Phylontal: Using Phylogenies to Align Phenotype Ontologies

Phylontal is a simple approach to generating alignments of ontologies or constructs based on controlled vocabularies that correspond to tips on a phylogeny. The method requires only a downpass (tips to root) and thus constructing alternative alignments from multiple or uncertain phylogenies may be relatively inexpensive

Investigating the Stress Levels of Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Pre-service Teachers during Teaching Practicum

This study investigated stress levels of pre-service teachers (PSTs) across three categories of teaching context: early childhood, primary and secondary. This paper focused on exploring the stressors in the completion of tasks in teaching practicum in the three categories of teaching context and an awareness of and access to support systems. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and an online questionnaire were used to measure the nature and level of stress. Significant results were found in relation to the school climate and the stress levels of PSTs across the three different teaching contexts. These findings have implications in terms of understanding different PSTsí stress levels across the three teaching contexts and ways they could be supported to reduce their stress level and achieve better study outcomes

Review of volatile substance use among Indigenous people

A major national review in 2006 noted that volatile substance use (VSU) is an issue in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Australia. The review found that \u27chroming\u27 (inhaling spray paint) and petrol sniffing are two forms of inhalant abuse that are currently common in Australia, with the practice of chroming being more common in urban and rural areas, while petrol sniffing is more common in remote Indigenous communities. The purpose of this review is to summarise key information from a number of substantial reports and other documents to make it more accessible to people involved in Indigenous health in Australia. This review focuses on Australian Indigenous people with the focus on petrol sniffing, since that form of VSU is predominant among Indigenous people in Australia. After summarising briefly the nature of volatile substances and their impacts when inhaled by people, the review summarises the use both generally and among Indigenous people in Australia, and the impacts of their use among Indigenous people. Attention is then directed to methods for responding to their use in Indigenous communities, in terms of supply reduction, demand reduction, harm reduction and law enforcement, before providing some concluding comments. While some progress has been made in combating VSU, including the provision of safer products (such as Opal fuel), further work remains to address the underlying social determinants of VSU and other deleterious health behaviours by taking measures to redress the socio-economic disadvantage experienced by Indigenous communities

Phenex: Ontological Annotation of Phenotypic Diversity

Phenex is a platform-independent desktop application designed to facilitate efficient and consistent annotation of phenotypic variation using Entity-Quality syntax, drawing on terms from community ontologies for anatomical entities, phenotypic qualities, and taxonomic names. Despite the centrality of the phenotype to so much of biology, traditions for communicating information about phenotypes are idiosyncratic to different disciplines. Phenotypes seem to elude standardized descriptions due to the variety of traits that compose them and the difficulty of capturing the complex forms and subtle differences among organisms that we can readily observe. Consequently, phenotypes are refractory to attempts at data integration that would allow computational analyses across studies and study systems. Phenex addresses this problem by allowing scientists to employ standard ontologies and syntax to link computable phenotype annotations to evolutionary character matrices, as well as to link taxa and specimens to ontological identifiers. Ontologies have become a foundational technology for establishing shared semantics, and, more generally, for capturing and computing with biological knowledge

An integrative approach to evaluating the implementation of social and emotional learning and gender-based violence prevention education

Evaluation studies often use stand-alone and summative assessment strategies to examine the impacts of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Gender-based Violence (GBV) prevention education programs. However, implementation research is yet to offer an integrative framework that can be used to investigate the implementation drivers that lead to the uptake of programs that pursue SEL and GBV prevention agendas. We address this gap in research by presenting a framework developed to investigate factors affecting the implementation of the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program, an SEL and GBV prevention education program developed for primary and secondary schools in the state of Victoria, Australia. Drawing upon and advancing a conceptual framework for implementation fidelity proposed by Carroll and colleagues we discuss the iterative process designed to investigate the individual, school and system level factors within the wider political and ideological setting(s) of the program that impact on its implementation. Within this iterative process, we highlight the need to focus on ‘the ecology of relations’ that exists between various implementation elements, and their possible mediating impact on program delivery, uptake and outcomes.peer-reviewe

The Confrontation over the Senkakus and the Transformation of Japan’s Security Strategy During the Abe and Suga Administrations

This paper focuses on Japan’s long-term military response to the new status quo of continuous, if often ritualized, confrontation around the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands between Japan and China. It argues that this new status quo of confrontation has had a large impact on Japan’s military strategy in the East China Sea, with broader implications for Japan’s overall security policy, and even domestic politics. It identifies an emerging Japanese A2/AD strategy over the Ryukyus and Senkaku islands designed to hold at risk any Chinese military and Coast Guard units operating in the vicinity of either. Japan is building an A2/AD bubble over the Ryukyus and Senkakus by deploying anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles to several islands in the Ryukyu chain, and by developing newer and more long-range missiles, including a new ground launched Hyper-Velocity Gliding Projectile (HVGP) missile for targeting ships and remote islands, with deployment expected as early as 2026. This paper also considers some of the challenges Japan faces in fully developing this A2/AD strategy, including limited land area and the difficulty of moving mobile missile units around populated areas.Article【論文／Articles】departmental bulletin pape