Three years on: Indigenous families and the welfare system, the Kuranda community case study

This discussion paper presents the results from the third and final year of the Kuranda community case study for the project on the delivery of appropriate welfare services and policies to Indigenous families. Core recommendations and conclusions from the project as a whole are also discussed. Three years of survey data now allow a comparison of sources of household income. Indigenous families and households in the community remain highly dependent on income support from welfare benefits and pensions, and from the CDEP scheme. The research also points to Abstudy payments as playing an important part in family domestic economies. One of the key issues highlighted for service delivery and policy consideration is the complexity of patterns of residential mobility of Indigenous adults and children in Kuranda. Taking into consideration all the people surveyed in 2000 and 2001, one out of every two persons had moved into or out of the house- hold sample. Over half of those people were children, or young adults aged 17-25 years. Importantly, the existence of a non-mobile core of household members-usually older people on secure pensions-is identified as a point of domestic stability for children and youth. Child-care is an extended family, rather than a household-centred activity, and the mobility of children and youth is an expression of extended family networks. The key role played by older women in the care of children is emphasised once again. The results raise several important issues for policy and service delivery. The fact that child-care is family-based rather than household-based needs to be recognised in the delivery of welfare services to children and in policy frameworks. Many children have multiple carers who are in need of financial support for the period in which they are responsible for a child. There needs to be flexibility in the service arrangements so that the relevant family payments are going to the person actually caring for a child. The three survey waves have identified an important characteristic of young adults: there appears to be no transition for this group from school into mainstream local employment. The main transition is, in fact, into early dependence on welfare or CDEP payments. If inter-generational welfare dependence is to be short-circuited, there needs to be immediate targeted policy and program support for this age group, preferably before they enter the welfare system. It is proposed that a Youth Work Preparation and Employment Program be piloted, focusing on young CDEP participants and school leavers. The program would be delivered by local CDEP organisations with the objective of creating a detour around early dependence on welfare and CDEP incomes, by mentoring the transition of young adults into local work experience and main-stream employment

Indigenous welfare policy: lessons from a community survey

Although Indigenous Australians only represent two per cent of the Australian population, they have a high profile in the community as the original inhabitants of the continent and because of the problems associated with their poverty, dispossession and welfare dependence. In this article we present a summary of research findings from a three-year study conducted among Indigenous people living in and around the town of Kuranda in Northern Queensland — about half an hour’s drive inland from Cairns

Economic Analysis of Children's Surgical Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Analysis.

BackgroundUnderstanding the economic value of health interventions is essential for policy makers to make informed resource allocation decisions. The objective of this systematic review was to summarize available information on the economic impact of children's surgical care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).MethodsWe searched MEDLINE (Pubmed), Embase, and Web of Science for relevant articles published between Jan. 1996 and Jan. 2015. We summarized reported cost information for individual interventions by country, including all costs, disability weights, health outcome measurements (most commonly disability-adjusted life years [DALYs] averted) and cost-effectiveness ratios (CERs). We calculated median CER as well as societal economic benefits (using a human capital approach) by procedure group across all studies. The methodological quality of each article was assessed using the Drummond checklist and the overall quality of evidence was summarized using a scale adapted from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.FindingsWe identified 86 articles that met inclusion criteria, spanning 36 groups of surgical interventions. The procedure group with the lowest median CER was inguinal hernia repair ($15/DALY). The procedure group with the highest median societal economic benefit was neurosurgical procedures ($58,977). We found a wide range of study quality, with only 35% of studies having a Drummond score ≥ 7.InterpretationOur findings show that many areas of children's surgical care are extremely cost-effective in LMICs, provide substantial societal benefits, and are an appropriate target for enhanced investment. Several areas, including inguinal hernia repair, trichiasis surgery, cleft lip and palate repair, circumcision, congenital heart surgery and orthopedic procedures, should be considered "Essential Pediatric Surgical Procedures" as they offer considerable economic value. However, there are major gaps in existing research quality and methodology which limit our current understanding of the economic value of surgical care

Theoretical Transmission Spectra During Extrasolar Giant Planet Transits

The recent transit observation of HD 209458 b - an extrasolar planet orbiting a sun-like star - confirmed that it is a gas giant and determined that its orbital inclination is 85 degrees. This inclination makes possible investigations of the planet atmosphere. In this paper we discuss the planet transmission spectra during a transit. The basic tenet of the method is that the planet atmosphere absorption features will be superimposed on the stellar flux as the stellar flux passes through the planet atmosphere above the limb. The ratio of the planet's transparent atmosphere area to the star area is small, approximately 10^{-3} to 10^{-4}; for this method to work very strong planet spectral features are necessary. We use our models of close-in extrasolar giant planets to estimate promising absorption signatures: the alkali metal lines, in particular the Na I and K I resonance doublets, and the He I $2^3S$ - $2^3P$ triplet line at 1083.0 nm. If successful, observations will constrain the line-of-sight temperature, pressure, and density. The most important point is that observations will constrain the cloud depth, which in turn will distinguish between different atmosphere models. We also discuss the potential of this method for EGPs at different orbital distances and orbiting non-solar-type stars.Comment: revised to agree with accepted paper, ApJ, in press. 12 page

Far-Ultraviolet Emission from Elliptical Galaxies at z=0.33

We present far-ultraviolet (far-UV) images of the rich galaxy cluster ZwCl1358.1+6245, taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). When combined with archival HST observations, our data provide a measurement of the UV-to-optical flux ratio in 8 early-type galaxies at z=0.33. Because the UV flux originates in a population of evolved, hot, horizontal branch (HB) stars, this ratio is potentially one of the most sensitive tracers of age in old populations -- it is expected to fade rapidly with lookback time. We find that the UV emission in these galaxies, at a lookback time of 3.9 Gyr, is significantly weaker than it is in the current epoch, yet similar to that in galaxies at a lookback time of 5.6 Gyr. Taken at face value, these measurements imply different formation epochs for the massive ellipticals in these clusters, but an alternative explanation is a "floor" in the UV emission due to a dispersion in the parameters that govern HB morphology.Comment: 4 pages, Latex. 2 figures. Uses corrected version of emulateapj.sty and apjfonts.sty (included). Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Working memory and high-level cognition in children: An analysis of timing and accuracy in complex span tasks

This study examined working memory (WM) using complex span tasks (CSTs) to improve theoretical understanding of the relationship between WM and high-level cognition (HLC) in children. Ninety-two children aged between seven and eight years were tested on three computer-paced CSTs and measures of non-verbal reasoning, reading and mathematics. Processing times in the CSTs were restricted based on individually titrated processing speeds, and performance was compared to participant-led tasks with no time restrictions. Storage, processing accuracy, and both processing and recall times within the CSTs were used as performance indices to understand the effects of time restrictions at a granular level. Restricting processing times did not impair storage, challenging models that argue for a role of maintenance in WM. A task-switching account best explained the effect of time restrictions on performance indices and their inter-relationships. Principal component analysis showed that a single factor with all performance indices from just one CST (Counting span) was the best predictor of HLC. Storage in both the participant-led and computer-paced versions of this task explained unique and shared variance in HLC. However, the latter accounted for more variance in HLC when contributions from processing time were included in the model. Processing time in this condition also explained variance above and beyond storage. This suggests that faster processing is important to keep information active in WM; however, this is only evident when time restrictions are placed on the task and important when WM performance is applied in broader contexts that rely on this resource

Children’s Verbal, Visual and Spatial Processing and Storage Abilities: An Analysis of Verbal Comprehension, Reading, Counting and Mathematics

The importance of working memory (WM) in reading and mathematics performance has been widely studied, with recent research examining the components of WM (i.e., storage and processing) and their roles in these educational outcomes. However, the differing relationships between these abilities and the foundational skills involved in the development of reading and mathematics have received less attention. Additionally, the separation of verbal, visual and spatial storage and processing and subsequent links with foundational skills and downstream reading and mathematics has not been widely examined. The current study investigated the separate contributions of processing and storage from verbal, visual and spatial tasks to reading and mathematics, whilst considering influences on the underlying skills of verbal comprehension and counting, respectively. Ninety-two children aged 7- to 8-years were assessed. It was found that verbal comprehension (with some caveats) was predicted by verbal storage and reading was predicted by verbal and spatial storage. Counting was predicted by visual processing and storage, whilst mathematics was related to verbal and spatial storage. We argue that resources for tasks relying on external representations of stimuli related mainly to storage, and were largely verbal and spatial in nature. When a task required internal representation, there was a draw on visual processing and storage abilities. Findings suggest a possible meaningful separability of types of processing. Further investigation of this could lead to the development of an enhanced WM model, which might better inform interventions and reasonable adjustments for children who struggle with reading and mathematics due to WM deficits

Age Constraints for an M31 Globular Cluster from Main Sequence Photometry

We present a color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of the globular cluster SKHB-312 in the Andromeda galaxy (M31), obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. The cluster was included in deep observations taken to measure the star formation history of the M31 halo. Overcoming a very crowded field, our photometry of SKHB-312 reaches V ~ 30.5 mag, more than 1 mag below the main sequence turnoff. These are the first observations to allow a direct age estimate from the turnoff in an old M31 cluster. We analyze its CMD and luminosity function using a finely-spaced grid of isochrones that have been calibrated using observations of Galactic clusters taken with the same camera and filters. The luminosity difference between the subgiant and horizontal branches is ~0.2 mag smaller in SKHB-312 than in the Galactic clusters 47 Tuc and NGC 5927, implying SKHB-312 is 2-3 Gyr younger. A quantitative comparison to isochrones yields an age of 10 +2.5/-1 Gyr