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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
  • Full Text: false
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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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  • Reviewed:
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • 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
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  • 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

Elastic step DDPG : multi-step reinforcement learning for improved sample efficiency

- Ly, Adrian, Dazeley, Richard, Vamplew, Peter, Cruz, Francisco, Aryal, Sunil

  • Authors: Ly, Adrian , Dazeley, Richard , Vamplew, Peter , Cruz, Francisco , Aryal, Sunil
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: 2023 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN 2023 Vol. 2023-June
  • Full Text: false
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  • Description: A major challenge in deep reinforcement learning is that it requires more data to converge to an policy for complex problems. One way to improve sample efficiency is to use n-step updates to reduce the number of samples required to converge to a good policy. However n-step updates are known to be brittle and difficult to tune. Elastic Step DQN has shown that it is possible to automate the value of n in DQN to solve problems involving discrete action spaces, however the efficacy of the technique when applied on more complex problems and against problems with continuous action spaces is yet to be shown. In this paper we adapt the innovations proposed by Elastic Step DQN onto the DDPG algorithm and show empirically that Elastic Step DDPG is able to achieve a much stronger final training policy and is more sample efficient than DDPG. © 2023 IEEE.

Electro Fenton's reaction coupled Zn-air battery for in situ pollutant degradation

- Christudas Dargily, Neethu, Kuntoji, Giddaerappa, Mendhe, Rahul, Haridas, Akshay, Thimmappa, Ravikumar, Sharma, Surbhi, Thotiyl, Musthafa

Embodied carbon footprint analysis of signage industry : insights from two case studies

- Paresi, Prudvireddy, Javidan, Fatemeh, Sparks, Paul

  • Authors: Paresi, Prudvireddy , Javidan, Fatemeh , Sparks, Paul
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: International Conference on Green Building, ICoGB 2023, Malmo, Sweden, 19-21 May 2023, Proceedings of 2023 International Conference on Green Building p. 69-76
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  • Description: Embodied carbon has recently become a hot topic among environmentalists and designers, especially after the Paris Agreement on climate change. Embodied carbon refers to the carbon emissions associated with the manufacturing and transportation of building materials and the process of construction. The “Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction” report estimated that the building and construction sector alone contributed nearly 37–39% of global carbon emissions in 2017–2020. To tackle embodied carbon, the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) has set a bold vision to reduce it by at least 40% by 2030 and achieve net-zero operating carbon in all new buildings. The signage industry plays a significant role in the building industry, as signages are a key component of buildings. Signages serve multiple purposes, such as providing information, enhancing brand identity, and promoting safety. Therefore, it is essential to understand the embodied carbon emissions associated with signage materials used to minimise the overall carbon emissions of construction projects. The present paper aims to study the embodied carbon footprint of the signage industry with the help of two case studies. The embodied carbon factors required while estimating the overall footprint of the signages are taken from Environmental Performance in Construction (EPiC) database. The study identifies the aluminum as the major contributor of the embodied emissions in the signage projects. This study provides insight into the other sources of embodied carbon and makes more informed decisions while selecting signage materials used in designs to create sustainable and economic projects. This information helps to increase sustainability and reduce the carbon footprint of signage projects in the early decision-making stages. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Emergency care in the context of armed conflict : nurses’ perspectives of the essential core competencies

- Mani, Zakaria, Kuhn, Lisa, Plummer, Virginia

  • Authors: Mani, Zakaria , Kuhn, Lisa , Plummer, Virginia
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International Nursing Review Vol. 70, no. 4 (2023), p. 510-517
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • Description: Aim: To identify nurses’ perspectives of their core competencies for emergency care in the context of armed conflict. Introduction: Emergency department's (ED) capacity is frequently overwhelmed by a sudden surge of patients when located near armed conflict. Although emergency nurses are key frontline responders, evidence detailing core competencies needed to work in these areas remains limited. Method: The study used a cross-sectional survey design and is reported using STROBE guidelines. A validated questionnaire was administered in hospitals near the southern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Yemen border, where emergency nurses regularly manage large numbers of patients from armed conflict. Result: A total of 163 questionnaires were returned (68% response rate). Most participants were female and had more than six years of ED experience. The core competencies for emergency nurses working near armed conflict were identified and highly rated by participants: the highest mean value was 9.47/10 and the lowest was 8.89/10. Analysis revealed regular education, training and drills were needed to provide quality emergency nursing care for victims of armed conflict. Conclusion and implications for nursing and health policy: This study provides new evidence regarding core competencies in emergency nursing care in the context of armed conflict. The identified competencies should be incorporated into future education, curricula, training programmes and evaluations to enable emergency nurses to function effectively in the context of armed conflict. The findings will assist decision-makers to develop plans and strategies for mitigating risk and improving the future nursing response in similar contexts. © 2023 The Authors. International Nursing Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Council of Nurses.

Emergent environmental education inquiry : a methodology of thinking with things

- Jukes, Scott

  • Authors: Jukes, Scott
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: Methodological Approaches to STEM Education Research Volume 4 Chapter 13 p. 249-266
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  • Description: In contemporary times the world is faced with many environmental challenges. Yet old habits of human hubris persist. Our times call for us to think differently, and in the context of environmental education research, think methodology differently. This chapter offers four provocations that challenge orthodox educational research practices. Namely, challenges to conventional humanist qualitative inquiry (St. Pierre, 2011), anthropocentric data, overly prescriptive methodocentrism of educational research (Weaver & Snaza, 2017) and inquiry grounded within paradigmatic structures (Gough, 2016). These challenges confront the issue of overly dogmatic and dictatorial research methodology. This chapter takes these provocations seriously, aiming to look beyond anthropocentric, paradigmatic and overly deterministic approaches to inquiry. I propose that an approach for doing this may be to think with things, such as theory, concepts, landscapes, ecosystems, non-human species, and materiality. This is a process of assembling relations in research practice that allows for unexpected possibilities to emerge—a process that allows for responses to the significant and account for the ephemeral. As part of this approach, I embrace the notion of “follow[ing] the matter-flow” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 479) within the context of inquiry. I offer some examples to evoke this notion of open-ended inquiry.