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Development of a novel behavioral sleep medicine education workshop designed to increase trainee psychologists’ knowledge and skills in insomnia management

- Meaklim, Hailey, Rehm, Imogen, Junge, Moira, Monfries, Melissa, Kennedy, Gerard, Bucks, Romola, Meltzer, Lisa, Jackson, Melinda

  • Authors: Meaklim, Hailey , Rehm, Imogen , Junge, Moira , Monfries, Melissa , Kennedy, Gerard , Bucks, Romola , Meltzer, Lisa , Jackson, Melinda
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Behavioral Sleep Medicine Vol. 21, no. 6 (2023), p. 787-801
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  • Description: Objectives: Despite the clear influence of poor sleep on mental health, sleep education has been neglected in psychology training programs. Here, we develop a novel behavioral sleep medicine (BSM) education workshop, the Sleep Psychology Workshop, designed for integration within graduate psychology programs. We also examined the potential efficacy and acceptability of the workshop to upskill trainee psychologists in sleep and insomnia management. Methods: The Sleep Psychology Workshop was developed using a modified Delphi Method. Eleven trainee psychologists completing their Master of Psychology degrees (90% female, 24.4 ± 1.6 years old) attended the workshop, delivered as three, two-hour lectures (total of six hours). Sleep knowledge, attitudes, and practice assessments were completed pre-and post-intervention using the GradPsyKAPS Questionnaire. A focus group and 6-month follow-up survey captured feedback and qualitative data. Results: Trainees’ sleep knowledge quiz scores (% correct) increased from 60% to 79% pre- to post-workshop (p =.002). Trainees’ self-efficacy to use common sleep-related assessment instruments and empirically supported interventions to manage sleep disturbances increased, along with their confidence to manage insomnia (all p < .02). Participant feedback was positive, with 91% of trainees rating the workshop as “excellent” and qualitative data highlighting trainees developing practical skills in BSM. Six months post-intervention, 100% of trainees endorsed routinely asking their clients about sleep, with 82% reporting improvements in their own sleep. Conclusions: The Sleep Psychology Workshop is a potentially effective and acceptable introductory BSM education program for trainee psychologists, ready for integration within the graduate psychology curriculum. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Development of scaled boundary finite element method for geotechnical and mining engineering

- Wijesinghe, Dakshith

  • Authors: Wijesinghe, Dakshith
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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  • Description: Numerical methods are a mature field of research and have become an increasingly important tool in mining and geotechnical engineering design practices. Although the advantages of numerical methods in aiding the analysis and solving practical engineering problems have been widely accepted and recognised, there is still a gap for further improvements. One such area is the challenge to consider the complexities of geology and the lack of stratigraphic information in the numerical model. Failure to include geological complexities may lead to overestimating the analysis parameters, such as the safety factor. These difficulties mainly manifest in the form of complex mesh generation due to the need to integrate spatial variable material parameters, capturing complex geological features, requirement of additional meshing algorithms, high human involvement, and long processing time. The scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM) is a semi-analytical method that has potential to address these types of problems. This thesis focuses on developing the SBFEM to address these challenges so that complex geotechnical and mining engineering can be better modelled. Optimisation problems in geotechnical and mining engineering are also considered by developing a combined SBFEM-genetic algorithm framework for the design and rehabilitation of slopes. To begin with, an image-based mesh generation procedure is developed to automatically integrate the spatially variable material parameters into a computational mesh. The procedure allows the input of large data sets of geological and geometrical information in image format, and the mapping procedure enables the concatenation of any number of material parameters into a single computational mesh. The scaled boundary finite element formulation is used to discretise the governing equations of elasto-plasticity considering a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, which is common in soils. A shear strength reduction technique is implemented to analyse the stability of slopes in the form of an output Factor of Safety. The developed method is shown to allow routine changes in the operation of the slopes to consider geometric changes, such as backfilling, excavation and updates to geological sublets, by simply editing the digital image inputs. To extend the SBFEM to more complex geotechnical and mining engineering applications, a formulation that considers the coupled effect of pore pressure and nonlinear deformation of the soil is developed. The image-based mesh generation procedure is incorporated to integrate the geological complexities, which include heterogeneity of strate and phreatic surfaces. The developed technique is applied to study complex case studies of a tailings dam embankment construction and a coal slope rehabilitation project with a construction period. The research also considers geometric optimisation problems within the context of geotechnical and mining engineering applications. Geometric optimisation of slopes such as those in open cut mines is important to reduce the overhead operational cost involved in construction, excavation and rehabilitation backfilling, while ensuring stability at an acceptable level. This is achieved by developing a unified platform combining genetic algorithm (GA) with scaled boundary finite element formulations and image-based meshing procedures. Since the image-based mesh generation procedure is an automatic process, it enables automation of the optimisation, which is an iterative proceeding. The capabilities of this technique are demonstrated by optimising the geometric parameters of complex slopes for given safety factors and rehabilitation geometries for given safety factors during a given construction period. The image-based SBFEM analysis platform is further developed to consider geological uncertainty, such as stratigraphic interfaces and phreatic surface fluctuations, so that their effect on slope stability can be studied. The Brownian bridge statistic technique is integrated into the pre-processing module to produce these instances reflecting the ranii dom fluctuations between two intervals and generate possible geological and hydrological cross-sections. This allows unknown geological stratigraphic interface fluctuation due to a lack of sublet information to be considered. The scaled boundary finite element formulations developed in the earlier parts of this thesis are used to discretise each generated profile and analysis probabilistically. Since the mesh generation method is fully automatic, this probabilistic analysis procedure enables to analyse of a large number of possible variations and their effect on geotechnical structures with limited human intervention. Few parametric studies were conducted on slopes to study the impact of stratigraphic and phreatic surface fluctuation on the probability of failure. Finally, the hydraulic fracture commonly seen in geotechnical and mining engineering applications is considered. The phase field has the potential to model complex fracture mechanisms including crack nucleation, branching and coalescence. However, it requires a very fine mesh in order to accurately regularise the energy resulting from the creation of new crack faces. This leads to longer processing time and high computational requirements. Moreover, fracture propagation modelling with phase field models requires equilibrium iterations and hence repetitive calculation of element matrices. This research develops a scaled boundary finite element formulation with phase field model to address hydraulic fracture problems in fully-saturated poro-elastic media. Adaptive meshing refinement based on quadtree meshes is applied. This restricts the fine mesh requirement to only the regions where damage is present and avoids the need for a very fine mesh throughout the structure. Further, leveraging from the unique number of patterns in a hierarchical mesh, an appropriate scaling technique is applied to transform the relevant matrices and vectors to the physical cell in the mesh. This avoids the need for repetitive calculations during the equilibrium iterations. These features increase the efficiency of fracture modelling while reducing the computational requirement. The benchmark problems and complex fracture network problems are provided to highlight the advantage of the method.
  • Description: Doctor of Philosophy

Diatom index of Galela Lake, Halmahera, Indonesia in relation to human activities

- Soeprobowati, Tri, Saraswati, Tyas, Jumari, Jumari, Sari, Kenanga, Gell, Peter

  • Authors: Soeprobowati, Tri , Saraswati, Tyas , Jumari, Jumari , Sari, Kenanga , Gell, Peter
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology Vol. 20, no. 7 (2023), p. 7707-7722
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  • Description: Diatoms, silicious microalgae, have been used successfully as bioindicators of water quality assessment in aquatic ecosystems. Diatoms have a degree of tolerance to the water quality and some diatoms are a good indicator for several water quality variables. Diatom indices have been developed to assess river water quality, mostly in Europe. This study aims to apply diatom indices developed in Europe for the tropical lake of Galela adjacent to residential areas influenced by human activities. Galela Lake is one of the biggest lakes in Halmahera Utara, Indonesia with its main functions being domestic water supply, irrigation, fisheries, and tourism. Human activities have impacted the area around the lake. The 90-cm and 85-cm long sediment cores were collected using a piston corer from Site 1 and 2, respectively. Sediment samples were sliced every 5 cm, separated from sediment by adding HCl and H2O2. The diatom valves were identified under a microscope with 1,000 × magnification. The water quality status of each layer was inferred with diatom indices performed using OMNIDIA software version 6.0. Forty-nine and 63 diatoms species were identified from Site 1 and Site 2, respectively. The number of species and diversity of diatoms was higher in the lower layers than those in the upper layers. The preserved diatom assemblages reflect past physical and chemical water quality. Generic Diatom Index and Specific Pollution Sensitivity Index provided the best evidence for change in Galela Lake—they integrated 70–100% of the diatom taxa from the sediment core samples. © 2022, The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Iranian Society of Environmentalists (IRSEN) and Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University.

Digital data and practice change: the impact of innovative web portals on user knowledge building and decision-making processes

- Murphy, Angela, Ollerenshaw, Alison

  • Authors: Murphy, Angela , Ollerenshaw, Alison
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Online Information Review Vol. 47, no. 4 (2023), p. 732-748
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  • Description: Purpose: The impact of innovative web portals on users, from access to application, is gaining interest as the global call for increased data availability gains momentum. This study reports on the perceptions of portal end users about usage and access to digital data across a range of fields of practice. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected and analysed from interviews (n = 132) and email feedback (n = 235) from end users of interoperable spatial knowledge web portals. Findings: Data reveal that users attribute importance to ease of access and applicability, and to confidence and trust in data. The acquisition of data assists with reducing knowledge silos, facilitates knowledge sharing and decision-making. Digital data portals enable the building of stronger collaborations between different groups of individuals and communities leading to improved outcomes and more positive developments across varied discipline and practice areas. Practical implications: Recommendations for developing online portals to optimise knowledge transfer and associated benefits, for users, are offered. Originality/value: By collecting extensive qualitative data drawn from the experiences of end users of digital data portals, this paper provides new insights, thereby addressing a knowledge gap in the published literature about the use of technology uptake and the application of online data for practice and industry benefit. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Distributed formation trajectory planning for multi-vehicle systems

- Nguyen, Binh, Nghiem, Truong, Nguyen, Linh, Nguyen, Tung, La, Hung, Sookhak, Mehdi, Nguyen, Thang

  • Authors: Nguyen, Binh , Nghiem, Truong , Nguyen, Linh , Nguyen, Tung , La, Hung , Sookhak, Mehdi , Nguyen, Thang
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: 2023 American Control Conference, ACC 2023 Vol. 2023-May, p. 1325-1330
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  • Description: This paper addresses the problem of distributed formation trajectory planning for multi-vehicle systems with collision avoidance among vehicles. Unlike some previous distributed formation trajectory planning methods, our proposed approach offers great flexibility in handling computational tasks for each vehicle when the global formation of all the vehicles changes. It affords the system the ability to adapt to the computational capabilities of the vehicles. Furthermore, global formation constraints can be handled at any selected vehicles. Thus, any formation change can be effectively updated without recomputing all local formations at all the vehicles. To guarantee the above features, we first formulate a dynamic consensus-based optimization problem to achieve desired formations while guaranteeing collision avoidance among vehicles. Then, the optimization problem is effectively solved by ADMM-based or alternating projection-based algorithms, which are also presented. Theoretical analysis is provided not only to ensure the convergence of our method but also to show that the proposed algorithm can surely be implemented in a fully distributed manner. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by a numerical example of a 9-vehicle system. © 2023 American Automatic Control Council.

Distribution of heavy metals in the sediments of the Gippsland Lakes, Victoria, Australia : implications for management

- Trewarn, Adam

  • Authors: Trewarn, Adam
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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  • Description: Sediments are the ultimate repository of most contaminants that enter Australia's waterways; therefore, it is appropriate that regulatory attention addresses the risks posed by sediment contaminants. The release of elevated levels of heavy metals into the environment is a common by-product of our industrialised way of life. This problem continues to increase throughout the industrial age. We are now only beginning to understand the actual long-term burden that must be managed. Globally, estuaries are a critical focal point for civilisation and development. Owing to their strategic location and abundant resources, they have been utilised as trade hubs and industrial centres, and are often subject to intense industrial and urban development. Because estuaries accommodate large volumes of fine-grained sediments, their capacity to trap and absorb metal pollutants qualifies them as important sinks and receptacles for terrestrial, atmospheric, and oceanic metal input. Estuaries also provide important environmental services. Their protective conditions harbour a diverse range of biota, and the biogeochemical processes they accommodate play a key role in nutrient cycling and metal sequestration. However, contamination of estuaries with heavy metals is an ongoing issue, particularly as they bioaccumulate and transfer from sediments to aquatic organisms through the food chain. The Gippsland Lakes catchment has a 150-year history of a range of industrial activities, including gold and other metal mining, large open-cut brown coal mines and associated coalfired power stations, powering much of the state of Victoria, plantation forests and associated timber and paper mills, and extensive agriculture, including intensive dairy. Many of these activities are potential sources of contamination, particularly in bygone times, when environmental awareness and sound practices were less prevalent. The issue of highly elevated levels of heavy metal contaminants present within the Gippsland Lake sediments was first identified over 35 years ago. This comprehensive study looks to re-evaluate the modern surface sediments from across the Gippsland Lakes to determine, (i) If previously identified elevated Hg levels are still present or can be replicated (ii) If there are other metal contaminants that may warrant further attention, (iii) If possible, contamination is current, historical or a prolonged event (iv) If there are any natural or anthropogenic influences affecting metal concentrations within the sediments (v) What is the impact of heavy metal pollution across the Gippsland Lakes? Surficial grab and consolidated core sediment samples were collected over a period between 2015-2018 from thirteen defined locations across the Gippsland Lakes, representing the major geomorphological features of the area (e.g. major river mouths and lakes). Total metal analysis, sediment grain size, and XRF high-resolution core scanning provided insight into the overall distribution and possible risks of bulk and heavy metals present in the Gippsland Lakes sediment. Elevated concentrations of Cr, Ni, As, Cu, and Hg were found throughout the study area, exceeding the lower SQG trigger values across multiple depths and locations. Of the numerous metals initially investigated (Cr, Ni, Cu, As, Cd, Hg, and Pb) within the surface and core sediments, the findings of this study reiterated that the greatest concern was the degree of contamination and distribution of elevated levels of Hg in the western regions of the Gippsland Lakes. In addition, it highlighted the risks associated with elevated levels of Cr, Ni, and Cu. Cr and Ni have been identified at elevated levels throughout most of the western locations, Lake Victoria and Lake King, while isolated Cu is present at Paynesville. Further analysis into the metals and the interactions with the environment has defined three separate influences contributing to the elevated concentrations of heavy metals present across the study area, (i) Natural sources and cycling (Cr, Ni, and As): Concentrations of Cr, Ni, and As are likely a result of natural sources from the surrounding catchment, rather than a specific anthropogenically derived source. (i) Diffuse anthropogenic sources (Hg): The calculated pollution indices showed little to no natural influence on Hg concentrations; therefore, Hg concentrations were deemed highly likely a result of diffuse anthropogenic origin. (ii) Point source (Cu): Concentrations of Cu were generally very low throughout the study, except at a single location in an urbanised area adjacent to a commercial boatyard. This project has provided the most recent and comprehensive assessment of the presence, distribution, and leading influences on heavy metals present in the Gippsland Lakes, forming a strong foundation for informed management of the area into the future.
  • Description: Doctor of Philosophy

Divergent molecular networks program functionally distinct CD8+skin-resident memory T cells

- Park, Simone, Christo, Susan, Wells, Alexandria, Gandolfo, Luke, Zaid, Ali, Alexandre, Yannick, Burn, Thomas, Schröder, Jan, Collins, Nicholas, Han, Seong-Ji, Guillaume, Stephane, Evrard, Maximilien, Castellucci, Clara, Davies, Brooke, Osman, Maleika, Obers, Andreas, McDonald, Keely, Wang, Huimeng, Mueller, Scott, Kannourakis, George, Berzins, Stuart, Mielke, Lisa, Carbone, Francis, Kallies, Axel, Speed, Terence, Belkaid, Yasmine, MacKay, Laura

Do the qualifications of vocational teachers make a difference to their teaching?

- Smith, Erica, Tuck, Jacqueline

  • Authors: Smith, Erica , Tuck, Jacqueline
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Research in Post-Compulsory Education Vol. 28, no. 1 (2023), p. 1-25
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  • Description: A survey of over 500 teachers and trainers in the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector was carried out to examine whether their teaching practices and approaches varied with their qualification levels. The survey, carried out with teachers and trainers from different types of training providers–public and private–formed a major part of a larger research project on the topic. The project was carried out because of an overall decline in the qualification levels of the VET teaching workforce over a 20-year period, and national debate on the appropriate qualification level. Analysis of the survey results showed that those with pedagogical qualifications above the regulatory minimum were more confident overall, and were more able to deal with the demands of different teaching contexts and of diverse learner groups. Teachers with higher level qualifications also reported, in qualitative questions, specific gains from their qualifications. They were also more likely to undertake professional development, challenging an often-cited view that professional development activities can compensate for lower qualification levels. The findings have implications for policy development in Australia and elsewhere. © 2023 Association for Research in Post-Compulsory Education.

Dynamic trust boundary identification for the secure communications of the entities via 6G

- Basri, Rabeya, Karmakar, Gour, Kamruzzaman, Joarder, Newaz, S. H. Shah, Nguyen, Linh, Usman, Muhammad

  • Authors: Basri, Rabeya , Karmakar, Gour , Kamruzzaman, Joarder , Newaz, S. H. Shah , Nguyen, Linh , Usman, Muhammad
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: 18th International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience (ISPEC), 24-25 August 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark, International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience: 18th International Conference, ISPEC 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 24–25, 2023, Proceedings Vol. 14341, p. 194-208
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  • Description: 6G is more likely prone to a range of known and unknown cyber-attacks because of its highly distributive nature. Current literature and research prove that a trust boundary can be used as a security door (e.g., gateway/firewall) to validate entities and applications attempting to access 6G networks. Trust boundaries allow these entities to connect or work with entities of other trust boundaries via 6G by dynamically monitoring their interactions, behaviors, and data transmissions. The importance of trust boundaries in security protection mechanisms demands a dynamic multi-trust boundary identification. There exists an automatic trust boundary identification for IoT data. However, it is a binary trust boundary classification and the dataset used in the approach is not suitable for dynamic trust boundary identification. Motivated by these facts, to provide automatic security protection for entities in 6G, in this paper, we propose a mechanism to identify dynamic and multiple trust boundaries based on trust values and geographical location coordinates of 6G communication entities. Our proposed mechanism uses unsupervised clustering and splitting and merging techniques. The experimental results show that entities can dynamically change their boundary location if their trust values and locations change over time. We also analyze the trust boundary identification accuracy in terms of our defined two performance metrics, i.e., trust consistency and the degree of gateway coverage. The proposed scheme allows us to distinguish between entities and control their access to the 6G network based on their trust levels to ensure secure and resilient communication.

Dynamics of transforming growth factor

- Wu, Siqi, Luwor, Rodney, Zhu, Hong-Jian

EAGLE : contrastive learning for efficient graph anomaly detection

- Ren, Jing, Hou, Mingliang, Liu, Zhixuan, Bai, Xiaomei

  • Authors: Ren, Jing , Hou, Mingliang , Liu, Zhixuan , Bai, Xiaomei
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Intelligent Systems Vol. 38, no. 2 (2023), p. 55-63
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  • Description: Graph anomaly detection is a popular and vital task in various real-world scenarios, which has been studied for several decades. Recently, many studies extending deep learning-based methods have shown preferable performance on graph anomaly detection. However, existing methods lack efficiency that is definitely necessary for embedded devices. Toward this end, we propose an Efficient Anomaly detection model on heterogeneous Graphs via contrastive LEarning (EAGLE) by contrasting abnormal nodes with normal ones in terms of their distances to the local context. The proposed method first samples instance pairs on meta-path level for contrastive learning. Then, a Graph AutoEncoder-based model is applied to learn informative node embeddings in an unsupervised way, which will be further combined with the discriminator to predict the anomaly scores of nodes. Experimental results show that EAGLE outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on three heterogeneous network datasets. © 2001-2011 IEEE.

Edge connectivity of simplicial polytopes

- Pilaud, Vincent, Pineda-Villavicencio, Guillermo, Ugon, Julien

  • Authors: Pilaud, Vincent , Pineda-Villavicencio, Guillermo , Ugon, Julien
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: European Journal of Combinatorics Vol. 113, no. (2023), p.
  • Relation: https://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP180100602
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  • Description: We show that the graph of a simplicial polytope of dimension d ≥ 3 has no nontrivial minimum edge cut with fewer than d(d+1)/2 edges, hence the graph is min{δ,d(d+1)/2}-edgeconnected where δ denotes the minimum degree. When d = 3, this implies that every minimum edge cut in a plane triangulation is trivial. When d ≥ 4, we construct a simplicial d-polytope whose graph has a nontrivial minimum edge cut of cardinality d(d + 1)/2, proving that the aforementioned result is best possible.
  • Description: We show that the graph of a simplicial polytope of dimension d

Education leads to increased adherence to the ‘Australian Competency Standards for Occupational Therapy Driver Assessors’

- Fields, Sally, Unsworth, Carolyn, Harreveld, Bobby

  • Authors: Fields, Sally , Unsworth, Carolyn , Harreveld, Bobby
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy Vol. 30, no. 6 (2023), p. 837-852
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  • Description: Background: Occupational therapy competency standards provide an evidence-base to inform clinical best practice, however it is not known whether education about competency standards will increase occupational therapists’ adherence to their use. Aims/objectives: To investigate if education about the ‘Australian Competency Standards for Occupational Therapy Driver Assessors’ leads to increased adherence to the competency standards in the clinical practice of occupational therapy driver assessors. Materials and methods: A mixed methods multiple case study design was used to evaluate 5 occupational therapy driver assessors’ adherence to the competency standards. An audit of 25 client files and interviews were conducted to evaluate practice against the competency standards prior to an education session, followed by an audit of a further 25 files, interview and feedback after education. Results: Qualitative and quantitative analyses suggest that education about the ‘Australian Competency Standards for Occupational Therapy Driver Assessors’ was associated with increased adherence to the competency standards in clinical practice. The results also support the use of competency standards in clinical practice. Conclusions and significance: Competency standards can be used to inform and guide clinical practice, and individualised education and feedback of practice against the competency standards can increase occupational therapists’ adherence to these standards. © 2022 Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy Foundation.

Effect of wood/binder ratio, slag/binder ratio, and alkaline dosage on the compressive strength of wood-geopolymer composites

- Gigar, Firensenay, Khennane, Amar, Liow, Jong-leng, Tekle, Biruk

  • Authors: Gigar, Firensenay , Khennane, Amar , Liow, Jong-leng , Tekle, Biruk
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: International Symposium of the International Federation for Structural Concrete, fib Symposium 2023, Istanbul, 5-7 June 2023, Building for the Future: Durable, Sustainable, Resilient: Vol. 349 LNCE, p. 658-667
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  • Description: The impact of building construction on the environment is significant. Occupying large land areas (urban footprint), buildings are one of the most important consumers of resources and raw materials. They are responsible for 38% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, incorporating sustainability and resilience into all aspects of urban infrastructure has become necessary. To curb emissions, part of the answer lies in the use of construction and building materials made from recycled materials. Bio-sourced materials, like wood chips, combined with a cementitious matrix, offer an alternative to conventional materials. They are sustainable, lightweight, and have good thermal insulation. However, because of their inferior mechanical strength, they have limited use as load-bearing structural parts. Furthermore, the use of Portland cement as a binder still poses some challenges due to its high carbon footprint. This study investigates the potential of wood-geopolymer composites for better mechanical performance and environmental sustainability. A 6x2x2x2 fractional factorial-based experimental design was used to simultaneously study the effect of slag content, wood binder ratio, and alkaline on the compressive strength of the wood-geopolymer composite. The experiments showed encouraging results for developing ambient cured wood geopolymer composites. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Effective multitask deep learning for IoT malware detection and identification using behavioral traffic analysis

- Ali, Sajid, Abusabha, Omar, Ali, Farman, Imran, Muhammad, Abuhmed, Tamer

  • Authors: Ali, Sajid , Abusabha, Omar , Ali, Farman , Imran, Muhammad , Abuhmed, Tamer
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management Vol. 20, no. 2 (2023), p. 1199-1209
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  • Description: Despite the benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT), the growing influx of IoT-specific malware coordinating large-scale cyberattacks via infected IoT devices has created a substantial threat to the Internet ecosystem. Assessing IoT systems' security and developing mitigation measures to prevent the spread of IoT malware is therefore critical. Furthermore, for training and testing the fidelity of cyber security-based Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) approaches, the collection and exploration of information from multiple sources from the IoT are crucial. In this regard, we propose a multitask DL model for detecting IoT malware. Our proposed Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) based model efficiently performs two tasks: 1) determination of whether the provided traffic is benign or malicious, and 2) determination of the malware type for identifying malicious network traffic. We used large-scale traffic data of 145. pcap files of benign and malicious traffic collected from 18 different IoT devices. We performed a time-series analysis on the packets of traffic flows, which were then used to train the proposed model. The features extracted from the dataset were categorized into three modalities: flow-related, traffic flag-related, and packet payload-related features. A feature selection approach was employed at the feature and modality levels, and the best modalities and features were utilized for performance enhancement. For tasks 1 and 2 and multitask classification, the flow-related and flag-related modalities showed the best testing accuracies of 92.63%, 88.45%, and 95.83%, respectively. © 2004-2012 IEEE.

Effects of participant's choice of different digital interventions on outcomes for binge-spectrum eating disorders : a pilot doubly randomized preference trial

- Linardon, Jake, Shatte, Adrian, Messer, Mariel, McClure, Zoe, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Matthew

  • Authors: Linardon, Jake , Shatte, Adrian , Messer, Mariel , McClure, Zoe , Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Matthew
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Behavior Therapy Vol. 54, no. 2 (2023), p. 303-314
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  • Description: It is unclear whether offering individuals a choice between different digital intervention programs affects treatment outcomes. To generate initial insights, we conducted a pilot doubly randomized preference trial to test whether offering individuals with binge-spectrum eating disorder a choice between two digital interventions is causally linked with superior outcomes than random assignment to these interventions. Participants with recurrent binge eating were randomized to either a choice (n = 77) or no-choice (n = 78) group. Those in the choice group could choose one of the two digital programs, while those in the no-choice group were assigned a program at random. The two digital interventions (a broad and a focused program) took 4 weeks to complete, were based on cognitive-behavioral principles and have demonstrated comparable efficacy, but differ in scope, content, and targeted change mechanisms. Most participants (79%) allocated to the choice condition chose the broad program. While both groups experienced improvements in primary (Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire global scores and number of binge eating episodes over the past month) and secondary outcomes (dietary restraint, body image concerns, etc.), no significant between-group differences were observed. The two groups did not differ on dropout rates, nor on most indices of intervention engagement. Findings provide preliminary insights towards the role of client preferences in digital mental health interventions for eating disorders. Client preferences may not determine outcomes when digital interventions are based on similar underlying principles, although larger trials are needed to confirm this. © 2023

Effects of physical training on change of direction performance : a systematic review with meta-analysis

- Carvajal-Espinoza, Rafael, Talpey, Scott, Salazar-Rojas, Walter

  • Authors: Carvajal-Espinoza, Rafael , Talpey, Scott , Salazar-Rojas, Walter
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article , Review
  • Relation: International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching Vol. 18, no. 5 (2023), p. 1850-1866
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  • Description: Background: One of the most sought-after skills for performance in team sports is change of direction. Training the physical qualities of strength, speed, and power has been used to improve change of direction. These qualities of change of direction have been studied extensively for the last 20 years, and their influence is still questioned. Additionally, it is currently unknown how moderating training variables affect COD performance. Objective: This study examines the impact of strength, power, and speed training on change of direction performance. Method: Following the PRISMA guidelines, a meta-analysis was conducted. Electronic databases were searched for studies conducted from 1991 to April 2021. All studies identified for inclusion were peer-reviewed and published in English and Spanish and used an athlete population as participants. For all analyses, a significance level is set at p < 0.05. Results: Sixty-six articles were included in this meta-analysis. Two hundred fifty-one effect sizes were calculated, representing 2056 participants aged between 12 and 25 years. The global effect size (ES) for each quality is reported and Cochran's Q test: Strength (N = 48) ES: 0.844 Q = 77.63 (95%CI: 0.65;1.07); Speed (N = 17) ES: 0.70 Q = 5.69 (CI95% = 0.35;1.05); Power (N = 49) ES: 0.85 Q = 47.58 (CI95% = 0.64;1.06); Agility (N = 57) ES: 1.05 Q = 79.63 (CI95% = 0.86;1.24); Combined training (N = 13) ES: 0.51 Q = 13.79 (CI95% = 0.14;0.93), and the Control Group (N = 67) ES: 0.53 Q = 47.40 (IC95% =

Effects of tailored peroxide oxidation on yield and molecular structure of humic substances from Victorian lignite

- Hood, Andrew

  • Authors: Hood, Andrew
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
  • Full Text: false
  • Description: Soil organic carbon is vital to soil health and productivity. However, its abundance declines as continually greater demands are placed on agricultural food and fibre production. Humic substances are key components within the soil carbon and confer many benefits to soil and plants. Therefore, demand is growing for external amendments to maintain productive soils, including humic substances (HS), specifically humates. There are many sources of these HS, including lignite and Leonardite. Leonardite represents a naturally oxidised lignite that exhibits a rich source of HS. The limitation is the low abundance of Leonardite or difficulties obtaining a reliable source. Lignites are abundant in Victoria (Australia) but lignite derived-humates are often subject to significant compositional and yield variability. Past research has primarily focused on oxidising lignite under low solids loading conditions to improve HS yield and water solubility. This research focuses on oxidising dense run-of-mine (RoM) lignite slurries (20% dry solids loading) that are more suitable for commercial production. The product chemical and molecular structures are compared with a reference Leonardite. Hydrogen peroxide served as the oxidising agent given its availability at a commercial scale and convenience. The controlled set of oxidation experiments showed that the ratio of oxidant to lignite and lignite composition had more impact on HS yields and chemical structure than slurry temperature and pH. Initial oxidation trials utilised an archived sample of carefully blended 2015 RoM (run of mine) lignite from the Loy Yang (LY) mine in Victoria, Australia. Additional fresh LY RoM lignite was obtained in 2021 to enable further larger-scale (10 and 100 L) reaction trials and assess the impact of sample variation and aging on oxidation reactivity. A substantial increase in humic acid yield (29% to 68%) was produced by mild oxidation using a 1:1 (w/w) ratio of the 2015 RoM lignite (db, dry basis) and 35% (w/v) hydrogen peroxide. For the lower quality 2021 RoM lignite, the humic acid content was elevated from 13% to 78% through oxidation with a 2:1 ratio of hydrogen peroxide to lignite (db). Mass and carbon balances, which are often given little consideration, show >64% (2015 RoM) and >84% (2021 RoM) carbon recovery, with the majority of losses attributed to volatiles including CO2 and small organic acids or aldehydes The optimum reaction conditions for humic and fulvic acid production from LY RoM lignite depend on the target products, RoM properties and other commercial considerations. Optimum conditions are likely to be in the region of: - 40°C to 60°C to balance reaction speed and peroxide efficacy. - High humic acid yields require between 1:1 to 1.5:1 peroxide (35% w/v) to lignite (db) ratio. - Minimising humin yields requires a minimum of 2:1 peroxide to lignite. - High fulvic acid yields require between 3:1 to 4:1 peroxide (35% w/v) to lignite (db) ratio. This research shows that Loy Yang RoM lignite can be progressively oxidised with hydrogen peroxide to produce commercially relevant yields of humic and fulvic acids. A large portion of the humin is converted into humic or fulvic acids, and what remained was more oxidation resistant and water-insoluble aliphatic components. Elemental proportions shift within each fraction during oxidation. For the 2015 and 2021 RoM lignite samples; the O/C for the reaction solids increased by 36% and 16% for the respective lignites. The O/C changes for the HAs were 22% and 19% respectively. The humin undergoes a sizeable shift in H/C ratio consistent with aliphatic enhancement. The ratios elevate by 14% with oxidation for both the 2015 and 2021 lignites. Extensive lignite, reaction slurry and reaction product characterisation including slurry pH, spectroscopy (UV-vis, FTIR and NMR), and pyrolysis GC/MS assist in understanding the structural changes occurring during oxidation as well as identify promising on-line reaction monitoring technologies. Elemental (CHNSO), FTIR, NMR and functional group titrations show that the fundamental organic structural changes to the humic acid fraction achieved through controlled oxidation were greater acidity (particularly carboxylic acid content) and a transition from aromatic to more aliphatic character overall. No combination of ratios or slurry conditions tested produced a humic acid with the same chemical structural properties as those extracted from the reference Leonardite. However, it is possible to match some properties under the combinations tested. Larger-scale reactions (10 and 100 L) show that real-time reaction monitoring as well as adequate heating and cooling capacity are essential for commercialising the conceptual lignite oxidation process. Proactively dealing with an inherently variable feedstock and humic product composition is heavily dependent on the intersection of multiple variables. For example, tracking pH, reaction enthalpy, and UV-vis absorbance of prepared samples can provide valuable real-time feedback on the progress of a reaction. Combining these techniques with redox titrations could measure residual peroxide and help manage reaction control parameters or better understand reaction kinetics for process optimisation.
  • Description: Doctor of Philosophy

Efficient graph learning for anomaly detection systems

- Febrinanto, Falih

Either ‘a blessing in disguise’, or ‘I couldn't get help,’ : Australian and Aotearoa NZ women's experiences of early infant feeding during COVID-19

- Atchan, Marjorie, Graham, Kristen, Hartney, Nicki, Martis, Ruth, Kearney, Lauren, Davey, Kym, Daellenbach, Rea, Hall, Helen, Sweet, Linda

  • Authors: Atchan, Marjorie , Graham, Kristen , Hartney, Nicki , Martis, Ruth , Kearney, Lauren , Davey, Kym , Daellenbach, Rea , Hall, Helen , Sweet, Linda
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Women and Birth Vol. 36, no. 3 (2023), p. e305-e313
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • Description: Background: To manage the COVID-19 pandemic, public health restrictions and a rapid pivot to telehealth occurred. Peripartum services were significantly affected by a strained infrastructure. Decreased face to face access to health services and support affected maternal experiences and confidence internationally, yet little was reported with the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand context. Aim: To explore the early parenting and infant feeding experiences of new mothers from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand in the context of a pandemic. Methods: An interpretive qualitative approach and thematic analysis obtained an in-depth understanding of the experiences of 27 mothers who gave birth during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Findings: Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand women reported similar experiences, which varied contextually. Restrictions and requirements impacted favourably and unfavourably. Many women found the peace and space of social distancing an unexpected benefit and were proud of their achievements, whilst others shared feelings of isolation and distress. Some women felt they instinctively did what they needed to do. Experiences correlated with differing levels of self-efficacy. Discussion: While many women relished the freedom from social obligations when faced with feeding challenges, there was general dissatisfaction with the level of support available. Care was fragmented, and health care needs were unmet, impacting feeding and parenting decisions and mental health. Conclusion: Access to timely and appropriate professional support is an important factor in establishing breastfeeding and developing parenting confidence, particularly in the context of a pandemic and should be a health policy priority. © 2023 Australian College of Midwives