The purpose of this research was to investigate relations between students' academic motivation, cognition, and achievement. In particular, substantial issues are investigated involving the interaction of students' academic motivation and cognition, and specifies how selected motivational and cognitive variables may influence student academic achievement. In order to do this, this study develops a causal model of student achievement which, using goal theory as a framework, incorporates both motivational and cognitive variables to account for students' academic achivement. In total, the results suggest that students' academic achievement may be both conceptualised, and operationalised, as the product of interrelations between key facilitating, motivational, and cognitive variables. Despite some limitations, the study suggests several positive directions for future research. These include, in particular, further investigation of the social goals identified, how these goals relate to students' academic cognition, and how selected social goals and strategies together influence students' academic achievement. There is also further scope to investigate the role of particular facilitating variables in 'driving' students' academic motivation and cognition. Thus, the present research provides an empirical basis from which future, complementary, research may be undertaken / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis presents data on incidence and risk factors for individual sexually transmissible infections (STIs) and STIs as risk factors for HIV acquisition in a community-based cohort of HIV negative homosexual men in Sydney. Nearly half of men aged under 25 years were seronegative to hepatitis A and B infection. The prevalence of hepatitis C (HCV) was 0.85%, which was close to that of the general population. HCV infection was strongly associated with injecting drug use (OR 60.43, 95% CI 6.70-544.79), and sexual transmission was not demonstrated in this cohort. There was a nearly 40 fold increase in syphilis notifications in inner Sydney between 1999 and 2004. The stable incidence of 0.6% per year in the HIM cohort suggests that it was disproportionately affecting HIV positive men. Oral sex was an important transmission route and about one third of cases were asymptomatic. The incidence of urethral and anal gonorrhoea was 3.78 and 3.19 per 100 person-years, and for urethral and anal chlamydia it was 7.98 and 5.20. In addition to unprotected anal intercourse (UAI), insertive oral sex was related to urethral infections and anal infections were associated with non-intercourse anal sexual practices. The prevalence of herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2) was 75% and 23% respectively. Sexual contact not only with men, but with women, was significantly associated with both infections. Among those susceptible at baseline, the incidence for HSV-1 and HSV-2 was 5.58 and 1.45 per 100 person-years. Oral sex was associated with incident HSV-1 infection and certain non-intercourse anal sexual practices were significantly associated with incident HSV-2 infection. HIV incidence was 0.94 per 100 person-years. It was significantly associated with a higher number of episodes of receptive UAI with a partner of unknown HIV status (p trend&lt0.001) or a partner known to be HIV positive (p trend&lt0.001). After controlling for sexual behaviour, HIV seroconversion was significantly associated with anal gonorrhoea (HR 12.68, 95% CI 3.66-44.00). The association with anal warts and prevalent HSV-1 infection was of borderline significance. These data will inform intervention designs targeting STIs which aim to prevent HIV in homosexual men.

The Catholic Education Office (CEO) Sydney is a large non-government education authority which administers the systemic, Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia. The system consists of 148 primary and secondary schools with an enrolment of some 62,000 students. The major research question was: What characteristics of a learning organization can be identified in the Catholic Education Office (CEO) Sydney and are these perceived to raise standards in systemic schools of the Archdiocese of Sydney? Like all western education systems the CEO Sydney is immersed in constant change and is expected to account for improving educational standards within the system. The learning organization with its emphasis on adaptability and continuous improvement was considered an appropriate framework within which to conduct this research. The study consisted of two main parts the first investigated the CEO Sydney as a learning organization using a survey questionnaire distributed, using a dedicated web site, to a sample of primary and secondary principals in the system and a smaller number of senior CEO Sydney personnel. The response rate was 91%. This was complemented by examination of relevant CEO Sydney documentation and policies. The definition of the learning organization adopted for the study consisted of eight characteristics each of which formed a scale in the questionnaire. The eight characteristics adopted were: ‘Systemic Thinking and Mental Models’, ‘Continuous Improvement of Work’, ‘Taking Initiatives and Risks’, ‘Ongoing Professional Development’, ‘Trusting and Collaborative Climate’, ‘Shared and Monitored Vision/Mission’, ‘Effective Communication Channels’ and ‘Team Work and Team Learning’. This part of the study was essentially a quantitative one, with the data subjected to descriptive, statistical analysis complemented by some clarifying and contextualising qualitative data. The second part of the study investigated the perceived relationship between the CEO Sydney and its learning organization characteristics and the standards in three curriculum outcome areas (religious education, literacy and numeracy). This part of the study was also quantitative using descriptive statistics complemented by Pearson correlation, multiple regression and canonical correlational analyses. Once again some relevant contextualising qualitative data was gathered. Five demographic groups (gender, role, region (principals only), years of experience as a principal and age) were examined to see if there were any differences in the extent to which the various learning organization characteristics and curriculum outcomes were identified by each group. The results of this study indicated that the CEO Sydney exhibited many of the characteristics of a learning organization with particular strengths in ‘Continuous Improvement of Work’, ‘Systemic Thinking and Mental Models’ and ‘Shared and Monitored Vision/Mission’. The weakest characteristic was ‘Taking Initiatives and Risks’. Demographic group analysis of this data revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the responses of the different demographic groups. The results also indicated that there were correlations between the CEO Sydney as a learning organization and raising standards particularly in religious education and literacy and less so in numeracy. Finally, the study made a number of recommendations for the further development of the CEO Sydney as a learning organization and ways that it can further raise standards in the schools of the system.

This thesis explored the effect of cocaine use on treatment outcomes for heroin dependent individuals in Sydney, Australia. A naturalistic, longitudinal design was employed in order to examine the effects of cocaine on outcomes over a two year period. Study 1 assessed the prevalence and correlates of cocaine use among heroin dependent individuals. Cocaine use was found to be common among entrants to all three of the major treatment modalities in NSW. Heroin users who also used cocaine (CU) displayed a poorer clinical profile at baseline than non-cocaine users (NCU), reporting higher levels of drug use and dependence, and a greater prevalence of needle risk-taking and criminal behaviour. Study 2 examined outcomes three months post-study entry. CU and NCU were found to have been equally well retained in treatment. Despite significantly reduced levels of cocaine use amongst the cohort, however, CU continued to display the higher levels of drug-related harm that characterized them at baseline. In order to determine whether cocaine use itself was responsible for the greater levels of harm observed amongst CU, or whether instead CU were an inherently more dysfunctional group for whom cocaine use merely served as a marker, comparisons were made within groups on the basis of cocaine use patterns over the study period. The results of these analyses demonstrated that commencing cocaine use resulted in a clear decline in functioning, whereas cessation resulted in corresponding improvements. In Study 3 outcomes were examined twelve months post-study. Baseline cocaine use was again found to predict poorer outcome, despite a large scale reduction in cocaine use amongst the cohort. Importantly, CU were significantly less likely than NCU to be abstinent from heroin at twelve months and more likely to have been incarcerated since study entry. In addition, the effect of persistence of cocaine use was examined. Results indicated that the harms associated with cocaine use increased with increasing persistence of use. Outcomes at two years post-study entry were explored in Study 4. At this time CU and NCU recorded similar outcomes in most domains. Thus, it appeared that the harms caused by cocaine use may take a substantial period of time to diminish. Patterns of cocaine use and motivations for cessation and commencement were also examined. Responses suggested that cocaine use amongst the cohort was largely opportunistic, with participants ceasing use for a variety of reasons, including the financial and psychological problems caused by cocaine use. Past year prevalence of cocaine dependence was measured in this study, with the majority of those who had used cocaine in the past year meeting criteria for dependence. In Study 5, generalized estimating equations were used to measure the effect of baseline cocaine use on major outcome variables over the entire two year study period. Even after controlling for treatment variables, heroin use and other baseline polydrug use, the results of this study confirmed previous findings within the thesis by demonstrating the negative effect of baseline cocaine use on most outcome variables. Evidently, cocaine use among dependent heroin users has serious, long lasting, consequences. To date, however, there has been a stark lack of research examining the effect of cocaine use on treatment outcomes for heroin dependence. To that end, the results of this thesis are encouraging, suggesting that treatment for heroin dependence may also aid in reducing cocaine use among this group.

The Patonga Claystone, a red bed facies in the Narrabeen Group of the Sydney Basin, is one of the most unfavorable rock units in the basin from a geotechnical point of view. This rock unit is composed of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone and claystone. One of the unfavorable characteristics is the low shear strength, which causes instability of cut slopes; another is its slaking-prone behaviour. Numerous measurements of geotechnical properties, along with extensive mineralogical and geochemical determinations, were carried out to identify cause of this slaking behaviour. Key techniques were the use of quantitative X-ray diffractometry for mineralogical analysis, and the determination of slake durability index and related properties to evaluate the slaking behaviour under both standard and more extended conditions. Standard (two cycle) slake durability test results indicate a range from low to high slake durability index values, with some mudstone samples having very low durability and some sandstones having very high slake durability indices. Jar slake test results indicate that the rock samples break rapidly and/or develop several fractures (Ij = 4) in an as-received state, but degrade to a pile of flakes or mud (Ij = 1) if the samples are oven dried before testing. The results for jar slake testing of oven-dried material are comparable, for individual samples, to those obtained from the more comprehensive slake durability tests. The mineralogy of the samples was evaluated by quantitative X-ray diffraction techniques using the Rietveld-based Siroquant processing system. Comparison to independent chemical data show a generally good level of agreement, suggesting that the mineralogical analysis results are consistent with the chemical composition of the individual rock samples. Good correlations were also obtained between clay mineralogy determined from orientedaggregate XRD analysis of the &lt2 micron fraction and the results from powder diffractometry and Siroquant analysis of the whole-rock samples. Evaluation of the slake durability characteristics and other geotechnical properties in relation to the quantitative mineralogy suggests that quartz and feldspar form a rigid framework in the rocks that resists the disruptive pressures that cause slaking. Expansion of the clay minerals by various processes, including the incorporation of water into the interlayer spaces of illite/smectite as well as changes in pore pressures associated with entry of water into micro-fractures in the clay matrix, are thought to produce the disruptions that cause slaking and degradation. An abundant clay matrix also reduces the strength of the rock materials, probably because of the less rigid nature of the clay minerals relative to the quartz and feldspar particles. As well as the mineralogy, the loss on ignition (LOI) and water absorption percentage were found to provide good indicators of longer-term slaking behaviour. Both properties are also related to the overall clay content. Rock samples with water absorption values of &lt10, 10-15 and &gt15% behave as highly durable, intermediate and less durable materials respectively. Rocks with LOI values of greater than 5% by weight behave as less durable rock materials, at least for the strata encompassed by the present study. The water absorption and LOI values were also used to develop a predictive model of slake durability characteristics for the different rock materials in the Patonga Claystone, providing a relatively simple basis for predicting longer-term stability in a range of geotechnical studies.

Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observation and my experiences of working with young homeless people in refuges, in this thesis I develop an analysis which identifies some key spatial practices through which young people negotiate the field of homelessness in inner-city Sydney. The particular contribution of this work is to consider homelessness in terms of a theorised understanding of the broader role of place within homelessness, rather than in terms of the immediacy of cause or solution. While acknowledging the importance of the large body of work which has focused on the structural causes of homelessness and the need for a clear policy-oriented definition of homelessness, I develop an alternative agenda for a focus on young homeless people's struggles to feel 'in place' and 'at home'. These struggles throw into relief the need to understand young people???s homelessness in terms of a search, not just for a place to stay, but for a place to belong. Utilising the rich body of work which explores the important relation of place and subjectivity, I connect young people???s experiences of place within homelessness with the broader social and phenomenological concepts of ???displacement??? and ???implacement???. In particular, I focus on the spatial relations through which young people construct and organise their daily paths and begin to make sense of their often painful and chaotic lives and their fears about the future. I contextualise their fragile experiences of being somewhere in a broader spatial structure of constant movement and grief and feelings of alienation from the wider community. I consider the enduring role of past homes in their continuing struggle to piece together a way of ???being at home??? both in terms of drawing together a network of physical places of safety and in terms of experiencing a sense of acceptance, recognition and rootedness through place. I point to the critical need to include broader understandings of both home and homelessness in addressing the displacement which shapes the experience of homelessness for young people and impacts on the success of immediate measures developed to respond to it.

Drug Consumption Rooms (DCRs), where injecting drug users (IDUs) can use pre-obtained drugs in a hygienic and professionally supervised low threshold setting, aim to engage high risk IDUs, reduce public drug use, injecting-related morbidity and mortality, and improve access to drug treatment. This thesis evaluates the service demand, accessibility, utilisation, and coverage of Australia???s first DCR, the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC), located in an area with a history of illegal shooting gallery operation. MSIC impact on injecting practices and injecting related health, and referral to drug treatment were also examined. Methods included cross-sectional IDU surveys, key informant interviews, staff focus groups, analysis of client registration and surveillance data and routinely collected data on needles and syringes - including multiple indirect prevalence estimation, and prospective follow-up of MSIC referrals. Shooting gallery users expressed demand for and willingness to use the MSIC. Injecting episodes previously occurring in shooting galleries appear to have been transferred to the MSIC, although shooting galleries continued to operate at a reduced level. The MSIC service model was accessible, with few refusals of entry, high levels of client satisfaction and limited non-use for reasons relating to the model. MSIC engaged high risk IDUs - regular injectors, sex workers, and those injecting in public places and shooting galleries - who were also more likely to be frequent attendees. MSIC clients were more likely than other IDUs to inject in public places and shooting galleries, be HCV seropositive, have riskier injecting practices and more severe injecting related health problems. MSIC achieved good coverage of the local IDU population (70.7%, range 59.1%-86.7%) and modest coverage of their estimated total injecting episodes during its operating hours (8.8%, range 7.3%-10.8%). MSIC use was associated with improvements in injecting practices and health. Frequent MSIC use was also associated with higher rates of referral to drug treatment than less frequent use. Drug treatment referral uptake was positively associated with a recent history of daily injection and sex work and negatively associated with a lifetime history of psychiatric treatment and/or self harm. This research was confounded by substantial changes in heroin availability during the study period but provides new evidence on DCR coverage, impact on injecting practices and health, and referral to drug treatment. Implications for future research are discussed.

The Patonga Claystone, a red bed facies in the Narrabeen Group of the Sydney Basin, is one of the most unfavorable rock units in the basin from a geotechnical point of view. This rock unit is composed of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone and claystone. One of the unfavorable characteristics is the low shear strength, which causes instability of cut slopes; another is its slaking-prone behaviour. Numerous measurements of geotechnical properties, along with extensive mineralogical and geochemical determinations, were carried out to identify cause of this slaking behaviour. Key techniques were the use of quantitative X-ray diffractometry for mineralogical analysis, and the determination of slake durability index and related properties to evaluate the slaking behaviour under both standard and more extended conditions. Standard (two cycle) slake durability test results indicate a range from low to high slake durability index values, with some mudstone samples having very low durability and some sandstones having very high slake durability indices. Jar slake test results indicate that the rock samples break rapidly and/or develop several fractures (Ij = 4) in an as-received state, but degrade to a pile of flakes or mud (Ij = 1) if the samples are oven dried before testing. The results for jar slake testing of oven-dried material are comparable, for individual samples, to those obtained from the more comprehensive slake durability tests. The mineralogy of the samples was evaluated by quantitative X-ray diffraction techniques using the Rietveld-based Siroquant processing system. Comparison to independent chemical data show a generally good level of agreement, suggesting that the mineralogical analysis results are consistent with the chemical composition of the individual rock samples. Good correlations were also obtained between clay mineralogy determined from orientedaggregate XRD analysis of the &lt2 micron fraction and the results from powder diffractometry and Siroquant analysis of the whole-rock samples. Evaluation of the slake durability characteristics and other geotechnical properties in relation to the quantitative mineralogy suggests that quartz and feldspar form a rigid framework in the rocks that resists the disruptive pressures that cause slaking. Expansion of the clay minerals by various processes, including the incorporation of water into the interlayer spaces of illite/smectite as well as changes in pore pressures associated with entry of water into micro-fractures in the clay matrix, are thought to produce the disruptions that cause slaking and degradation. An abundant clay matrix also reduces the strength of the rock materials, probably because of the less rigid nature of the clay minerals relative to the quartz and feldspar particles. As well as the mineralogy, the loss on ignition (LOI) and water absorption percentage were found to provide good indicators of longer-term slaking behaviour. Both properties are also related to the overall clay content. Rock samples with water absorption values of &lt10, 10-15 and &gt15% behave as highly durable, intermediate and less durable materials respectively. Rocks with LOI values of greater than 5% by weight behave as less durable rock materials, at least for the strata encompassed by the present study. The water absorption and LOI values were also used to develop a predictive model of slake durability characteristics for the different rock materials in the Patonga Claystone, providing a relatively simple basis for predicting longer-term stability in a range of geotechnical studies.

Drug Consumption Rooms (DCRs), where injecting drug users (IDUs) can use pre-obtained drugs in a hygienic and professionally supervised low threshold setting, aim to engage high risk IDUs, reduce public drug use, injecting-related morbidity and mortality, and improve access to drug treatment. This thesis evaluates the service demand, accessibility, utilisation, and coverage of Australia???s first DCR, the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC), located in an area with a history of illegal shooting gallery operation. MSIC impact on injecting practices and injecting related health, and referral to drug treatment were also examined. Methods included cross-sectional IDU surveys, key informant interviews, staff focus groups, analysis of client registration and surveillance data and routinely collected data on needles and syringes - including multiple indirect prevalence estimation, and prospective follow-up of MSIC referrals. Shooting gallery users expressed demand for and willingness to use the MSIC. Injecting episodes previously occurring in shooting galleries appear to have been transferred to the MSIC, although shooting galleries continued to operate at a reduced level. The MSIC service model was accessible, with few refusals of entry, high levels of client satisfaction and limited non-use for reasons relating to the model. MSIC engaged high risk IDUs - regular injectors, sex workers, and those injecting in public places and shooting galleries - who were also more likely to be frequent attendees. MSIC clients were more likely than other IDUs to inject in public places and shooting galleries, be HCV seropositive, have riskier injecting practices and more severe injecting related health problems. MSIC achieved good coverage of the local IDU population (70.7%, range 59.1%-86.7%) and modest coverage of their estimated total injecting episodes during its operating hours (8.8%, range 7.3%-10.8%). MSIC use was associated with improvements in injecting practices and health. Frequent MSIC use was also associated with higher rates of referral to drug treatment than less frequent use. Drug treatment referral uptake was positively associated with a recent history of daily injection and sex work and negatively associated with a lifetime history of psychiatric treatment and/or self harm. This research was confounded by substantial changes in heroin availability during the study period but provides new evidence on DCR coverage, impact on injecting practices and health, and referral to drug treatment. Implications for future research are discussed.

The Patonga Claystone, a red bed facies in the Narrabeen Group of the Sydney Basin, is one of the most unfavorable rock units in the basin from a geotechnical point of view. This rock unit is composed of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone and claystone. One of the unfavorable characteristics is the low shear strength, which causes instability of cut slopes; another is its slaking-prone behaviour. Numerous measurements of geotechnical properties, along with extensive mineralogical and geochemical determinations, were carried out to identify cause of this slaking behaviour. Key techniques were the use of quantitative X-ray diffractometry for mineralogical analysis, and the determination of slake durability index and related properties to evaluate the slaking behaviour under both standard and more extended conditions. Standard (two cycle) slake durability test results indicate a range from low to high slake durability index values, with some mudstone samples having very low durability and some sandstones having very high slake durability indices. Jar slake test results indicate that the rock samples break rapidly and/or develop several fractures (Ij = 4) in an as-received state, but degrade to a pile of flakes or mud (Ij = 1) if the samples are oven dried before testing. The results for jar slake testing of oven-dried material are comparable, for individual samples, to those obtained from the more comprehensive slake durability tests. The mineralogy of the samples was evaluated by quantitative X-ray diffraction techniques using the Rietveld-based Siroquant processing system. Comparison to independent chemical data show a generally good level of agreement, suggesting that the mineralogical analysis results are consistent with the chemical composition of the individual rock samples. Good correlations were also obtained between clay mineralogy determined from orientedaggregate XRD analysis of the &lt2 micron fraction and the results from powder diffractometry and Siroquant analysis of the whole-rock samples. Evaluation of the slake durability characteristics and other geotechnical properties in relation to the quantitative mineralogy suggests that quartz and feldspar form a rigid framework in the rocks that resists the disruptive pressures that cause slaking. Expansion of the clay minerals by various processes, including the incorporation of water into the interlayer spaces of illite/smectite as well as changes in pore pressures associated with entry of water into micro-fractures in the clay matrix, are thought to produce the disruptions that cause slaking and degradation. An abundant clay matrix also reduces the strength of the rock materials, probably because of the less rigid nature of the clay minerals relative to the quartz and feldspar particles. As well as the mineralogy, the loss on ignition (LOI) and water absorption percentage were found to provide good indicators of longer-term slaking behaviour. Both properties are also related to the overall clay content. Rock samples with water absorption values of &lt10, 10-15 and &gt15% behave as highly durable, intermediate and less durable materials respectively. Rocks with LOI values of greater than 5% by weight behave as less durable rock materials, at least for the strata encompassed by the present study. The water absorption and LOI values were also used to develop a predictive model of slake durability characteristics for the different rock materials in the Patonga Claystone, providing a relatively simple basis for predicting longer-term stability in a range of geotechnical studies.