The impact of delayed blood centrifuging, choice of collection tube, and type of assay on 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations

Studies have examined the associations between cancers and circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], but little is known about the impact of different laboratory practices on 25(OH)D concentrations. We examined the potential impact of delayed blood centrifuging, choice of collection tube, and type of assay on 25(OH)D concentrations. Blood samples from 20 healthy volunteers underwent alternative laboratory procedures: four centrifuging times (2, 24, 72, and 96 h after blood draw); three types of collection tubes (red top serum tube, two different plasma anticoagulant tubes containing heparin or EDTA); and two types of assays (DiaSorin radioimmunoassay [RIA] and chemiluminescence immunoassay [CLIA/LIAISON®]). Log-transformed 25(OH)D concentrations were analyzed using the generalized estimating equations (GEE) linear regression models. We found no difference in 25(OH)D concentrations by centrifuging times or type of assay. There was some indication of a difference in 25(OH)D concentrations by tube type in CLIA/LIAISON®-assayed samples, with concentrations in heparinized plasma (geometric mean, 16.1 ng ml−1) higher than those in serum (geometric mean, 15.3 ng ml−1) (p = 0.01), but the difference was significant only after substantial centrifuging delays (96 h). Our study suggests no necessity for requiring immediate processing of blood samples after collection or for the choice of a tube type or assay.

Characteristics of sustainable entrepreneurship : some early explorations from the CAUSEE study

Principal Topic: For forward thinking companies, the environment may represent the ''biggest opportunity for enterprise and invention the industrial world has ever seen'' (Cairncross 1990). Increasing awareness of environmental and sustainability issues through media including the promotion of Al Gore's ''An Inconvenient Truth'' has seen increased awareness of environmental and sustainability issues and increased demand for business processes that reduce detrimental environmental impacts of global development (Dean & McMullen 2007). The increased demand for more environmentally sensitive products and services represents an opportunity for the development of ventures that seek to satisfy this demand through entrepreneurial action. As a consequence, increasing recent market developments in renewable energy, carbon emissions, fuel cells, green building, and other sectors suggest an increasing importance of opportunities for environmental entrepreneurship (Dean and McMullen 2007) and increasingly important area of business activity (Schaper 2005). In the last decade in particular, big business has sought to develop a more ''sustainability/ green friendly'' orientation as a response to public pressure and increased government legislation and policy to improve environmental performance (Cohen and Winn 2007). Whilst much of the literature and media is littered with examples of sustainability practices of large firms, nascent and young sustainability firms have only recently begun generating strong research and policy interest (Shepherd, Kuskova and Patzelt 2009): not only for their potential to generate above average financial performance and returns owing to a greater popularity and demand towards sustainability products and services offerings, but also for their intent to lessen environmental impacts, and to provide a more accurate reflection of the ''true cost'' of market offerings taking into account carbon and environmental impacts. More specifically, researchers have suggested that although the previous focus has been on large firms and their impact on the environment, the estimated collective impact of entries and exits of nascent and young firms in development is substantial and could outweigh the combined environmental impact of large companies (Hillary, 2000). Therefore, it may be argued that greater attention should be paid to nascent and young firms and researching sustainability practices, for both their impact in reducing environmental impacts and potential higher financial performance. Whilst acknowledging this research only uses the first wave of a four year longitudinal study of nascent and young firms, it can still begin to provide initial analysis on which to continue further research. The aim of this paper therefore is to provide an overview of the emerging literature in sustainable entrepreneurship and to present some selected preliminary results from the first wave of the data collection, with comparison, where appropriate, of sustainable and firms that do not fulfil this criteria. ''One of the key challenges in evaluating sustainability entrepreneurship is the lack of agreement in how it is defined'' (Schaper, 2005: 10). Some evaluate sustainable entrepreneurs simply as one category of entrepreneurs with little difference between them and traditional entrepreneurs (Dees, 1998). Other research recognises values-based sustainable enterprises requiring a unique perspective (Parrish, 2005). Some see the environmental or sustainable entrepreneurship is a subset of social entrepreneurship (Cohen & Winn, 2007; Dean & McMullen, 2007) whilst others see it as a separate, distinct theory (Archer 2009). Following one of the first definitions of sustainability developed by the Brundtland Commission (1987) we define sustainable entrepreneurship as firms which ''seek to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future''. ---------- Methodology/Key Propositions: In this exploratory paper we investigate sustainable entrepreneurship using Cohen et al.'s (2008) framework to identify strategies of nascent and young entrepreneurial firms. We use data from The Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE). This study shares the general empirical approach with PSED studies in the US (Reynolds et al 1994; Reynolds & Curtin 2008). The overall study uses samples of 727 nascent (not yet operational) firms and another 674 young firms, the latter being in an operational stage but less than four years old. To generate the sub sample of sustainability firms, we used content analysis techniques on firm titles, descriptions and product descriptions provided by respondents. Two independent coders used a predefined codebook developed from our review of the sustainability entrepreneurship literature (Cohen et al. 2009) to evaluate the content based on terms such as ''sustainable'' ''eco-friendly'' ''renewable energy'' ''environment'' amongst others. The inter-rater reliability was checked and the Kappa's co-efficient was found to be within the acceptable range (0.746). 85 firms fulfilled the criteria given for inclusion in the sustainability cohort. ---------- Results and Implications: The results for this paper are based on Wave one of the CAUSEE survey which has been completed and the data is available for analysis. It is expected that the findings will assist in beginning to develop an understanding of nascent and young firms that are driven to contribute to a society which is sustainable, not just from an economic perspective (Cohen et al 2008), but from an environmental and social perspective as well. The CAUSEE study provides an opportunity to compare the characteristics of sustainability entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial firms without a stated environmental purpose, which constitutes the majority of the new firms created each year, using a large scale novel longitudinal dataset. The results have implications for Government in the design of better conditions for the creation of new business, firms who assist sustainability in developing better advice programs in line with a better understanding of their needs and requirements, individuals who may be considering becoming entrepreneurs in high potential arenas and existing entrepreneurs make better decisions.

An empirical study of data collection protocols for wireless sensor networks

In the past few years, numerous data collection protocols have been developed for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, there has been no comparison of their relative performance in realistic environments. Here we report the results of an empirical study using a Fleck3 sensor network testbed for four different data collection protocols: One phase pull Directed Diffusion (DD), Expected Number of Transmissions (ETX), ETX with explicit acknowledgment (ETX-eAck), and ETX with implicit acknowledgment (ETX-iAck). Our empirical study provides useful insights for future sensor network deployments. When the required application end-to-end reliability is not strict (e.g., 70%) and link quality is good, DD and ETX are the best options because of their simplicity and low routing overhead. Both ETX-eAck and ETX-iAck achieve more than 90% end-to-end reliability when the link quality is reasonable (less than 25% packet loss). When the link quality is good, ETX-iAck introduces significantly less routing overhead (up to 50%) than ETX-eAck. However, if the radio transceiver supports variable packet length, ETX-eAck can outperform ETX-iAck when the link quality is poor. The important message from this paper is that choice of data collection protocol should come after the operating environment is understood. This understanding must include the characteristics of the radio transceiver, and link loss statistics from a long-term (across seasons and weather variation) radio survey of the site.

Data collection, storage and retrieval with an underwater sensor network

In this paper we present a novel platform for underwater sensor networks to be used for long-term monitoring of coral reefs and �sheries. The sensor network consists of static and mobile underwater sensor nodes. The nodes communicate point-to-point using a novel high-speed optical communication system integrated into the TinyOS stack, and they broadcast using an acoustic protocol integrated in the TinyOS stack. The nodes have a variety of sensing capabilities, including cameras, water temperature, and pressure. The mobile nodes can locate and hover above the static nodes for data muling, and they can perform network maintenance functions such as deployment, relocation, and recovery. In this paper we describe the hardware and software architecture of this underwater sensor network. We then describe the optical and acoustic networking protocols and present experimental networking and data collected in a pool, in rivers, and in the ocean. Finally, we describe our experiments with mobility for data muling in this network.

The intention to notice : the collection, the tour and ordinary landscapes

The Intention to Notice: the collection, the tour and ordinary landscapes is concerned with how ordinary landscapes and places are enabled and conserved through making itineraries that are framed around the ephemera encountered by chance, and the practices that make possible the endurance of these material traces. Through observing and then examining the material and temporal aspects of a variety of sites/places, the museum and the expanded garden are identified as spaces where the expression of contemporary political, ecological and social attitudes to cultural landscapes can be realised through a curatorial approach to design, to effect minimal intervention. Three notions are proposed to encourage investigation into contemporary cultural landscapes: To traverse slowly to allow space for speculations framed by the topographies and artefacts encountered; to [re]make/[re]write cultural landscapes as discursive landscapes that provoke the intention to notice; and to reveal and conserve the fabric of everyday places. A series of walking, recording and making projects undertaken across a variety of cultural landscapes in remote South Australia, Melbourne, Sydney, London, Los Angeles, Chandigarh, Padova and Istanbul, investigate how communities of practice are facilitated through the invitation to notice and intervene in ordinary landscapes, informed by the theory and practice of postproduction and the reticent auteur. This community of practice approach draws upon chance encounters and it seeks to encourage creative investigation into places. The Intention to Notice is a practice of facilitating that also leads to recording traces and events; large and small, material and immaterial, that encourages both conjecture and archive. Most importantly, there is an open-ended invitation to commit and exchange through design interaction.

The first Australian nurse practitioner census : a protocol to guide standardized collection of information about an emergent professional group

Internationally, collection of reliable data on new and evolving health-care roles is crucial. We describe a protocol for design and administration of a national census of an emergent health-care role, namely nurse practitioners in Australia using databases held by regulatory authorities. A questionnaire was developed to obtain data on the role and scope of practice of Australian nurse practitioners. Our tool comprised five sections and included a total of 56 questions, using 28 existing items from the National Nursing and Midwifery Labour Force Census and nine items recommended in the Nurse Practitioner Workforce Planning Minimum Data Set. Australian Nurse Registering Authorities (n = 6) distributed the survey on our behalf. This paper outlines our instrument and methods. The survey was administered to 238 authorized Australian nurse practitioners (85% response rate). Rigorous collection of standardized items will ensure health policy is informed by reliable and valid data. We will re-administer the survey 2 years following the first survey to measure change over time.

Business Leaders Hall of Fame collection

"Qld Business Leaders Hall of Fame" is a research project that includes interviews with eminent Qlders that produced oral history interviews and digital stories about their life/company's achievements. This model was able to test and evaluate the use of oral history and digital storytelling for learning and community heritage purposes. Interviewees include; Sir John and Valmai Pidgeon, Joseph Saragossi, Robert Bryan, Clem Jones, Jim Kennedy, Sr Angela Mary, Castelmaine Perkins, Burns and Philp, Qantas, Don Argus & Steve Irwin.

The impact of users’ cognitive style on their navigational behaviors in web searching

User-Web interactions have emerged as an important area of research in the field of information science. In this study, we investigate the effects of users’ cognitive styles on their Web navigational styles and information processing strategies. We report results from the analyses of 594 minutes recorded Web search sessions of 18 participants engaged in 54 scenario-based search tasks. We use questionnaires, cognitive style test, Web session logs and think-aloud as the data collection instruments. We classify users’ cognitive styles as verbalisers and imagers based on Riding’s (1991) Cognitive Style Analysis test. Two classifications of navigational styles and three categories of information processing strategies are identified. Our study findings show that there exist relationships between users’ cognitive style, and their navigational styles and information processing strategies. Verbal users seem to display sporadic navigational styles, and adopt a scanning strategy to understand the content of the search result page, while imagery users follow a structured navigational style and reading approach. We develop a matrix and a model that depicts the relationships between users’ cognitive styles, and their navigational style and information processing strategies. We discuss how the findings from this study could help search engine designers to provide an adaptive navigation support to users.

Responses to 2008 Apology : Digital story collection

On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an apology to Australia’s Indigenous People on behalf of the Parliament of Australia. The State Library of Queensland, with assistance from Queensland University of Technology and Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, captured responses to this historic event in a collection of digital stories. Stories were created with: Tiga Bayles; Jeremy Robertson; Natalie Alberts; Sam Wagan Watson Jr; Nadine McDonald-Dowd; Anna Bligh; and Quentin Bryce.

Full Circle : a collection of prototypes

This exhibition engages with one of the key issues facing the fashion textiles industry in terms of future sustainability: that of the well being of fashion industry workers in Australia and New Zealand (people). This collection formed the basis of my honours dissertation (completed in New Zealand in 2008) which examines the contribution that design can make to sustainable manufacturing; particularly design for local production and consumption. An important aspect this work is the discussion of source, the work suggests that the made in China syndrome (in reference to the current state of over-consumerism in Australia and New Zealand) could be bought to a close through design to minimize waste and maximize opportunity for ‘people’: in this case both garment workers and the SMEs that employ them. The garments reflect the possibilities of focusing on a local approach that could be put into practice by a framework of SMEs that already exist. In addition the design process is highly transferrable and could be put into practice almost anywhere with minimal set up costs and a design ethos that progresses at the same pace as the skills of workers. This collection is a physical and conceptual embodiment of a source local/make local/sell local approach. The collection is an example of design that demonstrates that this is not an unrealistic ideal and is in fact possible through the development of a sustainable industry, in the sense of people, profit and planet, through adoption of a design process model that stops the waste at the source, by making better use of the raw materials and labour involved in making fashion garments. Although the focus of this research appears to centre on people and profit, this kind of source local/make local/sell local approach also has great benefits in terms of environmental sustainability.

Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE): design, data collection and descriptive results

The Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE) is a research programme that aims to uncover the factors that initiate, hinder and facilitate the process of emergence of new economic activities and organizations. It is widely acknowledged that entrepreneurship is one of the most important forces shaping changes in a country’s economic landscape (Baumol 1968; Birch 1987; Acs 1999). An understanding of the process by which new economic activity and business entities emerge is vital (Gartner 1993; Sarasvathy 2001). An important development in the study of ‘nascent entrepreneurs’ and ‘firms in gestation’ was the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) (Gartner et al. 2004) and its extensions in Argentina, Canada, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Yet while PSED I is an important first step towards systematically studying new venture emergence, it represents just the beginning of a stream of nascent venture studies – most notably PSED II is currently being undertaken in the US (2005– 10) (Reynolds and Curtin 2008).

A trial of the distribution of chlamydia self-collection postal specimen kits from Australian community pharmacies

We explored the feasibility of community pharmacies for the distribution of chlamydia specimen self-collection kits, which featured a transport medium allowing postage of urine specimens in Australia. Eligible clients were requested to complete a code-matched risk-screening questionnaire in the pharmacy, and the derived risk scores were compared to the test results from the corresponding specimen. Four Queensland pharmacies distributed 156 kits, while 44 questionnaires and 18 specimens were received.

The politics of technology adoption : Water metering in Progressive Era Chicago

This paper examines the interactions between knowledge and power in the adoption of technologies central to municipal water supply plans, specifically investigating decisions in Progressive Era Chicago regarding water meters. The invention and introduction into use of the reliable water meter early in the Progressive Era allowed planners and engineers to gauge water use, and enabled communities willing to invest in the new infrastructure to allocate costs for provision of supply to consumers relative to use. In an era where efficiency was so prized and the role of technocratic expertise was increasing, Chicago’s continued failure to adopt metering (despite levels of per capita consumption nearly twice that of comparable cities and acknowledged levels of waste nearing half of system production) may indicate that the underlying characteristics of the city’s political system and its elite stymied the implementation of metering technologies as in Smith’s (1977) comparative study of nineteenth century armories. Perhaps, as with Flyvbjerg’s (1998) study of the city of Aalborg, the powerful know what they want and data will not interfere with their conclusions: if the data point to a solution other than what is desired, then it must be that the data are wrong. Alternatively, perhaps the technocrats failed adequately to communicate their findings in a language which the political elite could understand, with the failure lying in assumptions of scientific or technical literacy rather than with dissatisfaction in outcomes (Benveniste 1972). When examined through a historical institutionalist perspective, the case study of metering adoption lends itself to exploration of larger issues of knowledge and power in the planning process: what governs decisions regarding knowledge acquisition, how knowledge and power interact, whether the potential to improve knowledge leads to changes in action, and, whether the decision to overlook available knowledge has an impact on future decisions.