A Comparison of Two Instructional Methods in Teaching an Introductory Course in Health

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of the independent study method of instruction in promoting health knowledge and health attitude change. The experimental method was compared to the traditional classroom model of instruction. A random sample of ten subjects was taken for the experimental group and matched control subjects were then selected. Control subjects were chosen based on the demographic variables of age, race, sex, academic classification and grade point average. A pretest-posttest design using two standardized instruments was employed to measure the health knowledge gain and health attitude change. Data was statistically analyzed by use of a two-tailed T-test. Findings revealed no significant difference between the independent study model of instruction and the traditional instructional model regarding health knowledge gain or attitude change. Conclusions were made regarding the findings and recommendations were offered for future research in this area

The utility of height for the Ediacaran organisms of Mistaken Point.

Ediacaran fossil communities consist of the oldest macroscopic eukaryotic organisms. Increased size (height) is hypothesized to be driven by competition for water column resources, leading to vertical/epifaunal tiering and morphological innovations such as stems. Using spatial analyses, we find no correlation between tiering and resource competition, and that stemmed organisms are not tiered. Instead, we find that height is correlated with greater offspring dispersal, demonstrating the importance of colonization potential over resource competition.Gibbs Travelling Fellowship from Newnham College, University of Cambridge Henslow Research Fellowship, Cambridge Philosophical Society

Lateral and Vertical Geochemical Dispersion into Deep Cover: 4D Landscape Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry of the Barrier Ranges

The aim of this thesis is to determine the relative contribution of lateral, as opposed to vertical, dispersion of the geochemical signals of basement-hosted mineralisation in prospective geological provinces that are mantled by transported cover. The study focuses on three areas within and on the margins of, the highly-mineralised Broken Hill Block and the Barrier Ranges in western New South Wales. Fowlers Creek overlies low-grade metasedimentary bedrock with no known mineralisation on the eastern margins of the Barrier Ranges. Stream sediments show a downstream decreasing trend in concentrations in both Pb and Zn with values decreasing by 50% over 7 km of creek. Lead and Ag values were less important along Fowlers Creek in terms of biogeochemical results, with concentrations at background levels Pb 0.27 ppm and Ag 3.04 ppb. Rather, elements of interest along Fowlers Creek included; Cs, Y, U, Co and Ni. These elements peaked at 2 distinct points along the creek, by an order of magnitude above background, at points where the local geology interrupts the flow of the stream base aquifer (SBA). Pine Creek cross-cuts the partially exposed Pinnacles Pb-Zn-Ag mine. Stream sediment samples contain elevated concentrations of Pb, Zn and Ag (Pb 4.5x and Ag 3.5x background values observed along Fowlers and Umberumberka Creeks) for at least 4.5 km downstream of mineralisation. River red gum (RRG) leaves from trees within the creek provided the clearest delineation of the underlying mineralisation. Lead and Ag concentrations steadily increase toward mineralisation and reach concentrations 2.5 orders of magnitude above background immediately above mineralisation. Leaf samples collected after a severe El Niño event where the previous year’s rainfall was 188 mm, had Pb and Ag concentrations 5 -10 times greater than samples from the same trees collected after a La Niña event where the previous year’s rainfall was 605 mm. These results demonstrate that changes in available water plays on the SBA and the significant role it plays in diluting the resulting metal concentration within the trees and the importance of temporal variation. Umberumberka Creek is underlain by high-grade metamorphic rocks with numerous small mineral occurrences. Umberumberka Creek discharges at the western margin of the Broken Hill Block as an alluvial fan system which extends at least 10 km onto the Mundi Mundi Plain. This area is underlain by prospective bedrock but is buried by up to 150 m of transported sediments. On the plains, stream sediment results reflected a catchment average that was carried 10 km onto the plains before values decreased. Silver results on the plains had a mean value of 30 ppb and are comparable to soil survey results obtained by an exploration company over an area of Pb-Ag-Zn mineralisation identified beneath 150+ m of cover, situated on the fan floodout boundaries of Umberumberka Creek. The biogeochemical results for Umberumberka Creek fall within the same range of values as Fowlers creek, suggesting that these values are the natural background range for RRG. Results from both the stream sediments and the RRG suggest that the soil survey results obtained on the plains most likely reflect lateral dispersion from the Broken Hill Block rather than a vertical signal from below. For the Broken Hill Block lateral dispersion is kilometric (at least 10 km) in creeks and distributive depositional systems. The signal is diluted due to catchment averaging but can still be elevated above background thus obscuring potential vertically transported signal from bedrock. The RRG provide a mechanism to see vertically down to the basement at depths of 10s of meters (Pine Creek and to an extent along Fowlers Creek) but don’t give a signal when the depth to the source is 100s of meters. For the exploration industry to be successful in areas of thick transported cover it becomes ever more important to step back from there anomalies and see where they sit within the bigger landscape picture and temporally within the exploration programThesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Physical Sciences, 201

Revealing rangeomorph species characters using spatial analyses

Rangeomorphs dominate the Ediacaran Avalonian macrofossil assemblages of Charnwood Forest, UK (~562Ma). However, their unfamiliar fractal architecture makes distinguishing phylogenetically reliable characters from intraspecific features difficult. Fortunately, spatial analysis of large in-situ populations offers an independent means of assessing their taxonomy. Populations of a single biological species are likely to exhibit similar spatial distributions due to their shared responses to the biological and ecological processes acting upon them. As such, spatial analyses can be used to interrogate which are the most taxonomically deductive characters in similar species. We used Random Labelling Analyses to investigate the presence/absence of characters of Primocandelabrum boyntoni, P. aethelfalaedia and P. aelfwynnia on the North Quarry ’B’ surface. The resultant spatial distributions were compared to observed characters using goodness-of-fit tests to determine which characters were associated with unique populations, and which were found across multiple populations. We found that P. boyntoni and P. aelfwynnia had statistically indistinguishable character distributions, suggesting that they represent a single biological species, and that they exhibited significantly different distributions to P. aethelfalaedia, suggesting that there are two (rather than three) Primocandelabrum species present on the B surface. Furthermore, we found that the distribution of Concealed versus Unconcealed 1st order branches across all specimens exhibited significantly different, density-dependant behaviour, with Unconcealed branching occurring in areas of higher density populations, and Concealed branching occurring in the lower Primocandelabrum density areas. We speculate that unconcealed branches may have been a response to the reduced availability of resources in higher density areas, implying rangeomorphs were capable of ecophenotypic responses.EGM has been supported by the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number NE/P002412/1], Gibbs Travelling Fellowship from Newnham College, Cambridge and a Henslow Research Fellowship from Cambridge Philosophical Society. Phil Vixseboxse is thanked for his help in producing the RTIs. CGK and PRW were funded by National Environment Research Council grant NE/1005927/1. CGK also acknowledges a Research Studentship funded by the Cambridge Philosophical Society

Defect reduction in gallium nitride using cantilever epitaxy.

Cantilever epitaxy (CE) has been developed to produce GaN on sapphire with low dislocation densities as needed for improved devices. The basic mechanism of seeding growth on sapphire mesas and lateral growth of cantilevers until they coalesce has been modified with an initial growth step at 950 C. This step produces a gable with (11{bar 2}2) facets over the mesas, which turns threading dislocations from vertical to horizontal in order to reduce the local density above mesas. This technique has produced material with densities as low as 2-3x10{sup 7}/cm{sup 2} averaged across extended areas of GaN on sapphire, as determined with AFM, TEM and cathodoluminescence (CL). This density is about two orders of magnitude below that of conventional planar growths; these improvements suggest that locating wide-area devices across both cantilever and mesa regions is possible. However, the first implementation of this technique also produced a new defect: cracks at cantilever coalescences with associated arrays of lateral dislocations. These defects have been labeled 'dark-block defects' because they are non-radiative and appear as dark rectangles in CL images. Material has been grown that does not have dark-block defects. Examination of the evolution of the cantilever films for many growths, both partial and complete, indicates that producing a film without these defects requires careful control of growth conditions and crystal morphology at multiple steps. Their elimination enhances optical emission and uniformity over large (mm) size areas

A Snapshot of Online Wildlife Trade : Australian e-commerce trade of native and non-native pets

Funding This project was funded by the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions (Project PO1-I-001). Adam Toomes was additionally supported by the FJ Sandoz PhD Scholarship. Pablo GarcíaDíaz was funded by NERC grants NE/S011641/1 (Newton LATAM programme) and 2022GCBCCONTAIN.Peer reviewedPublisher PD