From yarning circles to zoom: navigating sensitive issues within indigenous education in an online space

Inclusive Indigenous Education is geared towards shifting worldviews, sharing agendas, and preparing social-justice-oriented educators. With this comes the expectation that pre-service teachers will leave supportive education programs prepared to teach sensitive issues related to Indigeneity. Yet, with the onset of COVID-19, systemic changes were made to accommodate demands of online learning, requiring <underline>i</underline>nitial teacher educators to consider how online learning might accommodate sensitive topics that demand interpersonal connections. With recorded tutorials, synchronous and asynchronous timetables, and for students to remain relatively anonymous, it is difficult to determine how pre-service teachers receive sensitive discussions. This article addresses these issues by reflecting upon the responses of five educators and 90 Indigenous and non-Indigenous pre-service educators within a compulsory first-year World Indigenous Knowledges course. Findings provide insight into the thoughts, feelings, and growth of a first-year cohort navigating complex social justice issues before, during, and after a global pandemic. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Serological evidence of a pararubulavirus and a betacoronavirus in the geographically isolated Christmas Island flying-fox (Pteropus natalis).

Due to their geographical isolation and small populations, insular bats may not be able to maintain acute immunizing viruses that rely on a large population for viral maintenance. Instead, endemic transmission may rely on viruses establishing persistent infections within hosts or inducing only short-lived neutralizing immunity. Therefore, studies on insular populations are valuable for developing broader understanding of viral maintenance in bats. The Christmas Island flying-fox (CIFF; Pteropus natalis) is endemic on Christmas Island, a remote Australian territory, and is an ideal model species to understand viral maintenance in small, geographically isolated bat populations. Serum or plasma (n = 190), oral swabs (n = 199), faeces (n = 31), urine (n = 32) and urine swabs (n = 25) were collected from 228 CIFFs. Samples were tested using multiplex serological and molecular assays, and attempts at virus isolation to determine the presence of paramyxoviruses, betacoronaviruses and Australian bat lyssavirus. Analysis of serological data provides evidence that the species is maintaining a pararubulavirus and a betacoronavirus. There was little serological evidence supporting the presence of active circulation of the other viruses assessed in the present study. No viral nucleic acid was detected and no viruses were isolated. Age-seropositivity results support the hypothesis that geographically isolated bat populations can maintain some paramyxoviruses and coronaviruses. Further studies are required to elucidate infection dynamics and characterize viruses in the CIFF. Lastly, apparent absence of some pathogens could have implications for the conservation of the CIFF if a novel disease were introduced into the population through human carriage or an invasive species. Adopting increased biosecurity protocols for ships porting on Christmas Island and for researchers and bat carers working with flying-foxes are recommended to decrease the risk of pathogen introduction and contribute to the health and conservation of the species.

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BIG DATA AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

Big data offers great potential to improve organizational performance and generate competitive advantages. In this sense, knowing this phenomenon is relevant and this study aims to explore the role of big data on firm performance through a process of synthesis of several studies that have been published in recent years in different organizational contexts. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach. Initially, a systematic literature review is performed to characterize the studies that adopt structural equation modeling to determine the relationship between big data and firm performance. Additionally, a meta-analysis method is used to quantify the association between these two phenomena. The findings reveal a moderate positive relationship between the adoption of big data in the firm performance. This ratio is estimated at 0.38 with a confidence interval between 0.32 and 0.44 for a significance level of 0.05. The results of this study also allow us to conclude that the performance of organizations is also determined by other factors such as human capital, the data-driven organizational culture, or the learning capacity of the organization. This study offers mainly implications for companies that intend to invest in big data to know the potential value of this technology in organizational performance.