Paramedic identification of stroke : community validation of the Melbourne ambulance stroke screen

Background: Paramedics require an effective prehospital tool to eliminate stroke mimics and to assist in the identification of suitable candidates for thrombolytic therapy. The Faster Access to Stroke Therapies study combined two validated stroke assessment tools (the Los Angeles Prehospital Stroke Screen, LAPSS, and the Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale, CPSS) to form the Melbourne Ambulance Stroke Screen (MASS), and performed an in-field validation by Australian paramedics.

Methods: Over a 12-month period, 18 paramedics participated in the Faster Access to Stroke Therapies study and prospectively collected data contained in the MASS on all stroke dispatches, and for other patients with a focal neurological deficit. Sensitivity and specificity analysis of the LAPSS, CPSS and MASS was calculated and equivalence analysis performed.

Results: Paramedics completed 100 MASS assessments for 73 (73%) stroke/transient ischemic attack patients and 27 (27%) stroke mimics. The sensitivity of the MASS (90%, 95% CI: 81-96%) showed statistical equivalence to the sensitivity of the CPSS (95%, p = 0.45) and superiority to the LAPSS (78%, p = 0.008). The specificity of the MASS (74%, 95% CI: 53-88%) was equivalent to that of the LAPSS (85%, p = 0.25) and superior to the CPSS (54%, p = 0.007). All patients misidentified by the MASS (7 strokes, 7 mimics) were ineligible for thrombolytic therapy.

Conclusion: The MASS is simple to use, with accurate prehospital identification of stroke. It distinguishes stroke mimics, with good recognition of suitable patients for thrombolytic therapy.

A new screen face for public service broadcasting

The contemporary broadcasting industry is characterised by technological and social change, it is increasingly competitive, and the media industry is fragmenting. New services need not necessarily compete with existing free-to-air broadcasting but could act as further incentive for audiences to invest in new equipment. New equipment will be necessary in the future as set out under the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion) Act 2000 (Cth), before the planned switch-off of analogue broadcasts planned for this year but now likely to be 2013. By then, however, audiences might already have migrated to the online environment for television and radio content as well as other services. Those that produce and deliver programs via free-to-air broadcasting need to consider what audiences do with new media in order to engage them. This will be an ongoing process as technology and audience expectations continue to change. Against such a background, this article examines how Australia’s public broadcasters are responding to the new media environment. It will consider their interactive online programs and services with specific analysis of ABC’s new ‘iView’ and ‘ABC Fora’ which offer content on-demand. It will also examine SBS online initiatives. I wish to argue that the new media offer public broadcasters new prospects to provide forums and spaces for education, entertainment, public discussion and interaction online.

Clichéd gaze of the migrant on the Australian screen

The thesis takes up the question of the representation of the migrant on the Australian screen in terms of a specific set of concerns around the notions of stereotype and self-reflexivity. The stereotype is read as a self-referential image: hence, as a question of film spectatorship and identity; in short as an unconscious reflex or self image. The text of the thesis is in two parts: part one, comprises the production of the film ‘Italians at home’. It is the major component of research and text which, for this purpose, has been copied and submitted hereto on VHS video cassette. Part two, includes an analysis and discussion of the television documentary ‘The migrant experience’, and an exegesis, of the production, narrative and reception of the film ‘Italians at home’. The migrant experience is read and discussed as an exemplary text of dominant, stereotyped discourse of cultural difference; while ‘Italians at home’ is proposed as a parallel text and a self-reflexive reading and criticism of such a text. Both the television documentary and the film, deal with the representation and problematic of homogenised representations of ethnicity. In the case of ‘The migrant experience’, it is argued, that the figure of the migrant as other and self-image, functions as an object of Australian culture and discourse of national identity within a logic of representation of binary structures; while the film ‘Italians at home’, the question of self-referentiality is seen in terms of the viewing subject and a problematic of film representation; thus, the film attempts to make such signifying structures, visual codes and agreed assumptions of otherness visible, while, at the same time, attempting to displace them or pose them as a problem of representation or reading for the viewer.

Cutting choreography : redefining dance on screen

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'Hidden differences : new meanings in adaptations of literature to the screen'

Approaches to screen adaptation which either accept or reject 'fidelity' effectively hide from view the interrelations of difference that can be observed between literary and visual works of art. Further, comparative reading of a literary precursor and its screen adaptation alone hides from view the interrelations of difference between those and other works. By focussing on difference, screen adaptations can be viewed and read together with literary precursors and other intertextual influences to produce new stories that would otherwise remain hidden. This method of textual analysis, 'differential reading', is explained by reference to three screen adaptations, clustered around themes of unrequited love and rejection, which illustrate general insights into theoretical issues. When viewed and read together, differences can be observed between these works which produce new meanings. When one switches between the possibilities such new meanings create, views of the world embedded in the respective works are destabilised.

When planes fall out of the sky : the war body on screen

I can’t keep my eyes off the war body, even though in the repeated seeing of it I feel nauseous: implicated in, and affected by, its painful coming into being. In this age of the War on Terror, wherever I look, wherever I am directed to look by the all-seeing “vision machines” that “illuminate” our identities (Virilio 1994, 70), the body of the soldier, terrorist, hostage, and victim come into troubling view. These war bodies are real in the ontological and phenomenological sense; they are also metaphoric, simulated, and discursive. In this chapter I will define and explore the complex ways in which these three articulating axis—war, in its militaristic and ideological sense; the screen, in all its multifaceted forms and contexts; and the body, individual and social—conjoin and synthesize, disintegrate and dislocate, in a phantasmagoric but simultaneously desperately real collision of power, desire, and control. My main contention will be that the war body on screen is a “sickening” creation that we have desired into being, so that we may feel, better understand, and be taken over by its terror. This terror of living ultimately helps ensure our docility, a docility required by the late capitalist nation-state; it also reconnect us to our bodies in profoundly moving and potentially challenging ways.

Above the bottom line : understanding Australian screen content producers

The recently completed Australian Screen Producer Survey provides the most current and detailed picture of the culture, motivations and aspirations of a highly influential sector of the content production industries. Drawing upon the results of the survey, this article reflects on the historical and theoretical difficulties entailed in defining the producer as a professional category, before outlining some of the survey’s key findings. In particular, it examines producers’ demographic and sectoral profile, analyses their attitudes towards the relative importance of education and experience, and explores their underlying motivations. Amongst other findings, the survey reveals a tendency towards idealism among Australian producers that would appear to be at odds with the financial realities of the business. It therefore offers a variety of stakeholders (including government and educational institutions, as well as producers themselves) with the opportunity to reflect upon the future shape and direction of the Australian media industry.