Trauma and reporters: And the reporting of suicide in media

Trauma is an inevitable part of everyday life in the Pacific. The media is a powerful force and when used effectively it ca help to mobilise assitance for victims and survivors. Sometimes, getting that message across has a pschological cost.&nbsp

Delivering Innovative RDM Training: The immersiveInformatics Pilot Programme

This paper presents the findings, lessons learned and next steps associated with the implementation of the immersiveInformatics pilot: a distinctive research data management (RDM) training programme designed in collaboration between UKOLN Informatics and the Library at the University of Melbourne, Australia. The pilot aimed to equip a broad range of academic and professional staff roles with RDM skills as a key element of capacity and capability building within a single institution.</jats:p

Sustainable Paths for Data-Intensive Research Communities at the University of Melbourne: A Report for the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories

This report presents the local project findings with a view to identifying how these findings may add to the knowledge base for informing an e-research strategy for the University of Melbourne. It also provides important considerations for how major Government initiatives in research policy and funding might impact on research data and records management requirements. Eleven research communities from diverse disciplines were consulted for an audit of their data management practices. Researchers from these communities represent a number of diverse disciplines: Applied Economics; Astrophysics; Computer Science and Software Engineering; Education; Ethnography; Experimental Particle Physics; Humanities informatics; Hydrology and Environmental Engineering; Linguistics; Medical informatics; Neuroscience and the Performing Arts. In addition to the specific findings for each group audited, the project findings also provide information about sustainability issues around research data management practices at the university

Creating a university research data registry: enabling compliance, and raising the profile of research data at the University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne is one of the richest sources of research data in Australia making it a highly desirable contributor to Australia’s emerging Research Data Commons – an initiative of the nationally funded Australian Research Data Service (ANDS). This paper will outline how The University of Melbourne partnered with (ANDS) to test a framework for exposing a number of research data collections from a variety of research communities at the university. It will identify how the project evolved with multiple agendas including; 1) The need to enable university research data and records policy compliance. 2) Participation in the national research data commons, and 3) Creating virtual research profiles for cross organizational research themes, as a way of strengthening cross disciplinary research. Underpinning these agendas is an approach to populating the research data registry based on the reuse of already collected data on research. In this project we considered it critical that processes used for collecting information about research datasets leverage existing information that the University already collects about research such as grants and publications. Using this information, we tested how readily we were also able to detect the existence of research data sets, along with the probable associated researchers, project description, departments, and research classifications before individual researchers were directly engaged. Such an approach required command of research administrative datasets collected by the University’s Research Office, but also the clever use of Library technologies to quickly source and scan publications for descriptions of research data. The result of these ‘linked data’ connections between research data sets and the rest of the research information framework was stored in an RDF triple store using an instance of the VITRO platform created by the University of Cornell. The paper will also cover the choice of VITRO as an appropriate platform to base a research data registry

Using action methods in health education / Anna Shadbolt

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Melbourne, 1995This study examines the usefulness of action methods for the teaching of health education to children. A model for the training of teachers in the use of these methods was developed, implemented and evaluated. The literature on the philosophy and methodology of psychodrama, a creation of J.L. Moreno, is reviewed highlighting some reported uses of the psychodramatic method with children. The application of action methods to the school environment is considered with a particular emphasis on its usefulness for the teaching of personal development and human relations. Limitations of its use in the classroom are also considered. A survey of local primary schools found that the health education taught is missing areas of the curriculum that tend to be sensitive and emotionally charged, mostly in the area of human relations. Lack of specialised training and resources are put forward as factors contributing to the omission of major portions of the health education curriculum in the schools. Appropriate professional training and support networks in these specialised areas of teaching are needed. Training in the use of action methods is one intervention that will help teachers in health education delivery. A two-part training program in action methods was delivered to teachers in the local area. It included a series of experiential workshops and individualised follow-up in the classrooms of workshop participants. The teachers and children found action methods to be useful classroom strategies for learning about health and human relations. The training structure was useful for assessing the individual training needs of teachers and children. The training program was found to be too short and hence lacked the necessary intensity for adequate skill acquisition. The follow-up component was highly effective. The indications of these findings for teacher training are discussed emphasising the importance of maintaining a balanced view of the place of action methods as only one teaching strategy, albeit a very effective and powerful one. Health education teaching is complex. Action methods were found to be useful for helping teachers with the many challenges that this curriculum area presents when delivered in the primary school classroom

Sustainable paths for data-intensive research communities at the University of Melbourne: a report for the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories

In 2006 the University of Melbourne participated in an eResearch auditing project with the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR). The focus of this project was to look at the data management needs of a selection of data intensive research communities at the university. A multidisciplinary team within Information Services documented researcher community activity around research data management, storage and sustainability. Eleven research communities from diverse disciplines were selected including: Applied Economics; Astrophysics; Computer Science and Software Engineering; Education; Ethnography; Experimental Particle Physics; Humanities informatics; Hydrology and Environmental Engineering; Linguistics; Medical informatics; Neuroscience, and the Performing Arts. Project findings provided information about general sustainability issues of data management policies and practices at the university. Recommendations around ICT infrastructure and support needs of eResearchers were proposed for consideration by management

Multiplexed expression and screening for recombinant protein production in mammalian cells

Abstract Background A variety of approaches to understanding protein structure and function require production of recombinant protein. Mammalian based expression systems have advantages over bacterial systems for certain classes of protein but can be slower and more laborious. Thus the availability of a simple system for production and rapid screening of constructs or conditions for mammalian expression would be of great benefit. To this end we have coupled an efficient recombinant protein production system based on transient transfection in HEK-293 EBNA1 (HEK-293E) suspension cells with a dot blot method allowing pre-screening of proteins expressed in cells in a high throughput manner. Results A nested PCR approach was used to clone 21 extracellular domains of mouse receptors as CD4 fusions within a mammalian GATEWAY expression vector system. Following transient transfection, HEK-293E cells grown in 2 ml cultures in 24-deep well blocks showed similar growth kinetics, viability and recombinant protein expression profiles, to those grown in 50 ml shake flask cultures as judged by western blotting. Following optimisation, fluorescent dot blot analysis of transfection supernatants was shown to be a rapid method for analysing protein expression yielding similar results as western blot analysis. Addition of urea enhanced the binding of glycoproteins to a nitrocellulose membrane. A good correlation was observed between the results of a plate based small scale transient transfection dot blot pre-screen and successful purification of proteins expressed at the 50 ml scale. Conclusion The combination of small scale multi-well plate culture and dot blotting described here will allow the multiplex analysis of different mammalian expression experiments enabling a faster identification of high yield expression constructs or conditions prior to large scale protein production. The methods for parallel GATEWAY cloning and expression of multiple constructs in cell culture will also be useful for applications such as the generation of receptor protein microarrays.</p