Current International Research Research Articles

The Early Neolithic tell of Vrbjanska Čuka in Pelagonia

Abstract Vrbjanska Čuka is a tell site in the region of Pelagonia (Macedonia) established 8000 years ago by the Neolithic communities. Later it was used as an agricultural unit during the Roman era and the Middle Ages when it was also employed as a burial area. The excavations performed in the 1980s and during the last five years indicate a Neolithic farming society that constructed large buildings made of daub in a settlement enclosed by a circular ditch. The buildings had many clay structures, such as ovens, granaries, bins and grinding areas for processing cereals and bread production. The Neolithic communities used sophisticated fine pottery and modeled figurines and altars, while the stone tools were mainly used for cutting trees, harvesting and grinding. Apart from the cereal-based food (einkorn wheat, emmer wheat or barley), the inhabitants of Vrbjanska Čuka consumed lentils, peas and a variety of gathered wild fruits, while cattle, caprovine, mussels, fish and wild game meat was also part of a diet, as well as the dairy products. This paper will be a summary of a variety of data provided from the current international and multidisciplinary research of the site that involves excavation, prospection, geomagnetic survey, study of material culture, examination of architecture, radiocarbon dating, geoarchaeological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological, lipid and use-wear analyses, as well as the topographic and 3D modeling. The recent knowledge on Vrbjanska Čuka provides novel understanding of the Early Neolithic in Pelagonia and contributes to the more extensive research of first farming societies in the Balkans.

868Harnessing new approaches and contemporary methods for better evidence on housing and health

868Harnessing new approaches and contemporary methods for better evidence on housing and health

Domestic abuse and intimate partner violence: the role of digital by design

PurposeDomestic abuse or intimate partner violence is a term that describes a pattern of abusive behaviours, often experienced concurrently and linked to gender-based violence. This study aims to explore through the literature the potential to design effective digital services that work for victims, survivors and those who provide domestic abuse support services.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a systems or service design thinking methodology which was adopted during a Scottish Government-funded Technology Enabled Care (TEC) pathfinder project on domestic abuse. This methodology is the basis for the Scottish Approach to Service Design which is based on the Design Council Double Diamond. During the first phase, known as the discovery phase, desk-based research is conducted by the service design team to inform their approach to the later phases (the second half of the first diamond is define whilst design and deliver form the second diamond). Time is spent during discovery to unpack the complexity whilst the approach takes a pragmatic worldview.FindingsTechnology has yet to be shown to provide an effective solution to any aspect of the victim or survivors’ experience or support services albeit these are often over-stretched and under-funded even without the Covid-19 pandemic. Digital abuse is increasing with perpetrators adapting new technologies. Digital developments should be grounded on ethical design principles.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is the result of the desk-based research during a TEC project considering the potential role of technology in tackling domestic abuse. Limitations include only including evidence from the literature; interviews were conducted but are not reported here. Another limitation is the pragmatic rather than academic nature of the approach; it was to be a foundation for service re-design. So hopefully useful for new practitioners to immerse themselves in the topic area but with no claims to be reproducible as would be the case in a formal review.Practical implicationsAll the evidence shows the authors need to keep trying different approaches, different forms of engagement and ways to empower survivors. Could technology support health-care practitioners to consistently use sensitive routine enquiry? Perhaps enable independent domestic violence advisors to attend more multidisciplinary team meetings in local community settings? Meanwhile, digital abuse is increasing with perpetrators adapting new technologies. Technology has not yet provided a digital solution which is practical and meets the needs of the broad intersectional population affected by domestic abuse nor those who provide support. If the future is to be based on digital developments it must be grounded on ethical design principles.Originality/valueThis desk-based review collates the current national and international policy and research literature whilst focusing on digital developments which support those affected by domestic abuse.

Digital Literacy in UK Health Education: What Can Be Learnt from International Research?

Introduction: To meet the ambition of the UK becoming the global leader in health technology, the future workforce needs to have a developed digital literacy. The influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the move to online learning has also increased the requirement for a reinvention of traditional teaching methodologies (Sá & Serpa, 2020). Methodology: A systematic review was conducted using a mix of Boolean search terms in twelve education and health journal databases to discover the extent of current international research of digital literacy in health programmes. Papers were selected for their specificity to digital literacy in health education pre-registration professional programmes. Results: The initial search included 5359 papers, 3925 after duplicates removed, 134 remained after title review which were then input into Covidence for full reading, finally 47 papers being included for thematic analysis. This thematic analysis identified a number of key themes within these papers: digital literacy of the educator, digital literate workforce, technical skills limit adoption, information literacy, a curriculum requirement in education, institutional infrastructure or personal access, preparedness for entering academia, concerns over the use of digital skills, personalised digital literacy experience, increased communication skills with digital literacies, competency frameworks, COVID-19 and social media in education. Conclusion: This research identifies areas of good practice and areas that need to be considered in higher education programmes and by academics to ensure the digital literacy of the future healthcare workforce.

Kriminológia MA

The Criminology MA book has primarily been written for Master’s students at the Faculty of Law Enforcement of the University of Public Service as it covers some of the most current and important international and Hungarian research within the field of criminology. Its topics include, among other things, crime prevention strategies, crime prevention through environmental design, child-friendly justice practices and the consequences of drug use. The main question of the volume of studies edited by Andrea Tünde Barabás is which criminological topics can provide the students with the newest and hopefully the most useful knowledge. The volume consists of three chapters: Theory and practice of crime prevention; Criminology of children and the elderly; and Drug-related crimes and drug use.

Fark et, anda kal; namıdiğer Mindfulness: Farkandalık uygulamalarının dünü, bugünü ve kültürümüze duyarlılığı

Bu derleme çalışmasında, son yıllarda tüm dünyada olduğu gibi ülkemizde de tanınır bir yaklaşım olan mindfulness kavram ve uygulamalarına ilişkin alan yazın taraması ve yaklaşımın kültüre duyarlığının incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Buna göre, fark’andalık olarak kullanılan kavramın tanımı ve felsefesinin paylaşılmasının ardından yaklaşımın diğer kuramlarla ortaklığı özetlenmiştir. Buna göre Freud ile başlayan süreç Gestalt yaklaşımı ve Varoluşçu yaklaşımla mindfulness yaklaşımına zemin oluşturmuştur. Bilişsel davranışçı yaklaşımın üzerine oturtulan düşüncelerin yönetilmesi, tinsel bakış açısıyla ayrımsama olarak sunulmuştur. Hümanistik yaklaşımın öncüsü Carl Rogers’ın büyük etkileri görülmektedir. Günümüzde çağdaş yaklaşımlar kapsamında oluşturulan mindfulness temelli terapiler de açıklanmıştır. Çalışmada fark’andalık uygulamalarının psikolojik danışmada ve eğitimde, önemine de değinilmiştir. Uluslararası çalışmaların yanı sıra ulusal çalışmaların da özetlendiği çalışma farkandalığın günümüzde bulunduğu yeri de içermektedir.

Sludge treatment and resource recovery towards carbon neutrality in China: current status and future perspective

Abstract Global warming – mainly caused by carbon emissions – is a major global challenge for human sustainable development. Carbon emission reduction and resource recovery from sludge treatment are critical to the carbon neutralisation of future wastewater treatment plants. This paper analyses the key elements of carbon emissions during sludge treatment and disposal, namely energy source carbon emissions, fugitive carbon emissions and carbon compensation. Of the four mainstream process routes analysed in this work, anaerobic digestion + dry incineration is identified as the route with the highest potential for reducing carbon emissions in the future. Finally, based on a review of current international research hotspots, the future development directions for sludge treatment and resource recovery are discussed. This paper thus provides a comprehensive understanding of the current sludge treatment processing routes and serves as a reference for process route selection and future research on carbon neutralisation.

Research progress of the response mechanism of wheat growth to waterlogging stress and the related regulating managements.

The frequency of waterlogging events is increasing in recent years due to climate change. Wheat, a dryland crop, is particularly sensitive to waterlogging. Moreover, waterlogging stress is especially serious in the main wheat-producing regions at the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River as influenced by regional climate, soil, rotating system and other factors. Oxygen content in soil decreases under waterlogging condition, which inhibits root growth, restricts plant growth, and eventually reduces wheat yield and grain quality. In the present study, we reviewed the current national and international research progress in the underlying physiological mechanisms of inhibitory wheat growth by waterlogging stress, from the aspects of root respiration, water transport, mineral nutrient absorption, photosynthesis, redox metabolism. We discussed the physiological adaptions of wheat to waterlogging, including maintaining energy supply through anaerobic respiration and oxygen supply through changes of root morphology. We listed the application of cultivation measures such as fertilizer regulation, growth regulator regulation and stress memory in improving waterlogging stress-tolerance in wheat with the underlying physiological mechanisms summarized. We also prospected the future study on waterlogging stress-tolerance in wheat, aiming to provide theoretical foundation for waterlogging-tolerant cultivation and maintaining high yield of wheat.

ANZCA at 25: past presidents in conversation

In 2019, the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) celebrated its 25th anniversary. To commemorate this milestone, the organisers of the 2019 annual ANZCA conference in Canberra, Australia, convened a panel of past presidents involved in the transition of the Australian Communication Association (ACA), founded in 1980, into ANZCA. This article presents an edited transcript of that panel, with a pre-amble situating the panel in the context of current international research, with the dual purpose of marking an historical occasion, and also contributing to international research into the field.

Best practice in working with children who have developmental language disorder: a focused review of the current research evidence base

The purpose of this paper is to provide a synthesis of the current international research evidence base regarding best practice in the diagnosis and treatment of children with language disorders. We begin with a discussion about the terminology used and how this relates to identification and diagnosis, and then describe assessment and treatment practices. The discussion of intervention and case management of these children focuses on the use of high quality evidence that presents an overview of treatment approaches, rather than specific treatment programmes that may not be relevant to all international practice settings. The paper sets the context of the wider international research evidence base: we also include commentary that may be more relevant to some countries across mainland Europe, and specifically to the Czech Republic context. Research studies that reflect local languages and culture are a highly important component of the evidence base for practice, but these should be considered in the context of international consensus evidence. In particular, some strategic recommendations are made to address the inherent challenges of sustaining best practice where open access to evidence sources may be constrained.

Transition from care: Are we continuing to set care leavers up to fail in New Zealand?

The need for a supported transition for young people leaving care in New Zealand has been acknowledged with the implementation of new legislation and policy from 1 July 2019. One advantage of the protracted delay is the ability to draw on international research evaluating the impact of changes made in other jurisdictions. The article begins with an introduction to the New Zealand context. Current international research on the experience of care leavers is reviewed to identify key lessons and continuing challenges. Published research on the lived experience of young people leaving care and theoretical perspectives, developed to support a clearer understanding of their needs, provide the focus for this review. A summary of key lessons and challenges provides the framework for a critical analysis of New Zealand’s approach before concluding with a discussion of the implications going forward.

Automatic Monitoring System in Underground Engineering Construction: Review and Prospect

Automatic monitoring system is one of the main means to ensure the safety of underground engineering construction. This paper summarizes the current international research and application status of the underground engineering monitoring system from three aspects of data acquisition, data transmission, and data processing and emphatically introduces the mainstream new technology of the monitoring system. Furthermore, this paper puts forward specific and implementable technical routes based on the current intelligent technology and the challenges faced by future monitoring, which can provide direction and reference for future research, including high‐precision real‐time acquisition and safe and reliable transmission of monitoring data, multisource data fusion, and the visual intelligent early warning platform.

Design of healthcare structures by green standards

Global warming is real, and the healthcare industry is both a contributor and a victim. Also, physical setting and, in particular, sustainable design practices can support patient recovery during hospitalization. In the context of this paper, focus areas for design of green healthcare structures have been explored in detail. Herein, we are laying focus on understanding architecturally justified approaches of interior lighting in a healthcare setting. This paper also discusses design strategies to improve indoor air quality in hospitals and the current international research to improve indoor air quality are reported. Other focus areas like greenhouse keeping, use of green interior materials and landscaping are discussed. Data for the review was extracted from published books and diverse online sources with the help of the Google search engine. It was found that healthcare structures, being resource intensive establishments, consume vast amounts of energy, water, and construction materials to provide high quality care. It was also found that healthcare institutions, by adopting sustainable measures are capable of reducing their environmental footprint to a bigger extent, boost the wellbeing of healthcare staff and aid patient recovery.

Rapid decline and gender disparities in the NAPLAN writing data

The rapid decline in Australian students’ performance on the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) writing test is an issue of national concern. This paper presents the first investigation into patterns of achievement and progress on the NAPLAN writing test across the tested year levels (3, 5, 7 and 9) between 2011 and 2018, with a focus on gender differences. The findings reveal a considerable decline in writing performance for both genders over time, with a major disparity of up to 2 years of learning in test outcomes between male and female students. While performance of girls exceeded year-level standards when averaged over the 8 years, the average performance of boys was consistently below standards, with male students falling further behind female students across the school years. Yet average scores for both genders have declined significantly since 2011. Drawing on current international research into the teaching of writing and standardised writing tests, the paper considers two possible causes for this decline which are often communicated by education stakeholders: ineffective writing instruction, and issues with the design and implementation of the NAPLAN writing test. The paper calls for a national conversation about how we might effectively teach and assess writing.

Are we there yet? Best practices for diversity and inclusion in Australia

ABSTRACTThis article reports on the findings of a pilot research project investigating current best practices, operating within national law firms in Australia, that support women lawyers in their advancement to partnership and other leadership positions. Academic research and professional body reports suggest that current diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives across the private sector are not resulting in significant change to advancement, retention and attrition of women in the legal profession. However, work done by the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales in Australia, through the Data Comparison Project (DCP), indicates that some firms have made better progress than others. Building on the DCP, this article presents the findings of a pilot project involving in-depth interviews with four of the top-achieving national law firms in Australia on gender equity criteria. It finds that these firms are collectively engaging with many of the best practice initiatives for D&I recommended by the current national and international research and scholarship, and in some instances go beyond international best practice. What is apparent, however, is that the current best practices have yet to achieve significant advancement of women, or to break through the glass ceilings that continue to operate for women in large Australian law firms.

Understanding Classroom Assessment Practices and Learning Motivation in Secondary EFL Students

The use of classroom assessment as a means of promoting student learning is strongly supported by current international educational research and policy. The purpose of this study was to examine what classroom assessment practices secondary English as a foreign language (EFL) students experience, and how such assessment experience may cater for their English learning motivation. To capture students’ classroom assessment experiences, a questionnaire was developed based on constructs related to classroom assessment in the literature. Students’ learning motivation in the EFL course was then measured by the Student Learning Motivation Questionnaire adapted from Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008). The results showed that although teacher-controlled performance-oriented assessment was most used in the EFL classroom, teacher-student interactive-informal assessment and student self-assessment emerged as best predictors of students’ intrinsic motivation and positive attitudes toward the EFL course. The study thus revealed that not all types of classroom assessment practice were equally motivational. Implications of the results for creating a more meaningful learning-oriented assessment environment in the EFL classroom are discussed.

Incremental Updating Information Extraction and Topology Conflict Detection Method for Updating Road Network

Abstract. In recent years, Located Based Service (LBS) has become one of the hotspots on the application of geographic information to the government and the public. Providing a good performance map to the users is an important part of the location service system. Compared with the traditional web spatial information service system, service system of map information also put forward higher requirements of real time and veracity. The problem of updating electronic map in real-time cannot be effectively solved, hindering the updating of multi-scale electronic map and restricting the development of location service market. As a very important branch for the updating data field of geographic information science, incremental update has become a hot issue in the current international GIS research field. The extraction of incremental information includes two key technologies, namely road network matching and road network selection. After incremental updating roads were inserted into the database, coordinating topological conflicts caused by these inserted roads was the mainly task. However, the accuracy and algorithm efficiency of each technology need further improvement to provide the users with the latest and the most accurate basic geographic data. As the "skeleton" element of a map, the road network rapidly changes, carrying out more urgent requires for the incremental road update. Aiming at key technology problems of the updated road network, the paper focused on the following three parts:(1) To address the problems that the traditional probabilistic relaxation method only adopted geometric constraints as one of road matching criterions and could not respond to M: N matching pattern, an improved probabilistic relaxation method was proposed from the combined views of local optimization and global one, integrating geometric indicators with topology ones to achieve an effect with local optimization, as well as identifying M: N matching pattern by inserting virtual nodes to achieve a globally optimal effect. Then the matching strategies and corresponding implement algorisms were designed for different matching patterns. The case test showed that the overall matching accuracy of each evaluation indictor reached over 90%, increasing by 6%–12%; the evaluation indicators on both spatial and attribute properties increased by 4%–6%; the proper buffer threshold could be defined as twice the average value of the closest distances from all nodes in the candidate matching dataset.(2) Aiming at the low accuracy and irrational structural selection caused by only using linear pattern or areal pattern, an improved method was proposed combining linear method as well as areal ones. The proposed method improves the Stroke generation algorithm of linear pattern using OLS model taking the overall information from the roads to be connected. Meanwhile, it partitioned road network by weighted Voronoi diagrams. The roads were selected under the process of calculating the importance of Stroke and its road density threshold. The test demonstrated that the improved method added the accuracy of Stroke generation results, and the results of road selection could maintain the overall characteristics of the road network as well as its spatial distribution information. Compared with method only using one pattern, the combined method had a better accuracy of road selection.(3) According to the characteristics of detection topology for an updated road network, this paper proposed a topology conflict detection algorithm considering the incremental update of multi-scale network. The algorithm designed K-level topological neighbourhood to identify incremental neighbourhood road segments, built a topological refinement model based on geometric metrics, proposed checking rules based on comprehensive operation operator, and detected the conflict topology by using improved topological distance. The experimental results showed that 1) the accuracy and recall of the proposed method were more than 90%; 2) considering conflict topology caused by the generalization, the accuracy increased by 29.2%; 3) the average path length of a road network could be used as the reference of the best K-value in the K order incremental neighbourhood method.

Proof and argumentation in K-12 mathematics: a review of conceptions, content, and support

ABSTRACT Current international curriculum frameworks and research advocate for K-12 mathematics to emphasize proof and argumentation. This review synthesizes literature related to conceptions, content, and supportive actions for proof and argumentation across four grade-level bands: K-2, 3–5, 6–8, and 9–12. Our systematic search and subsequent screening process yielded 76 articles for coding and analysis. The findings suggest (a) a variety of conceptualizations that are imbalanced amongst the grade bands, (b) there is more research related to proof and argumentation in middle (6–8) and high school (9–12) compared to elementary school (K-5), (c) the type of content used to solicit argumentation is not well-balanced, and (d) supportive actions include aspects related to classroom culture, individual accountability, and conjecturing before justifying.

"Together on the Way": Occupational Therapy in Mainstream Education-A Narrative Study of Emerging Practice in Switzerland.

In Switzerland, recent changes in legislation have reformed special needs education; more children with special needs are now integrated into mainstream schools. Health professionals such as occupational therapists are not embedded in the Swiss education system, but pediatric occupational therapists are starting to work at schools, with the aim of enabling children's full participation as school students. This is bringing a change to the practice of pediatric occupational therapists. Cultural, political, and social factors differ in many ways from those of other countries where most of the current research on pediatric occupational therapists in mainstream education has been conducted. The need for school-based research that is situated within the political, structural, and cultural context of a country has been stressed in different studies. This qualitative study employed narrative analysis to explore the practice experiences and clinical reasoning of Swiss pediatric occupational therapists when working with children with special needs in the school context. Three main themes were identified in the narratives: “bringing in an occupational therapy perspective,” “focusing on school-related occupations,” and “collaborating with different inclusion players.” These represent three different aspects of the therapists' emerging practice. The participants highlight different approaches for children with special needs to enable their participation in everyday life at school through learning, playing, and being with their peers. The findings are discussed in relation to current international research and with respect to European countries with a similar political and structural context, thus complementing approaches to school-based occupational therapy.

Case-control study of the low intensive autism-specific early behavioral intervention A-FFIP: Outcome after one year.

Abstracts: Objective: In current international research, early intervention in children with autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) focuses on naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBI). The manualized Frankfurt Early Intervention Program for preschool-aged children with ASD (A-FFIP) implements NDBI principles within a low-intensity approach of 2 h intervention/week. The present case-control study established effect sizes of change in autistic symptoms, comorbid behavioral problems as well as IQ after one year. Methodology: An intervention group (N = 20; age: 3.4-7.9 years) and a treatment-as-usual control group (N = 20; age: 3.2-7.3 years) of children with ASD were matched for developmental and chronological age. The outcome measures used were the ADOS severity score, the Child Behavior Checklist, and cognitive development. Results: After one year, the A-FFIP group showed a trend towards greater improvement in autistic symptoms (η2 = .087 [95 %-CI: .000-.159]) and significantly greater improvements in cognitive development (η2 = .206 [CI: .012-.252]) and global psychopathology (η2 = .144 [CI: .001-.205]) compared to the control group. Conclusion: The efficacy of A-FFIP should be established in a larger, sufficiently powered, randomized controlled study.