The social value of Indigenous procurement policies in the Australian construction industry

Indigenous procurement policies have gained popularity as a form of social procurement in Australia and other countries with colonised populations as governments seek to create social value for and address the socioeconomic inequities experienced by Indigenous peoples. In Australia, Indigenous procurement policies require governments to meet purchasing and employment targets of Indigenous suppliers and workers. The construction industry is a major contributor to the success of these policies because of its size as an employer and the significant infrastructure investment commitments made by Australian governments before, and in response to, COVID-19. However, this thesis argues that the methods used to evaluate these policies are potentially misleading and misrepresent the potentially negative social value they could create. Operationalising an Indigenous evaluation framework and designed around principles of decolonised and community-based research, this thesis investigates the social value created by Indigenous procurement policies in the Australian construction industry. Findings indicate that creating social value for Indigenous construction workers may require a broader focus on culturally supportive workplaces. Findings also indicate that in general, Indigenous procurement policies can create social value when their aims are supported by all stakeholders. However, the policies can also create negative social value through compliance-driven behaviour and tokenistic employment which prevents Indigenous business and workforce development. Recommendations are made to address this and maximise the social value the policies create. Methodologically, this thesis shows how Indigenous programs and policies can be evaluated in partnership with Indigenous stakeholders. Theoretically, the findings help illuminate the underexplored area of social value in construction. Practically, this thesis will help construction managers aiming to develop, implement and evaluate Indigenous procurement strategies to create social value in partnership with the communities in which they operate

Lessons From the Trenches: Meeting Evaluation Challenges in School Health Education

BACKGROUND: Those involved in school health education programs generally believe that health education programs can play an important role in helping young people make positive health decisions. Thus, it is to document the effects of such programs through rigorous evaluations published in peer‐reviewed journals. METHODS: This paper helps the reader understand the context of school health program evaluation, examines several problems and challenges, shows how problems can often be fixed, or prevented, and demonstrates ways in which challenges can be met. A number of topics are addressed, including distinguishing between curricula evaluation and evaluation of outcomes, types of evaluation, identifying stakeholders in school health evaluation, selection of a program evaluator, recruiting participants, design issues, staff training, parental consent, instrumentation, program implementation and treatment fidelity, participant retention, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, presentation of results, and manuscript preparation and submission. RESULTS: Although there is a lack of health‐education program evaluation, rigorous evaluations that have been conducted have, at least in some cases, led to wider dissemination of effective programs. CONCLUSIONS: These suggestions will help those interested in school health education understand the importance of evaluation and will provide important guidelines for those conducting evaluations of school health education programs

Area Specific Self-Esteem, Values, and Adolescent Sexual Behavior

This study examined area-specific self-esteem scores by sexual behavior relative to adolescents\u27 values concerning participation in sexual intercourse as an unmarried teenager. The sample consisted of 332 students in grades 7–12 from a Southern rural school district. Students were asked if they had ever had sexual intercourse (yes/no) and if they had participated in sexual intercourse in the last month (yes/no). Respondents also indicated on a 4-point scale their response to the statement “It is against my values to have sex as an unmarried teenager.” Data were analyzed using a 2 × 4 (behavior x values) analysis of variance for each of the three area-specific self-esteem scores (peer, school, and home). Results indicated that students who had participated in sexual intercourse had significantly lower scores in school and home self-esteem than those who had not participated. In addition, those who “strongly agreed” with the values statement and indicated they had not had intercourse had the highest school and home self-esteem scores. Those who strongly agreed with the values statement but indicated they had participated in sexual intercourse had the lowest school and home self-esteem scores. This behavior x values interaction was significant for sexual intercourse–ever, and for school self-esteem and sexual intercourse in the last month. No difference was seen in peer self-esteem scores by behavior nor were there behavior x values interactions

The Four-Day School Week: Impact on Student Academic Performance

Although the four-day school week originated in 1936, it was not widely implemented until 1973 when there was a need to conserve energy and reduce operating costs. This study investigated how achievement tests scores of schools with a four-day school week compared with schools with a traditional five-day school week. The study focused on student performance in Colorado where 62 school districts operated a four-day school week. The results of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) were utilized to examine student performance in reading, writing, and mathematics in grades 3 through 10. While the mean test scores for five-day week schools exceeded those of four-day week schools in 11 of the 12 test comparisons, the differences were slight, with only one area revealing a statistically significant difference. This study concludes that decisions to change to the four-day week should be for reasons other than student academic performance

Check Mate: Prioritizing User Generated Multi-Media Content for Fact-Checking

Volume of content and misinformation on social media is rapidly increasing. There is a need for systems that can support fact checkers by prioritizing content that needs to be fact checked. Prior research on prioritizing content for fact-checking has focused on news media articles, predominantly in English language. Increasingly, misinformation is found in user-generated content. In this paper we present a novel dataset that can be used to prioritize check-worthy posts from multi-media content in Hindi. It is unique in its 1) focus on user generated content, 2) language and 3) accommodation of multi-modality in social media posts. In addition, we also provide metadata for each post such as number of shares and likes of the post on ShareChat, a popular Indian social media platform, that allows for correlative analysis around virality and misinformation. The data is accessible on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/4032629) under Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).Comment: 8 pages, 13 figures, 2 table

ANALISIS FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI PENERIMAAN PAJAK DAERAH PADA PEMERINTAH PROVINSI SULAWESI UTARA

ABSTRAKPembangunan nasional bertujuan untuk mewujudkan masyarakat yang adil dan makmur melalui peningkatan taraf hidup, kecerdasan dan kesejahteraan seluruh rakyat. Dalam pelaksanaan pembangunan nasional tersebut tidak terlepas oleh adanya pembangunan daerah. Sehingga dalam proses memperlancar pembangunan nasional diperlukan anggaran dari pemerintah negara yang diperoleh dari pemungutan pajak daerah. Untuk itulah pemerintah terus berupaya menggali setiap potensi yang bisa digunakan untuk meningkatkan dan mengoptimalkan penerimaan daerah. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk menganalisis jumlah penduduk, PDRB dan inflasi terhadap pajak daerah. Penelitian ini mengguakan analisis regresi berganda. Hasil penelitian Jumlah penduduk berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap penerimaan pajak daerah. PDRB berpengaruh positif terhadap penerimaan pajak daerah. Inflasi berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap penerimaan pajak daerah. Kata Kunci    : Jumlah Penduduk, PDRB, Inflasi dan Pajak Daerah ABSTRACTNational development aims to create a just and prosperous society through the improvement of standard of living, intelligence and prosperity of all people. In the implementation of national development is not separated by the existence of regional development. So in the process of expediting the national development required the budget of the state government obtained from the collection of local taxes. For this reason the government continues to explore every potential that can be used to improve and optimize local revenue. The purpose of this study to analyze the population, GRDP and inflation of local taxes. This research uses multiple regression analysis. Result of research Number of population have positive and significant effect to local tax revenue. PDRB has a positive effect on local tax revenue. Inflation has a positive and significant impact on local tax revenues. Keywords: Total Population, GRDP, Inflation and Local Taxe

Teacher Preferences for Alternative School Site Administrative Models

Public school teachers with high leadership potential who stated that they had no interest in being school principals were surveyed on their attitudes about six alternative school site administrative organizational models. Of the 391 teachers surveyed, 53% identified the Co-Principal model as the preferred school site administrative structure. In order of preference were the Co-Principal model, the Principal/Business Manager model, the Multi-Principal model, the Principal/Associate Principal model, the Principal Teacher/Principal Administrator model, and the Principal/Educational Specialist model. Among teachers at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels, the only significant difference was on the Multi-Principal model, which was favored more by middle and high school teachers than by elementary teachers. The findings suggest that teachers who had previously reported a lack of interest in becoming school principals might be interested in the position if the organizational structure of the school site were different from the traditional organizational model

Do false positive thallium-201 scans lead to unnecessary catheterization? outcome of patients with perfusion defects on quantitative planar thallium-201 scintigraphy

AbstractObjectives. We postulated that artifactually abnormal thallium-201 scans are well identified at the time of initial clinical interpretation by experienced readers and do not lead to unnecessary coronary angiography.Background. Exercise thallium-201 scintigraphy employing quantitative imaging techniques has yielded sensitivity and specificity values of 80% to 90%. There are image artifacts, such as breast shadows, and variants of normal that, if not correctly identified, can lead to a high false positive rate for detection of coronary artery disease.Methods. Data from 338 consecutive patients with one or more focal thallium-201 defects on quantitative planar Images were reviewed. All patients had undergone symptom-limited exercise scintigraphy and were classified as having either artifactual or nonartifactual thallium-201 defects after review of clinical reports.Results. Of the 265 patients with defects judged to be nonartifactual on clinical readings, 167 underwent coronary angiography, which demonstrated significant coronary artery disease (≥50% stenosis) in 161 (96%) and normal findings in 6. Four of the latter six had documented prior myocardial infarction. The remaining 73 patients (85% female) had thallium-201 defects deemed to be artifactual on clinical readings, chiefly as a result of breast (66%) and diaphragmatic (8%) attenuation or variants of normal (26%). Only 4 (5%) of the 73 patients underwent subsequent coronary angiography; none had coronary artery disease. One had aortic stenosis and two had variant angina. Follow-up (mean 20 ± 2 months) of the 69 patients in this group who did not undergo coronary angiography revealed no deaths and one nonfatal non-Q wave myocardial infarction.Conclusions. Artifactual defects on quantitative planar thallium-201 scintigraphy are well recognized by experienced interpreters and do not result in a high false positive rate leading to unnecessary cardiac catheferization. The incidence of coronary artery disease is high in patients with thallium-201 defects judged to be nonartifactual, and many patients with perfusion defects and angiographically normal coronary arteries have organic heart disease