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The lack of qualified healthcare professionals in the workforce to meet the needs of Aotearoa's growing and diverse population presents a significant challenge to providing timely, equitable, and culturally appropriate support. Digital humans (DHs) show particular promise in closing this gap, potentially providing responsive, accessible, cost-effective, and scalable support to patients (Loveys et al., 2020). However, for DHs to foster high user engagement, trust and connection as successful healthcare agents, they must engage in effective patient-centred communication in ways similar to human professionals. The identification and integration of features of DHs that facilitate the formation of high-quality, empathetic relationships with their patients is, therefore essential. The current research will assess whether there is an overall difference in perceptions of empathy when a digital human delivers a brief medical consultation compared to a human physician. As a cornerstone of effective, patient-centred consultation, greater physician empathy drives better clinical outcomes and can further impact appraisals of physicians' trustworthiness, competence, and warmth. Therefore, the present study will extend its inquiry to investigating differences in these variables as secondary outcomes. To reflect real-life conditions regarding the significant demands placed on physicians, the human physician will deliver an empathetic and non-empathetic consultation. The DH will mirror these conditions, The content of the DHs consultation will be modelled on the human physician's consultation. We hypothesize that the empathetic human physcian will be rated most highly on all outcomes, followed by the empathetic DH, the non-empathetic human physician, and the non-empathetic DH.

This study aims to evaluate the effects of multi-joint isometric resistance training at various joint angles on several aspects of muscular fitness, including strength (both isometric and dynamic), power, muscle endurance, muscle hypertrophy (both whole body and region-specific), and fatigue recovery. These outcomes will be compared to those of traditional resistance training (i.e., dynamic/isotonic), with careful attention to ensuring equal volume and intensity between the groups. The study will adopt a randomised controlled trial design, with eligible participants randomly assigned to either an isometric resistance training group or a traditional resistance training group. Participants will engage in 3 sets of 6 repetitions each for the chest press and leg press exercises. In the traditional resistance training group, sets will involve isotonic contractions (ISOT) with the full range of motion (ROM) at 80% of their one-repetition maximum (1RM). Conversely, the isometric resistance training group will perform isometric contractions (ISOM) at 80% of their maximal voluntary contraction (MVC), with each set executed at a different angle within the normal lifting range of motion (i.e., lower third, middle third, and upper third). It is anticipated that this research will provide insights into the longitudinal effects of isometric resistance training on muscle performance.

The purpose of this study is to build machine learning and AI models to predict admissions to hospital from just information available at emergency department traige. We look to address current gaps in the literature by exploring the effect of concept drift and will attempt to address concept drift to try to make these models more applicable to the real clinical environment.

This study aims to determine the changes in blood glucose level control over six months following a simplified Mediterranean diet-based nutrition intervention compared to usual care among Australian adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. A healthcare practitioner in the primary care setting (GP or nurse) will deliver the intervention via telephone consultations and online media. Blood test results and other outcome measures of patients will be obtained from their registered general practice. We expect that patients receiving the nutrition intervention will have a greater improvement in blood glucose control, blood cholesterol levels, liver function, body weight and blood pressure compared to the patients in the usual care group.

This project looks at how daily actions (Things You Do; TYD) impact symptoms of anxiety and depression, in a sample of Australian health professionals. A Randomised Controlled Trial will compare three groups (n = 136 per group): TYD intervention vs. Gratitude intervention vs. Waitlist control condition. The two interventions conditions will follow a similar procedure beginning with reading instructions about the intervention condition, answering the same questionnaires, and receiving targeted SMS messages each weekday for four weeks. The primary objective of this trial is to compare the benefits of the TYD intervention vs. a gratitude intervention vs. a waitlist control condition on symptoms of depression and anxiety in Australian health professionals. Based on our previous research, the primary hypothesis is that nudging actions using SMS messaging will result in reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety in the two intervention groups relative to the waitlist control group, but that significantly greater improvements will be observed in the group who receive nudges based on the TYD model, compared to those receiving nudges based on gratitude information.

Hamstring strain injuries (HSIs), occurring primarily in the biceps femoris long head, have been shown to lead to an increased likelihood of re-injury. These injuries also lead to decreased muscle activity in eccentric contractions, persistent deficits in muscle architecture (i.e., the internal structure of the muscle) and motor pattern changes. Recent evidence also demonstrates that post injury, inhibition exists at the brain (or cortical) level. This inhibition can lead to reduced strength and changes in muscle architecture that can increase injury risk. The aim of this project is to investigate the effects of a strength training program combined with active or sham tDCS on cortical inhibition, hamstring strength and biceps femoris long head architecture. Our hypothesis is that muscle fascicle length and hamstring strength will increase more in the active tDCS condition rather than the sham condition.

A lack of validation data exists that compares the response of exercising individuals in different heat illness risk rating categories proposed by publicly available extreme heat policies for sport and exercise. The project aims to validate and inform publicly available extreme heat policies for long distance running by observing the heat strain of runners exercising in environmental conditions that are graded as moderate, high, and extreme environmental risk ratings according to the policies. We hypothesise that a progressively graded and higher response in thermoregulatory (core temperature), cardiovascular (heart rate), and perceptual measures (thermal discomfort) will be observed when moving from moderate to high to extreme risk environments. We also hypothesise that the extreme risk rating category will be associated with the participants approaching a core temperature response that is typically deemed as a 'cut-off' for exercise.

Water related recovery methods to treat hyperthermia (i.e. a highly elevated core temperature) are well understood, however dousing as a recovery method to reduce heat strain in contrasting humidities currently lacks experimental evidence. This study aims to build upon previous water dousing research by investigating the effect of water dousing upon the core temperature response following strenuous exercise in the heat under contrasting humidities. Based on theoretical data, we hypothesise that dousing in comparatively drier conditions will result in a greater decrease in thermal strain (core body temperature) compared to more humid conditions during recovery from exercise in the heat.

This study will evaluate whether delivering an exercise program virtually to childhood cancer survivors who attend Camp Quality community programs is effective at increasing physical activity levels and improving self-efficacy. Who is it for? Children aged 5-18 years old, who have completed cancer treatment and are not currently participating in >60 minutes of moderate-vigorous physical activity daily will be recruited to participate. Study details The intervention involves a 12 week individualised exercise program prescribed over five sessions with an accredited exercise physiologist, within a framework that includes age-appropriate aerobic, resistance, balance and flexibility exercises at a moderate intensity. The control group will receive education about the current paediatric oncology exercise guidelines, however will be offered to participate in the intervention at the completion of the study. Participants will complete questionnaires and physical assessments at various timepoints throughout the study. It is hoped that findings from this study will help inform researchers about the efficacy of virtually delivering exercise interventions to childhood cancer survivors in the community setting.

Advanced care planning is an important aspect of care of the elderly population. The study plans to investigate how comfortable patients and doctors are discussing this in the Emergency Department and to establish patient awareness, pre-existing advanced care directives, who patients and doctors believe to be the best person to discuss this with and identify any barriers towards discussion in the Emergency Department. By identifying these patient and doctor perceptions, we can improve discussion of advanced care planning and overall patient care.