Re-skilling vocational education and training practitioners in Indonesia

Globalisation, together with the escalating levels of internationalisation of education, is placing emerging and unfamiliar pressures on the Indonesia vocational education and training system. Increasingly, Indonesia, like many other ASEAN nations, is being challenged by the growth of employee mobility and currently, their educational institutions struggle to provide the human resource development frameworks to build a modern skilled and efficient workforce. Recognising this need to meet these urgent demands for a modern skilled and trained workforce, the Indonesian government has focused on the introduction of advanced technical and vocational education through a 'Revitalisation Program for Vocational Higher Education Institutions'. This program is designed to improve the relevance, engagement and understanding between vocational and higher education institutions with business and industry, but it often calls on international educational support. In this paper, we examine the implications of importing 'external knowhow' into the Indonesian vocational education and training sector, placing particular focus on culturally appropriate training models, the growing reliance on 'external' models of engagement, and the implications for appropriate and sustainable vocational training models. Central to this re-skilling of the vocational education and training sector, are programs that: address the human resource capability development of the educator workforce; build viable and sustainable links to industry in order to provide seamless workforce needs; explore and examine models for successful industry development; and nurture mutually beneficial 'strategic partnerships' both locally and internationally

Development of mHealth system for supporting self-management and remote consultation of skincare eHealth/ telehealth/ mobile health systems

Background: Individuals with spina bifida (SB) are vulnerable to chronic skin complications such as wounds on the buttocks and lower extremities. Most of these complications can be prevented with adherence to self-care routines. We have developed a mobile health (mHealth) system for supporting self-care and management of skin problems called SkinCare as part of an mHealth suite called iMHere (interactive Mobile Health and Rehabilitation). The objective of this research is to develop an innovative mHealth system to support self-skincare tasks, skin condition monitoring, adherence to self-care regimens, skincare consultation, and secure two-way communications between patients and clinicians. Methods: In order to support self-skincare tasks, the SkinCare app requires three main functions: (1) self-care task schedule and reminders, (2) skin condition monitoring and communications that include imaging, information about the skin problem, and consultation with clinician, and (3) secure two-way messaging between the patient and clinician (wellness coordinator). The SkinCare system we have developed consists of the SkinCare app, a clinician portal, and a two-way communication protocol connecting the two. The SkinCare system is one component of a more comprehensive system to support a wellness program for individuals with SB. Results: The SkinCare app has several features that include reminders to perform daily skin checks as well as the ability to report skin breakdown and injury, which uses a combination of skin images and descriptions. The SkinCare app provides reminders to visually inspect one's skin as a preventative measure, often termed a "skin check." The data is sent to the portal where clinicians can monitor patients' conditions. Using the two-way communication, clinicians can receive pictures of the skin conditions, track progress in healing over time, and provide instructions for how to best care for the wound. Conclusions: The system was capable of supporting self-care and adherence to regimen, monitoring adherence, and supporting clinician engagement with patients, as well as testing its feasibility in a long-term implementation. The study shows the feasibility of a long-term implementation of skincare mHealth systems to support self-care and two-way interactions between patients and clinicians

Interventions for Indigenous Peoples making health decisions: a systematic review

Background: Shared decision-making facilitates collaboration between patients and health care providers for informed health decisions. Our review identified interventions to support Indigenous Peoples making health decisions. The objectives were to synthesize evidence and identify factors that impact the use of shared decision making interventions. Methods: An Inuit and non-Inuit team of service providers and academic researchers used an integrated knowledge translation approach with framework synthesis to coproduce a systematic review. We developed a conceptual framework to organize and describe the shared decision making processes and guide identification of studies that describe interventions to support Indigenous Peoples making health decisions. We conducted a comprehensive search of electronic databases from September 2012 to March 2022, with a grey literature search. Two independent team members screened and quality appraised included studies for strengths and relevance of studies’ contributions to shared decision making and Indigenous self-determination. Findings were analyzed descriptively in relation to the conceptual framework and reported using guidelines to ensure transparency and completeness in reporting and for equity-oriented systematic reviews. Results: Of 5068 citations screened, nine studies reported in ten publications were eligible for inclusion. We categorized the studies into clusters identified as: those inclusive of Indigenous knowledges and governance (“Indigenous-oriented”)(n = 6); and those based on Western academic knowledge and governance (“Western-oriented”)(n = 3). The studies were found to be of variable quality for contributions to shared decision making and self-determination, with Indigenous-oriented studies of higher quality overall than Western-oriented studies. Four themes are reflected in an updated conceptual framework: 1) where shared decision making takes place impacts decision making opportunities, 2) little is known about the characteristics of health care providers who engage in shared decision making processes, 3) community is a partner in shared decision making, 4) the shared decision making process involves trust-building. Conclusions: There are few studies that report on and evaluate shared decision making interventions with Indigenous Peoples. Overall, Indigenous-oriented studies sought to make health care systems more amenable to shared decision making for Indigenous Peoples, while Western-oriented studies distanced shared decision making from the health care settings. Further studies that are solutions-focused and support Indigenous self-determination are needed

Robust Aeroelastic Control of Very Flexible Wings using Intrinsic Models

This paper explores the robust control of large exible wings when their dynamics are written in terms of intrinsic variables, that is, velocities and stress resultants. Assuming 2-D strip theory for the aerodynamics, the resulting nonlinear aeroelastic equations of motion are written in modal coordinates. It is seen that a system which experiences large displacements can nonetheless be accurately described by a system with only weak nonlinear couplings in this description of the wing dynamics. As result, a linear robust controller acting on a control surface is able to effectively provide gust load alleviation and flutter suppression even when the wing structure undergoes large deformations. This is numerically demonstrated on various representative test cases. © 2013 by Yinan Wang, Andrew Wynn and Rafael Palacios

Production of simian virus 40 large tumor antigen in bacteria: altered DNA-binding specificity and dna-replication activity of underphosphorylated large tumor antigen

A bacterial expression system was used to produce simian virus 40 large tumor antigen (T antigen) in the absence of the extensive posttranslational modifications that occur in mammalian cells. Wild-type T antigen produced in bacteria retained a specific subset of the biochemical activities displayed by its mammalian counterpart. Escherichia coli T antigen functioned as a helicase and bound to DNA fragments containing either site I or the wild-type origin of replication in a manner identical to mammalian T antigen. However, T antigen purified from E. coli did not efficiently bind to site II, an essential cis element within the simian virus 40 origin of replication. It therefore could not unwind origin-containing plasmids or efficiently replicate simian virus 40 DNA in vitro. The ability of protein phosphorylation to modulate the intrinsic preference of full-length T antigen for either site I or site II is discussed

Impact of Covid-19 on Health and Safety in the Construction Sector

Construction has been significantly affected by COVID-19 yet is critical to the post-COVID economic recovery. Specifically, construction needs to be constantly aware of safety and risk balanced with timely project delivery. Guidance for COVID–19 must therefore be implemented in a way that reflects working practice and pressures. There is, however, a potential knowledge gap regarding the practical feasibility and impact of applying COVID-19 measures within construction, made more difficult by factors such as the temporary nature of projects and complex working arrangements. This paper presents a commentary on safe construction during, and beyond, COVID-19, covering the human factors challenges and practicalities of implementing COVID-19 measures. We observe that while guidance is strong on risk management, understanding of how best to implement this guidance is not yet stable. Also, care must be taken that implementing guidance does not detract from general safety, which is also challenged by increased pressures on delivery arising from COVID-19. There may, however, be opportunities for safer working practice arising from new awareness of health, hygiene and safety risk. The role of safety leadership is overlooked in guidance yet is vital to ensure safe application of COVID-19 working practices. The key message is that COVID-19 needs to be integrated and promoted within a general risk management approach, in part because this takes account of differing priorities regarding safety risks, rather than overly focussing on COVID-19, and also because the effectiveness of COVID-19 mitigations can be amplified by integration with pre-existing safety processes