Fly-in Fly-out/Drive-in Drive-out practices and health service delivery in rural areas of Australia

Many Australians have limited access to health care services due to a range of barriers including living a considerable distance from health services. Furthermore, there are significant shortages of healthcare workers in many rural and remote areas. Traditionally, many people have had to either travel long distances to access healthcare, or go without. Telehealth is an alternative approach, using telecommunications and informatioIt is recognised that rural and remote health services in Australia are in many cases challenged by a combination of inadequate facilities and insufficient staff. According to anecdotal accounts, this is further exacerbated by the demands placed on these health services by fly-in fly-out, drive-in drive-out, and bus-in bus-out workers and visitors (from here on referred to collectively as FIFO/DIDO). The focus of the current investigation was FIFO/DIDO in rural Australia involving mine workers, seasonal agricultural workers, and grey nomads. technology to supplement face-to-face delivery of healthcare services

Survey of the State of the Art in Natural Language Generation: Core tasks, applications and evaluation

This paper surveys the current state of the art in Natural Language Generation (NLG), defined as the task of generating text or speech from non-linguistic input. A survey of NLG is timely in view of the changes that the field has undergone over the past decade or so, especially in relation to new (usually data-driven) methods, as well as new applications of NLG technology. This survey therefore aims to (a) give an up-to-date synthesis of research on the core tasks in NLG and the architectures adopted in which such tasks are organised; (b) highlight a number of relatively recent research topics that have arisen partly as a result of growing synergies between NLG and other areas of artificial intelligence; (c) draw attention to the challenges in NLG evaluation, relating them to similar challenges faced in other areas of Natural Language Processing, with an emphasis on different evaluation methods and the relationships between them.Comment: Published in Journal of AI Research (JAIR), volume 61, pp 75-170. 118 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

English in Kiribati: a historical, linguistic and sociophonetic report on a Micronesian variety

The 33 islands of Kiribati are situated in Micronesia, in the middle of the Pacific. Contact between islanders and Europeans only began towards the end of the 18th century and has never been intense. No immediately discernible changes were introduced when the islands were eventually claimed by the British; the English language was hardly ever heard. After the Second World War, decolonisation was worked towards and considerably more attention was paid to education, particularly that of English, but progress was slow. Kiribati became independent in 1979 and English an official language to which most have positive attitudes. Moreover, instrumental motivations are commonplace: many want to learn it in order to secure local employment, to participate in international study or labour mobility programs, or to safeguard for a future that is uncertain in light of climate change issues making life on Kiribati more and more difficult. This dissertation is the first sociolinguistic report of English in Kiribati of its kind. It consists of three main parts: firstly, a historical account of how English has arrived and spread; secondly, a detailed description of features of phonetics and phonology, grammar and syntax, lexis and pragmatics, as well as of language use and linguistic attitudes; and thirdly, a sociophonetic analysis of alveolar plosives. These investigations reveal that issues in the educational system prevail and English proficiency levels remain low, that a high degree of substrate influence and parallels to other learner varieties exist, and that affrication establishes a new contrast between alveolar plosive phonemes

Open access to health and education research outside academia: perspectives of research users, research intermediaries and researchers

The thesis investigates how publics outside academia engage with ideas of open access (OA) to research publications. To do this, it analyses data from interviews with users of health and education research in two non-academic contexts, as well as with researchers interested in communicating their work to wider audiences. It draws on constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) and situational analysis (Clarke, 2005). The literature review highlighted a need to empirically explore OA outside academia. The study focused on the ways in which publications were accessed and used outside academia and the factors enabling and preventing access. It also explored perceptions of OA within a wider context of communicating research to non- academic audiences, and identified areas of contestation. The study found that there was a demand for OA, although the demand was perceived to be limited. There were significant sources of friction in accessing research publications, including paywalls, which could be circumvented through file/password sharing and drawing on contacts. Conceptual access (e.g. understandability) was also found to prevent engagement with research publications in some cases, although this varied according to levels of expertise. The study identified research intermediaries as playing an important dual role, as they accessed research in order to make it accessible to a wider audience. The study found a disconnect between some OA advocacy and research-user perceptions. and a disconnect between researchers’ commitment to communicating their work outside the academy and their support of OA. Attitudes towards OA were influenced by bureaucratic mandates, high APCs and belief that there would be little demand for their research. Findings indicated however, that OA could complement other forms of research communication in specific contexts. Finally, the study suggested that a narrow focus on ‘tangible outcomes’ for non- academic publics (Moore, 2019) risked obscuring attempts to develop a more equitable scholarly communications system

Access to justice and legal needs

This report summarises the responses and input received by the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW during the consultation process conducted as part of Stage 1 of the Access to Justice and Legal Needs Project. During the consultation process, the Foundation received submissions from 28 organisations and four individuals. In addition to these written and oral submissions, the Foundation received a range of other material including copies of articles written for journals, submissions to similar previous inquiries and published reports. These were either expressly referred to in submissions or in consultations, or supplied to the Foundation as a submission on behalf of an organisation. The Foundation conducted seven roundtable forums for legal and community organisations and a number of consultations with selected individuals. The Foundation held a one-day Access to Justice workshop attended by 44 invited participants from various socially and economically disadvantaged groups, community organisations, legal service providers, professional bodies, legal and social researchers, administrators and policy makers. Staff of the Foundation also attended and participated in eight conferences or forums relating to Access to Justice and Legal Needs. The Foundation has aimed to record as fully as possible the substance of the responses received in this consultation stage. Consequently, although not strictly part of the brief for Stage 1, for completeness the report includes some recommendations proffered by participants in the consultation process, as well as areas identified by participants in need of further in depth research and analysis. It should be noted that the Foundation has not undertaken any evaluation of the accuracy of the responses receive

An exploration of the language within Ofsted reports and their influence on primary school performance in mathematics: a mixed methods critical discourse analysis

This thesis contributes to the understanding of the language of Ofsted reports, their similarity to one another and associations between different terms used within ‘areas for improvement’ sections and subsequent outcomes for pupils. The research responds to concerns from serving headteachers that Ofsted reports are overly similar, do not capture the unique story of their school, and are unhelpful for improvement. In seeking to answer ‘how similar are Ofsted reports’ the study uses two tools, a plagiarism detection software (Turnitin) and a discourse analysis tool (NVivo) to identify trends within and across a large corpus of reports. The approach is based on critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 2009; Fairclough, 1989) but shaped in the form of practitioner enquiry seeking power in the form of impact on pupils and practitioners, rather than a more traditional, sociological application of the method. The research found that in 2017, primary school section 5 Ofsted reports had more than half of their content exactly duplicated within other primary school inspection reports published that same year. Discourse analysis showed the quality assurance process overrode variables such as inspector designation, gender, or team size, leading to three distinct patterns of duplication: block duplication, self-referencing, and template writing. The most unique part of a report was found to be the ‘area for improvement’ section, which was tracked to externally verified outcomes for pupils using terms linked to ‘mathematics’. Those required to improve mathematics in their areas for improvement improved progress and attainment in mathematics significantly more than national rates. These findings indicate that there was a positive correlation between the inspection reporting process and a beneficial impact on pupil outcomes in mathematics, and that the significant similarity of one report to another had no bearing on the usefulness of the report for school improvement purposes within this corpus

Handbook of Easy Languages in Europe

The Handbook of Easy Languages in Europe describes what Easy Language is and how it is used in European countries. It demonstrates the great diversity of actors, instruments and outcomes related to Easy Language throughout Europe. All people, despite their limitations, have an equal right to information, inclusion, and social participation. This results in requirements for understandable language. The notion of Easy Language refers to modified forms of standard languages that aim to facilitate reading and language comprehension. This handbook describes the historical background, the principles and the practices of Easy Language in 21 European countries. Its topics include terminological definitions, legal status, stakeholders, target groups, guidelines, practical outcomes, education, research, and a reflection on future perspectives related to Easy Language in each country. Written in an academic yet interesting and understandable style, this Handbook of Easy Languages in Europe aims to find a wide audience