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This paper describes the research protocol for the Educational and Developmental Gains in Early Childhood (EDGE) Study, which will examine the implementation of two years of funded kindergarten prior to the first year of school in Victoria, Australia. EDGE will examine whether children's language, cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioural outcomes are improved after two years of kindergarten compared to one year. The experiences of (and impacts on) teachers, service leaders, and families will also be examined. The study includes a cross-sectional cohort of 95 early childhood education and care (ECEC) services, and an embedded longitudinal observational cohort of children attending these services. Case studies of 15–20 ECEC services will also be collected, in addition to interviews with policy stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most previous studies have shown that free gifts positively increase promoted product sales. However, will any characteristic of the gift hurt the promoted product, and how does it happen? This study has two purposes. First, the study sheds light on the brand preference of the promoted product being hurt in a gift promotion setting and examines the causes--gift quality and perceived brand fit. Second, a mental mechanism of the negative effect of a gift quality on the promoted brand preference was explored by applying perspectives of Expectancy-Disconfirmation Theory (EDT) and the Halo effect. Two experimental studies were developed. Study 1 confirmed that the lower gift quality, but not brand unfit, hurt the brand preference of the promoted product. Study 2 further examined its mental process and found two mediators between gift quality and promoted brand preference (i.e., expectancy disconfirmation of gift quality and preference toward the gift promotion mix). It supports the EDT and the Halo effect being applied to explain the mental mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interprofessional collaborative practice is a core competency and is the key to strengthening health practice systems in order to deliver safe and high-quality nursing practice. However, there is no Interprofessional Collaboration Practice Competency Scale (IPCPCS) for clinical nurses in Taiwan. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to develop an IPCPCS and to verify its reliability and validity. This was a psychometric study with a cross-sectional survey using convenience sampling to recruit nurses from the seven hospitals of a medical foundation. A self-designed structured IPCPCS was rolled out via a Google survey. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, principal-axis factoring (PAF) with Promax rotation, Pearson correlation, reliability analysis, and one-way ANOVA. PAF analysis found that three factors could explain 77.76% of cumulative variance. These were collaborative leadership and interprofessional conflict resolution, interprofessional communication and team functioning, and role clarification and client-centered care. The internal consistency of the three factors (Cronbach's α) was between 0.970 to 0.978, and the Pearson correlation coefficients were between 0.814 to 0.883. Significant differences were presented in the IPCPCS score by age, education level, total years of work experience, position on the nursing clinical ladder, and participation in interprofessional education. In conclusion, the three factors used in the IPCPCS have good reliability and construct validity. This scale can be used as an evaluation tool of in-service interprofessional education courses for clinical nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to better understand the factors that affect the chances of re-engaging early school leavers in education, with a particular focus on the importance of time out from school (duration dependence) and school-related factors. Using data from three cohorts of the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth and duration models that control for unobserved heterogeneity, our results suggest that programmes that encourage an early return to study and those that develop post-school career plans may be more effective than programmes that concentrate on improving numeracy and literacy scores.

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8462.2008.00474.x Byline: Yi-Ping Tseng ([dagger]), Ha Vu ([dagger]), Roger Wilkins ([dagger]) Abstract: Abstract Using administrative records on Australian income support (welfare) recipients over the period July 1995 to June 2002, we examine dynamic properties of income support receipt and the personal characteristics associated with alternative patterns of receipt. We draw on three concepts: churning-the process of ending a spell on income support and subsequently commencing a new spell; transferring-moving from one payment type to another within a spell on income support; and Total Time On payments (TTO)-the proportion of time on income support in a given period. We find that churning and transferring are significant features of income support receipt in Australia. For example, over half of recipients churn within five years of commencing an income support spell, and one-fifth make a payment transfer within the same time frame. Examination of the characteristics associated with each of five distinct patterns of receipt reveals substantial differences in patterns by age, family composition, unemployment status, health status, and recent history of income support receipt. Author Affiliation: ([dagger])Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne Article History: First version received October 2006;final version accepted June 2007 (Eds).

There appears to be widespread consensus, at least in industry and government, that enterprise bargaining has been beneficial for productivity. Many academics, however, have argued that the link between bargaining structure and workplace productivity is a contentious one, and that research has been unable to establish a relationship. The present paper re-examines the existing evidence. The review reinforces the need to exercise caution before asserting that enterprise bargaining is necessarily beneficial for workplace productivity. The main conclusion that emanates from this review, however, is not the absence of a clear-cut finding, but how poorly developed the relevant research literature is.

Welfare dependence or reliance is widely regarded to have adverse consequences for both the community and welfare recipients, yet there have been few studies of the extent and nature of welfare reliance. Indeed, the concept of welfare reliance does not seem to be well defined. In the present paper, we clarify the meaning of the concept and derive reliance measures consistent with this concept. These measures are applied to describe the extent and nature of reliance on income support payments in Australia of persons aged 15-64 years, using Australian Bureau of Statistics income survey data and Australian government administrative data for income support payments.

This article uses data from 3500 Australian workers to investigate which factors have had a significant influence on microeconomic wage growth over the years 1997 to 2000. The relative importance of four types of factors--outside incomes, demand for labour, workers' relative bargaining strength and category of wage contract--are compared. Basic individual demographic characteristics and some indicators of workers' bargaining power provided most of the explanation for wage changes. Proxy variables for labour demand, while significant and correctly signed, were small in magnitude.

A procedure combining the dynamic stiffness method with the Laplace transform is proposed to obtain accurate transient responses of an arch with variable curvature. The dynamic stiffness matrix and equivalent nodal force vector for an arch with variable curvature subjected to distributed loading are explicitly formulated based on a series solution. The effects of shear deformation, rotary inertia, and damping are considered. As examples, the accurate transient responses of a parabolic and a semielliptic arch subjected to either point loading or base excitation are given. The effects of the shapes of the arches and the phase-shift in the multiple input for base excitation are also discussed.

A di‐substituted quinone (5), having two amido‐groups at opposite positions, was reacted with tertiary, secondary, or primary amines via a one‐pot reaction in the presence of palladium salt. Crystal structures of some of the products, 7b‐7c, from these reactions reveal that two new pyrrole rings are formed and linked to quinone framework of 5 by taking advantage of the in situ generated alkenyl moiety, which is from the reaction of amine with palladium salt. Furthermore, the reaction of di‐amido substituted diquinone (8a) with tertiary amines led to the formations of 9a‐9d with new pyrrole and benzene rings to the moiety of 8a. Similar procedures for the reaction of 8b with tertiary amines provides an alternated route to make notable 1,4,5,8‐phenanthrenetetraone derivatives, 9e and 9f. Moreover, the reaction of diquinone (8a) with tricyclohexylphosphine led to two products, 11 and 13, with new formation of furan ring as well as PC bond. Further reaction of 11 with NBu3 yielded 14 with newly formed pyrrole ring. Crystal structures of these newly‐formed compounds revealed by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction methods substantiate the claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted to formulate a model for higher-order laminated plate theory. The proposed model is an integration of the partial hybrid stress method and the finite strip method, and it is called the partial hybrid strip model (PHSM). The PHSM accurately predicts the through thickness variation of in-plane deformation and the flexural stresses. Moreover, the continuity factor becomes negligible, and only transverse shear stress parameters are needed, thereby making the PHSM more efficient.

We examine the impact of housing and labour market conditions on individual risks of homelessness. Our innovation is a focus on homelessness entries, although findings from jointly estimated homelessness entry and exit probit equations are reported. Risky behaviours and life experiences such as regular use of drugs, the experience of violence and biographies of acute disadvantage lead to a higher risk of becoming homeless. Public housing is a strong protective factor. We find clear evidence that for certain subgroups it is being the 'wrong person in the wrong place' that matters most when considering risks of entering homelessness. Indigenous Australians, for example, are no more likely to become homeless than other vulnerable groups holding housing and labour market conditions constant. However, tighter housing markets and weaker labour markets expose Indigenous Australians to significantly higher risks of entering homelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: High unemployment is a hallmark of psychotic illness. Individual placement and support (IPS) may be effective at assisting the vocational recoveries of young people with first-episode psychosis (FEP).AimsTo examine the effectiveness of IPS at assisting young people with FEP to gain employment (Australian and Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12608000094370).Method: Young people with FEP (n = 146) who were interested in vocational recovery were randomised using computer-generated random permuted blocks on a 1:1 ratio to: (a) 6 months of IPS in addition to treatment as usual (TAU) or (b) TAU alone. Assessments were conducted at baseline, 6 months (end of intervention), 12 months and 18 months post-baseline by research assistants who were masked to the treatment allocations.Results: At the end of the intervention the IPS group had a significantly higher rate of having been employed (71.2%) than the TAU group (48.0%), odds ratio 3.40 (95% CI 1.17-9.91, z = 2.25, P = 0.025). However, this difference was not seen at 12- and 18-month follow-up points. There was no difference at any time point on educational outcomes.Conclusions: This is the largest trial to our knowledge on the effectiveness of IPS in FEP. The IPS group achieved a very high employment rate during the 6 months of the intervention. However, the advantage of IPS was not maintained in the long term. This seems to be related more to an unusually high rate of employment being achieved in the control group rather than a gross reduction in employment among the IPS group.Declaration of interestNone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do people at risk of homelessness have private information—information that social service agencies cannot credibly obtain—that helps predict whether they will become homeless? This article asserts that the answer to this question is yes: homeless people and people at risk of homelessness know important things about their future. Data from Journeys Home (JH), a pathbreaking longitudinal study of people experiencing homelessness and people at risk of homelessness in Australia, are used in this article. In many cases, the private information that participants have predicts entries better than the public information that agencies can obtain. Ways in which this private information can be used to improve service delivery are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many nursing home residents lack autonomous decision-making capacity and rely on family members to make do-not-resuscitate (DNR) decisions. Making DNR decisions can be difficult and complicated for surrogates. However, surrogates' psychological experience in making these decisions for older relatives is not well studied. Aim: To understand the surrogates' psychological experience of making DNR decisions for older relatives in a nursing home. Methods: The study subjects of this qualitative study were family surrogates of older residents in a nursing home of Taiwan. A self-constructed, semistructured interview guided in-depth interviews, which were recorded. Content analysis was used to discover themes from verbatim record. Results: Four themes were revealed: lack of psychological preparation, considering issues when making a decision, ambivalent emotional responses and impact of cultural factors. Fifteen subthemes were also found. Conclusions: Surrogates who must decide whether to make a DNR decision for older relatives experience great emotional conflict. Understanding surrogates' struggles may assist nursing and care staff in managing this difficult situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]