Gender and cultural diversity in Australian sport

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Engaging professional societies in developing work-ready graduates

Since the 1990s universities have faced increasing pressure to better prepare graduates for the workforce. Employers, professional societies and the government are increasingly calling for graduates who are work-ready. In this paper we identify the drivers of the work-ready initiative and present definitions and components of our identified professional work-ready attributes and skills. University graduates are expected to have more than just the discipline-based knowledge and skills that universities traditionally teach. In exploring the tensions, challenges and opportunities that this changing educational environment presents, this paper investigates the key graduate attributes, skills and criteria for successful careers in the professional workplace. Working in consultation with professional societies, our project aims to identify and contextualise work-ready skills to each of the targeted disciplines Information Technology and Business to maximise student relevance. We aim to rejuvenate the current curriculum to improve the development of students work-ready skills by integrating into the curriculum new work-ready subjects and learning activities within existing subjects. Skills identified by professional societies are critical for contemporary university graduates, and are being used to develop effective teaching and learning strategies, tutorials, activities and case-studies

Theoretical approaches and practical strategies for change management

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Board Roles in Nonprofit Sport Organisations with a Dual Board System

Governance is a critical component of the effective management of a nonprofit sport organisation. Boards in this governance system play an important role to guide their organisations. While a number of agencies have provided documents of what boards should perform in their organisations, these documents remain descriptive. Empirical research on board roles particularly in a dual board system has been deficient. The purpose of this research therefore was to empirically investigate board roles in nonprofit sport organisations with a dual board system in Taiwan. 158 directors and 103 supervisors from 24 nonprofit sport organisations completed questionnaire regarding board roles. Two factor analyses were conducted. A 20-variable/4-factor scale of roles of directors and a 9-variable/2-factor scale of roles of supervisors were generated. Several conclusions were made based on results of this stud

Factors determining short- and long-term survival after orthotopic liver homotransplantation in the dog

Without azathioprine therapy, the operative risk with orthotopic liver transplantation is small. Twenty-two of 23 animals survived 2 days or more, and 19 for 6 days or longer. All eventually died of rejection within 10 days. Changes in homograft histology and function were similar to those previously reported, with cellular infiltration and hepatocyte necrosis which was heavily concentrated in the centrilobular areas. In individual experiments, there was little evidence of immunologically induced segmental hepatic arterial or portal venous occlusion; hepatocyte loss was homogeneous, and fibrinoid vascular lesions were uncommon. There was, however, some evidence of damage to the sinusoidal endothelium by adherent mononuclear cells. The changing character of the mononuclear infiltration of the homograft was reflected by widespread proliferation of similar cells in the host lymphoid tissue. Specific changes in other host organs were not noted. Some of the biochemical and histologic alterations caused by unmodified rejection can also be produced by azathioprine. In 18 nontransplanted dogs, acute rises in SGOT, SGPT, and alkaline phosphatase, unaccompanied by hyperbilirubinemia, were noted within a few days after beginning administration of this agent. Although these abnormalities tended to regress within the 40 day period of observation, more than two thirds of the livers showed histologic evidence of centrilobular hepatocyte damage or necrosis-often with intrahepatic cholestasis, but always without mononuclear cell infiltration. The hepatotoxicity was not prevented by methionine. Weight loss and progressive anemia also occurred. Lymphoid tissue was depleted. The mortality from the toxicity study was 33 percent. The use of azathioprine to mitigate rejection increased the early mortality after homotransplantation, 32 of 116 dogs dying within the first week (28 percent), most commonly of pulmonary complications. The 84 animals living longer than 7 days had a greatly potentiated homograft survival, exceeding 25 days in 44 dogs, and 50 days in 24. Fifteen animals are still alive from 62 to 324 days postoperatively. Six dogs had all drugs stopped after 116 to 123 days. Only 1 has had a clinically evident late rejection and 5 are still alive from 63 to 204 days later. Three of these animals had repeat biopsies 77 to 182 days after cessation of therapy; one homograft which was normal at 4 months remained so 6 months later, another had an improved histologic appearance, and the third had deteriorated. The longest mean survival was in those animals receiving adjuvant therapy with L-methionine or S35-methionine, but the variability of the results was so great that a statistically significant advantage of these agents could not be demonstrated. Soon after operation red cell survival was decreased, but in chronic survivors there was no evidence of a grafthost reaction. There was great variability in the vigor of rejection, ranging from the uncontrollable (29 percent) to the clinically undetectable (23 percent). Most of the animals (49 percent) had some biochemical evidence of rejection which proved to be spontaneously reversible, to a greater or lesser degree, since intensification of immunosuppressive therapy was not required. These findings correlate well with the histologic studies. In virtually all animals, azathioprine delayed the onset of rejection but in those dying in the second and third postoperative weeks, the pathologic stigmas of rejection were very similar to the untreated controls. As in the untreated animals, the number of proliferating large pyroninophilic cells in the host's lymphoid tissues was roughly proportional to the number of mononuclear cells invading the homograft liver. After this time, the predominant histologic features in most animals were those of repair and regeneration, with either absent or relatively minor degrees or continuing destruction. Since the major rejection damage was centrizonal, the healing was most prominent in these areas with interconecting fibrosis around the central veins, centrilobular bile canalicular dilatation and cholestasis, and pseudolobule formation. In some of the homografts, increased connective tissue was also present in the portal tracts, but in others including the longest survivor there were no residual abnormalities whatever. In azathioprine-treated animals, damage to the vessels in the homograft portal tracts was found in only one liver. With electron microscopy there was some evidence of damage to the sinusoidal endothelium by adherent mononuclear cells, a finding which could be analogous to that described by Kountz and co-workers11 in the peritubular capillaries of renal homografts. If immunologically mediated hemodynamic alterations play an important role in liver homograft rejection by interrupting the blood supply to the hepatocytes, it seems most likely that they occur at this intrasinusoidal capillary level rather than in the larger vessels. © 1965

Understanding the notion of accessible spaces and places: Sydney CBD Visitor Accessibility Web portal www.sydneyforall.com

The paper presents an approach to understanding the accessibility of spaces and places for people with disabilities and seniors. For these groups, the challenges associated with recreational access are compounded by the cultural context, fragmented approaches to wayfinding and a lack of collaboration by providers to promote accessible experiences. The paper presents the outcome of the research project that sought to collaboratively promote accessible experiences within the Sydney CBD and Sydney Harbour environs. The Sydney for All web portal was developed in conjunction with three industry partners: Tourism NSW; Tourism and Transport Forum; and NSW Dept of Environment and Climate Change. The research engaged in participatory action research with the major stakeholders, attractions and the destination experience providers. The Web portal complies with the highest W3C web accessibility standards as evidenced through the compliance testing by Vision Australia. The paper outlines the research approach, underlying philosophy and the major accessibility features of the portal through a case study of the North Head Lookout. As will be demonstrated, the portal is a starting point to understanding accessible experiences through focusing on universal design, destination experience and management frameworks rather than using constraints based approaches that dominate mainstream access auditing