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.

The processing of thin ideals in fashion magazines: A source of social comparison or fantasy?

Abstract: The present study aimed to investigate the role of processing in women's responses to thin idealized images of beauty. A sample of 144 women viewed magazine advertisements containing either thin ideal or product images. Instructional set was manipulated with three levels: control, social comparison, and fantasy instructions. It was found that exposure to thin ideal images led to increased negative mood and body dissatisfaction, while instructional set had its effect on positive mood and body dissatisfaction. For thin ideal images, social comparison instructions led to greater negative mood and body dissatisfaction, while fantasy instructions led to improved positive mood. Importantly, regression analyses indicated that both comparison processing (negatively) and fantasy processing (positively) were associated with women's response to thin ideal images. It was concluded that the nature of the processing women engage in is crucial to their response to thin ideal images.

Development and evaluation of ontology for intelligent decision support in medical emergency management for mass gatherings

Abstract: Conducting a safe and successful major event highly depends on the effective provision of medical emergency services that are often offered by different public and private agencies. Poor communication and coordination between these agencies and teams can result in delays in decision-making and duplication of efforts. Another related issue is that emergency decisions are usually made based on individual experience and domain knowledge of relevant managerial personnel. For sustainable knowledge management and more intelligent decision support it is beneficial to collect, consolidate, store and share these experiences in a form of a knowledge base or domain ontology. State-of-the-art surveys identify this gap that there is no common ontology describing the domain knowledge for planning and managing medical services in mass gatherings. Part of the reason is that the process of construction of such an ontology is not a trivial task. In this paper, we describe the process of developing and evaluating a Domain Ontology for Mass Gatherings (DO4MG) with a focus on medical emergency management. As part of the evaluation, we illustrate the application of DO4MG for implementing a case-based reasoning decision support for emergency medical management in mass gatherings. Such an implementation demonstrates the potential of using ontology for resolving terminology inconsistencies and their usefulness for supporting communication between medical emergency personnel in mass gatherings. We also illustrate how this ontology can be applied to different stages of medical emergency management as part of a system architecture. The lessons learnt from building DO4MG for this domain could be beneficial in general to the theory and practice of intelligent decision support and knowledge management in complex problem domains. Highlights? We describe how to improve medical emergency decision-making applying ontology. ? Systematic method for development and evaluation of such an ontology is described. ? Intelligent decision support system architecture incorporating ontology is proposed.

The dynamic interplay of social network characteristics, subjective well-being, and health: the costs and benefits of socio-emotional selectivity

Abstract: This study investigated the interacting dynamics of different aspects of the social network, specifically network structure (size and frequency of contact), social activity engagement, and emotional support, and different aspects of health and subjective well-being in a representative sample of 2034 older adults across 6 years of development The analysis, using latent change score models, revealed that older age at Time 1 was related to steeper declines in network structure and social engagement, but was unrelated to changes in emotional support Furthermore, levels of social engagement and levels of emotional support predicted changes in functional health and life satisfaction with equal strength Changes in social engagement were associated with changes in life satisfaction, positive affect, functional health, and subjective health Changes in emotional support were only associated with changes in negative affect Mediation analyses suggested that network structure may stimulate social engagement and emotional support, thereby exerting indirect influences on key aspects of successful aging The results underscore the importance of considering the multifaceted nature of social relations in understanding their impact on distinct developmental goals, and across different domains of successful aging

The short-term benefits of brief and long naps following nocturnal sleep restriction.

Abstract: STUDY OBJECTIVES: The purpose was to remedy the lack of experimental studies directly comparing the effects of brief and long daytime naps following nocturnal sleep restriction DESIGN: Twelve young adult healthy sleepers participated in a repeated measures design comparing the effects of no nap, a 10-minute nap, and a 30-minute afternoon nap in each case following a night of 47 hours of total sleep time Objective and subjective alertness measures and cognitive performance measures were taken before, then 5, 35, and 60 minutes after the termination of the nap SETTING: N/A PARTICIPANTS: N/A INTERVENTIONS: N/A MEASUREMENTS and RESULTS: In the no nap condition measures showed either no change or a decreases of alertness and performance across the testing period Following the 10-minute nap there was an immediate improvement in subjective alertness and cognitive performance which was sustained for the hour of post nap testing Immediately following the 30 minute nap most measures of alertness and performance declined but showed some recovery by the end of testing CONCLUSIONS: Because the delayed benefits following the 30-minute nap may be due to sleep inertia, longer post-nap testing periods should be investigated However, we conclude that the detrimental effects of sleep restriction were more rapidly and significantly ameliorated, at least within the hour following the nap, by a 10-minute afternoon nap Language: en

Procalcitonin Algorithm in Critically Ill Adults with Undifferentiated Infection or Suspected Sepsis. A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract: Rationale: The role of procalcitonin (PCT), a widely used sepsis biomarker, in critically ill patients with sepsis is undetermined.Objectives: To investigate the effect of a low PCT cut-off on antibiotic prescription and to describe the relationships between PCT plasma concentration and sepsis severity and mortality.Methods: This was a multicenter (11 Australian intensive care units [ICUs]), prospective, single-blind, randomized controlled trial involving 400 patients with suspected bacterial infection/sepsis and expected to receive antibiotics and stay in ICU longer than 24 hours. The primary outcome was the cumulative number of antibiotics treatment days at Day 28.Measurements and Main Results: PCT was measured daily while in the ICU. A PCT algorithm, including 0.1 ng/ml cut-off, determined antibiotic cessation. Published guidelines and antimicrobial stewardship were used in all patients. Primary analysis included 196 (PCT) versus 198 standard care patients. Ninety-three patients in each group had septi...