A case of Kunjin virus encephalitis in a traveller returning from the Northern Territory

On 6 May 2001, a 67-year-old Australian born, Caucasian male presented to the Emergency Department of the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre (A&RMC) with a 3 day history of fever, lethargy and confusion. This occurred one week after returning from a trip to the Northern Territory. His previous medical problems included ischaemic heart disease, a repaired abdominal aortic aneurysm, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and congestive cardiac failure. He smoked 20 cigarettes per day and had a history of heavy alcohol consumption. He had no history of diabetes. His medications were aspirin, frusemide, lisinopril, simvastatin, and a nitroglycerol patch. Fifty years ago, he had an adverse reaction to penicillin with angioedema and an urticarial rash. Four weeks before admission he went on a fishing trip in the Northern Territory. He travelled by road, through outback regions of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia, spending time in Daly River, Coolum, Darwin, Dunmarra, Avon Downs, Innaminka and Mataranka. He was away for 3 weeks and camped in tents or outside in a swag throughout the trip. He recalls numerous times where he was exposed to mosquitoes with large numbers of bites at Dunmarra. During the time away, he remained well as did his 5 travelling companions. There was...

A case presenting diagnostic difficulties : making sense of flavivirus serology in the Top End of the Northern Territory

In early April 1998 the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Darwin was notified of a case with positive dengue serology. The illness appeared to have been acquired in the Northern Territory (NT). Because dengue is not endemic to the NT, locally acquired infection has significant public health implications, particularly for vector identification and control to limit the spread of infection. Dengue IgM serology was positive on two occasions but the illness was eventually presumptively identified as Kokobera infection. This case illustrates some important points about serology. The interpretation of flavivirus serology is complex and can be misleading, despite recent improvements. The best method of determining the cause of infection is still attempting to reconcile clinical illness details with incubation times and vector presence, as well as laboratory results. This approach ultimately justified the initial period of waiting for confirmatory results in this case, before the institution of public health measures necessary for a true case of dengue.

Hospital separations in the Northern Territory for varicella-zoster virus related illnesses, 1993-1997

A varicella-zoster virus (VZV) vaccine is available overseas, and universal immunisation in childhood is recommended in the United States.1 Any decision to introduce the vaccine to Australia must be based on an assessment of potential benefits and harms. While there has been some assessment of VZV significance in populations in southern Australia,2 the impact on the NT population is not known. It is not a notifiable condition and information on morbidity and mortality is limited to a few data collections. These are hospital separation data, deaths registers, and in 1995 the inclusion of VZV congenital and neonatal complications in the Australian Paediatric Surveillance System. Hospital separation data were analysed to assess the importance of VZV as a cause of severe morbidity and mortality in the NT population.

Aboriginality and the Northern Territory intervention

Architects and supporters of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (the intervention) mobilised a range of ideas about Aboriginality to introduce and justify the policy program. These representations link Aboriginality to abuse of Aboriginal children, establishing a debate about the nature and future of Aboriginality in a context that limits the discursive authority of Aboriginal people. Aboriginality is represented as savage and in need of settler-imposed control, and also primitive and in need of development. These constructions understand Aboriginality temporally, situating it in the past but providing moral justification for coercing Indigenous people into the settler present. Aboriginality is also constructed spatially in this discourse, with prescribed communities framed as the location of both authentic Aboriginality and of threatening disorder. The intervention is framed as extending settler authority over this troubling terrain, containing and redeeming Aboriginality through inclusion in the settler nation’s moral order.

Aboriginality and the Northern Territory intervention

This thesis examines the construction of Aboriginality in recent public policy reasoning through identifying representations deployed by architects and supporters of the Commonwealth’s 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response (the intervention). Debate about the Northern Territory intervention was explicitly situated in relation to a range of ideas about appropriate Government policy towards Indigenous people, and particularly about the nature, role, status, value and future of Aboriginality and of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. This project involves analysis of constructions of Aboriginality deployed in texts created and circulated to explain and justify the policy program. The aim of the project is to identify the ideas about Aboriginality deployed by the intervention’s architects and supporters, and to examine the effects and implications of these discourses for political relationships between Indigenous people and settlers in Australia. This thesis will argue that advocates of the Northern Territory intervention construct Aboriginality in a range of important ways that reassert and reinforce the legitimacy of the settler colonial order and the project of Australian nationhood, and operate to limit Aboriginal claims. Specifically, it is argued that in linking Aboriginality to the abuse of Aboriginal children, the intervention’s advocates and supporters establish a political debate about the nature and future of Aboriginality within a discursive terrain in which the authority and perspectives of Indigenous people are problematised. Aboriginality is constructed in this process as both temporally and spatially separated from settler society, and in need of coercive integration into mainstream economic and political arrangements. Aboriginality is depicted by settler advocates of intervention as an anachronism, with Aboriginal people and cultures understood as primitive and/or savage precursors to settlers who are represented as modern and civilised. As such, the communities seen as the authentic home or location of Aboriginality represent a threat to Aboriginal children as well as to settlers. These constructions function to obscure the violence of the settler order, provide justification or moral rehabilitation for the colonising project, and reassert the sovereignty of the settler state. The resolution offered by the intervention’s advocates is a performance or enactment of settler sovereignty, representing a claim over and through both the territory of Aboriginal people and the discursive terrain of nationhood.

Aboriginal dietary intake and a successful nutrition intervention project in a Northern Territory community

This paper summarises the development and testing of the 'store-turnover' method, a non-invasive dietary survey methodology for quantitative measurement of food and nutrient intake in remote, centralised Aboriginal communities. It then describes the use of the method in planning, implementation and evaluation of a community-based nutrition intervention project in a small Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. During this project marked improvements in both the dietary intake of the community and biological indicators of nutritional health (including vitamin status and the degree and prevalence of several risk factors for non-communicable disease) were measured in the community over a 12-month period following the development of intervention strategies with the community. Although these specific strategies are presented, emphasis is directed towards the process involved, particularly the evaluation procedures used to monitor all stages of the project with the community.

Volcanic architecture and chemostratigraphy within the Kalkarindji Continental Flood Basalt Province, Northern Territory : implications for eruption style from multiple fissure eruptions

This thesis was the first to define individual lava flow chemical variation and a detailed definition of the Kalkarindji Continental Flood Basalt Province, a lesser known province of the Phanerozoic eon. This thesis conducted an intensive field study that yielded numerous samples for petrography and chemical analyses as well as the generation of a detailed map of a portion of the Kalkarindji province.

Formation and Fragmentation of Unsaturated Fatty Acid M-2H+Na (-) Ions: Stabilized Carbanions for Charge-Directed Fragmentation

Fatty acids are long-chain carboxylic acids that readily produce \[M - H](-) ions upon negative ion electrospray ionization (ESI) and cationic complexes with alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals in positive ion ESI. In contrast, only one anionic monomeric fatty acid-metal ion complex has been reported in the literature, namely \[M - 2H + (FeCl)-Cl-II](-). In this manuscript, we present two methods to form anionic unsaturated fatty acid-sodium ion complexes (i.e., \[M - 2H + Na](-)). We find that these ions may be generated efficiently by two distinct methods: (1) negative ion ESI of a methanolic solution containing the fatty acid and sodium fluoride forming an \[M - H + NaF](-) ion. Subsequent collision-induced dissociation (CID) results in the desired \[M - 2H + Na](-) ion via the neutral loss of HF. (2) Direct formation of the \[M - 2H + Na](-) ion by negative ion ESI of a methanolic solution containing the fatty acid and sodium hydroxide or bicarbonate. In addition to deprotonation of the carboxylic acid moiety, formation of \[M - 2H + Na](-) ions requires the removal of a proton from the fatty acid acyl chain. We propose that this deprotonation occurs at the bis-allylic position(s) of polyunsaturated fatty acids resulting in the formation of a resonance-stabilized carbanion. This proposal is supported by ab initio calculations, which reveal that removal of a proton from the bis-allylic position, followed by neutral loss of HX (where X = F- and -OH), is the lowest energy dissociation pathway.

'A small space of chaos’ : Elizabeth Grosz’s chaos, territory, art : Deleuze and the framing of the earth

Review of Elizabeth Grosz’s Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth

Ecological consequences of fragmentation and deforestation in an urban landscape : a case study

Landscape change is an ongoing process even within established urban landscapes. Yet, analyses of fragmentation and deforestation have focused primarily on the conversion of non-urban to urban landscapes in rural landscapes and ignored urban landscapes. To determine the ecological effects of continued urbanization in urban landscapes, tree-covered patches were mapped in the Gwynns Falls watershed (17158.6 ha) in Maryland for 1994 and 1999 to document fragmentation, deforestation, and reforestation. The watershed was divided into lower (urban core), middle (older suburbs), and upper (recent suburbs) subsections. Over the entire watershed a net of 264.5 of 4855.5 ha of tree-covered patches were converted to urban land use-125 new tree-covered patches were added through fragmentation, 4 were added through reforestation, 43 were lost through deforestation, and 7 were combined with an adjacent patch. In addition, 180 patches were reduced in size. In the urban core, deforestation continued with conversion to commercial land use. Because of the lack of vegetation, commercial land uses are problematic for both species conservation and derived ecosystem benefits. In the lower subsection, shape complexity increased for tree-covered patches less than 10 ha. Changes in shape resulted from canopy expansion, planted materials, and reforestation of vacant sites. In the middle and upper subsections, the shape index value for tree-covered patches decreased, indicating simplification. Density analyses of the subsections showed no change with respect to patch densities but pointed out the importance of small patches (≤5 ha) as "stepping stone" to link large patches (e. g., ≥100 ha). Using an urban forest effect model, we estimated, for the entire watershed, total carbon loss and pollution removal, from 1994 to 1999, to be 14,235,889.2 kg and 13,011.4 kg, respectively due to urban land-use conversions.

Reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization : mechanism, process and applications

The present article gives an overview of the reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) process. RAFT is one of the most versatile living radical polymerization systems and yields polymers of predictable chain length and narrow molecular weight distribution. RAFT relies on the rapid exchange of thiocarbonyl thio groups between growing polymeric chains. The key strengths of the RAFT process for polymer design are its high tolerance of monomer functionality and reaction conditions, the wide range of well-controlled polymeric architectures achievable, and its (in-principle) non-rate-retarding nature. This article introduces the mechanism of polymerization, the range of polymer molecular weights achievable, the range of monomers in which polymerization is controlled by RAFT, the various polymeric architectures that can be obtained, the type of end-group functionalities available to RAFT-made polymers, and the process of RAFT polymerization.