Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

To address the low efficiency and high subjective error of manual correction in basketball shooting instruction in vocational colleges, this study constructed a shooting posture correction model based on video analysis and validated its effectiveness. The model integrates high-definition video visual data with wrist/elbow acceleration data and employs a hybrid MobileNet- CNN + Attention-LSTM architecture to achieve real-time extraction of key joint features, automatic error identification, and generation of personalized correction suggestions. Sixty vocational college students with no professional basketball training experience were randomly divided into an experimental group (model correction) and a control group (traditional manual correction) for an eight-week experiment. Results showed that the experimental group's movement standardization score increased from 62.3±5.8 to 89.7±3.2, a 44.0% improvement, significantly higher than the control group's 28.0% (P<0.001). Their shooting accuracy increased by 27.3 percentage points, compared to the control group's 15.7 percentage points (P<0.001). Errors in key joints, such as the shoulder-elbow angle and elbow-wrist angle, decreased by over 60%, compared to the control group's approximately 35% (P<0.001). The model processed a single frame in 28ms and achieved an error recognition accuracy of 92.3%, making it suitable for teaching scenarios. The study demonstrated that the model can effectively improve correction outcomes and provide a practical reference for empowering physical education teaching technology in higher vocational colleges.

In January 2022, Kiribati experienced widespread community transmission of COVID-19, leading to high rates of infection among health-care workers (HCWs), which reduced essential HCWs during a period of increased hospital admissions. Kiribati, a Pacific island country made up of a remote group of 33 low-lying atolls in the Pacific Ocean, experienced its first surge of COVID-19 cases beginning on 24 January 2022. Reports of increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases in South Tarawa prompted the Kiribati Ministry of Health and Medical Services to request assistance from the international community, including the World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), to support national COVID-19 response operations. Specialists in infection prevention and control (IPC) were deployed to Kiribati in February 2022 to assist the Ministry's National COVID-19 Taskforce in collaboration with national partners. These specialists helped review and strengthen IPC capacities to accommodate a potential patient surge and consequent demands for medical consumables in health-care facilities in South Tarawa. Strengthened knowledge about and processes for IPC among HCWs prevented health care-associated infections and reduced community disease transmission during the first surge of COVID-19 cases in Kiribati. GOARN has the capacity and ability to rapidly deploy experts to support requests for assistance. Outbreak response activities can be enhanced and sustained by using GOARN's resources and collaborating with all partners, as necessary.

This report summarizes the purpose, content and outcomes of the first meeting of Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) partners in Australia in November 2023.

Abstract MotivationThe colonial legacies of aid and development in the Pacific continue to be at the centre of policy debate. The ideal is to decolonize and localize the practice of aid and development. However, decolonization and localization have become highly contested in their definition and proposed practical approaches. We call decolonization and localization “decolocalization.”PurposeThis article aims to explore perspectives and proposals for decolocalization in the Pacific Islands.Methods and approachWe talked to five key informants, all local to their islands, all with considerable development experience; we held a focus group; and we combined these insights and learnings with our own experience as Pacific Islanders engaged with development. Our analysis is reflexive.FindingsDevelopment practice in the Pacific Islands typically overvalues external Euro‐centric knowledge and undervalues local knowledge. Most aid and development discourse has stressed financial figures, charts, and statistical assertions overwhelmingly from a donor perspective; Pacific non‐statistical, human, and embodied contextual realities are overlooked or discounted. Hierarchies are created that privilege outsiders and discriminate against islanders.A practical operationalization of decolocalization can begin with the recognition and practice of outsiders yielding and insiders wielding power.Policy implicationsWe recommend decolocalization as a framework for studying and analysing colonial vestiges in Pacific aid and development. Decolocalization can be practised by outsiders yielding and insiders wielding power in aid and development.Decolocalization is not an ultimate solution to a highly complex issue, but it offers a conceptual position; one that allows Pacific Islander scholars, thought leaders, and aid and development practitioners to further unpack the nuances and issues around aid and development from a Pacific Islander perspective.

A comprehensive review of the surgical management of injuries sustained by deployed members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) during Operation SLIPPER and HIGHROAD in Afghanistan has not previously been undertaken. Understanding the mechanism of injury, injury types sustained and surgical intervention undertaken should provide valuable information for future health planning and surgical capability determination. Retrospective chart review of scanned medical records of injured personnel identified through casualty register examination was undertaken. There were 259 ADF personnel injured in Afghanistan between January 2002 and December 2021, of which 53 were seriously (SI), or very seriously injured (VSI). Case notes for 90 of 101 casualties including those sustaining VSI, SI and those classified as being in satisfactory condition, but likely requiring surgery and/or returned to Australia following trauma, were available for review. Most patients with VSI/SI required surgery (93%) and most were returned to Australia following injury (91%). Almost two-thirds (64.4%) of initial surgery was undertaken at a Role 2 E medical treatment facility (MTF). Gun-shot wound (GSW) was the commonest injuring mechanism (47%) followed by blast injury (39.6%). Orthopaedic (32.2%) and soft tissue initial wound surgery (47.1%) were the commonest surgical procedures. Surgical management of military trauma was undertaken at multiple sites by multiple surgical teams from different nationalities delivering exceptional results and conforming to modern principles of damage control surgery. The military trauma system is distinctly different from its civilian counterpart with dispersion of assets requiring multiple episodes of casualty movement between echelons of care rather than centralization at level 1 trauma centres. Despite this, excellent results are achievable. Strengthening lines of communication and documentation would reinforce the ability of the military trauma system to continue to provide such results, and regular oversight and review of surgical caseload would align military trauma surgery with civilian standards. The benchmark set by the United States Department of Defense Trauma Registry should be replicated for Australian led combat operations and modified to facilitate interoperability to support future coalition combat operations.

Transitioning out of the military can be a time of change and challenge. Research indicates that altered threat monitoring in military populations may contribute to the development of psychopathology in veterans, and interventions that adjust threat monitoring in personnel leaving the military may be beneficial. Australian Defence Force personnel (N = 59) transitioning from the military were randomized to receive four weekly sessions of either attention‐control training or a placebo attention training. The primary outcome was symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as measured using the PTSD Checklist for DSM‐5 (PCL‐5) at posttreatment. Following training, participants who received attention‐control training reported significantly lower levels of PTSD symptoms, Hedges’ g = 0.86, 95% CI [0.37, 1.36], p = .004, and significantly improved work and social functioning, Hedges’ g = 0.93, 95% CI [0.46, 1.39], p = .001, relative to those in the placebo condition. Moreover, no participants who received attention‐control training worsened with regard to PTSD symptoms, whereas 23.8% of those who received the placebo attention training experienced an increase in PTSD symptoms. The preliminary findings from this pilot study add to a small body of evidence supporting attention‐control training as a viable indicated early intervention approach for PTSD that is worthy of further research.

With increased burden of malnutrition on global health, there is a need to set clear and transparent priorities for action in food systems at a global and local level. While priority settings methods are available for several adjacent domains, such as nutrition and health policies, setting priorities for food system research has not been documented and streamlined. The challenges involve food systems' multisector, multi-stakeholder and multi-outcome nature. Where data exists, it is not easy to aggregate data from across food system dimensions and stakeholders to make an informed analysis of the overall picture of the food system, as well as current and potential food system trade-offs to inform research and policy. Once research priorities are set, they risk staying on paper and never make their ways to concrete outputs and outcomes. In this paper, we documented and assessed the inclusive process of setting research priorities for a local food system, taking Vietnamese food systems as a case study. From this exercise, we examined how priority setting for food systems research could learn from and improve upon earlier priority setting research practices in other domains. We discussed the lessons for research and policies in local food systems, such as the need for a concrete follow-up plan accompanying the priority setting process.

On December 14, 2017, the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Assembly of States Parties (ASP or Assembly) adopted a resolution activating the ICC's jurisdiction over the crime of aggression as of July 17, 2018. As a result, the leaders of states now face the possibility of being held individually criminally responsible for unlawful acts of inter-state armed force. The resolution has thus rightly been hailed as historic—notwithstanding the significant limitation on the Court's jurisdiction accepted as the price of activation.

The nuclear reactor accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant in March 2011 led to a loss of trust in nuclear power around the globe and acutely in Japan. The reactions of the public in Japan and other countries, such as the United States, and the governmental reactions to the accident offer an opportunity to learn ways to improve safety and communication during and after a nuclear accident.