Objective To examine the mortality experience of psychiatric patients in Western Australia compared with the general population.

The other-race effect (ORE) in face recognition describes a well-established finding of better recognition for own-race than other-race faces. Although widely thought to reflect differences in contact between own- and other-race faces, little is known about how different contact levels relate to changes in processing of those faces. This study investigated how contact affects the size of the ORE and the use of expert configural face-coding mechanisms. Using inversion decrements as an index of configural coding, we predicted that increased self-reported contact would be associated with greater use of configural-coding mechanisms. Chinese and Caucasian participants varying in contact with other-race faces were recruited. The Chinese participants also varied in their length of residence in a Western country. Results showed that higher levels of contact were associated with a reduction in the ORE in both face recognition and configural coding. Importantly, smaller cross-race differences in configural coding were also associated with a smaller ORE in face recognition.

This study examined the extent to which the association between increased student absence and lower achievement outcomes varied by student and school-level socioeconomic characteristics. Analyses were based on the enrolment, absence and achievement records of 89,365 Year 5, 7 and 9 students attending government schools in Western Australian between 2008 and 2012. Multivariate multi-level modelling methods were used to estimate numeracy, writing and reading outcomes based on school absence, and interactions between levels of absence and school socioeconomic index (SEI), prior achievement, gender, ethnicity, language background, parent education and occupation status. While the effects of absence on achievement were greater for previously highachieving students, there were few significant interactions between absence and any of the socioeconomic measures on achievement outcomes. The results of first-difference regression models indicated that the negative effect of an increase in absence was marginally larger for students attending more advantaged schools, though most effects were very small. While students from disadvantaged schools have, on average, more absences than their advantaged peers, there is very little evidence to suggest that the effects of absence are greater for those attending lower-SEI schools. School attendance should therefore be a priority for all schools, and not just those with high rates of absence or low average achievement. achievement, notably the quality of teaching (Hattie, 2009) and teacher-student relationships (Cornelius-White, 2008).The extent to which teaching or school quality characteristics can influence achievement outcomes, however, depends on the quantity of such schooling received. Studies across multiple countries have shown that higher rates of absence are associated with lower achievement