What makes inner city high density living attractive? Insight from residents in Brisbane, Australia

Australia’s urban form and planning has shifted from traditional individual dwellings on spacious suburban blocks towards higher density urban consolidation. Despite relatively strong market demand for inner city high density (ICHD) living, there is ongoing need to explore and understand the aspects that make this urban form liveable and sustainable. The purpose of this research is to explore the viewpoints of current ICHD residents to better understand the liveability and sustainability matters that affect their everyday experiences and perceptions of this urban form. Qualitative interviews with 24 ICHD Brisbane (Australia) residents illustrates their perceptions and experiences of liveability and the ways in which it is broadly understood within three main domains and nine key sub-concepts, including: individual dwelling (thermal comfort, natural light and balconies, noise mitigation), building complex (shared space, good neighbour protocols, environmental sustainability) and the community (transport, amenities, sense of community). Focussing on the experience of ICHD residents, this research highlights the ways in which multiple aspects of the immediate living environment, the dwelling, building complex and the community intertwine to provide residents with a liveable space. The results show that urban features that reflect current societal pressure for greater sustainability such as lower energy use are the exact same features sought by ICHD residents in determining their liveability. By highlighting the aspects current ICHD residents value most about their dwellings, buildings and communities, these findings will help inform policy-makers, planners, developers and designers as they create urban spaces and dwellings that are more liveable and sustainable.

‘My people right here…’ Indigenous young people, alienation and paint sniffing in inner Brisbane

This paper describes and explains the social worlds of a group of young Murris who are engaged in chroming (paint sniffing) and who sleep rough in inner Brisbane. In particular, the paper considers the ways young Indigenous drug users describe their marginalisation from wider society and its structures of opportunity, but it also includes some reflections from their youth worker and a young man who frequents the young people’s squat. The paper demonstrates the centrality of racism and material disadvantage to the experience of a group of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sniffers, a perspective largely unreflected in the literature on Indigenous volatile substance misuse. Further, the young people’s ways of interacting with the broader society are described to explain the ways their rejection of mainstream norms form a significant political response to their marginality and reflect, at least in part, the wider Indigenous historical experience. The work draws on theories of alienation and subculture to analyse the young people’s descriptions of their social estrangement and the formation of the ‘paint sniffer group’. It is concluded that paint sniffing among urban Indigenous youth is, at least in part, an obnoxious and encoded distillation of a wider Indigenous rebuttal of broader societal norms, and that the dominant — normalising — modes of treatment risk further alienating an already oppositional group of young people.

Sunlight and other determinants of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in black and white participants in a nationwide U.S. study

Circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), a marker for vitamin D status, is associated with bone health and possibly cancers and other diseases; yet, the determinants of 25(OH)D status, particularly ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure, are poorly understood. Determinants of 25(OH)D were analyzed in a subcohort of 1,500 participants of the US Radiologic Technologists (USRT) Study that included whites (n 842), blacks (n 646), and people of other races/ethnicities (n 12). Participants were recruited monthly (20082009) across age, sex, race, and ambient UVR level groups. Questionnaires addressing UVR and other exposures were generally completed within 9 days of blood collection. The relation between potential determinants and 25(OH)D levels was examined through regression analysis in a random two-thirds sample and validated in the remaining one third. In the regression model for the full study population, age, race, body mass index, some seasons, hours outdoors being physically active, and vitamin D supplement use were associated with 25(OH)D levels. In whites, generally, the same factors were explanatory. In blacks, only age and vitamin D supplement use predicted 25(OH)D concentrations. In the full population, determinants accounted for 25 of circulating 25(OH)D variability, with similar correlations for subgroups. Despite detailed data on UVR and other factors near the time of blood collection, the ability to explain 25(OH)D was modest.

Effect of reactive bed mineralogy on arsenic retention and permeability of synthetic arsenic-containing acid mine drainage

Successive alkalinity producing systems (SAPSs) are widely used for treating acid mine drainage (AMD) and alleviating clogging commonly occurring in limestone systems due to an amorphous ferric precipitate. In this study, iron dust, bone char, micrite and their admixtures were used to treat arseniccontaining AMD. A particular interest was devoted to arsenic removal performance, mineralogical constraints on arsenic retention ability and permeability variation during column experiment for 140 days. The results showed that the sequence of the arsenic removal capacity was as follows: bone char > micrite > iron dust. The combination of 20% v/v iron dust and 80% v/v bone char/micrite columns can achieve better hydraulic conductivity and phosphorus-retention capacity than single micrite and bone char columns. The addition of iron dust created reductive environment and resulted in the transformation of coating material from colloidal phase to secondary mineral phase, such as green rust and phosphoerrite, which obviously ameliorates hydraulic conductivity of systems. The sequential extraction experiments indicated that the stable fractions of arsenic in columns were enhanced with help of iron dust compared to single bone char and micrite columns. A combination of iron dust and micrite/bone char represented a potential SAPS for treating As-containing AMD.

Predicate encryption for multi-inner-products

Predicate encryption is a new primitive that supports flexible control over access to encrypted data. We study predicate encryption systems, evaluating a wide class of predicates. Our systems are more expressive than the existing attribute-hiding systems in the sense that the proposed constructions support not only all existing predicate evaluations but also arbitrary conjunctions and disjunctions of comparison and subset queries. Toward our goal, we propose encryption schemes supporting multi-inner-product predicate and provide formal security analysis. We show how to apply the proposed schemes to achieve all those predicate evaluations.

Circulating microRNAs involved in multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated, demyelinating and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system. After traumatic brain injury, it is the leading cause of neurology disability in young adults. Considerable advances have been made in identifying genes involved in MS but the genetic and phenotypic complexity associated with this disease significantly hinders any progress. A novel class of small RNA molecules, microRNAs (miRNAs) has acquired much attention because they regulate the expression of up to 30% of protein-coding genes and may play a pivotal role in the development of many, if not all, complex diseases. Seven published studies investigated miRNAs from peripheral blood mononuclear cells, CD4+, CD8+ T cell, B lymphocytes, peripheral blood leukocytes, whole blood and brain astrocytes with MS risk. The absence of MS studies investigating plasma miRNA prompted the current investigation of identifying a circulating miRNA signature in MS. We conducted a microarray analysis of over 900 known miRNA transcripts from plasma samples collected from four MS individuals and four sex-aged and ethnicity matched healthy controls. We identified six plasma miRNA (miR-614, miR-572, miR-648, miR-1826, miR-422a and miR-22) that were significantly up-regulated and one plasma miRNA (miR-1979) that was significantly down-regulated in MS individuals. Both miR-422a and miR-22 have previously been implicated in MS. The present study is the first to show a circulating miRNA signature involved in MS that could serve as a potential prognostic and diagnostic biomarker for MS.

Invading edge vs. inner (edvin) patterns of vascularization : an interplay between angiogenic and vascular survival factors defines the clinical behaviour of non-small cell lung cancer

Neo-angiogenesis during neoplastic growth involves endothelial mitogenic and migration stimuli produced by cancer or tumour stromal cells. Although this active angiogenesis takes place in the tumour periphery, the process of vessel growth and survival in inner areas and its clinical role remain largely unexplored. The present study compared the microvessel score (MS) as well as the single endothelial cell score (ECS) in the invading edge and in inner areas of non-small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLCs). Three different patterns of vascular growth were distinguished: the edvin (edge vs. inner) type 1, where a low MS was observed in both peripheral and inner tumour areas; the edvin type 2, where a high MS was noted in the invading front but a low MS in inner areas; and the edvin type 3, where both peripheral and inner tumour areas had a high MS. The ECS was high in the invading edge in edvin type 2 and 3 cases and was sharply decreased in both types in inner areas, suggesting that endothelial cell migration is unlikely to contribute to the angiogenic process in areas away from the tumour front. Expression of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and of thymidine phosphorylase (TP) was associated with a high MS in the invading edge. VEGF was associated with a high MS in inner areas (edvin 3), while TP expression was associated with edvin type 2, showing that VEGF (and not TP) contributes to the preservation of the inner vasculature. Both edvin type 2 and 3 cases showed an increased incidence of node metastasis, but edvin type 3 cases had a poorer prognosis, even in the N1-stage group. The present study suggests that tumour factors regulating angiogenesis and vascular survival are not identical. A possible method is reported to quantify these two parameters by comparing the MS in the invading edge and inner areas (edvin types). This observation may contribute to the evaluation of the effectiveness of different therapeutic approaches, namely vascular targeting vs. anti-angiogenesis. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.

Lesions in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis disrupt corticosterone and freezing responses elicited by a contextual but not by a specific cue-conditioned fear stimulus

The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is believed to be a critical relay between the central nucleus of the amygdala (CE) and the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus in the control of hypothalamic–pituitary– adrenal (HPA) responses elicited by conditioned fear stimuli. If correct, lesions of CE or BNST should block expression of HPA responses elicited by either a specific conditioned fear cue or a conditioned context. To test this, rats were subjected to cued (tone) or contextual classical fear conditioning. Two days later, electrolytic or sham lesions were placed in CE or BNST. After 5 days, the rats were tested for both behavioral (freezing) and neuroendocrine (corticosterone) responses to tone or contextual cues. CE lesions attenuated conditioned freezing and corticosterone responses to both tone and con- text. In contrast, BNST lesions attenuated these responses to contextual but not tone stimuli. These results suggest CE is indeed an essential output of the amygdala for the expres- sion of conditioned fear responses, including HPA re- sponses, regardless of the nature of the conditioned stimu- lus. However, because lesions of BNST only affected behav- ioral and endocrine responses to contextual stimuli, the results do not support the notion that BNST is critical for HPA responses elicited by conditioned fear stimuli in general. Instead, the BNST may be essential specifically for contex- tual conditioned fear responses, including both behavioral and HPA responses, by virtue of its connections with the hippocampus, a structure essential to contextual condition- ing. The results are also not consistent with the hypothesis that BNST is only involved in unconditioned aspects of fear and anxiety.

Exploring pedestrian accessibility and walkability : insight from public place observations in inner-urban higher density Brisbane, Australia

As planners work to create more sustainable and liveable urban environments, a priority is to transition away from prioritising the automobile and towards enhancing the pedestrian experience. Thus, this research explores the experience of pedestrian accessibility in inner-urban higher-density Brisbane in Australia, drawing on findings from semi-structured in-depth interviews with 24 residents and over 100 hours of public place observations in three case-study neighbourhoods. The interviews took place in residents homes and explored their experience of higher density living and their neighbourhood, whilst observations were recorded through a combination of methods including photographs, sketch maps, recordings and field journals. Observation locations included retail and commercial space, roads, parkland and open space, with multiple observations at each location. A thematic analysis identified common themes in both interviews and the observations, with this paper focusing on residents’ lived experience in urban built environments. This analysis revealed that pedestrian accessibility is linked to access to local amenities and direct routes, aesthetics, sense of community, ownership of space and safety. In particular, observations revealed how pedestrian accessibility and route-taking works with, against or in spite of the design features of urban environments, as well as the importance of the social use of the built environment. Residents spoke about although walking quick and preferred for local amenities, the decision to walk was moderated by factors such as time of day and perceived safety. Measures to ensure and improve the pedestrian accessibility of urban areas needs to take into account the propensity for people to prefer and improvise direct routes (often to the detriment of traffic safety considerations), the importance of ongoing maintenance and upgrading of walking infrastructure and the importance of aesthetically pleasing and safe walking environments. By combining interviews and observations, this research highlights the current dominance of the automobile culture in Brisbane and the layers of meaning, experiences and complexity hidden within the pedestrian experience.

State-of-the-art of the Australian thin bed concrete structural masonry

With a view to minimising the spiraling labour costs, the concrete masonry industry is developing thin layer mortar technology (known as thin bed technology) collaboratively with Queensland University of Technology. Similar technologies are practiced in Europe mainly for clay brick masonry; in the UK thin layer mortared concrete masonry has been researched under commercial contract with limited information published. This paper presents numerous experimental data generated over the past three years. It is shown that this form of masonry requires special drymixed mortar containing a minimum of 2% polymer for improved workability and blocks with tighter height tolerance, both of which might increase the cost of these constituent materials. However, through semiskilled labour, tools to dispense and control the thickness of mortar and the associated increase in productivity, reduction to the overall costs of this form of construction can be achieved. Further the polymer mortar provides several advantages: (1) improved sustainability due to dry curing and (2) potential to construct mortar layers of 2mm thickness and (3) ability for mechanisation of mortar application and control of thickness without the need for skilled labour.

Age and curing effect on the bond strength of thin bed concrete masonry with polymer cement mortar

Bond characteristics of masonry are partly affected by the type of mortar used, the techniques of dispersion of mortar and the surface texture of the concrete blocks. Additionally it is understood from the studies on conventional masonry, the bond characteristics are influenced by masonry age and curing methods as well as dryness/dampness at the time of testing. However, all these effects on bond for thin bed masonry containing polymer cement mortar are not well researched. Therefore, the effect of ageing and curing method on bond strength of masonry made with polymer cement mortar was experimentally investigated as part of an ongoing bond strength research program on thin bed concrete masonry at Queensland University of technology. This paper presents the experimental investigation of the flexural and shears bond characteristics of thin bed concrete masonry of varying age/ curing methods. Since, the polymer cement mortar is commonly used in thin bed masonry; bond development through two different curing conditions (dry/wet) was investigated in this research work. The results exhibit that the bond strength increases with the age under the wet and dry curing conditions; dry curing produce stronger bond and is considered as an advantage towards making this form of thin bed masonry better sustainable.

Physical activity patterns of inner-city elementary schoolchildren

Purpose This study aimed to objectively measure the physical activity (PA) characteristics of a racially and ethnically diverse sample of inner-city elementary schoolchildren and to examine the influence of sex, race/ethnicity, grade level, and weight status on PA. Methods A total of 470 students in grades 4-6 from six inner-city schools in Philadelphia wore an ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometer (Actigraph, Pensacola, FL) for up to 7 d. The resultant data were uploaded to a customized Visual Basic EXCEL macro to determine the time spent in sedentary (SED), light-intensity PA (LPA), and moderate- to vigorous-intensity PA (MVPA). Results On average, students accumulated 48 min of MVPA daily. Expressed as a percentage of monitoring time, students were sedentary for 63% of the time, in LPA 31% of the time, and in MVPA 6% of the time. Across all race/ethnicity and grade level groups, boys exhibited significantly higher levels of MVPA than girls did; fifth-grade boys exhibited significantly lower MVPA levels than fourth-and sixth-grade boys did, and sixth-grade girls exhibited significantly lower MVPA levels than fourth-and fifth-grade girls did. Hispanic children exhibited lower levels of MVPA than children from other racial/ethnic groups did, and overweight and obese children exhibited significantly lower MVPA levels than children in the healthy weight range did. Across the entire sample, only 24.3% met the current public health guidelines for PA. Physical inactivity was significantly greater among females, Hispanics, and overweight and obese students. Conclusions Fewer than one in four inner-city schoolchildren accumulated the recommended 60 min of MVPA daily. These findings highlight the need for effective and sustainable programs to promote PA in inner-city youth.

A dynamic in vivo model of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transitions in circulating tumor cells and metastases of breast cancer

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) processes endow epithelial cells with enhanced migratory/invasive properties and are therefore likely to contribute to tumor invasion and metastatic spread. Because of the difficulty in following EMT processes in human tumors, we have developed and characterized an animal model with transplantable human breast tumor cells (MDA-MB-468) uniquely showing spontaneous EMT events to occur. Using vimentin as a marker of EMT, heterogeneity was revealed in the primary MDA-MB-468 xenografts with vimentin-negative and vimentin-positive areas, as also observed on clinical human invasive breast tumor specimens. Reverse transcriptase-PCR after microdissection of these populations from the xenografts revealed EMT traits in the vimentin-positive zones characterized by enhanced 'mesenchymal gene' expression (Snail, Slug and fibroblast-specific protein-1) and diminished expression of epithelial molecules (E-cadherin, ZO-3 and JAM-A). Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) were detected in the blood as soon as 8 days after s.c. injection, and lung metastases developed in all animals injected as examined by in vivo imaging analyses and histology. High levels of vimentin RNA were detected in CTCs by reverse transcriptase-quantitative PCR as well as, to a lesser extent, Snail and Slug RNA. Von Willebrand Factor/vimentin double immunostainings further showed that tumor cells in vascular tumoral emboli all expressed vimentin. Tumoral emboli in the lungs also expressed vimentin whereas macrometastases displayed heterogenous vimentin expression, as seen in the primary xenografts. In conclusion, our data uniquely demonstrate in an in vivo context that EMT occurs in the primary tumors, and associates with an enhanced ability to intravasate and generate CTCs. They further suggest that mesenchymal-to-epithelial phenomena occur in secondary organs, facilitating the metastatic growth.

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transitions and circulating tumor cells

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) phenomena endow epithelial cells with enhanced migratory and invasive potential, and as such, have been implicated in many physiological and pathological processes requiring cell migration/invasion. Although their involvement in the metastatic cascade is still a subject of debate, data are accumulating to demonstrate the existence of EMT phenotypes in primary human tumors, describe enhanced metastatic potential of EMT derivatives in animal models, and report EMT attributes in circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The relationships between EMT and CTCs remain largely unexplored, and we review here in vitro and in vivo data supporting a putative role of EMT processes in CTC generation and survival.

Prevalence of asymptomatic malaria and bed net ownership and use in Bhutan, 2013 : a country earmarked for malaria elimination

Background With dwindling malaria cases in Bhutan in recent years, the government of Bhutan has made plans for malaria elimination by 2016. This study aimed to determine coverage, use and ownership of LLINs, as well as the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria at a single time-point, in four sub-districts of Bhutan. Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out in August 2013. Structured questionnaires were administered to a single respondent in each household (HH) in four sub-districts. Four members from 25 HH, randomly selected from each sub-district, were tested using rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) for asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax infection. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify factors associated with LLIN use and maintenance. Results All blood samples from 380 participants tested negative for Plasmodium infections. A total of 1,223 HH (92.5% of total HH) were surveyed for LLIN coverage and use. Coverage of LLINs was 99.0% (1,203/1,223 HH). Factors associated with decreased odds of sleeping under a LLIN included: washing LLINs nine months compared to washing LLINs every six months; HH in the least poor compared to the most poor socio-economic quintile; a HH income of Nu 5,001-10,000 (US$1 = Nu 59.55), and Nu >10,000, compared to HH with income of