Roadmap to recovery: Reporting on a research taskforce supporting Indigenous responses to COVID‐19 in Australia

In April 2020 a Group of Eight Taskforce was convened, consisting of over 100 researchers, to provide independent, research‐based recommendations to the Commonwealth Government on a “Roadmap to Recovery” from COVID‐19. The report covered issues ranging from pandemic control and relaxation of social distancing measures, to well‐being and special considerations for vulnerable populations. Our work focused on the critical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities; this paper presents an overview of our recommendations to the Roadmap report. In addressing the global challenges posed by pandemics for citizens around the world, Indigenous people are recognised as highly vulnerable. At the time of writing Australia's First Nations Peoples have been largely spared from COVID‐19 in comparison to other Indigenous populations globally. Our recommendations emphasise self‐determination and equitable needs‐based funding to support Indigenous communities to recover from COVID‐19, addressing persistent overcrowded housing, and a focus on workforce, especially for regional and remote communities. These latter two issues have been highlighted as major issues of risk for Indigenous communities in Australia It remains to be seen how governments across Australia take up these recommendations to support Indigenous peoples' health and healing journey through yet another, potentially catastrophic, health crisis.     

Bidirectionality in kindergarten children's school readiness and emotional regulation

This study examined the longitudinal associations of emotional regulation and school readiness among Chinese kindergarten children. Data were collected from 523 children (mean age at time 1 = 52.42 months; 52.9% male) at two time points separated by approximately 1 year in Hong Kong, China. At times 1 and 2, children's school readiness was assessed by their teachers and parents while their emotional regulation was directly tested. Teachers also rated children's emotional regulation at both time points. The results from the two reciprocal path models showed that, controlling for the corresponding autoregressive effects, school readiness at time 1 was predictive of emotional regulation at time 2. However, emotional regulation at time 1 did not emerge as a significant predictor of school readiness at time 2. Theoretically, these results underscored children's school readiness as a potential contributor to their emotional regulation. Practically, these findings suggested the utility of supporting children's school readiness to foster their emotional regulation.     

Switching commuters from car to public transit: a micro modelling approach

This paper examines the perceptions and values of commuters in Toronto concerning public transit and the private car. Interviews were conducted at an office location readily accessible by car, bus or subway. Respondents were characterized by their predominant commuting mode and provided ratings of the perceived benefits of the modes available. Respondents then completed a conjoint analysis task designed to estimate their trade-offs, or the extent to which they were prepared to sacrifice on one aspect of a commuting journey in order to gain on another. The conjoint analysis used a fractional factorial design allowing main effects and two way interactions to be estimated.The conjoint analysis methodology is used to develop benefit segments and evaluate methods of marketing public transit.     

Review Essay: Thinking About War

Sociological Forum -     

浅谈做好档案利用反馈信息处理工作

档案利用反馈信息处理工作是档案管理系统中的一个重要环节.通过对反馈信息的分析研究,可以发现档案管理系统中存在的问题,从而从总体上促进档案工作的发展.然而,当前不少单位对档案利用反馈信息处理工作并未给予充分的重视,直接影响了这项工作的发展.     

Pseudo-science and Dividing Practices: a genealogy of the first educational provision for pupils with learning difficulties

Two of Michel Foucault's concepts are used to frame the analysis of the impact of the first dominant form of educational provision for pupils with learning difficulties. The historical background is that of elementary education a century ago and the conjuncture of two Royal Commissions whose deliberations effectively divided the school population into the normal and the exceptional. The definition which identified the exceptional pupil was faulty from the outset, but prevailed over several decades in legislation and secured the dominance of the medical profession in the field. At first, the recommendation for the location of educational provision was ambiguous. The London School Board employed the definition in a particular manner to establish a network of segregated special schools. That became the dominant model, but there was simultaneously available a successful example in another Board of inclusive education for the exceptional children which rejected both the definition and segregation.     

An Examination of the Asymmetric Effects of Money Supply Shocks in the Pre–World War I and Interwar Periods

We test whether monetary shocks had asymmetric output effects before World War II. Ball and Mankiw (1994) show that expectations of persistent inflation under fiat money can explain why negative monetary shocks had larger effects than positive shocks after World War II. Consistent with this explanation, we find such asymmetry in the interwar period following the abandonment of the gold standard and before it, when agents arguably anticipated this development. We find no monetary asymmetry before World War I, which is consistent with Ball and Mankiw (1994), because under a credible gold standard, agents do not expect persistent inflation.     

‘MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK’: TEENAGE WOMEN IN THE AUSTRALIAN LABOUR MARKET, 1947 TO 1992

Teenage women have been particularly disadvantaged by the collapse of the youth labour market over the last 20 years. This article outlines the dimension of that problem, comparing the position young women held in the teenage labour market in the late 1940s with their position today. While the 1950s and 1960s saw growth in some areas of paid work for teenage women, the 1970s marked a watershed. With the major exception of saleswork in the retail industry and clerical work in banking, teenage women saw their place in the labour market dramatically shrink during that decade. Nearly 30,000 full-time jobs disappeared during the 1970s, to be replaced by nearly the same number of part-time jobs. The 1980s has seen these developments reach crisis proportions. In the late 1980s, nearly 40,000 clerical jobs were lost to teenage women, and again the only significant employment growth was in casualised service sector jobs, such as cashiers and sales workers. This article concludes by exploring the structural reasons behind these dramatic long-term changes.     

DEXPERT: an expert system for the design of experiments

DEXPERT is an expert system, built using KEE, for the design and analysis of experiments. From a mathematical model, expected mean squares are computed, tests are determined, and the power of the tests computed. Comparisons between designs are aided by suggestions and verbal interpretations provided by DEXPERT. DEXPERT provides a layout sheet for the collection of the data and then analyzes and interprets the results using analytical and graphical methods.     

Modeling Benzene Pharmacokinetics Across Three Sets of Animal Data: Parametric Sensitivity and Risk Implications

Typically, the uncertainty affecting the parameters of physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models is ignored because it is not currently practical to adjust their values using classical parameter estimation techniques. This issue of parametric variability in a physiological model of benzene pharmacokinetics is addressed in this paper. Monte Carlo simulations were used to study the effects on the model output arising from variability in its parameters. The output was classified into two categories, depending on whether the output of the model on a particular run was judged to be generally consistent with published experimental data. Statistical techniques were used to examine sensitivity and interaction in the parameter space. The model was evaluated against the data from three different experiments in order to test for the structural adequacy of the model and the consistency of the experimental results. The regions of the parameter space associated with various inhalation and gavage experiments are distinct, and the model as presently structured cannot adequately represent the outcomes of all experiments. Our results suggest that further effort is required to discern between the structural adequacy of the model and the consistency of the experimental results. The impact of our results on the risk assessment process for benzene is also examined.