ECU Posters

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Amla enhances autophagy and modulates beta amyloid metabolism in an in vitro model of Alzheimer’s disease

Elham Teimouri, Prashant Bharadwaj, Stephanie R. Rainey-Smith, Paul Fraser, Giuseppe Verdile, and Ralph N. Martins

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive, fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by extensive neuronal loss associated with increased accumulation of the beta amyloid (Aβ) protein. Reducing production, preventing aggregation and improving clearance of Aβare areas of active research in the development of therapeutic agents to ameliorate neurodegeneration in AD. The Indian plant amla (Emblicaofficinalis), commonly known as Indian gooseberry, has widely been utilized in traditional Ayurvedic medicine preparations in the treatment of a variety of disease conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes: accumulating evidence also suggests that amla may be beneficial in AD. Amla exhibits antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic mechanisms and more recently has been shown to modulate autophagy; a vital protein degradation pathway involved in the clearance of damaged organelles and aggregate proteins in cells. Our own recent in vitro work shows that amla extract enhances autophagy and modulates accumulation of proteolytic products of Amyloid precursor protein (APP) such as APP-C terminal fragments (C99, C83). Amla treatment (50-300 μg/ml) induced a dose-dependent increase in autophagic flux, as measured by Western blotting utilizing an LC3 directed antibody as an autophagosome marker. At similar concentrations, amla treatment also reduced accumulation of APP C-terminal fragment levels by 33 to 77%. However, no significant changes were observed in APP levels, indicating that amla did not alter APP production. Overall, our findings suggest that amla may confer beneficial effects through modulating autophagy and Aβ metabolism, and warrants further investigation as a potential therapeutic agent in AD
Assessing visual perception using letters and numbers

Janet Richmond

To create a new visual perceptual test using letters and numbers in isolation and in context. Producing a linear scale to measure the ability of primary school children to visually discriminate upper and lower case letters in readiness for learning to read and perform mathematical calculations.
A story of the red lantern

Anh Do

The aim of my research is to understand how a sotck market in one country reacts to a "shock" from a stock market in another country, using the Generalised autoregressive conditional heterosedasticity model (GARCH)
A survey of leadership and research activities of nurse practitioners

Mary Ryder, Elisabeth Jacob, and Joyce Hendricks

Nurse practitioners (NP) provide improved access to quality healthcare for identified patient populations. NPs are identified as the ideal conduit to transform healthcare delivery internationally. Trandforming healthcare requires the application of leadership and research skills. The literature to date has limited information on NPs as leaders or researchers in the nursing profession.
Braking ground reaction force during 90deg sidestep cut and leg muscle strength.

Walter Yu, Sophia Nimphius, Greg Haff, and Kazunori Nosaka

Change of direction (COD) total time is influenced by linear sprint ability and technique. Therefore, COD performance should be isolated from COD total time by measuring only the time taken to perform the COD and COD technique should be controlled. Current COD studies focus on the plant and penultimate (PEN) braking steps (Dos’ Santos et al, 2017, Jones et al, 2017), however, deceleration during a COD extends beyond these two steps (Nedergaard et al, 2014), thus, more braking steps ground reaction forces (GRF) needs to be examined. Cross sectional COD studies have shown that athletes with faster COD performance were stronger during eccentric squat (Spiteri et al, 2015) and produced higher force during eccentric isokinetic knee extensor and flexor test than athletes who exhibit slower COD performance (Jones et al, 2017). Therefore, it seems that eccentric strength is associated with COD performance. It is necessary to examine braking steps before the PEN step to examine braking strategies of faster and slower performers. Additionally, eccentric strength, which is deemed advantageous for COD braking should be further examined using a multi-joint strength assessment to further determine eccentric capacity during COD performance.
Comparison of the 400 metre timed endurance surf paddle between elite competitive surfers, competitive surfers and recreational surfers

Oliver Farley, Joseph Coyne, Josh Secomb, Lina Lundgren, Tai T. Tran, Chris Abbiss, and Jeremry Sheppard

Surf competitions demand the ability to out paddle opposition to gain an optimal position for wave take offs. Those who can out paddle a heat opponent and catch waves at the most critical point when breaking are likely to maximize their scoring potential. Currently appropriate and valid testing protocols evaluating the physiological fitness of surfing athletes are not well established. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the testing procedure of a pool based, 400 endurance time trial is more appropriate (compared to geometry testing) given the nature of the sport, and pride a test that is a better discriminator of performance.
Developing the Anker Bilateral Spatial System

Janet Richmond

Determining the effect of using the Anker Bilateral Spatial System (ABSS) to enhance the development of bilateral and spatial functioning of individuals with visual perceptual or sensory processing difficulties.
Distance to default

Viet Dung Dinh

This poster covers default risk and the significance of the Distance to Default (DD) model in predicting financial distress for 6 countries in the ASEAN region.
Exploring how nurse practitioners implement leadership and research

Mary Ryder, Elisabeth Jacob, and Joyce Hendricks

The original concept of the Nurse practitioner role was to expand nursing practice in order to provide high quality, accessible healthcare to patients. This placed NPs at the crux of changes to healthcare delivery. Implementing these changes requires leadership. Research demonstrates the effects of these changes to healthcare delivery and contributes healthcare knowledge from the nursing profession.
How start-up accelerators facilitate innovation

Farzaneh Eslamloo

In today’s economy, innovation is the strategic driving force in getting unique opportunities and adding value to knowledge assets. Many countries, to compete and to adapt themselves to the complexity of the new world, try to be innovative and continuously upgrade their knowledge along with changes happened in the environment. Theses countries consider innovation as the key strategy in achieving sustainable competitive advantage and making continuous improvement in their structures, processes, and programs. The interesting thing about start-up accelerator centres that is the main interest of my research is that they try to respond to the demand shaped in the world about the necessity of innovation- related issues. Start-up accelerator is an organization that support start-ups to work on their innovative idea and successfully transform it into commercial products and services. They assist in reinforcing innovation process through the adoption of structured and systematic program.

Based on research accounts of the effective role of start-up accelerators in facilitating start-ups’ innovation process, the researcher proposes to probe into the functions of such companies to yield crucial data about their role and significance in the commercialisation of new ideas proposed by start-ups. To help identify the characteristics, functions, and mechanisms which work in start-up accelerators and accelerate the start-ups’ success in commercialisation, the researcher will conduct ‘critical realism’ philosophy and ‘realist review’ methodology to deeply evaluate the acceleration program.
Hyperlink connectivity of WA tourism websites

Hossein Raisi

This poster shows the network of hyperlink connectivity between tourism websites in Western Australia. The network has 1515 websites and 6059 links. Network analysis was used to analyse the network from different perspectives. The analyses showed the main properties of the network such as very low connectivity, the hierarchical structure of the network, high clustering, tendency to link to geographically proximate organisations, and low acknowledgment between the websites. WA tourism websites need to create more links to each other to become more visible on the internet.
Impact of corporate governance on capital structure of Pakistan

Irfan Haider Shakri

Corporate Governance-CG is a mechanism that protects the interest of all stakeholders specially shareholders in a modern economic and corporate world that is responsible for economic growth of an economy. Capital structure is one of the weightiest decision that effects the performance of the firm. This study empirically finds how corporate governance practices impact the capital structure of the firm.
Kinematic repeatability analyses of multi-segment foot motion in university-level ballet dancers

Sarah Carter, Nahoko Sato, and Luke Hopper

Background:

Dancers are susceptible to overuse foot and ankle injuries, however there is a lack biomechanical studies examining foot mechanics to explain the causality of these injuries. The purpose of this study was to determine the intra and inter-assessor repeatability of a modified Rizzoli Foot Model (RFM) for ballet dancers.

Methods: Six university-level ballet dancers performed the following trials in randomized order, natural stance, turnout plié and stance, and two dynamic trials; turnout rise and flex-point-flex movement. A twelve-camera motion capture system were used to track fourteen reflective markers and one triad on the following segments: shank, entire foot, hindfoot, midfoot, forefoot and hallux. A repeated-measure design was used with each participant undergoing four data collection sessions; i.e. two sessions were conducted by each researcher over two consecutive days. Variability of the 3D segment rotations and planar angles were determined using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) for the intra and inter-assessor repeatability.

Results:

Intra and inter-assessor reliability demonstrated excellent (ICC ≥ 0.75) reliability for 1st metatarsophalangeal joint sagittal plane measurements. Intra-assessor variability demonstrated excellent (ICC ≥ 0.75) reliability in the sagittal plane and frontal planes for all the discrete static variables, except the midfoot-forefoot articulation which was in the sagittal and transverse planes. Whereas the inter-assessor variability revealed fair to good repeatability (0.5 ≤ ICC < 0.75). The trend towards a lower inter-assessor repeatability indicates the lack of training of the marker placement protocol. A similar trend was found in the repeatability in the dynamic trials.

Intra and inter-assessor reliability demonstrated excellent (ICC ≥ 0.75) reliability for 1st metatarsophalangeal joint sagittal plane measurements. Intra-assessor variability demonstrated excellent (ICC ≥ 0.75) reliability in the sagittal and frontal planes for all the discrete static variables, except the midfoot-forefoot articulation which was in the sagittal and transverse planes. Inter-assessor repeatability revealed large variability from poor to excellent (0.5 > ICC ≥ 0.75) repeatability for the 3D segmental rotations.

Conclusion:

Three-dimensional multi-segment foot models have the potential to be reliably used in dance screenings to ascertain whether technical errors and/or biomechanical abnormalities are the cause of a dancers’ lower limb overuse injury. However, research laboratories should develop good marker placement protocol to endeavour to produce repeatable between assessor results.
Leadership and research activities of nurse practitioners: Ireland and Australia

Mary Ryder, Elisabeth Jacob, and Joyce Hendricks

Nurse practitioners (NP) are identified as the ideal conduit to transform healthcare delivery internationally. Healthcare transformation requires the application of leadership and research skills. The literature to date has limited information on NPs as leaders or researchers in the nursing profession.
Letter and Number Reversals – Identifying the problem

Janet Richmond

Letter and number orientation affects legibility
Lower leg and foot contributions to turnout in university-level female ballet dancers: A preliminary investigation

Sarah Carter, Alan R. Bryant, and Luke Hopper

Functional turnout in ballet involves maximal external rotation through the lower limb kinetic chain. Hip external rotation, is considered the primary contributor of functional turnout. However, dancers will tend to increase their functional turnout angle through additional tibiofemoral external rotation and pronation of the foot/ankle complex. Hip external rotation measures in functional turnout has received extensive examination in dance science. However, the relationship between the ‘below the hip' assessments with functional turnout is poorly understood. We hypothesis that dancers with greater passive external tibiofemoral rotation (pTFR) and/or pronated stance will have a greater functional turnout angle.

Nineteen female university-level classical ballet and modern dance students (mean age 17.9 ± 0.9 years) volunteered in this descriptive correlational study. All dancers were injury free and signed a consent form prior to data collection. Navicular drop, Foot Posture Index (FPI), pTFR and functional turnout were measured for the participants' right and left lower limbs. Measures of pronation were conducted with the dancer standing in parallel and turnout. All clinical measures demonstrated excellent reliability, ICC 0.90-0.93. A multiple linear regression model was used to estimate the amount of variance in functional turnout which can be explained by the measured variables.

The stepwise multiple linear regression model analyses revealed a weak relationship between pTFR and functional turnout, with the latter accounting for approximately 19.0 % variance of functional turnout. Spearman's rho correlation analysis revealed a moderate negative relationship between pTFR and FPI in functional turnout (ρ = - 0.47, P = 0.043). Suggesting dancers with limited tibiofemoral rotation recruited pronation about the foot/ankle complex to further increase their functional turnout angle.

Our findings suggest dancers used variable amounts of motion at the anatomical locations depending on their functional and anatomical capability. Ongoing research would benefit from in situ measures of dancers' lower leg contributions to functional turnout such as that provided by modern three-dimensional biomechanical evaluations
Mobile banking adoption by senior citizens in Australia

Madugoda Gunaratnege Senali

Mobile banking is technological innovation provided by banks to its customers to do their banking activities such as, viewing account balances, paying bills, transfer of funds and checking new offers and products through their smart phones by using mobile banking application. Though mobile banking has raised high expectations in research and practice, it neither experienced broad adoption nor allows it banks to realize additional earnings yet. This research aims to investigate the factors affecting the mobile banking adoption by senior citizens in Australia by using technology acceptance models. It's important to improve the mobile banking amongst senior Australians to enhance their lives. Results of this study will have implications for academia, practitioners and, public.
My Research Online: What's in it for me?

Janice Chan, Gordon McIntyre, Julia Gross, Lisa K. Billingham, Kay Saunders, and Paul Wong

ECU’s world class research is showcased in the institutional repository, Research Online. Research Online can help you expand the reach of your work and raise your research profile.
Nurse practitioners views on leadership and research

Mary Ryder, Elisabeth Jacob, and Joyce Hendricks

Nurse practitioners are clinical leaders focused on improving healthcare delivery for patient populations. The NP role is misunderstood. NPs lack confidence to be independently research ctive. Research by NPs requires support from nurses in academia. The NP role is similar in Ireland and Australia
Prediction Models for Corporate Financial Distress in Southeast Asia

Viet Dung Dinh

Building prediction models of corporate financial distress plays a critical part of evaluating and managing credit risk. There is a combination of financial statements and volatility in market values of firm assets to measure distance to default as well as discriminate between distressed and non-distressed firms
Quality, determinants and consequences of integrated reporting in South Africa

Kwadjo Appiagyei

Integrated reporting (IR) is expected to be the next corporate reporting norm which combines the relevant financial and sustainability information in one report to meet the needs of capital providers. IR application all over the world has been largely voluntary while South Africa has introduced a mandatory apply or explain basis for firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Although numerous benefits have been attributed to IR, empirical evidence to support these assertions and establish a business case for the adoption of IR is desirable. The research examines the mandatory South African context for the quality of IR since its application in 2010. The factors influencing IR quality as well as the outcomes are examined to provide information to capital market regulators and governments considering the mandatory adoption of IR and to the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) in their promotion of IR.
Quest for quality: Logistics management in Vietnamese local SME

Vanessa Cao

What are the key issues and problems facing local SME logistics companies in Vietnam and their main causes? How can Vietnamese local SME firms improve their capacity to compete against their foreign counterparts operating in Vietnam. Provides a quality framework for local companies.
Relationship marketing: Customer’s perception of using loyalty cards

Mitra Maboud

Retail companies offer range of loyalty programs to increase the number of loyal customers, although they are not sure whether loyalty programs are truly cost-effective. This research aims to identify the major factors affecting the use of loyalty cards from the customers’ perspective. A semi-structured qualitative method will be adopted.
Reversing the spiral of fear

Sara Morris

Introduction: The proposed poster aims to bring about discourse regarding current breech birth practices. Outlined within are factors which have contributed to the current state of breech birth, not only in Australia but on a global scale and highlights steps which have been taken by others and may be used in Western Australia (WA) to reverse the spiral of fear currently surrounding breech birth. There is currently no literature pertaining to the state of breech birth in WA.

The publication of the Term Breech Trial (TBT) in 2000, the lack of trust and the need to control the birthing environment, coupled with the increasing prevalence of litigation in maternity care and the portrayal of breech in the media has led to a spiral of fear regarding breech birth. Despite criticism to the validity of the TBT, and evidence showing no significant difference in longer term out- comes for children born breech irrespective of birth mode, the rate of CS for breech presentation ranges from 69-100%. The prevalence of the surgical approach to breech birth has led to the deskilling of an entire generation of midwives and obstetricians in most Westernized societies and has limited the birth choices of women with a breech presentation, continuing the spiral of fear.

Approach: The rise of specialty beech clinics in the United Kingdom and the eastern states of Australia some of which operate in a continuity of care model, brings the hope of more birth choices for women. Evidence shows the more experience a clinician attending a vaginal breech birth has the better the outcomes for mother and baby. The breech clinic may also be utilized as an education tool enabling midwives and obstetricians to learn the lost art of vaginal breech birth in a safe and supportive environment and may reverse the spiral of fear. Morris, S. (2018). Reversing the spiral of fear. Women and Birth, 31, Suppl. 1, S41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2018.08.124
Taking references beyond your PC: Collaborating with local and internationally dispersed colleagues to write and publish a paper

Agnes Noronha, Gordon McIntyre, Jennifer Moore, and Maureen Couacaud

EndNote, EndNote Web and RefWorks can be used to assist you when collaborating with internationally dispersed colleagues on writing and publishing an academic paper.