Review of early childhood parenting, education and health intervention programs for Indigenous children and families in Australia

This paper provides a review of prevention and early intervention research literature that is focused on improving outcomes for Australian Indigenous children in the early childhood years. For the purposes of this paper, early childhood is defined as the years from conception to school entry. The included literature was drawn from 3 key areas of early childhood research: parenting, early childhood education, and early childhood health. Aims One aim of this paper is to bring together up-to-date information about the range of evaluated intervention programs for Indigenous children and their families, where the information is targeted at the early childhood years. A second aim is to review research on the programs’ effectiveness in bringing about positive change in the lives of Indigenous children and their parents. The third and primary aim of the paper is to assess the quality of published or publicly available research and evaluation of early intervention programs for Indigenous children and families in Australia: the intent is to assist practitioners and policy makers in their choice of intervention programs for use in Indigenous communities. In doing so, the paper omits discussion of programs that have not yet been evaluated or whose evaluations are not publicly available. Such programs may well be as effective, or even more effective, than those reviewed here. It also needs to be kept in mind that using the quality of research design as a primary criterion for program adoption can be problematic in Australia, where research funding is difficult to obtain and often inadequate to conduct the randomised controlled trials and longitudinal research designs that are the ‘gold standard’ for a high-quality evidence base

The cost of applying current helicopter external noise reduction methods while maintaining realistic vehicle performance

Analytical methods were developed and/or adopted for calculating helicopter component noise, and these methods were incorporated into a unified total vehicle noise calculation model. Analytical methods were also developed for calculating the effects of noise reduction methodology on helicopter design, performance, and cost. These methods were used to calculate changes in noise, design, performance, and cost due to the incorporation of engine and main rotor noise reduction methods. All noise reduction techniques were evaluated in the context of an established mission performance criterion which included consideration of hovering ceiling, forward flight range/speed/payload, and rotor stall margin. The results indicate that small, but meaningful, reductions in helicopter noise can be obtained by treating the turbine engine exhaust duct. Furthermore, these reductions do not result in excessive life cycle cost penalties. Currently available main rotor noise reduction methodology, however, is shown to be inadequate and excessively costly

An Aspirations-led Capabilities Approach to Women’s Career Pathways in Quantity Surveying

This thesis explores the career experiences of female quantity surveyors (QSs) in the UK construction industry and examines how they can pursue their aspirations within the structure and the culture of its organisations. There is a lack of research about the careers of female QSs, although there is a lot that focuses on women in the construction industry generally. Research about women’s careers in construction has focused on their underachievement and lack of career success. However, these are based on traditional career patterns with an expectation of upwards progression. In using the Capabilities Approach (CA) of Amartya Sen, the research enables understanding of how women can pursue their aspirations and achieve their own definitions of career success. A capability set for female QSs was established, combinations of capabilities within the set enable pursuit of any stated aspiration. A mixed methods research methodology was adopted, comprising interviews with twenty-seven female QSs working for Network Rail, supplemented by a questionnaire survey of female QSs throughout the wider construction industry. Structural and cultural enablers and constraints were examined by means of interviews with fourteen representatives from a range of construction organisations. The findings build on and contribute to existing knowledge about women in the construction industry. A key finding is the identification of three career pathways. However, female QSs’ aspirations mean that their pathways are not clearly determined, and trajectories are not necessarily linear. For female QSs, career success is having the ability to choose the aspirations they pursue and to change and adapt as circumstances dictate. The research reflects that organisations can either enable or constrain the pursuit of aspirations. Although there are a range of organisations that female QSs can work for, their size and structure are significant in career development and, while many organisations have comprehensive equality policies, their implementation by line managers varies and gender stereotyped assumptions about female QSs’ careers remain. This research also contributes to existing career theory, particularly why a ‘one size fits all’ mechanism of evaluating career trajectories and career success is unsatisfactory. It also establishes that aspirations and individual definitions of career success are instrumental in determining career pathways where previously only organisational factors have been considered

Visualizing experience: using creative research methods with members of sexual and gender communities

This chapter argues that visual methods may be particularly appropriate for the study of non- heteronormative sexualities and genders, particularly the more marginal identities and practices which have tended to be pathologised in, and excluded from, past research. We focus here on three of these: bisexuality (attraction to more than one gender, or regardless of gender), trans (moving away from the gender which was assigned at birth), and polyamory (having multiple sexual and/or intimate relationships). Of course trans people may be heterosexual, or indeed of any sexuality, but have tended to be marginalised in many of the same ways as people from non-heterosexual sexualities, and are consequently included in this chapter for that reason. First we briefly overview the history of qualitative research on non-heterosexual sexualities and trans, arguing that qualitative methods, per se, do not prevent researchers from forming limiting understandings and problematic generalisations about such groups. Then we present an alternative to conventional interview/focus group discussion research involving the use of visual methods. We summarise key reasons why this may be particularly appropriate to the exploration of those in marginalised sexualities, genders and relationship forms, and then present three examples, based in our own research, of the ways in which such research provided data which confounded simple celebratory or critical conclusions about people in these communities. Finally, we summarise some methodological considerations which are of value to those considering the use of visual methods in their own research

Voltage and current spectra for matrix power converters

Matrix power converters are used for transforming one alternating-current power supply to another, with different peak voltage and frequency. There are three input lines, with sinusoidally varying voltages which are 120◦ out of phase one from another, and the output is to be delivered as a similar three-phase supply. The matrix converter switches rapidly, to connect each output line in sequence to each of the input lines in an attempt to synthesize the prescribed output voltages. The switching is carried out at high frequency and it is of practical importance to know the frequency spectra of the output voltages and of the input and output currents. We determine in this paper these spectra using a new method, which has significant advantages over the prior default method (a multiple Fourier series technique), leading to a considerably more direct calculation. In particular, the determination of the input current spectrum is feasible here, whereas it would be a significantly more daunting procedure using the prior method instead