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There exists no detailed account of the 40 Australian women teachers employed within the “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies during the Boer War. The purpose of this paper is to critically respond to this dearth in historiography.

A large corpus of newspaper accounts represents the richest, most accessible and relatively idiosyncratic source of data concerning this contingent of women. The research paper therefore interprets concomitant print-based media reports of the period as a resource for educational and historiographical data.

Towards the end of the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902) a total of 40 Australian female teachers – four from Queensland, six from South Australia, 14 from Victoria and 16 from New South Wales – successfully answered the imperial call conscripting educators for schools within “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies. Women’s exclusive participation in this initiative, while ostensibly to teach the Boer children detained within these camps, also exerted an influential effect on the popular consciousness in reimagining cultural ideals about female teachers’ professionalism in ideological terms.

One limitation of the study relates to the dearth in official records about Australian women teachers in concentration camps given that; not only are Boer War-related records generally difficult to source; but also that even the existent data is incomplete with many chapters missing completely from record. Therefore, while the data about these women is far from complete, the account in terms of newspaper reports relies on the existent accounts of them typically in cases where their school and community observe their contributions to this military campaign and thus credit them with media publicity.

The paper’s originality lies in recovering the involvement of a previously underrepresented contingent of Australian women teachers while simultaneously offering a primary reading of the ideological work this involvement played in influencing the political narrative of Australia’s educational involvement in the Boer War.

This study presents a preliminary report of an exploratory, qualitative investigation of the role of Omani women entrepreneurs in Muscat. It establishes the factors that motivate women to become entrepreneurs. Opportunities for the growth and expansion of women’s entrepreneurship in Oman as well as barriers women encounter are discussed. Suggestions as to how women’s entrepreneurship in Oman might be encouraged are presented; questions for future research are suggested.

A range of space systems engineering technologies are currently under development at the University of Glasgow. Much of this work centres on advanced propulsion (solar sailing and tethers) which is complemented by studies on space robotics and spacecraft autonomy. This paper summarises these activities to provide a brief overview of current research interests. Although some work represents fundamental research in space systems engineering, much is mission‐oriented and focused on future exploitation.

The purpose of this paper is to deliver empirical data comparing the effects of music with the effects of providing waiting time information on customers who are kept on hold when telephoning their bank. It aims to discover if either has a more positive impact on their affective responses (satisfaction), and to discern if these effects are measurably different to a telephone call without music, or waiting time information, and for different durations of wait.

The methodology is an empirical study using bank customers as participants. Questionnaires and user observations techniques are employed to collect quantitative data which are analysed using repeated measures ANOVAs.

Overall the presence of updates, or music, has a positive influence on satisfaction when compared to just a ringing tone, but for a waiting time of one minute music has no influence on satisfaction. The acceptable waiting time threshold plays a very critical influence on satisfaction with the service. A waiting time above this results in larger differences being observed in the responses to the four treatments, with music and updates both having greater influence. In general, the presence of music and updates are also shown to reduce the overestimation of perceived waiting time.

This paper reports findings from an existing UK telephone banking service with 197 customers in three different locations. Implications from the findings provide insights for telephone service managers when choosing between adopting music or updates for managing on‐hold periods.

The purpose of this paper is to deliver empirical results on the effects of (out‐of‐band) short message service (SMS) confirmation messages after transactions have been completed in an automated interactive voice response (IVR) telephone banking service. The research seeks to discover if SMS confirmations have a positive effect on customer relationship to furnish evidence for a proposed business case for a multi‐channel banking service. The paper aims to offer results on customer attitude on the role of SMS with IVR as a multi‐channel customer relationship management (CRM) strategy in digital banking.

The methodology is an empirical study based on a controlled laboratory experiment using bank customers as participants. Questionnaires and user observation techniques were employed to collect quantitative and qualitative data, which were analysed using repeated measures ANOVAs.

Transaction confirmation is shown to be important to customers – whether by an SMS message or within the IVR telephone call itself. Customers judged the role of SMS for CRM as highly desirable after monetary transactions; they prefer the version of the IVR banking service that provides (out‐of‐band) SMS confirmation compared to one that does not – and they judged it significantly higher for quality. However, there were no significant differences detected between customer attitude scores for usability of IVR calls involving funds transfers with, or without, an SMS confirmation. As a consequence, the business case was only developed as far as inclusion of transaction confirmation within the IVR call itself, and not extended to use of SMS.

Implications from the results are offered as management insights for the financial services sector in seeking integrated mobile CRM strategies, or “next call avoidance” strategies.

The paper reports findings from a controlled experiment with 116 participants that was based on extension of an existing IVR telephone banking service with which they were all familiar as users.

Undertakes a gender‐comparative review and comparison of the Australian and international literature on the use, needs and awareness of government and independent sources of training and assistance for women in small business to identify whether women's needs differ from those of men and whether existing delivery mechanisms disadvantage them. Consolidates findings of research and sets an agenda for researchers, policy makers and assistance providers. The findings highlight: the potential for accountants, the most used source, to expand their role; the formulation of quality standards and accreditation for consultants engaged by government; electronic information technology systems to mitigate location and language barriers; and user‐friendly training content and delivery. Future research should clearly delineate between the various sources of training and assistance; their use and usefulness; the awareness, use and needs of women; and variations over business life‐cycle stages.

Clinical evidence has suggested that alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), a potent antioxidant, seems to have some effects on inflammatory process. However, these results are equivocal. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of association between ALA and serum C-reactive protein (CRP) level by pooling the results from clinical trial studies.

Relevant studies were identified by systematic literature search of PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Sciences and Cochrane library up to September 2016 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the impact of ALA supplementation on CRP. The pooled data were summarized as weighted mean difference (WMD) and 95 per cent confidence interval (CI). Effect sizes of eligible studies were pooled using random- or fixed-effects (the DerSimonian–Laird estimator) depending on the results of heterogeneity tests.

Of 212 papers, 15 were eligible RCTs according to inclusion criteria. The selected studies comprised 1,408 cases and 457 controls. The dose of ALA supplement ranged from 300 to 1,200 mg, and the duration of follow-up was from 1 to 48 weeks. ALA supplementation significantly reduced the levels of circulating CRP (WMD: −0.088, 95 per cent CI: −0.131, −0.045, p < 0.001) with significant heterogeneity (I² = 73.4 per cent, p < 0.001). Populations with age younger than 50 years (PMD: −0.060 mg/dl), receiving doses less than 600 mg/day (PMD: −0.057 mg/dl), having cardiovascular disease (PMD: −0.105 mg/dl), hemodialysis (PMD: −0.209 mg/dl), diabetes (PMD: −0.021 mg/dl) and otherwise healthy subjects (PMD: −0.045 mg/dl) were sources of heterogeneity.

This meta-analysis of RCTs suggests that ALA supplementation seems to significantly reduce circulating CRP level.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a sensitive and cost effective colorimetric sensor for detection of methyl parathion (MP) using simple circuitry. A simple and sensitive concept of colorimetric sensor instrument represents a rapidly expanding field of sensor techniques to monitor MP neurotoxins is described within certain conditions of producing color in samples. The variation of intensity of color with concentration provides discrimination between different concentrations of MP. The colorimetric instrument displays well‐defined signals towards hydrolyzed samples of MP.

The principle of light intensity measurement has been applied to measure various concentrations of MP based on Lambert‐Beer theory. This device and its processes are useful for quantitative analysis of MP. The detection limits were found within a range of 0.1‐1.5 ppm.

The experiments from sophisticated analytical techniques are costly and time‐consuming processes that validate the proposed system.

This paper's original proposition of using quantification of MP with colorimetric sensor instrument obtained promising results.

The colorimetric sensor instrument provides a new method for quantification of MP in unknown samples within detection limits.

The purpose of this study is to identify the uses of Industry 4.0 technologies in the area of education and how they contribute to learning in addition to highlighting at what educational level they are used.

A systematic literature review was carried out in the Scopus (Elsevier), Web of Science and ScienceDirect (Elsevier) databases, starting in 2011. In total, 51 articles were selected for a quantitative analysis, and 23 of them were read to answer the questions of the research from a qualitative analysis.

The results show a greater use of augmented reality, simulation, Internet of Things and virtual reality. The level of education at which they are most present is higher education. They collaborate to increase immersion in content, student engagement, interpersonal interaction, reduce costs and risks, simulate real work scenarios, expand study possibilities, without limited time and space, develop soft skills and learn about technologies, their uses and modes of operation. It is concluded that the technologies of Industry 4.0 support the entire learning process, but they are not used as much as they should. They are still largely restricted to universities and courses related to manufacturing. It is hoped that this work can contribute to the development of Education 4.0 at all stages of teaching.

Reviews have already been carried out on the use of technologies in teaching. The originality of this work is in the fact that it focuses on Industry 4.0 technologies in the Education 4.0 scenario.