A NAIDOC Week honour for Poche Centre Elder, new international therapy guide released to treat eating disorders, and Flinders’ IDS team shows who’s the boss in cybersecurity.
Cyber teams show real ‘splunk’
A Flinders University Information and Digital Services (IDS) cybersecurity team took out first place, beating 24 teams at this year’s SA ‘Boss of the SOC’ (or BOTS) competition organised by information security program Splunk.
It was the first time Flinders had entered teams in the competition, with the winning team (pictured) reaching 11th place nationally among about 175 teams.
A second Flinders University team comprising Lachlan Johnson, Darcy Nicolle, Jade Pearce and Jarrad Piper placed sixth in the event, which was held across Australia and New Zealand and hosted at the Joint Cyber Security Centre (of which Flinders University is a member).
The security operations centre (SOC) event offers a gamified Splunk learning experience to participants, with more than 2000 people involved in 60 BOT events around the world since 2016.
Splunk is a software suite used to search, monitor in real time, and gain insights to potential security weaknesses or hacking attempts across the University. It offers AI and machine learning to provide actionable and predictive insights to the security team.
Congratulations Ken, Male Elder of the Year at the Mount
The Pangula Mannamurna Aboriginal Corporation awarded Ken Jones of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health ‘Male Elder of the Year,’ during NAIDOC week.
Pangula Mannamurna is located in Mount Gambier, the land of the Boandik people. The corporation’s name comes from the Bunganditj language, meaning ‘place where a Doctor or Healer can be found’ and ‘joining hands’. The organisation contributes to strengthening Aboriginal culture across the region.
Mr Jones has a life-long interest in his local environment and a work and volunteer career that spans commercial fishing, ITS management, environmental building, habitat restoration, and field and bird surveys. He is recognised as a prolific contributor to his community.
Together with his work with the Poche Centre, he leads ‘Bush Repair’, a teaching team of like-minded on-ground workers who address environmental weed control and revegetation projects along the Lime-stone Coast and Glenelg River areas.
Also a volunteer art program facilitator in a men’s prison, he enjoys his role with the modest and gifted artists there, who are eager to encourage those less experienced. Their paintings are copywrite-protected, unsigned and cannot be sold, and the artist may take them home upon their release.
Mr Jones is keen to facilitate more art sessions to encourage and support therapy and comradery.
Help with eating disorders in 10 sessions
A new 10-session guide for cognitive and behavioural therapy treatment for eating disorders has been developed by Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Psychology Tracey Wade with UK colleagues.
Brief Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Non-Underweight Patients (Routledge) is an easy-to-follow practical guide to analyse and work out a treatment program for eating disorders in young and older adults.
“We have shown it’s just as effective as the longer recommended therapies we currently have and represents important progress in the field because it means people can actually do shorter therapies for similar results,” she says.
“It’s really important because people are looking for the shortest and most effective therapies, and covering the main aspects in half the time should make it attractive for more people to do it and not feel overwhelmed.”
Professor Wade is a member of an expert working group writing up clinical practice and training standards for psychologists and dietitians for the expansion of Medicare Benefits Schedule services for anorexia nervosa commencing in November 2019.
The Medicare rebate currently covers 10 mental health sessions, and will expand up to 60 (approx. 40 psych and 20 dietitian sessions a year) for anorexia.
Apart from complex conditions such as anorexia nervosa, Professor Wade says the 10-session intervention program will support psychologists, dietitions and other experts who deal with eating disorders and underweight patients, including those with long-term disordered eating.
Disordered eating involves a significant preoccupation with weight, shape and eating, including bingeing and compensatory eating which creates a disruptive and unhealthy preoccupation with eating every waking hour of the day, affecting quality of life and health.