Acculturation orientations and religious identity as predictors of Anglo-Australians’ attitudes towards Australian Muslims

Poll studies have shown an increase in Anglo-Australians’ negative attitudes towards Australian Muslims. Such studies, however, by their nature present Anglo-Australians as a relatively unified group, making a limited scientific contribution to the understanding of intergroup relations. The present study aimed at revealing differences within Anglo-Australians by examining the extent to which their acculturation orientations and religious identity play a role in differentiating the levels of positive and negative attitudes they hold towards Australian Muslims. A total of 170 second year University students (116 females and 54 males) with a mean age of 22.09 (SD = 5.98) participated in the study. Generally, findings revealed that while Integrationist and Individualist were the most endorsed acculturation orientations, Assimilationist and Segregationist emerged the least, and participants recorded more positive attitudes towards Muslims than negative attitudes. Additionally, Integrationist and Individualist orientations were positively related to positive attitudes and negatively related to negative attitudes; the reverse was the case for Assimilationist and Segregationist orientations. Religious identity of Anglo-Australians predicted positive attitudes towards Australian Muslims but did not predict negative attitudes.     

Tunable visual color filter using microfluidic grating

This paper reports a tunable visual color filter based on a microfluidic transmission grating. The grating lines are formed by the microflows in an array of evenly spaced straight microchannels. In experimental study, the transmission of white light measures a shift of visual color from red to blue in the zeroth order diffraction in response to a change of the refractive index from 1.3290 to 1.3782 in the microflows. The merit of large tunability of transmission peak (Δλ=408 nm) makes this grating potential for various applications in biological and chemical measurements, such as space- and time-resolving micropattern spectrophotometers and separation of the fluorescence from the excitation.     

2008年的世界

2008年,世界会怎样?经济、军事、政治、环境等,无一不关系到整个世界的生存环境与发展.著名报纸<金融时报>近期推出了特别报道--2008年的世界,我们特意选取部分具有代表性的文章,其中对中国在未来世界的地位和作用也有所涉及,在此与大家一起分享.     

SCISTER act: delivering training in information skills for social-care professionals

PURPOSE: To develop and evaluate a programme of information skills training for social-care practitioners and health-care librarians. SETTING: Two one-day training courses run separately for 13 social-care practitioners and 10 health-care librarians in the Trent geographic region within Northern England. METHODOLOGY: Qualitative and quantitative feedback collected through questionnaires supplemented by participant observation. RESULTS: While generally feedback was favourable, the courses were overly ambitious. More training sessions of shorter duration would offer participants opportunities to practise and use the skills they have acquired. Social-care practitioners responded more positively to skills associated with appraising qualitative research than with randomised controlled trials. Librarians appreciated the opportunity to learn about unfamiliar social-care resources. Both practitioners and health-care librarians reported that they acquired skills to support evidence-based social care as a result of the training intervention. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Involvement of a multi-disciplinary team and support from a social-care information provider maximized the impact of this experimental training intervention.