21 research outputs found

    The introduction of recurrent funding to non-government schools in Western Australia : National statesmanship or provincial pragmatism?

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    State aid to private schools has been a controversial issue in Australia since the beginning of European settlement. This was true in all colonies\u27 and remains a national issue in the twenty-first century. At various times colonial governments chose to provide to private schools, principally those operated by the Catholic and major churches. However as the colonies grew and statehood loomed, the of the day sought to withdraw their aid from private schools and their funding on the growing non-denominational, public school systems

    Educational Technology and Education Conferences, January to June 2016

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    The different types of contributions to knowledge (in CER): All needed, but not all recognised

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    The overall aim of this paper is to stimulate discussion about the activities within CER, and to develop a more thoughtful and explicit perspective on the different types of research activity within CER, and their relationships with each other. While theories may be the most valuable outputs of research to those wishing to apply them, for researchers themselves there are other kinds of contribution important to progress in the field. This is what relates it to the immediate subject of this special journal issue on theory in CER. We adopt as our criterion for value “contribution to knowledge”. This paper’s main contributions are: • A set of 12 categories of contribution which together indicate the extent of this terrain of contributions to research. • Leading into that is a collection of ideas and misconceptions which are drawn on in defining and motivating “ground rules”, which are hints and guidance on the need for various often neglected categories. These are also helpful in justifying some additional categories which make the set as a whole more useful in combination. These are followed by some suggested uses for the categories, and a discussion assessing how the success of the paper might be judged. These are followed by some suggested uses for the categories, and a discussion assessing how the success of the paper might be judged

    Human-Centred Evaluation of Broadband Telehealth for Tertiary Outpatient Consultations: A Case Study Approach

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    Outpatient consultations form a large part of the healthcare of patients at tertiary hospitals, both as a precursor to in-patient treatment and for the management of on-going health conditions or long-term rehabilitation and monitoring after treatment. These outpatient consultations are generally conducted at the hospitals, most often located in large cities. Patients who live outside these cities face extensive travel to attend these consultations, placing a burden on themselves and on their families or carers. An ability of a tertiary hospital to deliver outpatient consultations in a telehealth mode to regional or remote locations closer to the patients’ homes would potentially relieve much of this burden of travel. ¶ ... ¶ In this thesis I use a case-study-based approach to evaluate the development and pilot trial of a broadband telehealth system in a tertiary paediatric context. I use the data from these case studies to explore the way that a human-centred approach can be used to evaluate outpatient telehealth trials at a tertiary level of healthcare. ..

    Medico-legal matters and Australian doctors : an investigation of doctors' experience of medico-legal matters, their mental health and their practice of medicine

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    Single location muscle monitoring does not reflect the heterogeneous activation of the muscle group(s) during a given exercise. Vastus lateralis and rectus femoris O2 consumption (VO2) was investigated, noninvasively, at rest and during maximal voluntary contractions (MVC) using a 12-channel near-infrared continuous wave spectroscopy (NIR(CWS)) system (0.1 s acquisition time). VO2 either at rest or during MVC was found to be nonuniform in the 11 out of 12 measurement sites over a surface of 8 x 8 cm2. As expected, VO2 during exercise was significantly higher than VO2 at rest (P < 0.01). However, at each muscle measurement site no difference was found between the mean values (n = 12) of VO2 measured during a 5-s intermittent MVC and the VO2 values measured during 30-s continuous MVC (P = 0.25). These results strengthen the role of NIR(CWS) as a powerful tool for investigating the spatial and temporal features of muscle oxygenation changes as well as muscle VO2

    Precision antimicrobial therapy: the application of therapeutic drug monitoring in critical illness

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    Despite advances in critical care medicine, severe infections and sepsis-related mortality remain a pressing problem. There is considerable evidence of under- and overexposure from standard dosing regimens across numerous antimicrobial classes in critically ill patients, a result of pharmacokinetic alterations arising from unique pathophysiologic changes. Timely initiation of adequately dosed antimicrobial therapy is recognised to be paramount in improving clinical outcomes in sepsis. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), a tool traditionally used to minimise toxicity of glycopeptides and aminoglycosides, is increasingly being used to increase the precision of antimicrobial dose regimens in critical illness. ‘Emerging’ candidates for which TDM is recommended include β-lactam antibiotics, linezolid, ciprofloxacin, and antifungal, antiviral and antimycobacterial drugs. Little is known about the current uptake of TDM for these agents in Australian hospitals and the barriers to TDM implementation. Performing TDM also presents a learning opportunity whereby the probability of attaining therapeutic targets using empiric dosing strategies may be (re)evaluated. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the challenges facing clinicians prescribing antimicrobials for critically ill patients and potential ways TDM data can be used to overcome these challenges. Chapter 2 explores performance, clinician attitudes and barriers to implementation of TDM for emerging antimicrobial candidates, mapping out current unmet clinical need and providing a framework for TDM data driven precision antimicrobial dosing in subsequent chapters. Chapter 3 examines concentration–toxicity relationships in critically ill patients treated with β-lactam antibiotics and defines threshold concentrations associated with neuro- and nephrotoxicity. Chapter 3 also identifies factors that contribute to underexposure of antibiotics in critically ill patients. Chapter 4 investigates the pharmacokinetics and current dosing regimens of the antifungal drug fluconazole, another emerging TDM candidate. These findings are extended in Chapter 5 with an evaluation of a novel model-based dosing strategy for fluconazole. The findings from Chapters 3 and 4 leverage TDM data to provide insights into critically ill patients at risk of under- and overexposure of antimicrobials, and the use of novel antimicrobial dosing strategies. Chapter 6 discusses the clinical implications of this work and recommendations for future research

    Teaching-Learning-Research: Design and Environments

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    This is Manchester: We do things differently here Manchester, once the ‘Industrial Capital’ of the world, has long been a test bed for architectural and urban experimentation. From the early settlements that challenged the resilience of the Romans, and then the Vikings, through the massive boom of the industrial period, when such was the frenzy in the city that it earned the sobriquet Cottonopolis, beyond the economic melancholia of the late 20th century, to the unbridled optimism of the 21st. As a progressive city, Manchester has continually reinvented itself. The present reincarnation was led through cultural regeneration facilitated by the adaptive reuse of those great redundant industrial structures, it is a city that encourages smart technologies and embraces a community of 24 Hour Party People. Where better then to hold a conference that explores progressive architectural pedagogy – especially a virtual one! The architectural, landscape, and design studio is a laboratory for experimentation where students are encouraged and expected to question and disrupt the status quo, to explore possible different futures, and to propose radical solutions to unsolvable problems. The need to fuel this move away from more traditional tabular rasa education is the responsibility of academics, and this conference was a wonderful vehicle to explore, expound, discuss, and debate the future of architectural education. During the pandemic we have had to learn to do things differently, not to be down heartened by the difficulty of interacting solely through the computer, but to embrace the nearness that digital communication provides. We have adapted methods of teaching and learning to accommodate this extraordinary situation, we have creatively responded to the pandemic and developed strategies that encourage endeavour, promote wellbeing, and support scholarship. Extraordinary strategies are needed for an extraordinary situation. It was a great pleasure to be able to host the AMPS Teaching – Learning – Research: Design and Environments conference at the Manchester School of Architecture. It was lovely to welcome so many virtual guests to the city. The great success of the online event was the demonstrated by the enthusiasm with which speakers engaged with the conference, the quality of the post-session debate combined with the international dialogue and collaboration, (especially in this time of uncertainty) created by such global citizens. It is an honour to introduce the conference proceedings, presented here as collection of well argued, forward thinking, deliberately controversial, and valuable papers
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