Allies down under? The Australian at war

There can be no doubt that the Murdoch press played an important role in cohering what support there was for Australia's involvement in 'Gulf War Two'. From the start, Murdoch's 'Australian' newspaper was firmly committed to the coalition of the willing and provided a well-orchestrated cheer squad for Prime Minister John Howard and the war against Iraq.

Attending to the distractor and old/new discriminations in negative priming

When participants ignore an irrelevant distractor they typically show impaired responding to that item if it becomes the relevant stimulus on a subsequent trial. In Experiment 1 (N = 64), a masked white colour name was presented briefly before a Stroop display. Negative priming in colour naming occurred when the colour of the lettering for the Stroop stimulus matched the colour name displayed in the first display, consistent with the proposal of temporal discrimination theory that negative priming arises because a recurrence of an unattended stimulus cannot readily be classified as old or new. Experiment 2 (N = 32) replicated negative priming in the interleaved-word display where participants had to name the red word from a pair of red and green words. In Experiment 3 (N = 32) and Experiment 4 (N = 28) the participants were required to attend to but not respond to the words in the prime display and name one of two interleaved words in the probe display. Negative priming was observed in this arrangement, consistent with the episodic retrieval theory of negative priming. The temporal discrimination model may need to be extended to situations in which the attended stimuli have different responses attached to them.

Clinical practice guidelines for the psychosocial care of adults with cancer

The ‘Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Psychosocial Care of Adults with Cancer’ was launched by the Federal Minister of Health on 14th August 2003.1 Developed by the National Breast Cancer Centre and the National Cancer Control Initiative and approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council in April 2003, these guidelines are the first of their kind for health professionals who treat, or are involved with cancer patients at all stages of care from diagnosis, through to treatment and palliation. The guidelines are aimed particularly at general practitioners, and cancer specialists such as radiation and medical oncologists, surgeons, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. The guidelines are based on comprehensive and systematic reviews of the international research literature and an extensive consultative process to ensure their clinical relevance. They were informed by a multidisciplinary steering group with expertise across a wide range of cancers and health professions and included consumer representation.

Maintaining and updating semantic context in schizophrenia: an investigation of the effects of multiple remote primes

Conflicting findings regarding the ability of people with schizophrenia to maintain and update semantic contexts have been due, arguably, to vagaries within the experimental design employed (e.g. whether strongly or remotely associated prime-target pairs have been used, what delay between the prime and the target was employed, and what proportion of related prime-target pairs appeared) or to characteristics of the participant cohort (e.g. medication status, chronicity of illness). The aim of the present study was to examine how people with schizophrenia maintain and update contextual information over an extended temporal window by using multiple primes that were either remotely associated or unrelated to the target. Fourteen participants with schizophrenia and 12 healthy matched controls were compared across two stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) (short and long) and two relatedness proportions (RP) (high and low) in a crossed design. Analysis of variance statistics revealed significant two- and three-way interactions between Group and SOA, Group and Condition, SOA and RP, and Group, SOA and RP. The participants with schizophrenia showed evidence of enhanced remote priming at the short SOA and low RP, combined with a reduction in the time course over which context could be maintained. There was some sensitivity to biasing contextual information at the short SOA, although the mechanism over which context served to update information appeared to be different from that in the controls. The participants with schizophrenia showed marked performance decrements at the long SOA (both low and high RP). Indices of remote priming at the short (but not the long) SOA correlated with both clinical ratings of thought disorder and with increasing length of illness. The results support and extend the hypothesis that schizophrenia is associated with concurrent increases in tonic dopamine activity and decreases in phasic dopamine activity. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Family violence: Walking the tight rope between maternal alienation and child safety

Mothers are often alienated from their children when child abuse is suspected or confirmed, whether she is the primary abuser of the child or not. An abusive or violent partner often initiates the process of maternal alienation from children as a control mechanism. When the co-occurrence of maternal and child abuse is not recognised, nurses and health professionals risk further alienating a mother from her children, which can have detrimental effects in both the short and long term. Evidence shows that when mothers are supported and have the necessary resources there is a reduction in the violence and abuse she and her children experience; this occurs even in situations where the mother is the primary abuser of her children. The family-centred care philosophy, which is widely accepted as the best approach to nursing care for children and their families, creates tension for nurses caring for children who are the victims of abuse as this care generally occurs away from the context of the family. This fragmented approach to caring for abused children can inadvertently undermine the mother-child relationship and further contribute to maternal alienation. This paper discusses the complexity of family violence for nurses negotiating the 'tight rope' between the prime concern for the safety of children and further contributing to maternal alienation, within a New Zealand context. The premise that restoration of the mother-child relationship is paramount for the long-term wellbeing of both the children and the mother provides the basis for discussing implications for nursing practice.

The next generation messaging technology: Makes web services effective

The vision presented in this paper and its technical content are a result of close collaboration between several researchers from the University of Queensland, Australia and the SAP Corporate Research Center, Brisbane, Australia. In particular; Dr Wasim Sadiq (SAP), Dr Shazia Sadiq (UQ), and Dr Karsten Schultz (SAP) are the prime contributors to the ideas presented. Also, PhD students Mr Dat Ma Cao and Ms Belinda Carter are involved in the research program. Additionally, the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Scheme and Australian Research Council Linkage Project Scheme support some aspects of research work towards the HMT solution.

General practitioners' role in preventive medicine: scenario analysis using alcohol as a case study

The purpose of this analysis is threefold: first, to extract from the literature, current levels of GP detection of at-risk drinking by their patients, rates at which general practitioners (GPs) offer an intervention; and the effectiveness of these interventions; secondly, to develop a model based on this literature to be used in conjunction with scenario analysis; and thirdly, to consider the cost implications of current efforts and various scenarios. This study deals specifically with Australian general practice. A two-step procedure is used in the scenario analysis, which involves identifying opportunities for detection, intervention, effectiveness and assigning probabilities to outcomes. The results suggest that increasing rates of GP intervention achieves greatest benefit and return on resource use. For every 5% point increase in the rate of GP intervention, an additional 26 754 at-risk drinkers modify their drinking behaviour at a cost of $231.45 per patient. This compares with a cost per patient modifying drinking behaviour of $232.60 and $208.31 for every 5% point increase in the rates of detection and effectiveness, respectively. The knowledge, skill and attitude of practitioners toward drinking are significant, and they can be the prime motivators in persuading their patients to modify drinking behaviour.

Running on empty

After nine years spent in opposition, it's still hard to know what Federal Labor intends by way of an economic policy platform. Kim Beazley still seems to believe that the prime purpose of opposition is to oppose. John Quiggin disagrees. Without a coherent and well-understood economic direction, he argues, Labor's sniping will continue to look like unfocussed opportunism.

Examination of emotional priming among children and young adolescents: Developmental issues and its association with anxiety

An affective priming task was used to examine bias in the processing of threat-related material in 25 clinically anxious compared to 25 matched, non-anxious control children and young adolescents. No significant differences were found between anxious and non-anxious children in terms of priming effects. However, age-related differences were found depending upon the valence of the target, independent of anxiety status. Both younger (7-10 years) and older (11-14 years) children showed faster response times to pleasant targets when they were preceded by a congruent compared to incongruent stimulus, consistent with a traditional priming effect. For threat target stimuli, older children showed no difference in response latency according to the congruency of the prime-target valence. Younger children, in contrast, showed a reverse priming effect for threat target stimuli, with slower response times for threat-congruent trials than for threat targets preceded by a pleasant prime. Possible explanations for developmental differences in the processing of threat-related material are discussed.

Palynostratigraphy of Ordovician strata, Canning Basin, Western Australia. Part One: acritarchs and prasinophytes

This paper is the initial part of a comprehensive bipartite monograph of palynomorphs (viz., acritarchs, prasinophyte phycomata, and chitinozoans) that are represented profusely in marine lower Palaeozoic strata of the Canning Basin, Western Australia. The prime aim is to establish a palynologically based zonal scheme for the Ordovician sequence as represented in five cored boreholes drilled through the Lower to Middle Ordovician strata of the central-northeastern Canning Basin. These strata embrace the Oepikodus communis through Phragmodus-Plectodina conodont zonal interval and comprise (in ascending order) the Willara, Goldwyer, and Nita formations, of inferred early Arenig to Llanvirn age. All three formations contain moderately diverse and variably preserved palynomorphs. The palynomorph taxa, detailed systematically in the current Part One of this monograph, comprise 66 species of acritarchs and six of prasinophytes. Of these, two species of prasinophytes and 11 of acritarchs are newly established: Cymatiosphaera meandrica and Pterospermella franciniae; Aremoricanium hyalinum, A. solaris, Baltisphaeridium tenuicomatum, Gorgonisphaeridium crebrum, Lophosphaeridium aequalium, L. aspersum, Micrhystridium infrequens, Pylantios hadrus, Sertulidium amplexum, Striatotheca indistincta, and Tribulidium globosum. Pylantios (typified by P. hadrus), Sertulidium (typified by S. amplexum), and Tribulidium (typified by T globosum); are defined as new acritarch genera. Three new combinations are instituted: Baltisphaeridium pugiatum (PLAYFORD & MARTIN 1984), Polygonium canningianum (COMRAZ & PENIGUEL 1972), and Sacculidium furtivum (PLAYFORD & MARTIN 1984); and Ammonidium macilentum PLAYFORD & MARTIN 1984 and Sacculidium furtivum (PLAYFORD & MARTIN 1984) are emended. An appreciable number of palynomorph species are not formally named owing to lack of sufficient or adequately preserved specimens; others are compared but not positively identified with previously instituted species. The ensuing Part Two of this study will complete the systematic-descriptive documentation, i.e., chitinozoans, and evaluate the Canning Basin palynoflora in terms of its chronological and stratigraphic-correlative significance.

Despite differences between dendritic cells and Langerhans cells in the mechanism of papillomavirus-like particle antigen uptake, both cells cross-prime T cells

As human papillomavirus-like particles (HPV-VLP) represent a promising vaccine delivery vehicle, delineation of the interaction of VLP with professional APC should improve vaccine development. Differences in the capacity of VLP to signal dendritic cells (DC) and Langerhans cells (LC) have been demonstrated, and evidence has been presented for both clathrin-coated pits and proteoglycans (PG) in the uptake pathway of VLP into epithelial cells. Therefore, we compared HPV-VLP uptake mechanisms in human monocyte-derived DC and LC, and their ability to cross-present HPV VLP-associated antigen in the MHC class I pathway. DC and LC each took up virus-like particles (VLP). DC uptake of and signalling by VLP was inhibited by amiloride or cytochalasin D (CCD), but not by filipin treatment, and was blocked by several sulfated and non-sulfated polysaccharides and anti-CD16. In contrast, LC uptake was inhibited only by filipin, and VLP in LC were associated with caveolin, langerin, and CD1a. These data suggest fundamentally different routes of VLP uptake by DC and LC. Despite these differences, VLP taken up by DC and LC were each able to prime naive CD8(+) T cells and induce cytolytic effector T cells in vitro. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.