'It's not just about fish': Assessing the social impacts of marine protected areas on the wellbeing of coastal communities in New South Wales.

Managing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is about managing human behaviours, but decision-making processes have traditionally focussed on ecological aspects, treating social aspects as secondary. It is now becoming more evident that an equal focus on the ecological and social aspects is required. Without the collection of information about social aspect such as impacts and sharing this as well as ecological information with communities, MPAs are at higher risk of opposition and social acceptability problems. This paper explores the development of a wellbeing framework to understand the social aspects, including the impacts of MPAs on the wellbeing of local communities. This research investigates two case study MPAs: Cape Byron and Port Stephens-Great Lakes Marine Parks in New South Wales, Australia. The MPAs are multiple-use and were implemented in 2006 and 2007, respectively. The research began with a review of the literature, followed by fieldwork, including semi-structured qualitative interviews with community members. Through thematic coding of the interview transcripts in light of the literature on assessing the social impacts of MPAs, a community wellbeing framework of domains and associated attributes was developed to investigate social impacts. Our analysis shows; first, local perspectives are crucial to understanding social impacts. Second, understanding social impacts gives insight into the nature of trade-offs that occur in decision-making regarding MPAs. Third, the intangible social impacts experienced by local communities are just as significant as the tangible ones for understanding how MPAs operate. Fourth, governance impacts have been the most influential factor affecting the social acceptability of the case study parks. We argue that failure to address negative social impacts can undermine the legitimacy of MPAs. We propose that the framework will support policymakers to work towards more effective, equitable and socially sustainable MPAs by employing much-needed monitoring of human dimensions of conservation interventions at the community level to shape adaptive management

The Negativity Bias Predicts Response Rate To Behavioral Activation For Depression

Background and Objectives: This treatment study investigated the extent to which asymmetric dimensions of affective responding, specifically the positivity offset and the negativity bias, at pretreatment altered the rate of response to Behavioral Activation treatment for depression. Method: Forty-one depressed participants were enrolled into 16 weekly sessions of BA. An additional 36 lifetime healthy participants were evaluated prospectively for 16 weeks to compare affective responding between healthy and remitted patients at post-treatment. All participants were assessed at Weeks 0, 8 and 16 using repeated measures, involving a structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders, questionnaires, and a computerized task designed to measure affective responses to unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant images. Results: The negativity bias at pre-treatment predicted the rate of response to BA, while the positivity offset did not. Limitations: Only one treatment condition was used in this study and untreated depressed participants were not enrolled, limiting our ability to compare the effect of BA. Conclusions: Baseline negativity bias may serve as a signal for patients to engage in and benefit from the goal-directed BA strategies, thereby accelerating rate of response

Age of second language acquisition affects nonverbal conflict processing in children : an fMRI study

Background: In their daily communication, bilinguals switch between two languages, a process that involves the selection of a target language and minimization of interference from a nontarget language. Previous studies have uncovered the neural structure in bilinguals and the activation patterns associated with performing verbal conflict tasks. One question that remains, however is whether this extra verbal switching affects brain function during nonverbal conflict tasks. Methods: In this study, we have used fMRI to investigate the impact of bilingualism in children performing two nonverbal tasks involving stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response conflicts. Three groups of 8-11-year-old children - bilinguals from birth (2L1), second language learners (L2L), and a control group of monolinguals (1L1) - were scanned while performing a color Simon and a numerical Stroop task. Reaction times and accuracy were logged. Results: Compared to monolingual controls, bilingual children showed higher behavioral congruency effect of these tasks, which is matched by the recruitment of brain regions that are generally used in general cognitive control, language processing or to solve language conflict situations in bilinguals (caudate nucleus, posterior cingulate gyrus, STG, precuneus). Further, the activation of these areas was found to be higher in 2L1 compared to L2L. Conclusion: The coupling of longer reaction times to the recruitment of extra language-related brain areas supports the hypothesis that when dealing with language conflicts the specialization of bilinguals hampers the way they can process with nonverbal conflicts, at least at early stages in life

Maximising community wellbeing: Assessing the threats to the benefits communities derive from the marine estate

© 2018 The coastal and marine environment is often managed according to the principles of sustainable development, which include environmental, economic, and social dimensions. While each are equally important, social sustainability receives a lower priority in both policy and research. Methodologies for assessing social sustainability are less developed than for environmental and economic sustainability, and there is a lack of data on the social aspects of sustainable development (such as social equity), which constitutes a barrier to understanding social considerations and integrating them into natural resource management. This paper explores a threat and risk assessment to the marine estate in New South Wales, Australia, which identified and categorised both the benefits that communities gain from the marine estate and the threats to those benefits. A broad range of benefits were identified including participation (e.g., socialising and sense of community), enjoyment (e.g., enjoying the biodiversity and beauty), cultural heritage and use, intrinsic and bequest values, the viability of businesses, and direct economic values. Threats to community benefits were categorised as resource use conflict, environmental, governance, public safety, critical knowledge gaps and lack of access. An integrated threat and risk assessment approach found that the priority threats to community benefits were environmental threats (e.g., water pollution), critical knowledge gaps (e.g., inadequate social and economic information), governance (e.g., lack of compliance), resource-use conflict (e.g., anti-social behaviour), and lack of access (e.g., loss of fishing access). Threat and risk assessment is an evidence-based tool that is useful for marine planning because it provides a structured approach to incorporating multiple types of knowledge and enables limited resources to be targeted to the threats identified as being most important to address

Lean manufacturing as a high-performance work system: The case of Cochlear

© 2014 Taylor and Francis. This paper addresses the Special Issue call for Australian examples of innovative management systems that enable the production of successful products by drawing on a single case study: medical device manufacturer Cochlear. Through qualitative case study methodology, we examine the human resource management practices that complemented the implementation of lean manufacturing principles. We argue that in their implementation, Cochlears management team enriched the traditional understanding of lean and its focus on waste reduction, low cost and quality assurance by adopting people management practices as an integrated component of the overall management capability which allowed their people to grow and develop. The combination of lean and HR practices transformed Cochlear to a high-performance work system and positively impacted production processes and output. By examining a medical device manufacturer, an under-researched sector, our paper expands existing literature on lean manufacturing and provides implications for practitioners

Twice The Negativity Bias And Half The Positivity Offset: Evaluative Responses To Emotional Information In Depression

Background and objectives: Humans have the dual capacity to assign a slightly pleasant valence to neutral stimuli (the positivity offset) to encourage approach behaviors, as well as to assign a higher negative valence to unpleasant images relative to the positive valence to equally arousing and extreme pleasant images (the negativity bias) to facilitate defensive strategies. We conducted an experimental psychopathology study to examine the extent to which the negativity bias and the positivity offset differ in participants with and without major depression. Method: Forty-one depressed and thirty-six healthy participants were evaluated using a structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders, questionnaires, and a computerized task designed to measure implicit affective responses to unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant stimuli. Results: The negativity bias was significantly higher and the positivity offset was significantly lower in depressed relative to healthy participants. Limitations: Entry criteria enrolling medication-free participants with minimal DSM-IV comorbidity may limit generalizability of the findings. Conclusions: This study advances our understanding of the positive and negative valence systems in depression, highlighting the irregularities in the positive valence system

Transforming coastal and marine management: Deliberative democracy and integrated management in New South Wales, Australia

© 2020 The Authors The integrated management (IM) of coastal and marine environments is an enduring problem, particularly in multi-sectoral and jurisdictional systems, with coastal management of New South Wales (NSW), Australia being no exception. Historically, NSW coastal and marine management was dominated by ecological and economic approaches, implemented in parallel through multiple government agencies with overlapping jurisdictions. A review in 2012 of NSW marine park management recommended addressing the unintended consequences of this management approach, and the Marine Estate Management Act (2014), was established to integrate management of the whole of the NSW coast. This paper discusses the role that a deliberative democratic approach has played in the approach to IM undertaken by the NSW Marine Estate Management Authority (MEMA). The NSW MEMA case study provides a robust reflection of the challenges identified by the literature in implementing effective integrated management, being the alignment of values, visions and methods of assessment, across multiple resources, ecosystems, stakeholders and administrative jurisdictions. Deliberative democratic approaches were used in reviewing the MEMA case to analyse its ability to address some of the challenges and realise benefits of IM. However, despite benefits being identified, a key finding is that achieving integration across multiple agencies with varied disciplinary approaches and organisational cultures, takes a significant amount of time. Even after several years, challenges remain in embedding cultural shifts and resource commitment at all levels to ensure the ongoing successful implementation of IM

Transforming coastal and marine management: Deliberative democracy and integrated management in New South Wales, Australia

The integrated management (IM) of coastal and marine environments is an enduring problem, particularly in multi-sectoral and jurisdictional systems, with coastal management of New South Wales (NSW), Australia being no exception. Historically, NSW coastal and marine management was dominated by ecological and economic approaches, implemented in parallel through multiple government agencies with overlapping jurisdictions. A review in 2012 of NSW marine park management recommended addressing the unintended consequences of this management approach, and the Marine Estate Management Act (2014), was established to integrate management of the whole of the NSW coast. This paper discusses the role that a deliberative democratic approach has played in the approach to IM undertaken by the NSW Marine Estate Management Authority (MEMA). The NSW MEMA case study provides a robust reflection of the challenges identified by the literature in implementing effective integrated management, being the alignment of values, visions and methods of assessment, across multiple resources, ecosystems, stakeholders and administrative jurisdictions. Deliberative democratic approaches were used in reviewing the MEMA case to analyse its ability to address some of the challenges and realise benefits of IM. However, despite benefits being identified, a key finding is that achieving integration across multiple agencies with varied disciplinary approaches and organisational cultures, takes a significant amount of time. Even after several years, challenges remain in embedding cultural shifts and resource commitment at all levels to ensure the ongoing successful implementation of IM

Mitochondrial DNA data indicate an introduction through Mainland Southeast Asia for Australian dingoes and Polynesian domestic dogs

In the late stages of the global dispersal of dogs, dingoes appear in the Australian archaeological record 3500 years BP, and dogs were one of three domesticates brought with the colonization of Polynesia, but the introduction routes to this region remain unknown. This also relates to questions about human history, such as to what extent the Polynesian culture was introduced with the Austronesian expansion from Taiwan or adopted en route, and whether pre-Neolithic Australia was culturally influenced by the surrounding Neolithic world. We investigate these questions by mapping the distribution of the mtDNA founder haplotypes for dingoes (A29) and ancient Polynesian dogs (Arc1 and Arc2) in samples across Southern East Asia (n = 424) and Island Southeast Asia (n = 219). All three haplotypes were found in South China, Mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia but absent in Taiwan and the Philippines, and the mtDNA diversity among dingoes indicates an introduction to Australia 4600–18 300 years BP. These results suggest that Australian dingoes and Polynesian dogs originate from dogs introduced to Indonesia via Mainland Southeast Asia before the Neolithic, and not from Taiwan together with the Austronesian expansion. This underscores the complex origins of Polynesian culture and the isolation from Neolithic influence of the pre-Neolithic Australian culture