Forests and woodlands of Australia's rivers and floodplains
- Authors: Good, Megan , Smith, Rhiannon , Pettit, Neil
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Australian Vegetation 21 p. 516-543
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Australia's floodplain and riparian environments are dynamic, boom-bust systems shaped by spatial and temporal variation in water availability. Plant communities occupying riparian and floodplain environments broadly follow predictable patterns in terms of structure and diversity according to water availability (both surface and groundwater) in the landscape. Dense, often structurally complex and diverse woodlands and forests occupy positions close to the river, while open woodland communities with large old trees and very little midstorey occupy the floodplains. Recruitment dynamics of floodplain species are dictated by the timing, duration, frequency, depth, magnitude and rate of rise and fall of floodwaters. However, regulation of river systems and transformation of floodplain environments by urban and agricultural activity has resulted in a disconnection between rivers and their floodplains, to the detriment of a variety of ecological functions required to maintain floodplain and riparian ecosystems, as well as instream habitats. Many billions of dollars in revenue emanates from agricultural industries that utilise the rich fertile soils laid down by successive flood events, and competing interests for water highlight ongoing tensions over the management of these environments. The future of Australia's floodplain ecosystems relies on a sound understanding of the requirements of the species that occupy these environments and balancing environmental and human water demands in an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable context.
On varieties of Abelian topological groups with coproducts
- Authors: Gabriyelyan, Saak , Morris, Sidney
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society Vol. 95, no. 1 (2017), p. 54-65
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- Description: A class of abelian topological groups was previously defined to be a variety of topological groups with coproducts if it is closed under forming subgroups, quotients, products and coproducts in the category of all abelian topological groups and continuous homomorphisms. This extended research on varieties of topological groups initiated by the second author. The key to describing varieties of topological groups generated by various classes was proving that all topological groups in the variety are a quotient of a subgroup of a product of groups in the generating class. This paper analyses generating varieties of topological groups with coproducts. It focuses on the interplay between forming products and coproducts. It is proved that the variety of topological groups with coproducts generated by all discrete groups contains topological groups which cannot be expressed as a quotient of a subgroup of a product of a coproduct of discrete groups. It is proved that the variety of topological groups with coproducts generated by any infinite-dimensional Hilbert space contains all infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, answering an open question. This contrasts with the result that a variety of topological groups generated by a topological group does not contain any infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of greater cardinality. © 2016 Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc..
The road to nursing
- Authors: Arnott, Nick , Paliadelis, Penny , Cuickshank, Mary
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Commencing a nursing qualification can be an exciting yet daunting prospect. The Road to Nursing empowers nursing students to become effective practitioners by providing an in-depth foundational knowledge of the key concepts and skills that will underpin their entire nursing journey. Written by an expert team of academics and practising nurses, this text emphasises the importance of meaning-making, supporting students to critically engage with key knowledge that informs their ongoing learning, development and professional identity. Each chapter supports learning through pedagogical features including case studies, nursing perspectives, reflections, key terms, review questions and research topics, The additional activities accessed through the VitalSource eBook reaffirm comprehension and encourage critical thinking. The Road to Nursing is written in an accessible narrative style, providing a friendly guiding voice that will support students from the classroom into practice.
Distributed proximal-gradient method for convex optimization with inequality constraints
- Authors: Li, Jueyou , Wu, Changzhi , Wu, Zhiyou , Long, Qiang , Wang, Xiangyu
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: ANZIAM Journal Vol. 56, no. 2 (2014), p. 160-178
- Full Text: false
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- Description: We consider a distributed optimization problem over a multi-agent network, in which the sum of several local convex objective functions is minimized subject to global convex inequality constraints. We first transform the constrained optimization problem to an unconstrained one, using the exact penalty function method. Our transformed problem has a smaller number of variables and a simpler structure than the existing distributed primal-dual subgradient methods for constrained distributed optimization problems. Using the special structure of this problem, we then propose a distributed proximal-gradient algorithm over a time-changing connectivity network, and establish a convergence rate depending on the number of iterations, the network topology and the number of agents. Although the transformed problem is nonsmooth by nature, our method can still achieve a convergence rate, O (1/k), after k iterations, which is faster than the rate, O (1/k), of existing distributed subgradient-based methods. Simulation experiments on a distributed state estimation problem illustrate the excellent performance of our proposed method. Copyright © 2014 Australian Mathematical Society.
Preparing for success
- Authors: Wikander, Lolita , Lyons, Judith
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The road to nursing Chapter 4 p. 48-60
- Full Text: false
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- Description: In this chapter, you will learn how to plan your study around your existing commitments. You will be encouraged to build on your stengths and improve in areas that may hold you back. You will learn how to find time to study and be kind to your future self. This chapter gives you an idea of the different kinds of academic support you may be able to access and provides some hints for using the online study environment to your advantage. Critical reflection in self-directed learning will assist you to develop strategies for lifelong learning. Learning in the university context is self-directed, and the skills developed and employed in your nursing education will ensure you have mastered the graduate attributes needed to continue learning while you practise a s a nurse. Self-directed learning means being active and constructive in your learning process. This entails being clear on what your learning goals are and making a choice about how you will achieve your learning goals. It also involves deciding what strategies you will adopt in your own learning, together with what the teachers require you to do for successful completion of your courses. The section on relection and self-directed learning provides you with strategies for deep learning, which is learning for understanding as opposed to surface learning like cramming to pass tests. If you employ deep learning strategies, this learning will form the basis of your knowledge and skills, and you will be able to build on and apply it in new contexts. You are a partner in the learning endeavours. You will discover that you learn not only from your lecturers, but also from your peers and networks. You will be provided with hints for making both formal and informal peer support and group work function effectively for you. Finally, you will be given suggestions for using social media to help feel connected while simmultaneously avoiding common pitfalls in your journey to become the best nurse you can.
Preventing social isolation in later life : Findings and insights from a pilot Queensland intervention study
- Authors: Bartlett, Helen , Warburton, Jeni , Lui, Chi-wai , Peach, Linda , Carroll, Matthew
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Ageing and Society Vol. 33, no. 7 (2013), p. 1167-1189
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The isolation of older people is recognised as a major social problem in contemporary Western society. While the risk factors and social or health outcomes of isolation and loneliness in later life are well documented, evidence regarding the effectiveness of programmes aimed at reducing social isolation in older people remains inconclusive. This paper reports on the challenges of attempting to undertake a rigorous evaluation of three demonstration pilot projects targeting older people at risk of social isolation, conducted within different social settings in Queensland, Australia. The demonstration projects were part of the Queensland Cross-Government Project to Reduce Social Isolation in Older People (CGPRSIOP) led by the Office for Seniors within the Queensland Department of Communities. In the absence of good evaluation of programmes aimed at social isolation, this government-run programme incorporated validated psychological measures to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. While use of these measures suggested some promising results, the focus of this paper is on the methodological and practical challenges associated with utilising evaluation measures in community-based interventions. The detailed consideration of the methodological issues involved in this programme highlights some key lessons and offers new insights into evaluating interventions for reducing social isolation.
Aggregate subgradient smoothing mehtods for large scale nonsmooth nonconvex optimisation and applications
- Authors: Sultanova, Nargiz
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society Vol. 91, no. 3 (2015), p. 523-524
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Nonsmooth optimisation problems are problems which deal with minimisation or maximisation of functions that are not necessarily differentiable. They arise frequently in many practical applications, for example in engineering, machine learning and economics. In addition, some smooth problems can be reformulated as nonsmooth optimisation problems with a simpler structure or a smaller dimension. Despite the fact that there exist many algorithms for solving nonsmooth optimisation problems, the field is still very much in development. Nonsmooth nonconvex optimisation, in particular, is far from being considered a mature branch of optimisation.
Nursing as a profession
- Authors: Lyons, Judith , Bliss, Suzanne
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The road to nursing Chapter 12 p. 183-203
- Full Text: false
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- Description: All regulated health practitioners need to be aware of the standards imposed on them by their regulatory body in order for them to be able to practise. The standards are imposed on nurses and midwives by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), which regulates the Australian workforce through the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). The NMBA regulates registered nurses, enrolled nurses and midwives. This chapter focuses on the professional aspects of nursing. It is intended to assist you to understand your obligations to obtain and retain your nursing or midwifery registration and your legal, regulatory and moral obligations both as a nursing or midwifery professional and as an individual. It also differentiates the scope of practice for the registered nurse, enrolled nurse and midwife, as we have the responsibility to provide safe, quality care to our clients. The first section discusses the general legal and regulatory requirements for nurses. Next, we turn to the Professional Practice Framework that constitutes a key part of nurses' legal and regulatory obligations. The Professional Practice Framework forms the overarching statement of nursing's values contained in the Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct, as well as the recently implemented Standards for Practice for Registered and Enrolled Nurses (NMBA 2016a, 2016c). We explain the registration standards first, then examine the new Standards for Practice. These standards replaced the old Competency Standards on 1 July 2016, and were developed to better reflect contemporary practice in nursing. The next section contains information on professional boundaries, including the recently updated Codes of Ethics and Conduct. Finally, we make some brief remarks relation to scope of practice.
Lossless image coding using hierarchical decomposition and recursive partitioning
- Authors: Ali, Mortuza , Murshed, Manzur , Shahriyar, Shampa , Paul, Manoranjan
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: APSIPA Transactions on Signal and Information Processing Vol. 5, no. (2016), p. 1-11
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP130103670
- Full Text:
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- Description: State-Of-The-Art lossless image compression schemes, such as JPEG-LS and CALIC, have been proposed in the context-adaptive predictive coding framework. These schemes involve a prediction step followed by context-adaptive entropy coding of the residuals. However, the models for context determination proposed in the literature, have been designed using ad-hoc techniques. In this paper, we take an alternative approach where we fix a simpler context model and then rely on a systematic technique to efficiently exploit spatial correlation to achieve efficient compression. The essential idea is to decompose the image into binary bitmaps such that the spatial correlation that exists among non-binary symbols is captured as the correlation among few bit positions. The proposed scheme then encodes the bitmaps in a particular order based on the simple context model. However, instead of encoding a bitmap as a whole, we partition it into rectangular blocks, induced by a binary tree, and then independently encode the blocks. The motivation for partitioning is to explicitly identify the blocks within which the statistical correlation remains the same. On a set of standard test images, the proposed scheme, using the same predictor as JPEG-LS, achieved an overall bit-rate saving of 1.56% against JPEG-LS. © 2016 The Authors.
Foundations of nursing practice
- Authors: Cramer, Rhian , Coombs, Nicole , Lyons, Judith , Kim, Jeong-Ah
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The road to nursing Chapter 11 p. 168-182
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Becoming a safe and contemporary nurse is more than just being able to demonstrate clinical skills or understand disease processes. It is about critical thinking - understanding why we do what we do and how to do it in the most efficient and effective way. Achieving the best outcomes for the patients is always paramount. This chapter explores the foundational principles of contemporary nursing practice: evidence-based practice, person-centred care, and communication. It also introduces the growing role of technology in healthcare and looks at how numerous factors come together to influence health outcomes for the individual patient.
The journey begins
- Authors: Arnott, Nick , Paliadelis, Penny , Cuickshank, Mary
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The road to nursing Chapter 1 p. 3-15
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This opening chapter aims to set the scene for your undergraduate nursing journey. We welcome you to the wonderful, dynamic and diverse profession of nursing and encourage some initial thinking about what nursing is, why you have chosen this career and the sort of nurse you hope to be. We also outline the purpose, structure and features of this book, and introduce you to the key concepts and ideas underpinning your learning journey, many of which will be emphasised and explored further in subsequent chapters.
Conjunctive howeveritis : A corpus-based analysis of however used as a conjunction
- Authors: Hamilton, Andrew
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: English Today Vol. 32, no. 4 (2016), p. 19-26
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The word however is an adverb and an adverb alone. The current online Oxford (Oxford English Dictionary Online, n.d.) and Cambridge (Cambridge English Dictionary Online, n.d. a) English dictionaries both have it listed solely as an adverb for British English. At the risk of awakening yet another descriptivist versus prescriptivist war, it must however be acknowledged that however is often used as a conjunction. This can, and frequently does, lead to confusion though, as the reader has to read on before realising that in fact that however was actually being used as a conjunction (or connective' in modern grammatical parlance). However the cat walked down the street ...' surely has the reader thinking something along the lines of In whatever manner the cat walked down the street ...' But a typical case of what I shall in this article call conjunctive howeveritis would reveal a complete (well, incomplete actually) sentence along the lines of, However the cat walked down the street, even though it rarely ventured from the house.' Not only are we now left with a sentence fragment, but in such an instance the reader would have to backtrack and subsequently assume the However was in fact being used as a coordinating conjunction. To me this is inefficient and an enemy of lucid writing. The Cambridge English Dictionary raises the warning flag high with the following example (Cambridge English Dictionary Online, n.d. b): We can't use however as a conjunction instead of but to connect words and phrases:
The relationship between living alone and depressive symptoms among older gay men : the moderating role of sense of belonging with gay friends
- Authors: McLaren, Suzanne
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Psychogeriatrics Vol. 28, no. 11 (2016), p. 1895-1901
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Background: Living alone is a risk factor for depressive symptoms among older adults, although it is unclear if it is a risk factor for older gay men. A sense of belonging to the gay community is protective and might compensate for living alone. This research investigated whether a sense of belonging with gay friends weakened the relationship between living alone and depressive symptoms among older gay men. Methods: A community sample of 160 Australian gay men aged 65-92 years completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and two visual analogue scales assessing a sense of belonging with gay friends. Results: Results supported the moderation model, with increasing levels of belonging with gay friends weakening the relationship between living alone and depressive symptoms. Conclusion: Results imply that enhancing a sense of belonging with gay friends among older gay men who live alone is likely to be a protective factor in relation to depressive symptoms.
Thriving at work as a mediator of the relationship between workplace support and life satisfaction
- Authors: Zhai, Qingguo , Wang, Saifang , Weadon, Helen
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Management & Organization Vol. 26, no. 2 (Mar 2020), p. 168-184
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Conservation of resources theory is employed to examine the effect of workplace support on thriving at work and the mediation of thriving at work on the workplace support and life satisfaction relationship using data on white-collar workers in China. We find that workplace support is positively related to thriving at work and thriving at work is positively related to life satisfaction. We also find that thriving at work fully mediates the relationship between life satisfaction and supervisor support, while the relationship between life satisfaction and coworker support is partially mediated by thriving at work. Consistent with the COR caravan and spillover hypothesis, we conclude that thriving at work is a mechanism that transmits the positive effects of workplace support on life satisfaction. The research findings suggest that an increase in workplace support can benefit both individuals and organizations by improving individuals' thriving at work and life satisfaction.
The history and evolving image of nursing
- Authors: Cruickshank, Mary , Paliadelis, Penny , Gazula, Swapnali , McAllister, Margaret
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The road to nursing Chapter 7 p. 99-116
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The traditional stereotypical image of a nurse is closely linked to that of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, who established a training system for nurses to teach them how to be completely dedicated to the taskes of care regardless of personal needs; dependent on and deferential to authorities such as medical doctors and matron supervisors; and modest and feminine. Of course, contemporary nursing is no longer a profession exclusive to females, and nor does nursing work predominantly involve dependent actions. However, these old ideas remain strong in the minds of the public and are often repeated in popular culture.
A remark on the separable quotient problem for topological groups
- Authors: Morris, Sidney
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society Vol. 100, no. 3 (Dec 2019), p. 453-457
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Banach-Mazur separable quotient problem asks whether every infinite-dimensional Banach space B has a quotient space that is an infinite-dimensional separable Banach space. The question has remained open for over 80 years, although an affirmative answer is known in special cases such as when B is reflexive or even a dual of a Banach space. Very recently, it has been shown to be true for dual-like spaces. An analogous problem for topological groups is: Does every infinite-dimensional (in the topological sense) connected (Hausdorff) topological group G have a quotient topological group that is infinite dimensional and metrisable? While this is known to be true if G is the underlying topological group of an infinite-dimensional Banach space, it is shown here to be false even if G is the underlying topological group of an infinite-dimensional locally convex space. Indeed, it is shown that the free topological vector space on any countably infinite k(omega)-space is an infinite-dimensional toplogical vector space which does not have any quotient topological group that is infinite dimensional and metrisable. By contrast, the Graev free abelian topological group and the Graev free topological group on any infinite connected Tychonoff space, both of which are connected topological groups, are shown here to have the tubby torus T-omega, which is an infinite-dimensional metrisable group, as a quotient group.
Canonical dual finite element method for solving nonconvex mechanics and topology optimization problems
- Authors: Ali, Elaf
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society Vol. 101, no. 1 (Feb 2020), p. 172-173
- Full Text: false
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Embeddings of free topological vector spaces
- Authors: Leiderman, Arkady , Morris, Sidney
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society Vol. 101, no. 2 (2020), p. 311-324
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: It is proved that the free topological vector space contains an isomorphic copy of the free topological vector space for every finite-dimensional cube , thereby answering an open question in the literature. We show that this result cannot be extended from the closed unit interval to general metrisable spaces. Indeed, we prove that the free topological vector space does not even have a vector subspace isomorphic as a topological vector space to , where is a Cook continuum, which is a one-dimensional compact metric space. This is also shown to be the case for a rigid Bernstein set, which is a zero-dimensional subspace of the real line. © 2019 Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc..
The forgotten exotic tapeworms : a review of uncommon zoonotic cyclophyllidea
- Authors: Sapp, Sarah , Bradbury, Richard
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article , Review
- Relation: Parasitology Vol. 147, no. 5 (2020), p. 533-558
- Full Text:
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- Description: As training in helminthology has declined in the medical microbiology curriculum, many rare species of zoonotic cestodes have fallen into obscurity. Even among specialist practitioners, knowledge of human intestinal cestode infections is often limited to three genera, Taenia, Hymenolepis and Dibothriocephalus. However, five genera of uncommonly encountered zoonotic Cyclophyllidea (Bertiella, Dipylidium, Raillietina, Inermicapsifer and Mesocestoides) may also cause patent intestinal infections in humans worldwide. Due to the limited availability of summarized and taxonomically accurate data, such cases may present a diagnostic dilemma to clinicians and laboratories alike. In this review, historical literature on these cestodes is synthesized and knowledge gaps are highlighted. Clinically relevant taxonomy, nomenclature, life cycles, morphology of human-infecting species are discussed and clarified, along with the clinical presentation, diagnostic features and molecular advances, where available. Due to the limited awareness of these agents and identifying features, it is difficult to assess the true incidence of these 'forgotten' cestodiases as clinical misidentifications are likely to occur. Also, the taxonomic status of many of the human-infecting species of these tapeworms is unclear, hampering accurate species identification. Further studies combining molecular data and morphological observations are necessary to resolve these long-standing taxonomic issues and to elucidate other unknown aspects of transmission and ecology. Copyright © The Author(s), US Government, 2020.
Germination biology of three populations of Navua sedge (Cyperus aromaticus)
- Authors: Chadha, Aakansha , Florentine, Singarayer , Dhileepan, Kunjithapatham , Dowling, Kim , Turville, Christopher
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Weed Science Vol. 69, no. 1 (2021), p. 69-81
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Navua sedge [Cyperus aromaticus (Ridley) Mattf. & Kük.] is an aggressive perennial sedge native to equatorial Africa that has become problematic in many Pacific islands and wet, tropical Queensland, Australia. It has had a significant impact on the livestock-grazing industry, sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) and banana (Musa acuminata Colla) plantations, and various other ecosystems. A laboratory-based research investigation was conducted to understand germination and emergence requirements under various environmental conditions of three geographically varied populations sourced from South Johnstone (SJ), Mackay (M) and Nyleta Creek (NC) in Queensland. Germination was identified to be stimulated by light, with no germination recorded under darkness. Populations SJ and NC had optimal germination at alternating temperatures of 25/15, 30/20, and 35/25 C, whereas population M had optimal germination at 25/15 and 30/20 C. All populations recorded greater than 85% germination at all pH levels tested. Seeds of population SJ were more sensitive to salinity compared with populations M and NC, with SJ showing no germination at 100 mM, whereas populations M and NC had 23% and 9% germination, respectively. An inverse relationship was observed between osmotic potential and germination, with no germination recorded at osmotic potentials below -0.8 MPa in any population, indicating moisture availability is a critical requirement for germination. Exposing seeds to 120 C radiant heat completely inhibited germination in populations M and NC, whereas 3% of population SJ germinated following a 180-s exposure at 120 C. Seedling emergence decreased as planting depth increased. Emergence was greatest for seeds on the soil surface or at 0.5-cm burial depth, consistent with germination being stimulated by light. Knowledge of these biological characteristics of C. aromaticus seed germination will assist in investigation of suitable control actions for this species, particularly in the early stage of its invasion into new areas, and will contribute to significant reduction in the soil seedbank. © 2021 Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.