Quality teaching in a managerialist setting: higher education challenges in Australia

Australian universities face increased challenges in a global higher education marketplace. They have responded to this competitive environment by introducing greater efficiency and accountability measures. One key measure is the quality of teaching and in particular, the delivery of student-centred teaching. However, the reforms have changed the working lives of academic teachers who now have greater reporting and administrative responsibilities with less sense of collegiality in the sector. In these circumstances, it is not clear that teaching staff will share the same perceptions of quality teaching as their institutions expect. This paper examines the utility of role theory and learning organization theory as part of a project which will examine the ways in which implicit knowledge can be made explicit and shared in the organization as part of academic teachers' roles. The paper hypothesizes that when academics share their perceptions of good teaching, universities will benefit from a coherent set of quality teaching indicators which are aligned with their organizational cultures

A Changing World of Workplace Conflict Resolution and Employee Voice: An Australian Perspective

The authors contribute to dispute resolution theory and provide new insights on such important issues as employee voice, workplace disputes and employees’ intentions to quit. They conducted and analyzed a survey of managers in Australian workplaces. They apply Budd and Colvin’s (2008) path-finding dispute resolution framework to examine two research questions: first, is there a relationship between the resolution of disputes and employee voice as measured by employee perceptions of influence over decision-making? Second, is there a relationship between the resolution of workplace disputes and employees’ intentions to quit? These are important questions in view of the high costs of workplace conflict and employee turnover. The authors find that employee voice facilitates successful dispute resolution. Further, employee voice has the additional benefit of directly reducing employee turnover intentions, above and beyond its indirect effect by helping to resolve conflicts at work

Flow patterns behind the free flow front for a Newtonian fluid injected between two infinite parallel plates

A complete analytical treatment of the 2-dimensional problem of the injection of a Newtonian fluid between two parallel plates is presented. Explicit formulas are derived for the shape of the free flow front, the streamlines behind the flow front, the velocity, deformation and rotation (orientation) of material elements in the flow front region, and the associated stresses there. The analysis is based on complex function theory, and in this, the flow region, inclusive the unknown free flow front, is mapped onto the interior of the unit circle. The mapping function that determines the shape of the flow front is found by solving a Hilbert problem. It is analytically found in how far the actual flow front differs from a semi-circular shape, and it is concluded that the semi-circular approximation seems acceptable. Deformations of material line or area elements due to the fountain flow in the flow front region are followed in time; large deformation and reorientations of the material elements are observed. Our results are compared with results in literature obtained by numerical simulations and by experimental work, and on the whole good correspondence is found

Workplace Dispute Resolution In Malaysia: The Quest For Organisational Justice

The Industrial Relations Act 1967 (IR Act 1967) is the principal piece of legislation that regulates the industrial relations system in Malaysia, in particular the relation between employers and employees and their trade unions which include mechanisms for dispute resolution. There are two types of disputes under the Act, namely trade disputes and disputes over dismissal. Of particular interest in this study are the provisions for dispute resolution through the use of conciliation under Section 18 in respect of trade disputes and Section 20 for claims for reinstatement (unfair dismissal). Trade disputes can be referred by: the employer or their trade union; or the trade union of employees, which is a party to the dispute; or by the Director General of Industrial Relations Malaysia in the public interest, when the dispute is not likely to be settled by negotiation. In addition, the Minister of Human Resources is empowered to refer any dispute for adjudication by the Industrial Court. However, for disputes over dismissal, it is the claimants who would normally institute their claims for reinstatement under Section 20 (1) of the IR Act 1967

Duration of Antibiotic Treatment for Foot Osteomyelitis in People with Diabetes

Background: The optimal antimicrobial treatment duration for diabetes-related foot osteomyelitis (DFO) currently needs to be determined. We systematically reviewed the effects of short and long treatment durations on outcomes of DFO. Methods: We performed a systematic review searching Cochrane, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, and CINAHL Plus from inception up to 19 January 2024. Two independent reviewers screened the titles and abstracts of the studies. Studies comparing short (6 weeks) treatment durations for DFO were included. The primary outcome was amputation; the secondary outcomes were remission, mortality, costs, quality of life, and adverse events. Risk of bias and GRADE were assessed. Results: We identified 2708 references, of which 2173 remained after removing duplicates. Two studies were included. Differences in methodology precluded a meta-analysis. The primary outcome, major amputation, was reported in one study, with a rate of 10% in both the intervention and comparison groups (p = 1.00), regardless of treatment duration. For the secondary outcome, remission rates, the first study reported 60% in the intervention group versus 70% in the comparison group (p = 0.50). In the second study, remission rates were 84% in the intervention group versus 78% in the comparison group (p = 0.55). Data for the outcomes mortality, costs, and quality of life were not available. Short treatment duration may lead to fewer adverse events. The risk of bias was assessed as low to moderate, and the level of evidence ranged from very low to moderate. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that for DFO, there is no difference between a shorter and more prolonged duration of antimicrobial treatment regarding amputation and remission, with potentially fewer adverse events with shorter treatment durations. However, the uncertainty stems from limited, heterogeneous studies and generally low-quality evidence marred by moderate biases, imprecision, and indirectness. More high-quality studies are needed to substantiate these findings

Interferon-Alpha Mediates Restriction of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type-1 Replication in Primary Human Macrophages at an Early Stage of Replication

Type I interferons (IFNα and β) are induced directly in response to viral infection, resulting in an antiviral state for the cell. In vitro studies have shown that IFNα is a potent inhibitor of viral replication; however, its role in HIV-1 infection is incompletely understood. In this study we describe the ability of IFNα to restrict HIV-1 infection in primary human macrophages in contrast to peripheral blood mononuclear cells and monocyte-derived dendritic cells. Inhibition to HIV-1 replication in cells pretreated with IFNα occurred at an early stage in the virus life cycle. Late viral events such as budding and subsequent rounds of infection were not affected by IFNα treatment. Analysis of early and late HIV-1 reverse transcripts and integrated proviral DNA confirmed an early post entry role for IFNα. First strand cDNA synthesis was slightly reduced but late and integrated products were severely depleted, suggesting that initiation or the nucleic acid intermediates of reverse transcription are targeted. The depletion of integrated provirus is disproportionally greater than that of viral cDNA synthesis suggesting the possibility of a least an additional later target. A role for either cellular protein APOBEC3G or tetherin in this IFNα mediated restriction has been excluded. Vpu, previously shown by others to rescue a viral budding restriction by tetherin, could not overcome this IFNα induced effect. Determining both the viral determinants and cellular proteins involved may lead to novel therapeutic approaches. Our results add to the understanding of HIV-1 restriction by IFNα

The Netherlands:From Diversity Celebration to a Colorblind Approach

This chapter offers a systematic review of sociological research in the Netherlands on the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational inequality between 1980 and 2017. Six major research traditions are identified: (1) political arithmetic; (2) racism and ethnic discrimination; (3) school characteristics; (4) school choice; (5) family background and (6) an institutional approach, with research on ‘family background’ and ‘political arithmetic’ being the most dominant research traditions. Most of the research conducted in the Netherlands focuses on explaining ‘underachievement’ in relationship to ‘Turkish’, ‘Moroccan’ and ‘Surinamese’ minority students and is characterized by the use of quantitative research methods and a more positivistic approach to social sciences. This rich body of research is written mainly in Dutch and developed in a context characterized by a close collaborative relationship between educational sociologists and the government in conducting research in this area and a shift in policy that emphasises assimilation over multiculturalism

Multi-Scale Modeling of HIV Infection in vitro and APOBEC3G-Based Anti-Retroviral Therapy

The human APOBEC3G is an innate restriction factor that, in the absence of Vif, restricts HIV-1 replication by inducing excessive deamination of cytidine residues in nascent reverse transcripts and inhibiting reverse transcription and integration. To shed light on impact of A3G-Vif interactions on HIV replication, we developed a multi-scale computational system consisting of intracellular (single-cell), cellular and extracellular (multicellular) events by using ordinary differential equations. The single-cell model describes molecular-level events within individual cells (such as production and degradation of host and viral proteins, and assembly and release of new virions), whereas the multicellular model describes the viral dynamics and multiple cycles of infection within a population of cells. We estimated the model parameters either directly from previously published experimental data or by running simulations to find the optimum values. We validated our integrated model by reproducing the results of in vitro T cell culture experiments. Crucially, both downstream effects of A3G (hypermutation and reduction of viral burst size) were necessary to replicate the experimental results in silico. We also used the model to study anti-HIV capability of several possible therapeutic strategies including: an antibody to Vif; upregulation of A3G; and mutated forms of A3G. According to our simulations, A3G with a mutated Vif binding site is predicted to be significantly more effective than other molecules at the same dose. Ultimately, we performed sensitivity analysis to identify important model parameters. The results showed that the timing of particle formation and virus release had the highest impacts on HIV replication. The model also predicted that the degradation of A3G by Vif is not a crucial step in HIV pathogenesis