University of New South Wales

About: University of New South Wales is a education organization based out in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 51197 authors who have published 153634 publications receiving 4880608 citations. The organization is also known as: UNSW & UNSW Australia.

Social Ostracism by Coworkers: Does Rejection Lead to Loafing or Compensation?

Abstract: A new theoretical model and research paradigm are introduced to investigate the phenomenon of social ostracism-being ignored by others who are in one's presence. The authors examined the effects of social ostracism on individuals' subsequent contributions to a group task. Social loafing Optically occurs on collective tasks. However; to regain their sense of belonging to the group, the authors expected ostracized individuals to socially compensate-to work harder collectively than coactively. Participants were asked to generate as many uses as they could for an object, either coactively or collectively with two others who had either ostracized or included them in an earlier ball-tossing exchange. Ostracized females socially compensated, whereas nonostracized females neither loafed nor compensated. Ostracized and nonostracized males socially loafed. Based on these data and the accompanying attributional and nonverbal analyses, the authors surmised that males and females interpret and respond to social ostrac...

Evaluation of the AR4 Climate Models’ Simulated Daily Maximum Temperature, Minimum Temperature, and Precipitation over Australia Using Probability Density Functions

Abstract: The coupled climate models used in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are evaluated The evaluation is focused on 12 regions of Australia for the daily simulation of precipitation, minimum temperature, and maximum temperature The evaluation is based on probability density functions and a simple quantitative measure of how well each climate model can capture the observed probability density functions for each variable and each region is introduced Across all three variables, the coupled climate models perform better than expected Precipitation is simulated reasonably by most and very well by a small number of models, although the problem with excessive drizzle is apparent in most models Averaged over Australia, 3 of the 14 climate models capture more than 80% of the observed probability density functions for precipitation Minimum temperature is simulated well, with 10 of the 13 climate models capturing more than 80% of the observed probability densit

The Falls Efficacy Scale International (FES-I). A comprehensive longitudinal validation study

Abstract: Objective: this study aimed to perform a comprehensive validation of the 16-item and 7-item Falls Efficacy Scale International (FES-I) by investigating the overall structure and measurement properties, convergent and predictive validity and responsiveness to change. Method: five hundred community-dwelling older people (70-90 years) were assessed on the FES-I in conjunction with demographic, physiological and neuropsychological measures at baseline and at 12 months. Falls were monitored monthly and fear of falling every 3 months. Results: the overall structure and measurement properties of both FES-I scales, as evaluated with item response theory, were good. Discriminative ability on physiological and neuropsychological measures indicated excellent validity, both at baseline (n = 500, convergent validity) and at 1-year follow-up (n = 463, predictive validity). The longitudinal follow-up suggested that FES-I scores increased over time regardless of any fall event, with a trend for a stronger increase in FES-I scores when a person suffered multiple falls in a 3-month period. Additionally, using receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves, cut-points were defined to differentiate between lower and higher levels of concern. Conclusions: the current study builds on the previously established psychometric properties of the FES-I. Both scales have acceptable structures, good validity and reliability and can be recommended for research and clinical purposes. Future studies should explore the FES-I's responsiveness to change during intervention studies and confirm suggested cut-points in other settings, larger samples and across different cultures. Language: en