The construct validity of the Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder symptoms : A multitrait-multisource approach based on father and mother ratings
- Authors: Carroll, Steve
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: There has been considerable debate over the construct validity of the Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) symptoms in past research due to measurement error (e.g., source effects) associated with parent and teacher ratings of childhood behaviour. Recent multitrait-multisource (MT-MS) studies have attempted to account for measurement error by using multiple sources involving parents and teachers. These studies have identified low trait variance in the AD/HD and ODD dimensions, thereby raising questions about the validity of the AD/HD - inattention (IN), AD/HD - hyperactivity/impulsivity (H/I), and ODD constructs. However, as these studies examine ratings from different settings (i.e., home and school) it can be argued that the low trait variance in the AD/HD constructs may reflect cross-situational differences. The current research used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedures to examine the internal and external validity of AD/HD and ODD symptoms based on ratings (i.e., mother and father) from individuals in the same setting...
- Description: Doctor of Psychology (Clinical)
An investigation into the professional competencies required by Australian HRM practitioners
- Authors: Chambers, Stephen
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis
- Full Text: false
- Description: "The role of human resource management (HRM), or simply human resource (HR), practitioners has changed dramatically, especially in the last 10 years. As a result of this change in role, as detailed in the literature review, HRM practitioners require appropriate competencies to maintain effectiveness and enhance the value of their contribution to their organisation..." --p. 1.
- Description: Master of Business
Underwater kicking following the freestyle tumble-turn
- Authors: Clothier, Peter
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Swim turns are a component of competitive swimming where considerable advantage can be gained or lost. This thesis investigates underwater dolphin and flutter kicking techniques and their application to exits following the turn in freestyle swimming. Five separate investigations were conducted to examine the kinetics and kinematics of each underwater kicking technique and are presented in expanded journal manuscript form. Studies one, two and three involved the comparison of freestyle turns when using flutter and dolphin kicking wall exit techniques. The results obtained indicated that freestyle turns using flutter kicking were faster than dolphin kicking in age-group swimmers. For this group, significant and equal improvements were made to flutter and dolphin kick turn performances following six weeks of dolphin kick and dolphin kick turn training. However, no difference in turn times were observed between kicking conditions by older and more highly skilled swimmers. Study four involved a kinematical comparison of maximal underwater free-swimming dolphin and flutter kicking. Results showed dolphin kick to be a superior underwater free-swimming technique. Greater foot width, increased ankle range of movement and greater vertical displacement of the ankle and foot during kicking were shown to be highly predictive of faster underwater dolphin kicking. Investigation five compared the drag forces and kinematics between the dolphin and flutter kicking techniques while subjects were towed at velocities representing those experienced following wall turn push-off. Results favour the dolphin kick as a superior underwater technique at these higher velocities. Increased underwater dolphin kicking efficiency, as measured by decreased net towing force, was found to be associated with larger kick amplitude – rate ratios, and higher kick amplitude – streamline length ratios.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Ship of Fools
- Authors: Collins, Julie
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text:
- Description: The Ship of Fools is an ancient allegory that has long been a part of Western culture in literature, art and song... It has been chosen by many to comment on contemporary issues throughout history, highlighting the foibles of that society. The ship of fools however is also about our world, as a vessel, full of passengers of humanity, full of those who have no care what they do or where they are going... It is the 21st Century and we are all sailing on a Ship of Fools. We consume beyond reason, we want, and get the latest, newest, biggest things. We complain about interest rates and petrol prices, but consume beyond reason often with purchases on credit we don't really need.
- Description: Master of Arts (Visual Arts)
Psychosocial support use among men with cancer living in rural and regional areas
- Authors: Corboy, Denise
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text:
- Description: The main aim of the current study was to investigate formal and informal psychosocial support use among a sample of men with cancer living in rural and regional Australia, and to examine how use of psychosocial support is related to psychological, physical and social wellbeing.
- Description: Master of Applied Science (Psychology)
OH&S in small business : Influencing the decision makers : The application of a social marketing model to increase the uptake of OHS risk control
- Authors: Cowley, Stephen
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Losses resulting from traumatic injuries and occupational disease are prevalent in the small business sector of Australian industry. Although the true size of the problem is unclear, it is estimated that the losses amount to more than $8 billion annually. The hazard control measures to counter these losses are largely known and are available to small businesses but they are not widely adopted. Regulators and other bodies have employed a range of intervention strategies to influence decision-makers in small businesses but most have focussed on the dissemination of printed materials or broadbased advertising campaigns with limited success......... The research concludes that the listening processes at the heart of social marketing add to the methods already used in the OHS discipline by forcing the marketer to listen to the subjective assessment of risk as perceived by targets as well as to question the evidence base that supports the legitimacy and efficacy of the proposed intervention. The TTM was found to be a useful means of categorising small business decision-maker behaviour and assessing the readiness for change of individuals and therefore the messages that are needed to unfreeze behaviour. The TTM also provides a tool for evaluation of the impact of an intervention.As a result of this research it is suggested that opinion leaders, who are employed within a social marketing model to diffuse information, multiply the effort of those wishing to increase the adoption of an innovation. Thus engagement of opinion leaders by an OHS authority for the communication of risk control messages may be more cost-effective than attempting to visit every workplace within an industry group. Thus, although social marketing is not in the general repertoire of OHS interventions, it appears to be extremely useful as a framework for interventions and, when used in concert with a stages of change model, provides natural lead indicators for evaluating the impact of OHS interventions. Application of social marketing to people who have the responsibility for the health and safety of others was unique.
- Description: Doctor of Philosphy
Investigation of the wear resistance and durability of high speed steel for use in sheep shearing comb construction
- Authors: Creelman, Glenn
- Date: 2001
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text:
- Description: "The goal of this thesis was to evaluate high speed steel for use in the construction of sheep shearing combs, to determine if its use can be justified on a performance basis."
- Description: Master of Applied Science
Strangers in a strange land : Converging and accommodating Celtic identities in Ballarat 1851-1901
- Authors: Croggon, Janice
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "This thesis examines the paths by which four Celtic ethnic identities, Cornish, Welsh, Scottish and Irish, responded to the specific society and culture of the Victorian goldfields between 1850-1901. The individual Celtic groups intersected, harmonised and contested with each other in a process through which they retained their identities and yet managed to move towards becoming part of a larger, more-encompassing unity."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Innovation and capacity growth in mental health promotion : Working with the past
- Authors: Crouch, Alan
- Date: 2006
- Type: Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: The field of practice addressed by this Portfolio of works is mental health promotion in the context of survival of extreme, organized, armed violence and associated repression. Studies were undertaken in two historical and geo-political settings – Cambodian refugees in Australia post 1979 and Bulgarian post World War II concentration camp survivors after the fall of communism in 1989. The portfolio reports on original image-based research in mental health promotion, using discussions by focus groups composed of genocide and repression survivors. The discourse developed by each group following reflection on a set of photographs from respective conflict periods was used to explore meaning-making within that survivor group.
- Description: Doctor of Health Promotion
Breaking the safety barrier : engineering new paradigms in safety design
- Authors: Culvenor, John
- Date: 1997
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Occupational health and safety legislation in Australia and internationally is based on the safe place concept and the hierarchy of control. A safe place is best achieved at the design stage and consequently the education of engineers in safety has been a priority. There have been notable efforts at the integration of safety with engineering studies, and this should be an ongoing objective, however extensive integration is likely to be difficult at least in the short term. The challenge was to develop a supplemental, innovative way to improve the ability of engineers to develop safe place solutions. The hypothesis was that training in creative thinking would achieve this aim. The hierarchy of control methodology shares a strong relationship with creative thinking. Safe place thinking challenges assumptions in the same way that creative thinking seeks to escape dominant paradigms. For this reason creative thinking seems a natural aid to the safe place approach. This study tested the effect on safety design of a creative thinking program; de Bono’s six thinking hats method. Given a recognition that groups other than engineers impact on workplace design, a range of subjects were included; engineering students, technology students, industry safety advisers, and government safety advisers. In response to safety case studies, subjects were required to generate solutions and to prioritize potential solutions. Subjects worked on a range of problems, some individually and some in teams of three. Results show that training in creative thinking improved the generation of solutions to safety problems. As the number of solutions increased, the average quality of ideas was maintained, therefore the increased number of solutions was accompanied by a similar increase in good quality safe place solutions. The results also showed in some instances the training improved the prioritization of solutions according to the safe place methodology. The effects were of a similar magnitude for individuals and teams. Creative thinking training was shown to be a useful way to enhance the generation of safe place solutions to safety problems. Given that creative thinking skills can theoretically be applied to any area of problem solving, the enhancement of these skills are likely to yield wider benefits. Furthermore the enhancement of creative thinking accords well with the current industrial mandates for improved innovation.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Structural properties and labeling of graphs
- Authors: Dafik
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: The complexity in building massive scale parallel processing systems has re- sulted in a growing interest in the study of interconnection networks design. Network design affects the performance, cost, scalability, and availability of parallel computers. Therefore, discovering a good structure of the network is one of the basic issues. From modeling point of view, the structure of networks can be naturally stud- ied in terms of graph theory. Several common desirable features of networks, such as large number of processing elements, good throughput, short data com- munication delay, modularity, good fault tolerance and diameter vulnerability correspond to properties of the underlying graphs of networks, including large number of vertices, small diameter, high connectivity and overall balance (or regularity) of the graph or digraph. The first part of this thesis deals with the issue of interconnection networks ad- dressing system. From graph theory point of view, this issue is mainly related to a graph labeling. We investigate a special family of graph labeling, namely antimagic labeling of a class of disconnected graphs. We present new results in super (a; d)-edge antimagic total labeling for disjoint union of multiple copies of special families of graphs. The second part of this thesis deals with the issue of regularity of digraphs with the number of vertices close to the upper bound, called the Moore bound, which is unobtainable for most values of out-degree and diameter. Regularity of the underlying graph of a network is often considered to be essential since the flow of messages and exchange of data between processing elements will be on average faster if there is a similar number of interconnections coming in and going out of each processing element. This means that the in-degree and out-degree of each processing element must be the same or almost the same. Our new results show that digraphs of order two less than Moore bound are either diregular or almost diregular.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
The causes and prevention of airline baggage handler back injuries : Safe designs required where behaviour and administrative solutions have had limited effect
- Authors: Dell, Geoff
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "Back injuries have consistently been the most common types of injuries suffered by people at work. They have been a significant worker injury problem in most, if not all, industrialised countries for many years and manual handling has long been established as a significant task related back injury causal factor.[...] This research project established that the manufacturers of the jet airlines used by the airlines in this study had not previously been acquainted with the issue of baggage handler back injuries.[...] This study also canvassed the opinion of airline safety professionals and airline baggage handlers concerning baggage handling tasks and working environment related causal factors. [...] A major focus of this research project was also to measure the effect of ACE and Sliding Carpet, two commercially available retro-fit baggage systems, on the risk of back injuries to baggage handlers stacking baggage within Boeing B737 narrow-body aircraft."
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Aircraft pushback accidents worldwide 1964-1992 : causes and prevention
- Authors: Dell, Geoff
- Date: 1993
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text:
- Description: The purpose of the study was to analyse aircraft pushback accidents which have resulted in death or serious injury to aircraft pusback ground crew members and to develop effective strategies to prevent such accidents.
- Description: Thesis (Master of Applied Science)
Effects of commuting status upon community involvement of professionals in rural North West Victoria
- Authors: Devers, Deanna
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Because mobility is associated with rural social decline, this two-phase cross sectional study investigates whether social patterns in small, rural Australian towns are affected by commuting. Quantitative data, which was gathered via a mail-out questionnaire (response = 54 per cent) that was issued to 1,040 occupationally diverse professionals who worked in fourteen towns throughout north-western Victoria, was analysed to determine whether commuting and non-commuting professionals differed significantly in their community involvement. To explain why certain relationships emerged from survey analysis, face-toface interviews were subsequently undertaken with 24 questionnaire respondents. The key finding of this study is that there is a significant relationship between commuting status and the retention of rural professionals. A significantly greater proportion of noncommuters than commuters remain working in the one location for longer than five years. This finding has important implications for the sustainability of rural areas.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Incidence and aetiological factors in the development of medial tibial stress syndrome
- Authors: Diacogiorgis, Dimitri
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text:
- Description: The aim of this 13 week prospective study was to investigate whether differences in hip, knee, ankle, subtalar, or first metatarsophalangeal joint (MPJ) range of motion and physical activity levels increase a person's likelihood of developing medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS)." --p.2.
- Description: Master of Applied Science
'And for harmony most ardently we long' : Musical life in Ballarat, 1851-1871
- Authors: Doggett, Anne
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: "The study examines two decades in the musical life of Ballarat, a regional city in south-eastern Australia. Beginning at the time of the 1851 gold rush, it covers the period in which Ballarat grew from a rough mining camp to an established city with a socially and ethnically diverse population of over 40,000 people. The thesis pursues the aim of looking at the music practices of the community in ways that will further our understanding of the significance of music in the lives of the people."--Abstract.
- Description: Doctor of Philosphy
Reflective space : A personal journey towards a re-envisioning of the Australian landscape
- Authors: Donald, Colin
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Whilst the notion of the ‘Reflective Space’ could arguably encompass many conceptual positions and propositions, for the purposes of this research investigation the ‘Reflective Space’ referred to in the title of this exegesis will focus upon what I consider as an emerging and growing consciousness of the natural world. As a theoretical and conceptual construct, the investigation considers how this growing consciousness can be seen to be expressed through the medium of representations of the Australian landscape. This work considers a number of contemporary theoretical positions and a number of relevant social and political questions; it also acknowledges that within such spheres of reflection, the issue of being sustainable in relation to our interactions and perceptions of this natural world looms as perhaps one of the most pressing of our time. While it will be acknowledged that the depiction of landscape enjoys a long-standing tradition within the Australian cultural mind, the suggestion will be made that certain aspects of these visualisations can be seen to be ‘reflective’ of a visual, cultural and physical degradation, and indeed even an apprehension of the physical ‘space’ that is represented as landscape. The investigation considers and reflects upon what can be observed as contentious and ambivalent attitudes expressed towards landscape perceived through works of art. Strategies for adopting a perceptual visual ethic grounded within the concepts and principles of sustainability will be presented for consideration. By applying such modes of interpretation to perceptions of land and landscape depiction, new appreciations for the cultural ‘space’ that is landscape will be developed. Such understandings will consider and reflect upon the temporal nature of our natural world. The thesis is this: that to be able to think and act in a sustainable fashion in relation to our environment, our perceptions and interpretations of visualisations of landscape must include a recognition that the land is a ‘temporal’ space, in which past and possible futures are immanent in the present.
- Description: PhD (Visual Arts)
Quoting landscape : an investigative journey across the landscape of the Westen district of Victoria
- Authors: Donald, Colin
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text:
- Description: "This research project aims to provide a contemporary visualisation of "specific sites." The visualisation of these selected landscapes will draw upon and add to existing traditions of representation of this region, embedding my experiences within this dialogue."
- Description: Master of Arts (Visual Arts)
Approximations for some classes of optimal control problems with state constraints and repetitive control systems
- Authors: Dymkou, Siarhei
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
- Full Text: false
- Description: This report presents the investigation on the research work "Approximations for some classes of optimal control problems with state constraints and repetitive control systems". This report mainly gives the theoretical part of the research which is based on the numerical methods that are developed. It is conjectured that the corresponding algorithms will be realized as computer programs after which they can be used in practical work.
- Description: Master of Information Technology
Mathematical models of dynamic reconfiguration of telecommunication networks
- Authors: Dzalilov, Zari
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: In this thesis we examine mathematical models for dynamical reconfiguration of telecommunication networks. Dynamical configuration is one of the most important problems in the field of network management. In the case of some part of the network being damaged the system should maintain its operations, taking into account the new conditions. This can be achieved by using the residual capacity of the system if it is available. If there were not enough residual capacity, the managers of the system need to involve some of the unaffected traffic in order to reorganize traffic. A prolonged breakdown will push some customers to change their provider; there is also a lost [sic] of profit because of breakdowns, that can be considered as a certain implicit penalty. To reorganize traffic by using new routes we should have a flexible routing system.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy