April 21 - 27, 2024: Issue 622

Blood protein could help detect delayed concussion recovery in children

April 9, 2024

Researchers have discovered a blood protein that could help detect which children will experience ongoing concussion symptoms more than two weeks after an injury.

The research, led by Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and published in the Journal of Neurotrauma, found the protein was a potential biomarker for delayed recovery from concussion in children.

For the study, blood samples were collected from children, aged five-18 years, who presented to the emergency department at The Royal Children's Hospital less than 48 hours after a concussion.

Levels of the protein alpha-1-antichymotrypsin (alpha-1-ACT) were significantly lower in children with a delayed recovery.

MCRI researcher Ella Swaney said with concussion being a growing public health concern, there was an increasing need to develop a tool that could contribute to identifying those at risk of delays to recovery.

Of the four million children who experience a concussion each year, 25-30 per cent will have long-term symptoms and about half will never seek out medical care. Symptoms including headaches, difficulty remembering and sensitivity to light can last for months while mental health conditions can persist for several years.

"Delayed recovery from concussion spans emotional, behavioural, physical and cognitive symptoms, which can affect the well-being of the child, delaying their return to school and sport," Ms Swaney said.

"Early detection of children at risk of delayed recovery is crucial to ensure effective treatment and targeted follow-up."

Image: Concussion researcher Ella Swaney

MCRI Professor Vicki Anderson said this small study, involving 80 children, was the first in human trial to identify that alpha-1-ACT could contribute to the early detection of those who will experience a delayed recovery from concussion.

"If the finding holds up in larger studies, the discovery could contribute to acute clinical management by providing clinicians with an acute marker to guide more timely and targeted treatments to children most likely to experience long-term problems," she said.

Mackenzie, 16, suffered a concussion during a netball match 15 months ago. She was hit in the face by an opposing player's upper arm, knocking her out, and causing her to smack her head on the indoor court.

Out cold for a minute and suffering a nosebleed and swollen left eye, Mackenzie was taken to hospital where she was diagnosed with a concussion.

"I was knocked out while jumping mid-air, the force spinning me 180 degrees, and then I landed on my head for a second blow," she said.

"When I woke up, I couldn't see out of my eye and I was lying in a pool of my own blood. I felt dizzy, confused and everything became a blur."

In the weeks that followed, as well as the dizziness and confusion, Mackenzie was nauseous, sensitive to bright lights, had memory loss, headaches and muscle soreness and poor mental health. She also missed weeks of school due to the ongoing concussion symptoms.

To help her recover, Mackenzie was enrolled in MCRI's Concussion Essentials Plus program for children with chronic persisting concussion symptoms. It involved weekly physiotherapy and psychology treatments spanning months and education around return to exercise, school and sports.

"It was a slow recovery process, but the intervention helped me return to my normal self again," she said. All I wanted was to be back on the netball court. I didn't understand at the time how much of a long-term impact concussion can have."

Mackenzie returned to netball five months after the injury.

"I'm more hesitant and cautious on the court now but I would never give up playing netball, I love the sport too much," she said.

Mackenzie's mum Karen Payne, who will never forget the image of her daughter lying unconscious on the court, said the latest MCRI research would come as a welcome to relief to families.

"If clinicians can easily find out which children will have long term concussion symptoms then they can receive targeted and early intervention," she said. Recovery from concussion can be a long process, like our daughter's, and anything that can help speed up the process would make a world of difference."

Image: Mackenzie suffered a concussion during a netball match.

In 2023, a vast body of international research, with major contributions from MCRI researchers, took a deep dive into all aspects of concussion management.

The updated consensus findings aimed to change how concussion was viewed across sporting codes, recreational sport and within medical clinics and emergency departments by overhauling exercise and rehabilitation methods and upgrading return-to school and return-to-sport protocols.

Another concussion management tool, the HeadCheck App, designed by child concussion experts at MCRI in collaboration with The Royal Children's Hospital and the Australian Football League (AFL), also helps recognise concussion early and manage recovery.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne, Macquarie University's Australian Proteome Analysis Facility, Austin and Cabrini Hospitals, Johns Hopkins All Children's Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and Hopkins University also contributed to the study findings.

Ella E.K. Swaney, Franz E. Babl, Vanessa C. Rausa, Nicholas Anderson, Stephen J.C. Hearps, Georgia Parkin, Gene Hart-Smith, Thiri Zaw, Luke Carroll, Michael Takagi, Marc L. Seal, Gavin A. Davis, Vicki Anderson, Vera Ignjatovic. Discovery of Alpha-1-Antichymotrypsin as a Marker of Delayed Recovery from Concussion in Children. Journal of Neurotrauma, 2024; DOI: 10.1089/neu.2023.0503

New campaign raises awareness of sepsis

April 10 2024

A new campaign is encouraging people to ask frontline healthcare workers, ‘Could it be sepsis?’ if they or a loved one are showing signs and symptoms of the potentially deadly condition which occurs when the body has an extreme response to an infection.

Minister for Health Ryan Park said sepsis is very serious and it is important to act quickly.

“Sepsis can affect anyone and I want people to seek help without delay if they, or their loved one, is very unwell, even if they have recently been seen by a doctor or other medical professional,” Mr Park said.

“In Australia at least 55,000 people develop sepsis each year and more than 8,000 of them die from sepsis-related complications.

“That’s why it’s important people aren’t afraid and are empowered, to ask, ‘Could it be sepsis?’ because early treatment can be lifesaving,” he said.

Paediatric Specialist Dr Matthew O’Meara said a person with sepsis often reports feeling the sickest they have ever felt.

“We want people to pay close attention to the symptoms, and seek urgent medical care if symptoms get worse,” Dr O’Meara said.

“You may only have some of the symptoms of sepsis, and features can initially be subtle.

“We urge people to trust their instincts, especially parents who are the experts in their child’s behaviour.”

Dr O’Meara said sepsis can be caused by any type of infection, including bacterial, viral and fungal, and those infections can be anywhere in the body.

There are many possible signs and symptoms of sepsis, and they include getting very sick very quickly, difficulty breathing, confusion, a rash or blue, grey, pale or blotchy skin.

Symptoms to look out for in young children that may indicate severe illness include being quieter or sleepier than normal or difficult to wake, irritability, high-pitched crying, refusal to eat/feed, fewer wet nappies, cold or mottled limbs and difficulty breathing.

If you or the person you care for is seriously unwell call 000 or go to your local Emergency Department. If you are concerned about your or your child’s health call your GP or Healthdirect on 1800 022 222.

Further information is available on NSW Health - Sepsis and the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network – Signs of serious illness in children

Some families push back against journalists who mine social media for photos – they have every right to

Laura Wajnryb McDonald, University of Sydney

Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without their consent. They said it had caused her loved ones extreme distress.

Their appeal is immediately understandable – many people would be upset by seeing photos of a loved one everywhere after such a traumatic event.

The media had evidently not received permission to use these photos in their news stories. Nor had they afforded the family any ethical sense of privacy when they circulated and displayed the photos across multiple platforms.

There has been valuable commentary about the issues surrounding the common journalistic practice of mining social media after a “newsworthy” death.

My PhD research offers further insight into a perspective that is rarely shared: the view of families bereaved through homicide.

While I cannot and do not presume to speak for Good’s family, I have interviewed families bereaved through homicide and they have shared their experience of photos of their loved one being in the media.

Private photos in the public domain

To the bereaved, photos of loved ones are deeply meaningful. They are more than mere objects, more than random captured moments.

They are wrapped up in specific memories and treated as keepsakes. They are representations of and tangible connections to the person who was taken from them.

When these photos enter the public domain following homicide, they become photos of a victim.

In this new domain, private photos serve altogether different purposes. They furnish media stories now and into the future. Their original context and personal meaning are typically overridden or removed, often along with families’ consent.

My research indicates this is an issue that persists long into the aftermath of homicide, well after media and public interest has dissipated.

In other words, it has the capacity to traumatise families for years.

Judging victims

While the mining of photos is one matter, how they are then used by the media and interpreted by the public is another.

My research uncovers how details in a photo can be highlighted and twisted at the expense of others. For example, bereaved families told me how hurtful it was when the media republished unflattering and inappropriate photos of their loved one that were just meant for friends and family.

One mother recalled how her son would do a silly pose and ruin their family photos. He was being a typical teenager, but that was not how he was perceived when the media reproduced those photos alongside their chosen narrative. Instead, the mother read comments made by the public underneath the article that said her son deserved to be murdered. The public judged her son based on those photos.

Similarly, a sister was distraught when the media pulled a photo from her social media of her and her brother where he did not look his best. They were at a party and there is a heart-warming story of the moment before the photo was taken. She explained she loves the photo; it is a happy memory for her, but she said it is for his family to love, not for the public to make assumptions about her brother.

These examples highlight how significant it is for families when the media take a photo out of context, without permission, and curate it to suit specific narratives.

Certainly, it is a practice that exacerbates trauma.

The right to control

I also spoke to families about how they decided which photographs they wanted in the public domain.

One family, whose daughter was murdered before social media was used as a journalistic tool, told me that when they were asked for photos, they were reflective and careful about the ones they shared, choosing to keep their favourite photos to themselves.

Another mother explained her reasoning behind the two photos that she handed over – one because it depicted her daughter as she was at the time of her murder, and the other where she was dressed up, because it showed what she would have been like if she had had the chance to get married.

Bereaved families want photos to be an accurate, presentable, and appropriate portrayal of their loved one.

The photos might be tied to a specific memory or feeling, they might maintain their privacy, they might be chosen because they do not require context, or they might be the one they believe their loved one would have wanted.

The bereaved deserve to be in control of that decision. Allowing them to make that choice themselves gives the bereaved agency at a time when they feel most powerless.

Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

From forced kisses to power imbalances, violence against women in sport is endemic

Fiona Giles, La Trobe University and Kirsty Forsdike, La Trobe University

Former Spanish football federation chief Luis Rubiales may face significant consequences for his non-consensual kiss of Spanish soccer star Jenni Hermoso.

But this is not the norm for perpetrators of gender-based violence in sport. Our research – which reviewed 25 years of studies examining women’s experiences of gender-based violence in sport – found perpetrators are rarely held to account.

More commonly, they are free to continue abusing victims with impunity.

Even after millions of people watched Rubiales’ actions, it was obvious that Hermoso’s experience was minimised, that powerful organisations attempted to coerce her into stating it was consensual, and that it took the collective voices of women standing with Hermoso to fight back with a resounding “no”.

Luis Rubiales, the former Spanish football federation chief, has been charged with one count of sexual assault and one of coercion.

The shocking reality of gender-based violence in sport

Women’s sport is championed as a platform for empowerment and equality but previous studies have shown gender-based violence is highly prevalent, ranging from 26 to 75% across psychological, physical and sexual violence, depending on how the violence has been defined and measured.

There have been many historical and contemporary cases of abuse, bringing to light some of the concerns about how perpetrators were able to continue their abuse for so long.

Our research systematically gathered and analysed the collective voices of women who experienced gender-based violence in sport to understand their experiences better and to inform future prevention and response initiatives. Participants included current and former athletes, coaches, umpires and managers.

The research found women in sport experience multiple types of violence (sexual, physical, psychological, financial), often by more than one perpetrator. Coaches or other authority figures are the most common perpetrators, followed by male athletes or members of the public.

We found a “normalisation” of these violent behaviours in the sporting context; they were seen as expected and were routinely excused in order to get results.

Beware of ‘sporting family violence’

When women do speak up and complain, our research highlighted that organisational responses are impotent at best, actively malevolent and cruel at worst.

Complaints often go nowhere, codes of conduct may not exist, and there is a strong lack of confidentiality because “everyone knows everyone”.

In some cases, women were mocked and told they’d imagined the abuse, a deliberate strategy by the organisation to put “success” and “winning” before the safety of women.

Instead, women are left to do their own safety work by avoiding the perpetrator(s) or leaving the sport entirely.

Justice is sometimes only achieved when women act as a group to voice their experiences and confront abusers.

Importantly, our research found the unique context of sport as an extended or surrogate family created the conditions for “sporting family violence”.

Athletes spend significant time within the sporting family unit, creating close relationships with their coach, other authority figures and teammates.

The coach as a father figure

The coach as a father figure was a consistent theme across several studies, with some athletes stating the coach knew more about them than their parents.

If a coach was regarded as “the best”, often no one questioned him. This gave coaches enormous power, which they used to isolate women they abused from both the sport family and their actual family, exerting coercive control to maintain an environment of secrecy and dominance.

Finally, our research found women are still seen as inferior to men and treated as “other” in the sporting context. Consequently, there is a hostility to women, who are perceived as a threat to the hegemonic masculinity of sport.

This was a particularly strong theme in non-traditional female sports such as judo and boxing, and for women in management or official roles.

Power is a key factor running through all our findings, and while women may be able to exercise some power through collective resistance, power often remains with men and sports institutions that are complicit.

Initiatives to address gender-based violence in sport must recognise the many forms of violence women experience, and the different ways in which power and violence play out.

Some positive signs, but much more is needed

There are some positive signs of change. A recent report into the culture of abuse in swimming in Australia made several recommendations that are now being actioned.

And in the UK, laws that prohibit coaches from having relationships with players are being developed and acted upon.

Also, several collective survivor advocacy groups have been established, such as The Army of Survivors, Sport and Rights Alliance and Gymnasts for Change.

Of course, this still shows the extent of the collective voice needed to push for change.

While we applaud this and the reckoning of Rubiales’ actions, and cheer for the collective voice standing with women like Jenni Hermoso, it would be negligent to forget the many silenced women’s voices in sport who bear the brunt of violence within a space often considered their family.

Fiona Giles, Research Fellow, La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University and Kirsty Forsdike, Senior Lecturer, La Trobe Business School, and Senior Researcher, Centre for Sport & Social Impact, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Does the time of day you move your body make a difference to your health?

April 10. 2024

Undertaking the majority of daily physical activity in the evening is linked to the greatest health benefits for people living with obesity, according to researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia who followed the trajectory of 30,000 people over almost 8 years.

Using wearable device data to categorise participant's physical activity by morning, afternoon or evening, the researchers uncovered that those who did the majority of their aerobic moderate to vigorous physical activity- the kind that raises our heartrate and gets us out of breath- between 6pm and midnight had the lowest risk of premature death and death from cardiovascular disease.

The frequency with which people undertook moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in the evening, measured in short bouts up to or exceeding three minutes, also appeared to be more important than their total amount of physical activity daily.

The study, led by researchers from the University's Charles Perkins Centre is published in the journal Diabetes Care today.

"Due to a number of complex societal factors, around two in three Australians have excess weight or obesity which puts them at a much greater risk of major cardiovascular conditions such as heart attacks and stroke, and premature death," said Dr Angelo Sabag, Lecturer in Exercise Physiology at the University of Sydney.

"Exercise is by no means the only solution to the obesity crisis, but this research does suggest that people who can plan their activity into certain times of the day may best offset some of these health risks."

Smaller clinical trials have shown similar results, however the large scale of participant data in this study, the use of objective measures of physical activity and hard outcomes, such as premature death, makes these findings significant.

Joint first author Dr Matthew Ahmadi also stressed that the study did not just track structured exercise. Rather researchers focused on tracking continuous aerobic MVPA in bouts of 3 minutes or more as previous research shows a strong association between this type of activity, glucose control and lowered cardiovascular disease risk compared with shorter (non-aerobic) bouts.

"We didn't discriminate on the kind of activity we tracked, it could be anything from power walking to climbing the stairs, but could also include structured exercise such as running, occupational labour or even vigorously cleaning the house," said Dr Ahmadi, National Heart Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney.

While observational, the findings of the study support the authors original hypothesis, which is the idea -- based on previous research -- that people living with diabetes or obesity, who are already glucose intolerant in the late evening, may be able to offset some of that intolerance and associated complications, by doing physical activity in the evening.

The researchers used data from UK Biobank and included 29,836 adults aged over 40 years of age living with obesity, of whom 2,995 participants were also diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Participants were categorised into morning, afternoon of evening MVPA based on when they undertook the majority of their aerobic MVPA as measured by a wrist accelerometer worn continuously for 24 hours a day over 7 days at study onset.

The team then linked health data (from the National Health Services and National Records of Scotland) to follow participants health trajectory for 7.9 years. Over this period they recorded 1,425 deaths, 3,980 cardiovascular events and 2,162 microvascular disfunction events.

To limit bias, the researchers accounted for differences such as age, sex, smoking, alcohol intake, fruit and vegetable consumption, sedentary time, total MVPA, education, medication use and sleep duration. They also excluded participants with pre-existing cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The researchers say the length of the study follow-up and additional sensitivity analysis bolster the strength of their findings however, due to the observational design, they cannot completely rule out potential reverse causation. This is the possibility that some participants had lower aerobic MVPA levels due to underlying or undiagnosed disease.

Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, Director of the Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub at the Charles Perkins Centre and senior author on the paper, said the sophistication of studies in the wearables field is providing huge insights into the patterns of activity that are most beneficial for health.

"It is a really exciting time for researchers in this field and practitioners alike, as wearable device-captured data allow us to examine physical activity patterns at a very high resolution and accurately translate findings into advice that could play an important role in health care," said Professor Stamatakis.

"While we need to do further research to establish causal links, this study suggests that the timing of physical activity could be an important part of the recommendations for future obesity and Type 2 diabetes management, and preventive healthcare in general."

Angelo Sabag, Matthew N. Ahmadi, Monique E. Francois, Svetlana Postnova, Peter A. Cistulli, Luigi Fontana, Emmanuel Stamatakis. Timing of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity, Mortality, Cardiovascular Disease, and Microvascular Disease in Adults With Obesity. Diabetes Care, 2024; DOI: 10.2337/dc23-2448

More paramedics and call takers join NSW Ambulance

April 5, 2024

NSW Ambulance has welcomed 149 new trainee paramedics and emergency call takers after they were officially inducted into the service at a ceremony today.

Minister for Health Ryan Park congratulated the 133 graduate paramedics and 16 trainee emergency medical call takers, who will start in their new roles from tomorrow.

“This is the second class of NSW Ambulance graduates this year and I’m proud to see them graduate to serve their communities,” Mr Park said.

“Our paramedics are on the frontline of healthcare in NSW, caring for people when they are at their sickest and most vulnerable.

“I congratulate these paramedics and call takers for reaching this significant milestone in their careers and thank them for their dedication to serving their community.”

NSW Ambulance Chief Executive Dr Dominic Morgan welcomed the new starters, who were honoured at a ceremony at Sydney Olympic Park, attended by family and friends.

Dr Morgan said the new recruits would provide welcome reinforcements during a busy time for emergency health care.

“I know all who are graduating today have worked incredibly hard throughout their training,” Dr Morgan said.

“I thank them for their commitment and warmly welcome them into NSW Ambulance.

“As demand for our services continues to grow, we remain committed to providing world-class care to our patients,” Dr Morgan said.

Member for Parramatta Donna Davis thanked the incoming trainee paramedics and emergency call takers for their commitment to providing the community with care.

“It takes someone special to join the ambulance service and I’m really pleased so many are graduating today at Sydney Olympic Park,” Ms Davis said.

“Their dedication to care is highly commendable and I wish them well in their career with NSW Ambulance.”

The graduate paramedics will be posted across NSW to complete the on-road portion of their 12-month internships before taking permanent positions in metropolitan and regional areas.

The emergency medical call takers will all be posted to the Triple Zero (000) control centre in Sydney.

Photo: NSW Ambulance

Our research suggests eating an unhealthy breakfast could have a similar effect on your child’s school day as having nothing at all

Andrew J. Martin, UNSW Sydney; Emma Burns, Macquarie University; Joel Pearson, UNSW Sydney; Keiko C.P. Bostwick, UNSW Sydney, and Roger Kennett, UNSW Sydney

Many parents know it is important for their teenagers to have breakfast before they go to school. Even though young people can be reluctant to eat it, breakfast provides the energy the brain and body need to function through the day.

In our new research we looked at what impact breakfast has on students’ motivation to learn and their academic achievement at school.

We also looked at whether it matters if they have a healthy breakfast, an unhealthy breakfast or no breakfast at all.

Why did we study breakfast?

As educational psychology researchers we look at ways to improve how students learn.

Unlike factors beyond a student’s control (such as teaching quality) or those that can take time to improve (such as study skills), eating breakfast is something students may have some immediate control over.

It is also something that could be quickly addressed by schools.

A person holds a spoon of cereal above a bowl of cereal. — Breakfast provides energy for the brain and body to function throughout the day. Ryan Pouncy/ Unsplash, CC BY

Our research

We wanted to know if eating breakfast affects students’ motivation and achievement. We also wanted to know if it mattered whether the breakfast was a healthy one.

So, as part of an Australian Research Council project, we studied 648 Australian high school students from five private schools in New South Wales. Two of these schools were single-sex boys’ schools, two were single-sex girls’ schools and one was co-educational.

Students were in Years 7 to 9, with an average age of 13–14 years.

We conducted our study during students’ science lessons. It was made up of three main components.

First, students completed an online survey of their breakfast habits. We asked if they had eaten breakfast that morning and what types of food they usually eat for breakfast.

Drawing on national dietary guidelines, we created a score for how often students consumed healthy foods for breakfast, such as fruit and vegetables, dairy and protein, wholegrains and cereals and water. We also asked how often they had an unhealthy breakfast, with items such as sugary soft drinks, processed meat, fast food, unhealthy bakery goods and unhealthy snacks. A higher score reflected typically eating a healthier breakfast.

Second, they rated their motivation in science lessons, including how confident they were in doing science schoolwork, how much they valued the subject and were focused on learning.

Third, students did a test based on content in the NSW science syllabus.

In this way, our study was a snapshot of one day in the life of students.

We also asked questions about their personal background, how well they usually perform in science, and also features of the classroom (including the time of the lesson in the day) so we could account for these in our findings.

Baby spinach and avocado on two slices of toast, on a plate. — Students in our study were asked what they ate for breakfast, their motivation to learn and then tested on their academic achievement in science. Lisa Fotion/Pexels, CC BY

Our findings

We found students who ate a healthy breakfast on the morning of the study demonstrated higher levels of motivation and achievement.

This means, for example, they were more confident about and focused on their science lessons. And they scored higher results in the test of their science knowledge.

In comparison, students who ate no breakfast had lower levels of motivation and achievement.

This was not unexpected. But what did surprise us was students who had no breakfast had similarly low levels of motivation and achievement to those students who had an unhealthy breakfast.

This suggests eating an unhealthy breakfast could be as disruptive to motivation and achievement as not eating breakfast at all.

Because we also looked at students’ previous science results, the study showed that even if they had previously performed well in science, they could still score low in motivation and achievement if they had not had breakfast or had eaten an unhealthy one.

Although our study could not dig into specific reasons for this, it is likely because eating the wrong kinds of foods does not properly fuel the mind or body for what is needed to optimally “switch on” academically.

It is also important to note the students in our study were from private schools. Although we took a student’s family background into account, the socioeconomic aspect of eating breakfast requires further investigation. It could be that the benefits of a healthy breakfast are larger in a more diverse sample of students.

What does this mean?

Our findings emphasise the importance of students eating a healthy breakfast each and every morning.

Schools can help ensure this by

offering a healthy breakfast to students
offering a healthy morning snack
teaching students about the importance of a healthy breakfast (for example, as part of health and wellbeing syllabus units)
giving parents information about the importance of healthy breakfasts, meal ideas and strategies for giving this to their children.

A display case with muffins, biscuits and pastries. — Students who ate unhealthy breakfasts performed similarly poorly in terms of motivation and achievement as those who had skipped the meal. Leigh Patrick/ Pexels, CC BY

Barriers to breakfast

But schools will need to be mindful of and address barriers to a healthy breakfast. For example, there will be situations where school-provided breakfasts and morning snacks will need to be free. In such cases, it is also possible some students may not want a free breakfast if there is a stigma attached to it (if it is seen as only being for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds).

It is also worth recognising some students may have body image concerns and not want to eat a snack or breakfast at school. In addition, cultural and dietary differences may mean some foods are not appropriate for some students.

If these barriers are effectively managed, our study shows a small and relatively achievable change in a student’s life – a healthy breakfast each day – can have a positive academic impact.

Andrew J. Martin, Scientia Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology, UNSW Sydney; Emma Burns, ARC DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University; Joel Pearson, Professor of cognitive neuroscience, UNSW Sydney; Keiko C.P. Bostwick, Postdoctoral research fellow, UNSW Sydney, and Roger Kennett, Researcher in educational neuroscience, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Judge finds Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins and dismisses Network 10 defamation case. How did it play out?

Brendan Clift, The University of Melbourne

Bruce Lehrmann has lost his defamation suit against Channel Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson after the media defendants proved, on the balance of probabilities, that Lehrmann raped his colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.

After a trial lasting around a month, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee – an experienced defamation judge – concluded that both Lehrmann and Higgins had credibility issues, but ultimately he was persuaded that Lehrmann raped Higgins, as she’d alleged and he’d denied.

Criminal trials by proxy

Ordinarily, charges like rape would be resolved through the criminal courts, but Lehrmann’s criminal trial was aborted in October 2022 after juror misconduct. The charges against him were soon dropped, nominally over concerns for Higgins’ mental health.

Higgins, however, foresaw civil proceedings and offered to testify should they arise. That they did, as Lehrmann, free from the burden of any proven crime, sued several media outlets for defamation over their reporting into the allegations (the ABC and News Corp both settled out of court).

Like Ben Roberts-Smith’s recent defamation suit against the former Fairfax papers, this became another case of civil proceedings testing grave allegations in the absence of a criminal law outcome.

The form of proceedings made for some key differences with the aborted criminal trial. In criminal cases, prosecutors are ethically bound to act with moderation in pursuing a conviction, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, while defendants have the right to silence. By contrast, this trial featured detailed accounts from both sides as each sought to convince, in essence, that their contentions were likely to be correct.

Also like the Roberts-Smith case, live streaming of the trial generated very high levels of public engagement. Today’s stream reached audiences of more than 45,000 people. It gave us the chance to assess who and what we believe, and to scrutinise the parties’ claims and the media’s reporting. The Federal Court doesn’t have juries, but we, the public, acted as a de facto panel of peers.

We saw accusations and denials, revealing cross-examination of the protagonists, witness testimony from colleagues, CCTV footage from nightclubs to Parliament House complete with lip-reading, expert testimony on alcohol consumption and consent, and lawyers constructing timelines which supported or poked holes in competing versions of events.

The complexity of high-stakes legal proceedings was on display, with Justice Lee issuing many interim decisions on questions of procedure and evidence. Whenever transparency was at stake, it won.

The preference for full disclosure led to the case being re-opened at the eleventh hour to call former Channel 7 producer Taylor Auerbach as a witness, providing a denouement that the judge called “sordid”, but which had little relevance to the final result.

An argument over the truth

Lehrmann had the burden of proving that the defendants published matter harmful to his reputation. That matter was Wilkinson’s interview with Higgins on Channel Ten’s The Project in which the allegations were made.

A statement is only defamatory if it’s untrue, but in Australian law, the publisher bears the burden of proving truth, should they opt for that defence. And more serious allegations usually require more compelling proof, as the law views them as inherently more unlikely.

This can be onerous for a defamation defendant, but it also involves risk for the plaintiff, should the defendant embark on an odyssey of truth-telling yet more damaging to the plaintiff’s image. That happened to Ben Roberts-Smith and it happened to Lehrmann here.

On the other hand, if the media hasn’t done their homework, as in Heston Russell’s case against the ABC (also presided over by Justice Lee), the complainant can be vindicated.

This case was a manifestation of Lehrmann’s professed desire to “light some fires”. Few players in this extended saga have emerged without scars, and here he burned his own fingers, badly.

As Justice Lee put it, Lehrmann, “having escaped the lion’s den [of criminal prosecution], made the mistake of coming back to get his hat”.

How was the case decided?

Lehrmann denied having sex with Higgins, whereas Higgins alleged there had been non-consensual sex. The defamatory nature of the publication centred on the claim of rape, so that was what the media defendants sought to prove.

This left open the curious possibility that consensual sex might have taken place: if so, Lehrmann would have brought his case on a false premise (there had been no sex), but the media would have failed to defend it (by not proving a lack of consent), resulting in a Lehrmann win.

That awkward scenario did not arise. The court found sex did in fact take place, Higgins in her heavily-inebriated and barely-conscious state did not give consent, and Lehrmann was so intent on his gratification that he ignored the requirement of consent.

Justice Lee found Lehrmann to be a persistent, self-interested liar, whereas Higgin’s credibility issues were of lesser degree, some symptomatic of a person piecing together a part-remembered trauma. The judge drew strongly on the evidence of certain neutral parties who could testify to incidents or words spoken in close proximity to the events.

Defamation laws favour the aggrieved

Australian defamation law has historically favoured plaintiffs and, despite recent rebalancing attempts, it remains a favoured legal weapon for those with the resources to use it.

This includes our political class, who sue their critics for defamation with unhealthy frequency for a democracy. In the United States, public figures don’t have it so easy: to win they must prove their critics were lying.

In Australia, the media sometimes succeeds in proving truth, but contesting defamation proceedings comes at great financial cost and takes an emotional toll on the journalists involved.

Nor can a true claim always be proven to a court’s satisfaction, given the rules of evidence and the fact that sources may be reluctant to testify or protected by a reporter’s guarantee of confidentiality.

But this case demonstrates that publishers with an appetite for the legal fight can come out on top.

Brendan Clift, Lecturer of law, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How the Lehrmann v Channel 10 defamation case shone an unflattering light on commercial news gathering

Denis Muller, The University of Melbourne

Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson’s victory in the defamation action brought against them by Bruce Lehrmann is the second big win inside a year for the Australian media using the defence of truth. However, it comes at a heavy cost to the reputations of the industry and the profession of journalism.

The evidence about the Seven Network’s efforts to get Lehrmann to give an exclusive interview for its Spotlight program, allegedly including the purchase of cocaine and prostitute services for him, cast a pall over the way commercial TV news programs operate.

These allegations were denied by Seven, but invoices and receipts said to support them were produced in court. Justice Michael Lee stated in his judgment that they were uncontradicted by any evidence in reply from Lehrmann.

By contrast with this unsavoury episode, only ten months ago, in June 2023, Australians saw journalism at the opposite end of the ethical spectrum when The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times proved the substantial truth of the imputation that Ben Roberts-Smith was a war criminal. It was a victory based on extraordinary feats of investigative journalism on a matter of grave public interest.

How Network Ten got it right … and wrong

Network Ten and Wilkinson also produced journalism dealing with a matter of grave public interest. They can claim credit for giving a voice to Brittany Higgins, now proved to be the victim of rape, by interviewing her on The Project, and in doing so standing up for the right of all women victims to be heard.

But the credit is tarnished by their actions first in disrupting Lehrmann’s criminal trial and second by serious journalistic weaknesses in the production of The Project interview itself.

The interview won Wilkinson a silver Logie, but her acceptance speech was considered by the ACT Supreme Court to be so prejudicial in favour of Higgins as to amount to trial by media.

The trial was postponed and ultimately collapsed because of juror misconduct, with no findings against Lehrmann.

Justice Lee acknowledged that Wilkinson had cleared her speech with Ten’s senior litigation counsel, Tasha Smithies, whose conduct in this matter he criticised, and was encouraged by the network to make the speech. In these respects, he said, Wilkinson had been badly let down by those she turned to for advice.

However, he went on to say she was an experienced journalist who might have realised the speech was fraught with danger if she had thought it through as a journalist rather than as a champion of Higgins.

This attachment to Higgins’ cause was a fundamental weakness that underlay the many substantive criticisms Justice Lee made of the journalistic motives and processes leading up to The Project interview.

From the outset, Wilkinson had said to Higgins’ boyfriend, David Sharaz, that she proposed to “hold Britt’s hand through all this”.

Justice Lee observed that while he was aware of the need to build rapport and deal sensitively with a person presenting as a victim of sexual assault, assessing the credibility of someone making claims of serious wrongdoing required a degree of detachment that was absent in the interactions between The Project team and Higgins.

The second weakness was that Wilkinson and the producer of the program, Angus Llewellyn, failed to keep an open mind. In Justice Lee’s words, all contemporaneous records suggested they never doubted the truth of Higgins’ account.

For them, he said, the most important part of the story was Higgins’ narrative in which others were putting up roadblocks to her quest for justice.

It was this cover-up or victimisation allegation that had generated so much notoriety and public interest, yet it had contained inconsistencies, falsities and imprecisions that the journalists had failed resolve.

Justice Lee also raised doubts about Higgins’ motive for doing the interview. Llewellyn had given evidence that he thought Higgins wanted to speak out about her experience to create change, to prevent it from happening to anyone else, and did not consider she had a vendetta.

While conceding there might have been some truth in this, Justice Lee said any suggestion Wilkinson or Llewellyn approached the story with disinterested professional scepticism was undermined by the way they were prepared to assist in the plans of Sharaz and Higgins to use the allegations for immediate political advantage.

He said Sharaz’s political motives were made plain by his expressed intention to liaise with an opposition frontbencher to deploy the allegations against the government during Question Time.

Yet Llewellyn had evidently considered this to be of no consequence, leading Justice Lee to say that any journalist who did not think Sharaz had a motivation to inflict immediate political damage would have to be “wilfully blind”.

Moreover, Llewellyn and Wilkinson had expressed a willingness to assist in the political use of the serious charges they were supposedly interrogating and assessing with independent minds.

So once more in this saga, journalists and the media were revealed as having become partisan political participants in the story.

Journalist as participant

Previously we had seen The Australian newspaper and one of its columnists, Janet Albrechtsen, insert themselves into the inquiry established by the ACT government into the way the criminal case against Lehrmann had been handled.

According to a judicial review of that inquiry by the ACT Supreme Court, the chair of the inquiry, Walter Sofronoff, engaged in 273 interactions with Albrechtsen over the inquiry’s seven months. This included 51 phone calls, text messages, emails and a private lunch in Brisbane.

It was alleged during the judicial review that Albrechtsen was an “advocate” for Lehrmann, and the review found that Sofronoff’s extensive communications with her gave rise to an impression of bias in the findings he made against the former ACT director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold.

This phenomenon of journalist as participant undermines public trust in the credibility of the media.

In his recent book Collision of Power, Martin Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, takes a strong stand against this trend.

He argues that the more journalists are perceived as partisans, the less their reporting will be believed.

At a time of peril for democratic institutions, we need to be good stewards of our own, reinforcing standards rather than abandoning them.

The Project did right by Higgins and by helping to elevate the issue of violence against women. But this was achieved by journalistic attitudes and practices that did not stand up to scrutiny.

Justice Lee described the Lehrmann saga as “an omnishambles” that had inflicted widespread collateral damage. The media and journalism have not escaped.

Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Crisis communication saves lives – but people with disability often aren’t given the message

Ariella Meltzer, UNSW Sydney

In a pandemic, bushfire or flood, people need high quality safety and crisis information. Getting emergency messages quickly can help people know how to prepare, what rules to follow, where dangers are, where to gather safely and when help is on the way.

This life-saving potential exists for everyone – including people with disability, who may be particularly affected by climate change. So it is important that crisis information is accessible and its meaning is clear for everyone.

Yet, the disability royal commission and advocates say people with disability have not been provided with enough thorough, timely and up to date, accessible information during recent crises.

For example, the government’s accessible information about the early dangers of COVID was not made available at the same time as the standard information and didn’t include enough different types of accessible information.

With climate change making extreme weather events more common and more intense, we asked 17 accessible information provider organisations what could improve accessible crisis communication for people with disability.

What is accessible information?

Accessible information can come in a range of types, including Auslan, captions, Easy Read and Easy English (which both use pictures as well as simpler language) and braille.

Beyond specific formats, information is accessible when it is:

• made for a specific audience

• matched to their technical requirements

• co-designed with and user tested by people with disability

• easy to locate and distribute to people who need it

• to the point and practical

• up to date, accurate and verified

• delivered with a “human touch”.

Who makes accessible information?

There is a small group of provider organisations who make accessible information. Some are specialist accessibility businesses and others are disability advocacy organisations. They usually work from project to project to develop individual accessible products with payment from commissioning bodies, such as government, councils, community organisations and private businesses.

This is important work, yet the piecemeal nature of it means it is hard to build and expand information accessibility businesses between projects. It is also hard to ensure there is accessible information to cover everything people with disability need to know, let alone keep it updated and make sure it is produced under best-practice conditions.

These challenges are even more serious in a crisis. If accessible crisis information is not accurate, complete, up to date and high quality, there can be life and death consequences for people with disability in a bushfire, flood or pandemic.

For example, they may not know if it is controlled backburning or an uncontrolled fire approaching their property or about pandemic safety rules.

Four ways to improve accessible crisis information

Accessible information provider organisations told us four things that could help:

1. A direct source of information

Keeping up with constantly changing details in a crisis is difficult for accessible information provider organisations. Having a direct source (such as a government or emergency services contact) of correct information to “translate” into accessible formats would help.

2. Subject matter experts

Accessible information provider organisations are experts on style and accessibility – not crises. There needs to be support from subject matter experts (such as doctors or emergency service personnel) to check accuracy.

3. Not waiting for a crisis

Making high quality, accessible information takes time, money and skilled staff. Ensuring the required workplace, professional learning and human resources conditions are in place is a long term task. Sufficient resourcing for accessible information provider organisations is important from way before a crisis.

4. Upskilling agencies

Not all accessible crisis information can be made by provider organisations. Sometimes crisis information – like evacuation orders or information about approaching fire – needs to be available immediately. Emergency services need more thorough baseline accessibility skills to make this information themselves.

New rules and resources could help

Clearer and more comprehensive national legislation requiring the production of accessible information would give people with disability the information they need to stay safe in times of crisis. Such laws should clearly outline all situations in which accessible information must be provided (including crises), formats to be considered and the standard necessary.

There are different options for how to make this legislation. In its final report, the disability royal commission said information accessibility should be covered in a new Disability Rights Act. Our report shows information accessibility requirements should also be clearly and consistently included in the governing legislation of sectors like emergency response and health.

Accessible information provider organisations should also have reliable, ongoing funding (not only project to project payments), with capacity for expansion during weather emergencies and public health disasters. This would ensure the workforce and systems are in place to expand workflow quickly when needed and get messages out rapidly to people with disability.

And everyone – from media organisations to designers, businesses and service providers – needs to get on board. The more people who prioritise accessible information, the safer people with disability can be in a crisis.

Ariella Meltzer, Research Fellow in Social Impact, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

With democracy under threat in Narendra Modi’s India, how free and fair will this year’s election be?

Priya Chacko, University of Adelaide

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is favoured to win reelection when India’s 970 million voters start heading to the polls on April 19 in the country’s massive, six-week general election.

Modi, who has been prime minister since 2014, has benefited from a divided opposition, glowing mainstream media coverage and high economic growth rates.

However, recent polling indicates significant voter discontent over inflation and unemployment. While 44% of respondents want the Modi government to return to power, a sizeable 39% do not want his Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) to be reelected.

Moreover, Modi’s election campaign has been tainted by several events in recent weeks:

the arrest of a major opposition leader in what his party says was a “conspiracy” by Modi’s government
the freezing of the accounts of the major opposition Congress party over a tax dispute
revelations of heavily skewed political financing favouring Modi’s party.

These incidents have raised concerns about how free and fair India’s election will actually be.

India’s democratic decline

For much of its history as an independent state, India has been an electoral democracy, defying political sociologist Seymour Lipset’s theory that democratic institutions and cultures usually only thrive in affluent societies.

Barring a period of emergency rule in the 1970s when elections were suspended, India has met the threshold for free and fair elections throughout its history.

Voter turnout in elections has typically been high, at around 70%. A complex electoral structure has also been put in place to ensure electoral integrity, involving:

phased voting over a number of weeks
a model code of conduct governing how parties and candidates must behave in elections
travelling electoral and security officials to oversee the voting process and reach all voters
the implementation of an electronic voting system to prevent electoral fraud.

Since 2018, however, there has been a steep decline in the quality of India’s electoral democracy. The V-Dem Institute, which tracks democratic freedom around the globe, now considers India to be an electoral autocracy, which means it still holds regular elections but its government is increasingly autocratic.

V-Dem also says India does not have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure free and fair elections.

What makes elections free and fair?

To safeguard electoral integrity, governments must ensure the free participation of all parties and voters in elections and maintain an independent election commission. All candidates must have equal access to the media, which should act as a watchdog. Incumbents should not have a large financial advantage over opponents.

These norms of electoral integrity have been endorsed in numerous international and domestic codes of conduct, treaties and protocols around the world.

However, the world is experiencing a new wave of autocratisation, and electoral manipulation is on the rise.

Of particular concern is long-term electoral manipulation that results in the lack of a level playing field. This involves political financing that favours one party over others, the political persecution of opposition politicians and journalists, media dominance by incumbents and the erosion of independent electoral institutions.

An uneven political financing system

On February 15, an opaque system of political financing introduced under the Modi government in 2017 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In this “electoral bonds” system, individuals and companies were permitted to make unlimited and anonymous donations to political parties through the purchase of bonds from the State Bank of India.

The Supreme Court ordered the release of the names of donors and recipients despite resistance from the bank.

These data revealed Modi’s BJP as the prime beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars of donations by corporations and individuals since 2019.

Thirty-three corporations donated electoral bonds worth more than their profits, raising questions about the true source of these funds. And three-quarters of these donations went to the BJP.

Thirty corporate donors were also found to have purchased electoral bonds after India’s Enforcement Directorate, which investigates economic crimes, and the Tax Department launched investigations against them for money laundering and tax violations.

In addition, Indian media reported that companies donating large amounts to the BJP were later awarded major government contracts.

Targeting the opposition

Opposition leaders allege the Modi government is also misusing state agencies to target them.

For instance, a media report revealed that 95% of investigations by the Enforcement Directorate since the BJP came into power in 2014 have focused on the opposition. There has also been a five-fold increase in the number of money laundering investigations by the body since 2014.

The Enforcement Directorate has been unable to prove most of these cases. In fact, it has a less than a 0.5% conviction rate dating back to 2005.

Modi has denied accusations he has used the body to target the opposition. However, Indian media have found corruption investigations involving 23 of 25 opposition politicians were shelved after they defected to the BJP.

In recent days, a popular opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, was also jailed on allegations he received kickbacks from the Delhi government’s attempt to privatise the liquor industry. The Enforcement Directorate has yet to provide evidence of his guilt.

Monitoring the election

Once considered a robustly independent institution, the Indian Election Commission’s reputation has been tarnished by questions about its impartiality.

It has failed to adequately address criticisms of its weakening of verification processes in the electronic voting system, as well as allegations of voter suppression of Muslims, Dalits and women.

Indian democracy is not, however, dying in darkness. While the Supreme Court’s independence has been questioned, its persistence in challenging the government on the issue of electoral bonds provides some reassurance that it has not yet become an “executive court”.

Despite being subjected to tax investigations, censorship and arrests, independent journalists and media organisations continue to hold the government to account. They have pooled their resources to investigate the electoral bonds scandal and provide critical election coverage in the recent Karnataka election, which the BJP lost.

The electoral bonds scandal also came to light thanks to the dogged efforts of “right to information” (RTI) activists in the face of efforts by the government to weaken the RTI Act.

And though YouTube has emerged as source of disinformation and hate speech, it has also been a venue for journalists and influencers to provide fact checking and critical commentary on the government. A video by a popular young influencer, Dhruv Rathee, accusing Modi of cultivating a dictatorship recently went viral with 25 million views.

Meanwhile, a new citizens’ initiative, the Independent Panel for Monitoring Elections is issuing weekly bulletins documenting violations of the Model Code of Conduct, media bias and voter exclusion.

If India is the “mother of democracy”, as Modi likes to claim, it is this unbowed civil society that will ensure its survival.

Priya Chacko, Associate Professor, International Politics, University of Adelaide

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop appointed UN special envoy

April 6, 2024

Chancellor of The Australian National University (ANU) the Hon Julie Bishop has been appointed as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on Myanmar.

The appointment was made overnight by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

ANU Chancellor the Hon Julie Bishop. Photo: supplied.

The UN said Ms Bishop brings “extensive political, legal management and senior leadership experience to the role”.

“Throughout her career, Ms Bishop has strengthened engagement with regional partners and led international negotiation efforts, including the first ever United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea conciliation,” the UN said in a statement.

Before taking up the role of ANU Chancellor in 2020 – the first woman appointed to the role in the University’s history – Ms Bishop was Australia’s first female foreign minister, a role she held from 2013 to 2018.

Ms Bishop has held several other high-level positions in Australian Government, including Cabinet Minister for Education, Science and Training, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues and Minister for Ageing. She was a member of Parliament from 1998 to 2019, following a 20-year career in law.

She has also won the Weary Dunlop medal for her contribution to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific and been named a Kissinger Fellow for her work on significant global policy issues.

On her UN appointment, Ms Bishop said: “I am deeply honoured to be appointed Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations on Myanmar to help deliver on the mandate of the General Assembly and the Security Council Resolution of December 2022.”

Myanmar has faced nationwide conflict since the democratically-elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted by the military in February 2021.

Ms Bishop succeeds UN undersecretary-general Noeleen Heyzer as Special Envoy on Myanmar, who has described the impact of the military takeover as “devastating” noting violence in the Southeast Asian nation is continuing at an “alarming scale”.

ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell congratulated the Chancellor on her UN appointment.

“As Australia’s first female foreign minister, Julie made an incredible contribution to global politics,” she said.

“Now, she’s adding Special Envoy to her illustrious career in global diplomacy. This is a well-deserved recognition of her significant impact on contemporary international relations.

“The entire ANU community congratulates Julie on this important appointment and wishes her the very best in this vital role.”

Ms Bishop will continue in her role as ANU Chancellor while also undertaking her work with the UN.

Pacific cities much older than previously thought

April 10, 2024

New evidence of one of the first cities in the Pacific shows they were established much earlier than previously thought, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU).

The study used aerial laser scanning to map archaeological sites on the island of Tongatapu in Tonga.

Earth structures were being constructed on Tongatapu around AD 300. Photo: Phillip Parton/ANU

Lead author, PhD scholar Phillip Parton, said the new timeline also indicates that urbanisation in the Pacific was an indigenous innovation that developed before Western influence.

"Earth structures were being constructed in Tongatapu around AD 300. This is 700 years earlier than previously thought," Mr Parton said.

"As settlements grew, they had to come up with new ways of supporting that growing population. This kind of set-up -- what we call low density urbanisation -- sets in motion huge social and economic change. People are interacting more and doing different kinds of work."

Mr Parton said traditionally, studying urbanisation in the Pacific has been tricky due to challenges collecting data, but new technology has changed that.

"We were able to combine high-tech mapping and archaeological fieldwork to understand what was happening in Tongatapu," he said.

"Having this type of information really adds to our understanding of early Pacific societies.

"Urbanisation is not an area that had been investigated much until now. When people think of early cities they usually think of traditional old European cities with compact housing and windy cobblestone streets. This is a very different kind of city.

"But it shows the contribution of the Pacific to urban science. We can see clues that Tongatapu's influence spread across the southwest Pacific Ocean between the 13th and 19th centuries."

According to Mr Parton, the collapse of this kind of low-density urbanisation in Tonga was largely due to the arrival of Europeans.

"It didn't collapse because the system was flawed; it was more to do with the arrival of Europeans and introduced diseases," he said.

"This is just the beginning in terms of early Pacific settlements. There's likely still much to be discovered."

The study has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

Phillip Parton, Geoffrey Clark. Low-Density Urbanisation: Prestate Settlement Growth in a Pacific Society. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2024; DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09647-8

Star Trek's Holodeck recreated using ChatGPT and video game assets

April 11, 2024

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise leverage the holodeck, an empty room capable of generating 3D environments, to prepare for missions and to entertain themselves, simulating everything from lush jungles to the London of Sherlock Holmes. Deeply immersive and fully interactive, holodeck-created environments are infinitely customizable, using nothing but language: the crew has only to ask the computer to generate an environment, and that space appears in the holodeck.

Today, virtual interactive environments are also used to train robots prior to real-world deployment in a process called "Sim2Real." However, virtual interactive environments have been in surprisingly short supply. "Artists manually create these environments," says Yue Yang, a doctoral student in the labs of Mark Yatskar and Chris Callison-Burch, Assistant and Associate Professors in Computer and Information Science (CIS), respectively. "Those artists could spend a week building a single environment," Yang adds, noting all the decisions involved, from the layout of the space to the placement of objects to the colors employed in rendering.

That paucity of virtual environments is a problem if you want to train robots to navigate the real world with all its complexities. Neural networks, the systems powering today's AI revolution, require massive amounts of data, which in this case means simulations of the physical world. "Generative AI systems like ChatGPT are trained on trillions of words, and image generators like Midjourney and DALLE are trained on billions of images," says Callison-Burch. "We only have a fraction of that amount of 3D environments for training so-called 'embodied AI.' If we want to use generative AI techniques to develop robots that can safely navigate in real-world environments, then we will need to create millions or billions of simulated environments."

Enter Holodeck, a system for generating interactive 3D environments co-created by Callison-Burch, Yatskar, Yang and Lingjie Liu, Aravind K. Joshi Assistant Professor in CIS, along with collaborators at Stanford, the University of Washington, and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). Named for its Star Trek forebear, Holodeck generates a virtually limitless range of indoor environments, using AI to interpret users' requests. "We can use language to control it," says Yang. "You can easily describe whatever environments you want and train the embodied AI agents."

Holodeck leverages the knowledge embedded in large language models (LLMs), the systems underlying ChatGPT and other chatbots. "Language is a very concise representation of the entire world," says Yang. Indeed, LLMs turn out to have a surprisingly high degree of knowledge about the design of spaces, thanks to the vast amounts of text they ingest during training. In essence, Holodeck works by engaging an LLM in conversation, using a carefully structured series of hidden queries to break down user requests into specific parameters.

Just like Captain Picard might ask Star Trek's Holodeck to simulate a speakeasy, researchers can ask Penn's Holodeck to create "a 1b1b apartment of a researcher who has a cat." The system executes this query by dividing it into multiple steps: first, the floor and walls are created, then the doorway and windows. Next, Holodeck searches Objaverse, a vast library of premade digital objects, for the sort of furnishings you might expect in such a space: a coffee table, a cat tower, and so on. Finally, Holodeck queries a layout module, which the researchers designed to constrain the placement of objects, so that you don't wind up with a toilet extending horizontally from the wall.

To evaluate Holodeck's abilities, in terms of their realism and accuracy, the researchers generated 120 scenes using both Holodeck and ProcTHOR, an earlier tool created by AI2, and asked several hundred Penn Engineering students to indicate their preferred version, not knowing which scenes were created by which tools. For every criterion -- asset selection, layout coherence and overall preference -- the students consistently rated the environments generated by Holodeck more favourably.

The researchers also tested Holodeck's ability to generate scenes that are less typical in robotics research and more difficult to manually create than apartment interiors, like stores, public spaces and offices. Comparing Holodeck's outputs to those of ProcTHOR, which were generated using human-created rules rather than AI-generated text, the researchers found once again that human evaluators preferred the scenes created by Holodeck. That preference held across a wide range of indoor environments, from science labs to art studios, locker rooms to wine cellars.

Finally, the researchers used scenes generated by Holodeck to "fine-tune" an embodied AI agent. "The ultimate test of Holodeck," says Yatskar, "is using it to help robots interact with their environment more safely by preparing them to inhabit places they've never been before."

Across multiple types of virtual spaces, including offices, daycares, gyms and arcades, Holodeck had a pronounced and positive effect on the agent's ability to navigate new spaces.

For instance, whereas the agent successfully found a piano in a music room only about 6% of the time when pre-trained using ProcTHOR (which involved the agent taking about 400 million virtual steps), the agent succeeded over 30% of the time when fine-tuned using 100 music rooms generated by Holodeck.

"This field has been stuck doing research in residential spaces for a long time," says Yang. "But there are so many diverse environments out there -- efficiently generating a lot of environments to train robots has always been a big challenge, but Holodeck provides this functionality."

Yue Yang, Fan-Yun Sun, Luca Weihs, Eli VanderBilt, Alvaro Herrasti, Winson Han, Jiajun Wu, Nick Haber, Ranjay Krishna, Lingjie Liu, Chris Callison-Burch, Mark Yatskar, Aniruddha Kembhavi, Christopher Clark. Holodeck: Language Guided Generation of 3D Embodied AI Environments. Submitted to arXiv, 2024 DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2312.09067

Essentially, Holodeck engages a large language model (LLM) in a conversation, building a virtual environment piece by piece. (Yue Yang)

Dominique Grubisa and DG Institute made misleading representations to students in wealth seminars

April 9, 2024

The Federal Court has today found that Master Wealth Control Pty Ltd, trading as DG Institute breached the Australian Consumer Law, and that its sole Director Dominique Grubisa was knowingly concerned in the contraventions, in proceedings brought by the ACCC.

DG Institute was found to have made false or misleading representations to consumers in the promotion and sale of two education programs called Real Estate Rescue (RER) and Master Wealth Control (MWC) between April 2017 and November 2022. In that period well over 3000 students enrolled in the programs, and each paid between $4,500 and $9,200 to participate.

The Court found that Ms Grubisa, was knowingly concerned in DG Institute’s contraventions through her role in making the statements on video in promotional materials and program materials, and in drafting, reviewing, editing and/or approving content for these materials. The Court also found that Ms Grubisa knew that the representations she made about both programs were in fact false and misleading.

“This case is another reminder that businesses must ensure statements they make when promoting products or services to consumers are accurate and not misleading,” ACCC Commissioner Liza Carver said.

“It should also serve as a strong reminder to company directors that they may be held liable for their involvement in false or misleading representations made by the company in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.”

“We received a significant number of complaints from students of DG Institute about the courses and the promotional materials,” Ms Carver said.

Specifically, the Court found that the following statements about the programs were false or misleading:

Students of the RER program would be able to assist distressed homeowners to sell their home and retain some of the equity, whereas if a mortgagee was to repossess the property, the homeowner would lose any remaining equity in the property – including because “banks don’t give change”. In fact, a mortgagee is only entitled to amounts owed to it, plus any reasonable costs of recovery.
Students of the MWC program could completely protect all of their assets from creditors by setting up a specific trust DG Institute called a ‘ Vestey Trust’ using transaction documents provided by DG Institute. In fact, the transaction documents provided did not provide the level of protection from creditors promised.
the ‘Vestey Trust’ system promoted by DG Institute had been tested and upheld as effective by the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia in the ‘Sharrment’ case, when in fact this was not the case.

A hearing on the relief orders sought by the ACCC, including penalties, will be held at a later date. The ACCC is seeking injunctions, penalties, consumer redress, costs and an order against Ms Grubisa disqualifying her from managing corporations.

Background

The ACCC commenced legal action against Master Wealth Control and Ms Grubisa in December 2022.

DG Institute offers courses and mentoring programs, including RER and MWC programs, to consumers relating to property and business investment, including strategies for asset protection.

The RER program and the MWC program were promoted through free in-person seminars, free online webinars and videos featuring Ms Grubisa, and on the DG Institute website.

Between 2017 and 2022 well over a thousand students enrolled in the programs, and each paid between $4,500 and $9,200 to participate.

‘Sharrment’ is a reference to the judgment handed down by the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia in Sharrment Pty Ltd v The Official Trustee in Bankruptcy (1988) 18 FCR 449.

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