We examine the effects of transitions in marital and parenthood status on 1,091 men's and women's housework hours using two waves of data from an Australian panel survey titled Negotiating the Life Course. We examine transitions between cohabitation and marriage, and from cohabitation or marriage to separation, as well as transitions to first and higher-order births. We find extraordinary stability in men's housework time across most transitions but considerable change for women in relation to transitions in parenthood. Our results suggest that the transition to parenthood is a critical moment in the development of an unequal gap in time spent on routine household labor.Time spent on household labor is not static across the life course. Although previous research suggests men's and women's time on housework varies at different life course stages, we know little about how transitions between life course stages affect housework time. There is good reason to examine this issue closely. Over the last few decades Australia has experienced major changes in life course patterns. Men and women are marrying later, having fewer children, separating more often, and spending more time in cohabiting relationships (De

According to the results of this study, first-year medical students in a problem-based learning curriculum were better able to accurately judge the performance of their peers compared to their own performance. This study has shown that self-assessment of process is not an accurate measure, in line with the majority of research in this domain. Nevertheless, it has an important role to play in supporting the development of skills in reflection and self-awareness.

Residents of socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods are more likely to walk for transport than their counterparts in advantaged neighbourhoods; however, the reasons for higher rates of transport walking in poorer neighbourhoods remain unclear. We investigated this issue using data from the HABITAT study of physical activity among 11,037 mid-aged residents of 200 neighbourhoods in Brisbane, Australia. Using a five-step mediation analysis and multilevel regression, we found that higher levels of walking for transport in disadvantaged neighbourhoods was associated with living in a built environment more conducive to walking (i.e. greater street connectivity and land use mix) and residents of these neighbourhoods having more limited access to a motor vehicle. The health benefits that accrue to residents of disadvantaged neighbourhoods as a result of their higher levels of walking for transport might help offset the negative effects of less healthy behaviours (e.g. smoking, poor diet), thus serving to contain or reduce neighbourhood inequalities in chronic disease.

Over the course of first-year medical studies, students lose self-efficacy and move away from deep-strategic learning approaches towards more surface approaches. The program of metacognitive activities failed to reverse this trend. The substantial swing towards surface learning raises questions about the perceived capacity of PBL curricula to promote deep approaches to learning in dense curricula, and reinforces the importance of personal and contextual factors, such as study habits, workload and assessment, in determining individual approaches and idiosyncratic responses to learning situations.

Background: Little is known about the patterns and influences of physical activity change in mid-aged adults. This study describes the design, sampling, data collection, and analytical plan of HABITAT, an innovative study of (i) physical activity change over five years (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011) in adults aged 40-65 years at baseline, and (ii) the relative contribution of psychological variables, social support, neighborhood perceptions, area-level factors, and sociodemographic characteristics to physical activity change.

Neighborhoods may exert a contextual effect on the likelihood of residents participating in PA. The greater propensity of residents in advantaged neighborhoods to do high levels of total PA may contribute to lower rates of cardiovascular disease and obesity in these areas.

The function of U2 snRNA in splicing is mediated by the proteins of the U2 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein. To identify proteins that influence the function of U2 snRNA we carried out a screen for mutations in $accharomyces cerevisiae that suppress the cold-sensitive growth defect of a mutation in U2 stem loop IIa, a structure important for the stable association of the U2 snRNP with pre-mRNA. The screen identified three dominant suppressor genes, one of which, CUS1-54, encodes an essential splicing protein required for U2 snRNP addition to the spliceosome. The suppressor protein rescues the spliceosome assembly defect of the mutant U2 in vitro, indicating that suppression is direct. Allele specificity tests show that the suppressor does not simply bypass the requirement for U2 stem loop IIa. Extra copies of wild-type CUS1, but not CUS1-54, suppress the temperature-sensitive prpll and prp5 mutations, linking CUS1 protein to a subset of other factors required at the same step of spliceosome assembly. CUS1 is homologous to SAP 145, a component of the mammalian U2 snRNP that interacts with pre-mRNA. The yeast genome also encodes a homolog of human SAP 49, a protein that interacts strongly with both SAP 145 and pre-mRNA, underscoring the conservation of U2 snRNP proteins that function in spliceosome assembly.[Key Words: U2 snRNA; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; spliceosome assembly; pre-mRNA] Received August 25, 1995; revised version accepted October 24, 1995.The spliceosome is the large ribonucleoprotein particle responsible for removal of introns from nuclear premRNA transcripts. Spliceosome assembly and function are complex and dynamic, involving multiple transient protein-protein, protein-RNA and RNA-RNA interactions. The spliceosome is built on an intron-containing transcript by the sequential recognition of conserved sequence elements near the reactive sites. A transcript first becomes committed to the splicing pathway by stable association with the U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP) to form the commitment complex, a step that does not require ATP. Stable binding of U2 snRNP to the commitment complex near the pre-mRNA branchpoint requires ATP and forms the prespliceosome. With the binding of US/U4.U6 tri-snRNP the spliceosome is assembled but must be activated before the cleavage and ligation reactions begin (for review, see Moore et al. 1993;Newman 1994;Nilsen 1994; Ares and Weiser 1995}.The recognition of an intron and choice of splice sites are likely accomplished during the early steps of spliceosome assembly and may hold the key to the regulation of splicing. As the first ATP-requiring step, the stable addition of the U2 snRNP at the branchpoint is an attractive potential site of regulation. The RNA moiety of the U2 snRNP plays two roles in this step. A region called the branchpoint interaction sequence forms base pairs with the pre-mRNA at the site of lariat formation {Parker et Wu and Manley 1989; Zhuang and Weiner 19891. A structure downstream of the branchpoint interaction sequence called stem-loop...

In an increasingly globalised and technological world, job market success in developed countries such as Australia depends on the attainment of post-secondary qualifications. However, young Australians do not all have an equal opportunity to attain this necessary level of education. As it currently stands, approximately two-and-a-half years of schooling separates the achievement scores of students in the highest and lowest socioeconomic quartiles, and student achievement differs significantly according to location (e.g. rural or metropolitan) and cultural background. All Australian governments have recognised the need to increase quality and equity in Australian schooling and one of the key ways in which they are currently seeking to achieve this is through improving parent-school partnerships and parent engagement in child learning.The critical importance of engaging parents in their child's learning and building parent-school partnerships has been established in the international literature but research in the Australian context is limited. It is well documented that disadvantaged parents, which in Australia would include Indigenous parents and those from lower socio-economic statuses, tend to have lower levels of engagement in their child's school and learning, and face additional barriers to engagement when compared to more advantaged parents. Our results are consistent with these previous findings.Although Principals from disadvantaged schools were just as likely as those from more advantaged schools to report using a range of engagement strategies, they were significantly less likely to find many methods effective in involving parents in their school. Furthermore, a less positive culture of parent volunteerism was reported by P&C Presidents from disadvantaged schools. This suggests that those schools in which the children stand to gain the most from increasing levels of parent engagement, are the same schools finding their efforts to engage parents the least effective. These findings highlight the need to identify what does work in disadvantaged schools and to ensure that interventions are tailored to the specific needs of these schools, as applying uniform strategies across all schools may only compound the advantage of those already doing well. Principals in this study emphasised different barriers to parent involvement according to the school's level of advantage. Time-pressure factors such as work and family responsibilities were more likely to be identified in more advantaged schools, whereas parent factors such as a lack of interest and a lack of confidence, along with transportations problems, were more likely to be identified in disadvantaged schools. This information can be used to guide the future development of interventions.