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Young Australian workers are at elevated risk of mental health and alcohol and other drug related problems. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between alcohol and drug (AOD) use, psychological wellbeing, and the workplace psychosocial environment among young apprentices in the construction industry.

A cross-sectional survey of a cohort of 169 construction industry apprentices in their first year of training was undertaken. The survey included measures of psychological distress (K10), quantity/frequency measures of alcohol and illicit drug use, and workplace psychosocial factors.

Construction industry apprentices are at elevated risk of AOD related harm and poor mental health. Levels of psychological distress and substance use were substantially higher than age/gender equivalent Australian population norms. Job stress, workplace bullying, and general social support accounted for 38.2 per cent of the variance in psychological distress. General social support moderated the effects of job stress and bullying on psychological distress. Substance use was not associated with psychological distress. However, workplace social support accounted for 2.1 per cent of the variance in AUDIT-C scores, and 2.0 per cent of the variance in cannabis use. Workplace bullying explained 2.4 per cent of the variance in meth/amphetamine use.

Construction trades apprentices are a high-risk group for harmful substance use and poor mental health. Study results indicate that psychosocial wellbeing interventions are warranted as a harm reduction strategy.

This is the first study of its kind to describe a cohort of Australian construction trade apprentices in terms of their substance use and psychological wellbeing. The study shows workplace psychosocial factors may predict young workers psychological wellbeing.

Risky alcohol and other drug (AOD) use is ubiquitous in some workplace cultures, and is associated with considerable risks to health, safety and productivity. A workplace drug and alcohol first aid program was developed to support supervisors and managers to recognize and respond appropriately to AOD problems, increase knowledge of AOD and reduce the stigma associated with AOD. The purpose of this paper is to undertake an evaluation to assess the program’s efficacy.

A self-report survey was administered to program participants before (T1), immediately after (T2) and three months following program completion (T3). Changes in alcohol/drug-related knowledge, role adequacy, motivation and personal views were examined using repeated measures ANOVA.

A total of 109 participants took part in the program, with only 26 completing scores at all three time points. Mean scores increased significantly (p<0.05) between T1 and T2 for knowledge (12.7–16.0), role adequacy (11.8–17.4), motivation (9.7–10.4) and personal views (9.0–9.6). Significant improvements were maintained at T3 for knowledge (15.1) and role adequacy (17.3).

Drug and alcohol first aid programs offer a potentially valuable initiative to improve the knowledge, skills and understanding of managers and supervisors in tackling workplace AOD risks, associated stigma and improving help seeking.

Workplace programs for managers can facilitate organization-wide responses to the reduction of AOD-related problems, increase implementation of appropriate policy and interventions, minimize associated harms and stigma and reduce negative imposts on productivity and profit.

The purpose of this paper is to identify mental health interventions within male-dominated industries.

A systematic literature review was undertaken, examining mental health interventions within male-dominated industries. Major electronic databases, grey literature and reference lists for English language studies published January 1990-June 2012 were searched. Independent extraction of the studies was completed by two reviewers using predefined data fields including study quality measures.

Five studies met inclusion criteria. The available evidence suggests that effective interventions to address anxiety and depression in male-dominated industries include: improving mental health literacy and knowledge, increasing social support, improving access to treatment, providing education for managers and addressing workload issues.

Working conditions and the workplace can have a significant impact on a worker's mental health. Work-related factors including working conditions, job demands and social support in the workplace are particularly important for the mental health workers. Indeed, poor work conditions have been associated with poorer mental health outcomes in particular anxiety and depression, however, little work has been conducted on mental health interventions in the workplace and further the impact on male-dominated industries.

Overall, the body of evidence supporting effective interventions for mental health problems among workers in male-dominated industries is limited. Nonetheless, the evidence does suggest that mental health interventions in male-dominated industries is logistically feasible and can have some positive impact on the mental health of workers, particularly for high prevalence low severity disorders such as anxiety and depression.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

The institution of food and cookery exhibitions and the dissemination of practical knowledge with respect to cookery by means of lectures and demonstrations are excellent things in their way. But while it is important that better and more scientific attention should be generally given to the preparation of food for the table, it must be admitted to be at least equally important to insure that the food before it comes into the hands of the expert cook shall be free from adulteration, and as far as possible from impurity,—that it should be, in fact, of the quality expected. Protection up to a certain point and in certain directions is afforded to the consumer by penal enactments, and hitherto the general public have been disposed to believe that those enactments are in their nature and in their application such as to guarantee a fairly general supply of articles of tolerable quality. The adulteration laws, however, while absolutely necessary for the purpose of holding many forms of fraud in check, and particularly for keeping them within certain bounds, cannot afford any guarantees of superior, or even of good, quality. Except in rare instances, even those who control the supply of articles of food to large public and private establishments fail to take steps to assure themselves that the nature and quality of the goods supplied to them are what they are represented to be. The sophisticator and adulterator are always with us. The temptations to undersell and to misrepresent seem to be so strong that firms and individuals from whom far better things might reasonably be expected fall away from the right path with deplorable facility, and seek to save themselves, should they by chance be brought to book, by forms of quibbling and wriggling which are in themselves sufficient to show the moral rottenness which can be brought about by an insatiable lust for gain. There is, unfortunately, cheating to be met with at every turn, and it behoves at least those who control the purchase and the cooking of food on the large scale to do what they can to insure the supply to them of articles which have not been tampered with, and which are in all respects of proper quality, both by insisting on being furnished with sufficiently authoritative guarantees by the vendors, and by themselves causing the application of reasonably frequent scientific checks upon the quality of the goods.

This paper aims to raise awareness of and argue for the use of participatory methods for the research and development of Virtual Reality (VR) applications designed for neurodivergent groups. This includes exploring why it is important to meaningfully include neurodivergent groups and the benefits their inclusion provide.

VR is becoming increasingly widespread as a consumer product and interventional tool. It is vital for researchers and developers to embrace best practices in these early stages of using the technology, making certain that neurodivergent people have the best possible outcomes.

The neurodivergent community is dissatisfied with many of the research directions currently being undertaken. This dissatisfaction arises from conflicting priorities between different stakeholders and the lack of input from the community. Participatory research brings neurodivergent people into the research process, whether as members of the research team or as consultants at key steps. Effective participatory research ensures that the priorities of the neurodivergent community are better incorporated in research, as well as enabling the development of more effective applications for VR.

Participatory methods are unutilised in the development of applications aimed for neurodivergent people. By describing their use and utility in other areas, this article aims to encourage other VR researchers to take neurodivergent people on board.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenges and obstacles encountered in the implementation of a mentoring program for Master of Business Administration (MBA) students at the University of South Australia (UniSA) Business School. The paper starts with an exploration into the need for a mentoring program, the trial and subsequent four years of implementation. The paper also explores the network model of mentoring and the reasons why this, rather than a more traditional model, was chosen for the program’s implementation.

This exploratory case study uses data from over 600 students and their alumni mentors over a five-year period to evaluate and improve the program as well as cultivating a critical community of adult learners.

Feedback from students indicates that the mentoring program is regarded by most as a value-added feature of their early learning as it offers support, if and when it is required, from those who have been there before.

Results are limited to one institution. However, as research into mentoring for higher education students is thin on the ground, this study contributes to our understanding of the positive impacts of mentoring on student success.

This paper emphasizes the importance of business leaders giving back to their alma mater through mentoring current MBA students. It shows how mentoring can support learning and management development.

This is an original study which explores ways to increase the learning of higher education students for positive social outcomes.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Reliability plays an important role in the execution of the maintenance improvement and the understanding of its concepts is essential to predict the type of maintenance according to the equipment state. Thereby, a computational tool was developed and programming with VBA in Excel® for reliability and failure analysis in a mining context. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The developed approach use the modeling of stochastic processes, such as the renewal process, the non-homogeneous Poisson process and less conventional method as the Bayesian approach, by considering Jeffreys non-informative prior. The resolution gives the best associated model, the parameters estimation, the mean time between failure and the reliability estimate. This approach is validated with the reliability analysis of inter-failure times from underground rock bolters subsystems, over a two-year period.

Results show that Weibull and lognormal probability distribution fit to the most subsystems inter-failure times. The study revealed that the bolting head, the rock drill, the screen handler, the electric/electronic system, the hydraulic system, the drilling feeder and the structural consume the most repair frequency. The hydraulic and electric/electronic subsystems represent the lowest reliability after 50 operation hours.

For the first time, this case study defines practical failures and reliability information for rock bolter subsystems based on real operation data. This paper is useful to the comparative evaluation of rock bolter by detecting the weakest elements and understanding failure patterns in the individual observation subsystems on the overall machine performance.