospective population-based study, we found that the early course of disease in patients with IBD in Asia was comparable with that of the West. Patients with CD frequently progress to complicated disease and have accelerated use of immunosuppressants. Few patients with early stage UC undergo surgery in Asia. Increasing our understanding of IBD progression in different populations can help optimize therapy and improve outcomes., (Copyright © 2016 AGA Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The rising incidence of inflammatory bowel disease in Asia supports the importance of environmental risk factors in disease aetiology. This prospective population-based case-control study in Asia-Pacific examined risk factors prior to patients developing IBD., Design: 442 incident cases (186 Crohn's disease (CD); 256 UC; 374 Asians) diagnosed between 2011 and 2013 from eight countries in Asia and Australia and 940 controls (frequency-matched by sex, age and geographical location; 789 Asians) completed an environmental factor questionnaire at diagnosis. Unconditional logistic regression models were used to estimate adjusted ORs (aOR) and 95% CIs., Results: In multivariate model, being breast fed >12 months (aOR 0.10; 95% CI 0.04 to 0.30), antibiotic use (aOR 0.19; 0.07 to 0.52), having dogs (aOR 0.54; 0.35 to 0.83), daily tea consumption (aOR 0.62; 0.43 to 0.91) and daily physical activity (aOR 0.58; 0.35 to 0.96) decreased the odds for CD in Asians. In UC, being breast fed >12 months (aOR 0.16; 0.08 to 0.31), antibiotic use (aOR 0.48; 0.27 to 0.87), daily tea (aOR 0.63; 0.46 to 0.86) or coffee consumption (aOR 0.51; 0.36 to 0.72), presence of hot water tap (aOR 0.65; 0.46 to 0.91) and flush toilet in childhood (aOR 0.71; 0.51 to 0.98) were protective for UC development whereas ex-smoking (aOR 2.02; 1.22 to 3.35) increased the risk of UC., Conclusions: This first population-based study of IBD risk factors in Asia-Pacific supports the importance of childhood immunological, hygiene and dietary factors in the development of IBD, suggesting that markers of altered intestinal microbiota may modulate risk of IBD later in life., (Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.)

Objectives: In symptomatic patients resident in developed countries, a high prevalence of antibody to the cytotoxin-associated antigen (CagA) of Helicobacter pylori has been linked to the development of peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer. This association has not been examined in developing countries, nor in asymptomatic subjects resident in either developed or developing countries. The aim of this study was to examine the seroprevalence of antibody to the CagA antigen; as well as other specific H. pylori antigens in symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals resident in Australia and China., Methods: The Helico-blot 2.0 Western blot system was used for the detection of antibodies to specific antigens of H. pylori in sera obtained from the following H. pylori-positive groups: 19 Australian blood donors, 96 Australian nonulcer dyspepsia patients, 29 Australian duodenal ulcer patients, 35 asymptomatic Chinese subjects, and 48 Chinese gastric cancer patients., Results: Nine antigens were commonly recognized by sera from Australian and Chinese subjects. These antigens were of molecular mass 19.5 kDa, 26.5 kDa, 35 kDa, 45 kDa, 60 kDa, 89 kDa (VacA), 116 kDa (CagA), and 180 kDA. A significant association between the prevalence of antibody to the CagA antigen and duodenal ulcer disease was observed in Australian subjects; however, no association between the prevalence of antibody to the CagA antigen and gastric cancer was found in Chinese subjects. In subjects from both countries, a significant association was found between antibody to the 30-kDa and 45-kDa antigens and more serious gastroduodenal disease., Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the cagA gene is not associated with the development of more serious gastroduodenal disease; however, it cannot be ruled out that this gene may be an important but insufficient factor in some disease processes.