Politics, Responsibility and Risk: Editorial Introduction

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The Development and Use of Child Well-Being Indicators in the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect

Summarizes the conceptual framework and development of outcomes-based, measurable indicators focused on child safety, permanency, and well-being to help monitor the status of children in the child welfare system. Outlines recommended indicators

Enhancing Learning for a New Graduate Registered Nurse in an Australian Day Surgery Unit

New Graduate programs for the newly registered nurses (RN) have become common place in Australia. These targeted programs are designed to enable the new RN to be exposed to a number of areas in nursing, assist the new graduate (NG) nurse to build on existing knowledge and skills, and to enhance confidence and competence in their new role as a registered nurse (RN). The work environment in nursing is constantly changing and new RNs are learning and developing skills every day. This article will present an overview of how one Australian Day Surgery unit in Sydney, Australia has positively enhanced the learning of NG nurses

Thinning DRO Schedules of Reinforcement with Progressive Intervals and Constant Unit Price

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder can present with challenging problem behavior such as vocal stereotypy, property destruction, aggression, and self-injury. A common treatment option is the use of differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO) to reduce or eliminate these problem behaviors. This research study explored thinning dense DRO schedules with the use of progressive intervals and adjusted reinforcement to maintain a constant unit price with three students diagnosed with ASD at a non-public school receiving 1:1 instruction. Results indicated that progressive intervals were successful in maintaining low rates of problem behavior while thinning reinforcement schedules. One of the subjects did not increase the interval length past five sessions and future research is proposed to identify a criterion for participant eligibility criterion to be successful with progressive intervals. These findings contribute to the existing field of research regarding thinning schedules of reinforcement for student’s problem behavior treated with DRO schedules of reinforcement

The production of environmental news: a study of source-media relations

This study analyses the production of environmental news and focuses upon the neglected area of source-media relations. Through a combination of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and content analysis, the study explores relations between media practitioners and key news sources, such as environmental pressure groups, related interest groups, scientists and the Department of the Environment. It suggests that a major lacuna exists within the analysis of source-media relations. Researchers have, until recently, adopted a media-centric position and have rarely considered the perceptions of the sources themselves. This thesis, then, fills an important gap in the literature. It argues that through largely focusing upon the ways in which media make use of sources, the sociology of mass communications has ignored a fundamental aspect of news production. The hypothesis that environmental pressure groups are becoming increasingly adept in their approaches towards the media was supported by the research findings. Many of the campaigning pressure groups that were formed in the 1970s have become established news sources and key definers of the political agenda. During the late 1980s many environmental pressure groups experienced greater access to television and the press. This thesis highlights a number of weaknesses with the structuralist model of source-dependency which maintains that official sources such as government or the courts, co=and privileged access to the media by virtue of their representative status, institutional standing, or their claims to expert knowledge. It suggests that a new model of source-media relations needs to be developed. While official sources tend to gam greater access to the media than non-official sources such as pressure groups, the evidence suggests that this observation needs to be qualified in a number of respects. First, this study indicates that it fails to take into account inequalities of access among 'accredited sources'. Second, it neglects the role of the media as definers in the agenda-setting process. Third, the structuralist model fails to analyse the varying degrees with which media practitioners judge the claims of 'primary definers'. The study indicates that journalists and broadcasters tend to view Friends of the Earth as more credible than Greenpeace. Finally, this thesis indicates that evidence about patterns of source-dependence deduced from content analysis or journalistic evidence needs to be supplemented by interviews with the sources themselves

Multivalent Metadata : Exploiting the Layers of Meaning in Digital Resources

The rapid growth of the World Wide Web was due in part to the simplicity of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). It is anticipated that the next generation of web technology, coined the Semantic Web, by Tim Berners-Lee (1989, p. 1), will be driven by the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The XML suite of technologies provides a framework for the application of metadata, and hence semantic information, to web resources. Advantages of a semantic web include improved sharing and reuse of resources, enhanced search mechanisms and knowledge management. The knowledge or meaning contained in digital information may vary according to the perspective of the viewer and can be seen therefore as multivalent in nature. Semantic information that is highly relevant to one user may be of no interest to another. The aim of this project was to demonstrate the layers of meaning inherent in a data sample and how they could be encapsulated in metadata then accessed and manipulated using current technologies, thus leveraging the knowledge contained. Analysis of the data sample, a typical component of an online training product, determined meaningful ways in which the knowledge contained could be reused and adapted. From this analysis a set of test criteria was generated. Metadata was then created for the sample data and the tests implemented using a range of XML technologies