Flinders University

About: Flinders University is a education organization based out in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 12033 authors who have published 32831 publications receiving 973172 citations. The organization is also known as: Flinders University of South Australia.

Children's figure ratings: relationship to self-esteem and negative stereotyping.

Abstract: Objective Numerous studies have used figure ratings to demonstrate substantially greater body dissatisfaction among women than men. The present study aimed to investigate gender differences in body dissatisfaction in younger children. Method: A children's version of the Figure Rating Scale was administered to 140 children between the ages of 7 and 12 years. Children also completed measures of self-esteem and negative stereotyping of fat people. Results: Irrespective of age, girls rated their ideal figure as smaller than the one they considered most attractive to boys, and as substantially smaller than their current figure. For boys, there was no difference in ratings. Level of body dissatisfaction correlated negatively with self-esteem and positively with negative stereotyping for boys, but not for girls. Discussion: The results are consistent with body dissatisfaction being “a normative discontent” for young girls as well as for adult women. © 1998 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 23: 83–88, 1998.

Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution

Abstract: The evolution of the ratite birds has been widely attributed to vicariant speciation, driven by the Cretaceous breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana. The early isolation of Africa and Madagascar implies that the ostrich and extinct Madagascan elephant birds (Aepyornithidae) should be the oldest ratite lineages. We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of two elephant birds and performed phylogenetic analyses, which revealed that these birds are the closest relatives of the New Zealand kiwi and are distant from the basal ratite lineage of ostriches. This unexpected result strongly contradicts continental vicariance and instead supports flighted dispersal in all major ratite lineages. We suggest that convergence toward gigantism and flightlessness was facilitated by early Tertiary expansion into the diurnal herbivory niche after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The content and disclosure of Australian corporate environmental policies

Abstract: Studies of environmental disclosure levels in companies’ annual reports have shown an increasing interest in the environment. A major part of this interest has become the development of a corporate environmental policy (CEP). This study considers the relationship between CEPs of Australian public companies and subsequent reporting and disclosure related to that policy found in their annual reports. The results show that Australian companies are surprisingly behind other countries in environmental reporting trends, and there are some major differences between the content of their environmental policies and their disclosures. Of particular importance is the finding that while companies appear to be reporting on the environment internally, they place a low priority on providing environmental performance data to external parties.