Quantifying the relationship between mechanical loading and the skeletal response in pre- and early-pubertal girls

PURPOSE
Before exercise prescription for bone health can be recommended, the relationship between mechanical loading characteristics and the skeletal response need to be quantified. We asked i) does moderate impact exercise result in a greater gain in BMC than low impact exercise, ii) what are the loading characteristics associated with a moderate and low impact exercise program and does this differ from non-structured play?, and iii) does loading history affect the osteogenic response to a moderate or low impact program?

METHODS
Sixty-eight pre- and early-pubertal girls (aged 8.9 +/- 0.2 yrs) were randomized to take part in a moderate or low impact exercise program 3 times/wk for 8.5 mnths. The number and type of loads associated with the exercise classes and non-structured play (recess) were assessed from video footage. The magnitude of load was assessed using a pedar in-sole mobile system. Hours of moderate and high impact organized sport were assessed from a physical activity questionnaire.

RESULTS
The moderate and low impact exercise programs consisted of -400 impacts per class, but the jumping, hopping and dynamic activities performed during the moderate impact program produced forces ranging from 2 to 4 times body weight (BW) compared to -1 BW for the low impact program. Moderate impact exercise resulted in a 2.7% greater gain in BMC at the tibia compared to the low impact exercise. The moderate impact exercise program consisted of fewer low impacts (1-2 BW) and a higher number of moderate impacts (2-4BW) compared to those typically performed during non-structured play. There were greater gains in BMC in subjects participating in the moderate versus the low impact exercise programs who participated in 2 to 3 hours of moderate impact sports outside school (2.5% to 4.5%, p

CONCLUSION
Approximately 400 impacts ranging 2-4 BW, 3 times/wk was enough stimuli to result in an osteogenic response in normally active girls; even in those actively involved in moderate impact sports outside school.

Internet-based psychological and oral medical treatment compared to psychological treatment alone for ED

Introduction. Sexual function through pregnancy and the postpartum period is an important aspect of quality of life.
Despite this, prospective studies are limited, and the impact of body image on sexual function has not been explored.
Aims. The current study reports on a pilot study that evaluated the effectiveness of a combined Internet-based
psychological treatment program and oral medication compared to an Internet-based psychological program.
Methods. Twelve men with ED participated in the study.
Main Outcome Measures. Assessments were made pre and postintervention on ED, relationship satisfaction, sexual
satisfaction, self-esteem, and quality of life.
Results. Multivariate analyses of variance demonstrated that both treatment conditions showed improvements from
pretest to posttest in sexual functioning, relationships, and personal well-being.
Conclusions. This study indicates the importance of targeting psychological and relationship variables in the
treatment of ED. Further research with larger numbers of participants is necessary for a more rigorous evaluation
of treatment programs that combine psychological and medication interventions for ED.

Enhancing the health of medical students : outcomes of an integrated mindfulness and lifestyle program

Medical students experience various stresses and many poor health behaviours. Previous studies consistently show that student wellbeing is at its lowest pre-exam. Little core-curriculum is traditionally dedicated to providing self-care skills for medical students. This paper describes the development, implementation and outcomes of the Health Enhancement Program (HEP) at Monash University. It comprises mindfulness and ESSENCE lifestyle programs, is experientially-based, and integrates with biomedical sciences, clinical skills and assessment. This study measured the program’s impact on medical student psychological distress and quality of life. A cohort study performed on the 2006 first-year intake measured effects of the HEP on various markers of wellbeing. Instruments used were the depression, anxiety and hostility subscales of the Symptom Checklist-90-R incorporating the Global Severity Index (GSI) and the WHO Quality of Life (WHOQOL) questionnaire. Pre-course data (T1) was gathered mid-semester and post-course data (T2) corresponded with pre-exam week. To examine differences between T1 and T2 repeated measures ANOVA was used for the GSI and two separate repeated measures MANOVAs were used to examine changes in the subscales of the SCL-90-R and the WHOQOL-BREF. Follow-up t-tests were conducted to examine differences between individual subscales. A total of 148 of an eligible 270 students returned data at T1 and T2 giving a response rate of 55%. 90.5% of students reported personally applying the mindfulness practices. Improved student wellbeing was noted on all measures and reached statistical significance for the depression (mean T1 = 0.91, T2 = 0.78; p = 0.01) and hostility (0.62, 0.49; 0.03) subscales and the GSI (0.73, 0.64; 0.02) of the SCL-90, but not the anxiety subscale (0.62, 0.54; 0.11). Statistically significant results were also found for the psychological domain (62.42, 65.62; p < 0.001) but not the physical domain (69.11, 70.90; p = 0.07) of the WHOQOL. This study is the first to demonstrate an overall improvement in medical student wellbeing during the pre-exam period suggesting that the common decline in wellbeing is avoidable. Although the findings of this study indicate the potential for improving student wellbeing at the same time as meeting important learning objectives, the limitations in study design due to the current duration of follow-up and lack of a control group means that the data should be interpreted with caution. Future research should be directed at determining the contribution of individual program components, long-term outcomes, and impacts on future attitudes and clinical practice.

Determining clinical pharmacy workload by patient disease classification in medical and surgical patients

Aim: To determine the time needed to provide clinical pharmacy services to individual patient episodes for medical and surgical patients and the effect of patient presentation and complexity on the clinical pharmacy workload. Method: During a 5-month period in 2006 at two general hospitals, pharmacists recorded a defined range of activities that they provided for patients, including the actual times required for these tasks. A customised database linked to the two hospitals' patient administration systems stored the data according to the specific patient episode number. The influence of patient presentation and complexity on the clinical pharmacy activities provided was also examined. Results: The average time required by pharmacists to undertake a medication history interview and medication reconciliation was 9.6 (SD 4.9) minutes. Interventions required 5.7 (SD 4.6) minutes, clinical review of the medical record 5.5 (SD 4.0) minutes and medication order review 3.5 (SD 2.0) minutes. For all of these activities, the time required for medical patients was greater than for surgical patients and greater for 'complicated' patients. The average time required to perform all clinical pharmacy activities for 1071 completed patient episodes was 14.4 (SD 10.9) minutes and was greater for medical and 'complicated' patients. Conclusion: The time needed to provide clinical pharmacy services was affected by whether the patients were medical or surgical. The existence of comorbidities or complications affected these times. The times required to perform clinical pharmacy activities may not be consistent with recently proposed staff ratios for the provision of a basic clinical pharmacy service.

Examination of the "all hazards" approach to disaster management as applied to field disaster management and pre-hospital care in Australia

Disasters, emergencies, incidents, and major incidents - they all come back to the same thing regardless of what they are called. The common denominator is that there is loss of life, injury to people and animals and damage and destruction of property. The management of such events relies on four phases: 1. Prevention 2. Preparation 3. Response 4. Recovery Each of these phases is managed in a different way and often by different teams. Here, concentration has been given to phases 2 and 3, with particular emphasis on phase 3, Response. The words used to describe such events are often related to legislation. The terminology is detailed later. However, whatever the description, whenever prevention is not possible, or fails, then the need is to respond. Response is always better when the responders are prepared. Training is a major part of response preparation and this book is designed to assist those in the health industry who need to be ready when something happens. One of the training packages for responders is the Major Incident Medical Management and Support (MIMMS) Course and this work was designed to supplement the manual prepared by Hodgetts and Macway-Jones(87) in the UK. Included is what the health services responder, who may be sent to an event in which the main concern is trauma, should know. Concentration is on the initial response and does not deal in any detail with hospital reaction, the public health aspects, or the mental health support that provides psychological help to victims and responders, and which are also essential parts of disaster management. People, in times of disaster, have always been quick to offer assistance. It is now well recognised however, that the 'enthusiastic amateur', whilst being a well meaning volunteer, isn't always what is needed. All too often such people have made things worse and have sometimes ended up as victims themselves. There is a place now for volunteers and there probably always will be. The big difference is that these people must be well informed, well trained and well practiced if they are to be effective. Fortunately such people and organisations do exist. Without the work of the St John Ambulance, the State Emergency Service, the Rural Fire Service the Red Cross and the Volunteer Rescue Association, to mention only a few, our response to disasters would be far less effective. There is a strong history of individuals being available to help the community in times of crisis. Mostly these people were volunteers but there has also always been the need for a core of professional support. In the recent past, professional support mechanisms have been developed from lessons learned, particularly to situations that need a rapid and well organised response. As lessons are learned from an analysis of events, philosophy and methods have changed. Our present system is not perfect and perhaps never will be. The need for an 'all-hazards approach' makes detailed planning very difficult and so there will probably always be criticisms about the way an event was handled. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, provided we learn from it. That means that this text is certainly not the 'last word' and revisions as we learn from experience will be inevitable. Because the author works primarily in New South Wales, many of the explanations and examples are specific to that state. In Australia disaster response is a State, rather than a Commonwealth, responsibility and consequently, and inevitably, there are differences in management between the states and territories within Australia. With the influence of Emergency Management Australia, these differences are being reduced. This means that across state and territory boundaries, assistance is common and interstate teams can be deployed and assimilated into the response rapidly, safely, effectively and with minimum explanation. This text sets out to increase the understanding of what is required, what is in place and how the processes of response are managed. By way of introduction and background, examples are given of those situations that have occurred, or could happen. Man Made Disasters has been divided into two distinct sections. Those which are related to structures or transport and those related directly to people. The first section, Chapter 3, includes: • Transport accidents involving land, rail, sea or air vehicles. • Collapse of buildings for reasons other than earthquakes or storms. • Industrial accidents, including the release of hazardous substances and nuclear events. A second section dealing with the consequences of the direct actions of people is separated as Chapter 4, entitled 'People Disasters'. Included are: • Crowd incidents involving sports and entertainment venues. • Terrorism From Chapter 4 on, the emphasis is on the Response phase and deals with organisation and response techniques in detail. Finally there is a section on terminology and abbreviations. An appendix details a typical disaster pack content. War, the greatest of all man made disasters is not considered in this text.

Changing bodies, changing discourses : women's experiences of early menopause

Early menopause has been constructed by discourses of biological determinism as an untimely, but natural, failure of the female body. Medical discourses in particular have interpreted early menopause as a congenital irregularity and a rare anomaly of menopause at midlife. In this thesis I challenge the notion that early menopause is an innate imperfection related only to women’s age. I propose that early menopause is dependent upon the cultural interpretations of individual women and is constituted through the mercurial and multiple discourses of women who have this embodied experience. Moreover, I reveal that early menopause is a contemporary condition and that its location in history is inextricably bound to discourses of risk, naturalism and the self. Further I make the assumption that having an early menopause both affects and is an effect of women’s fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. I have drawn upon a broad range of sources to provide a sociological analysis of early menopause. Literature on early menopause is dominated by positivist discourses, yet many alternate discourses negotiate these influential constructions. I suggest here that the perception of early menopause as a natural fault is merely a construction by medical discourses and does not incorporate the dynamic discourses of early-menopausal women. Moreover, the restriction of early menopause to a genetic female failure excludes the majority of women who have an early menopause through iatrogenisis. This omission occurs through the failure of positivist discourses to accommodate diversity in discourses. Recent sociological and feminist studies have vindicated menopausal women. They have reconstructed menopause through notions of embodiment and have removed the veil of negativity used by the medical sciences to contain menopausal women (Komesaroff, Rothfield and Daly 1997). The visibility of menopausal women, however, remains connected to age. Menopause has been created as a predictable consequence of aging and as such has come to be synonymous with middle age. Nowadays, even men are said to experience menopause at midlife (Carruthers 1996). But early menopause is constituted within the discourses of women who have this experience. Medico-scientific discourses, based upon theories of genetic inevitability, disregard this perspective. Consequently early menopause is subsumed by naturalistic discourses that relate menopause to midlife. Such restraint reflects the unease created by menopause that does not coincide with prescribed life stages. Women's experiences of their changing bodies are largely unheard. Thus, women who have an early menopause are faced with a chasm of ‘cultural non-recognition’ (Fraser 1997). Conjointly with this discursive repression early-menopausal women face social imbalances that are transacted as both cause and consequence of early menopause. In particular the contemporary creation of early menopause is bound to the social and historical location of women as a group. Women are exploited by the institution of medicine, ‘exposure to environmental toxicity’ (Fraser 1997: 11) and commercialization as causes of early menopause. Yet the corporeal effects of practices of risk avoidance (Beck 1993), social practices (Shilling 1993) and Western consumerism (Lupton 1994) fail to be recognized. I address these problematics through a poststructural and feminist critique that assumes moments of commonality among women, while at the same time recognizes shifting and multiple differences (Nicholson 1999). I suggest here that early menopause falls into cultural misrecognition in Fraser's (1997) terms and argue that it is united concurrently with the gender injustice of androcentrism (Fraser 1997: 21). Fraser (1997: 16) suggests that it is only by relating these dual problematics that we are able to make sense of current dilemmas. Thus I have critiqued early menopause through a connection between individual embodied experiences of early menopause and early menopause as a modern phenomenon that is specific to women. I have attempted to unravel these arguments that simultaneously call to ‘... abolish gender differentiation and to valorize gender specificity’ (Fraser 1997: 21) while at the same time acknowledging their interconnectedness. An approach of merely combining women’s discourses with overarching social issues would be inadequate as not only do these problematics intersect but they also can be opposed. As Fraser (1997: 25) notes with her theory, redressing one aspect of cultural or social analysis can further imbalance another. For instance making visible the diversity and uniqueness of individual experiences of early menopause could detract from acknowledging the contemporary construction of early menopause through social inequality. Crucial to this understanding is a destabilizing of the binary construction of differences between the sexes that makes way for a reconstruction of early menopause through ‘sexual slippage’ (Matus 1995). In this thesis I look for a subtlety between the particular and the collective that views early menopause as concurrently a singular and changeable experience as well as imbedded in social practice. I suggest that these concepts are entwined as interactive effects of early menopause. Thus I have analyzed the bivalent problematics of the embodiment and social location of early menopause as imbricated, dynamic and unending discourses. From this perspective I reviewed the literature that was available on early menopause. In Chapter One I look to descriptions of early menopause and note that it has disappeared into a conglomeration of disparate, mostly medical, discourses that are contradictory. Nevertheless medical discourses offer ‘conclusive’ definitions of early menopause that are based on naturalistic views of the body (Shilling 1994). The determinants used are inconsistent and do not include women's discourses of early menopause. Thus, dominant medical discourses obscure women’s embodied experiences of early menopause and ignore the contemporary causes of early menopause. In Chapter Two I examine the causes of early menopause as a way of explaining the disparity between medical discourses and my anecdotal observations of early menopause as a fairly common contemporary occurrence. The relatively recent escalation in gynaecological surgery, especially hysterectomy, appears to account almost single-handedly for early menopause as a current phenomenon. Moreover, the extraordinary number of women who have their uterus removed at hysterectomy can be interpreted as a modern implementation of ancient anxieties. Women's sexuality has been constructed throughout history as problematic and this unease has been translated through women's bodies as dangerous and in need of control (Greer 1992). Thus social concerns which have evolved historically have emerged through the representation of a woman's uterus as an unseen, dark and mysterious risk (Beck 1993). Medical discourses define this risk and are able to negate the so-called dangers of women's sexuality through the surgical removal of their organs. Widespread negotiation of medical discourses is apparent, as hysterectomy in the modern Western world is the most common of all surgical operations (Hufnagel 1989). It is overwhelmingly the most common cause of early menopause as well. I examine also the historical condemnation of infertile women and how this anxiety has been transposed to the modern world through the commercialization of reproduction. Transactions of this social unease can cause early menopause. For instance the medical technology of in-vitro fertilization (I.V.F.) has been offered as a panacea for the infertility of early menopause but, paradoxically, can cause early menopause as well. Conception through technology has been normalized as a viable option for women who are unable to conceive and understandings of I.V.F. have moved into everyday discourse. Medical discourses have constructed fertility as a saleable item and infertile women expect that they can purchase this merchandise. Human eggs have become lucrative commodities that now are available in the market place. Egg ‘donation’ for I.V.F. programs can hasten the attrition rate of eggs and can cause early menopause in some pre-menopausal women (Rowland 1992: 24). Even the recycling of a woman’s uterus supposedly has become a possibility through the transferring of this ‘used’ organ at hysterectomy to a recipient woman who can use the other woman’s uterus as a ‘gestational garage’ (Rogers 1998). In this way women have been disembodied as mechanical systems with inter-changeable body parts and the potentially detrimental consequences of these commercial transactions are ignored. In addition I show how early menopause can be caused by the connection between the self and the social structure. Women's subjectivity is constituted through the cultural discourses available to them and these discourses affect social behaviour (Lupton 1995). For instance smoking and dieting have been identified as causes of early menopause. These activities have been related to the creation of women’s bodies as hetero-sexually desirable and are endemic to young women (Evans-Young 1995). This suggests that cultural causes of early menopause are transactions of sexual politics. Yet there is a paucity of literature that acknowledges the relationship between women’s subjectivity and early menopause. Thus the second chapter exposes a link between sexual politics and causes of early menopause through women's relationships with risk, naturalism and the self. In Chapter Three I deconstruct early menopause through theoretical considerations. I rely on an overarching poststructuralism that embraces the concept of fragmented plural discourses and the subjectivity of menopausal women as a continuous process (Komesaroff 1997: 61). I have woven these variables through broad feminist critiques (Leonard 1997). Through this eclectic approach I hoped to find some loose alignment between the corporeal, ontological and embodied dimensions of early menopause. The recurring themes of sexuality, fertility and subjectivity emerge through deconstructing discourses of sexual difference as immutable and non-negotiable; exposing ‘premature ovarian failure’ as a discursive construction that censures early-menopausal women; and acknowledging the discourses of individual women as unique, diverse and dynamic. I looked to a method of exposing some of these individual discourses and in Chapter Four I describe a critical research process aimed at understanding early menopause as a lived experience. In the remaining chapters I align these ontological arguments with an analysis of the discourses of women who had experienced or were experiencing an early menopause. This section partly relieves the ‘cultural non-recognition’ of the discourses of early-menopausal women. I recorded the narratives of fifty early-menopausal women through in-depth interviews and used this empirical data to direct the study. This data provides the opportunity to understand early menopause as an assortment of embodied experiences. For instance women’s experiences of age at commencement of menopause spanned over three and half decades. They did not reflect the age specifications prescribed by medical discourses. Rather women interpreted their experiences within their own discourses and determined their menopause as early based upon the expectations of their cultural context. Many of the women experienced changes attributed to menopause at midlife. It was not these changes that were significant to early-menopausal women it was how each woman translated these changes that provided meanings of early menopause. In Chapter Five I introduce the women through a table that connects the varying experiences of each woman. This profile shows that, in the main, the women’s experiences of early menopause were unexpected. I suggest that this is due to the disparity between early-menopausal women’s experiences and the current age and social norms of menopause. By bracketing the women into cohorts patterns emerged displaying differences between women who had menopause in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties. Adolescent women had intense feelings of abnormality and despair. Women who were in their twenties were less devastated by menopause than the younger women but described their sexuality and self-identity as changing. And although some women in their thirties were shocked or dismayed to have an early menopause others were ambivalent or happy. These women also described their sexuality and self-identity through changing discourses. A number of the women who were in their forties said that they were ‘too young for the menopause’ but were far less despondent than the younger women. It seemed that the greater the distance between age norms and social norms the more negatively women responded. Age norms that determine the social norms of women's lives through a ‘biological clock’ are constructed to reflect social values. But age is a social construction that changes over time. Thus it would appear that women’s changing bodies and changing discourses of early menopause are in the process of recreating age and social norms around menopause. In Chapter Six I draw upon women’s narratives that describe a connection between early menopause and sexuality. Yet the respondents were not unified in their constructions of sexuality. For instance a number of the women rejected the containment of their sexuality as absolute and defined in terms of bi-lateral hetero-sexual opposition. The discourses of these women constructed their sexuality as continuously flexible. Some early-menopausal women described this sexual mobility as an equivocal relationship between their sexuality, reproductive capacity and female organs. Other women articulated their sexuality as vacillating, ambiguous and unrepresentative of the so-called ‘true woman’. Several felt that they were not meant to have female reproductive organs at all. Nearly one third of the women had had their uterus removed at hysterectomy and the reproductive organs of two women were rudimentary. Women’s narratives showed that the social value of fertility influences constructions of early menopause. In Chapter Seven I record the contrast between the poignant responses of women who wished to have a baby of their own and other women who resisted discourses that entwine reproductivity with being a woman. For instance some women negotiated fertility through economic discourses of consumerism with the expectation that they could purchase conception as a commodity. Other women welcomed their early menopause as freedom from contraceptive concerns and others had no interest in reproduction at all. Thus discord arose through discourses that problematize early-menopausal women as non-reproductive and discourses that value variability. In addition many of the women’s accounts constructed their subjectivity as mobile, challenging the notion that discourses of the self are immutable. Chapter Eight presents narratives which suggest that the subjectivity of many women was altered continuously by early menopause. Yet some of the women rejected the construction of their subjectivity as unfluctuating. These contradictions reflect the uncertainties of the contemporary world. Nevertheless most respondents found that the tethering of menopause to constructions of midlife was incongruous with their own experiences. Many women refused to accept the label of social redundancy attached to middle-aged women. They moved their subjectivity beyond the reproductive body to a shifting and tractable identity of the self. This thesis demonstrates that the medical construction of early menopause as a rare and natural female flaw varies from women's experiences which suggest that early menopause is common and discursively constructed. This disparity has occurred through the privilege placed upon the construction of bodies as immutable and sexually static. This privileging has obscured the multi-dimensional causes of early menopause and given preference to a mono-causal theory. By exposing the variety of causes of early menopause the medical construction of women through a universal and unalterable body of reproduction is challenged. Moreover, women's discourses of early menopause demonstrate that the medical reduction of early menopause to a spontaneous bio-chemical malfunction has ignored the volatility of women’s embodied experiences. Women experience early menopause variously and through mercurial discourses. I suggest here that women's discourses of their experiences of early menopause reflect recurring and restructuring philosophical quandaries of fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. While there can be no representative claims made from this thesis it contributes to an understanding of the embodied experiences of early menopause. It provides an understanding of the creation of early menopause through social practices and goes part way to redressing the problematics of what Fraser terms ‘cultural non-recognition’. But, more importantly, it acknowledges early menopause as a variety of experiences where women interpret their changing bodies through changing discourses.

CoQ10 conveys protection from oxidative stress in plasma but not skeletal muscle

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is commonly consumed as an antiaging supplement at doses of 30–210 mg/day. The aim of the study was to determine if CoQ10 alters markers of antioxidant status, oxidative damage, and gene expression in aging skeletal muscle. Female guinea pigs aged 26 months were supplemented for 6 weeks with CoQ10 at a human equivalent dose of 10 mg/kg/day. Body weight, plasma CoQ10 concentration, and WBC DNA abasic sites were measured at weeks 0, 2, 4, and 6 of the supplementation period. At the end of supplementation, concentrations of skeletal muscle CoQ10, glutathione, malondialdehyde, protein carbonyls, DNA abasic sites, activities of catalase and glutathione peroxidase, and the gene expression of cyctochrome c oxidase subunits were measured. Dietary supplementation with CoQ10 elevated plasma CoQ10 levels (pre 73 ± 3 nmol/L, post 581 ± 15 nmol/L, P < 0.05) and decreased abasic sites in WBC DNA (pre 16.8 ± 0.5 Ap/100000 bp, post 9.7 ± 0.4 Ap/100000 bp, P < 0.05). In contrast, all of the measures made in skeletal muscle were not different between groups (P > 0.05). These results indicate that dietary supplementation with CoQ10 at a dose of 10 mg/kg/day may be capable of increasing antioxidant protection and reducing oxidative damage in the plasma, but may have no effect in skeletal muscle.

The technological knowledge of early childhood pre-service educators

With the current introduction of new national and state Early Years Frameworks and the increased interest and activity in educating early childhood educators, it was timely to investigate what knowledge, if any, early childhood educators had when it came to design technology. Although not prescriptive around technological understanding, the new Framework highlights children's learning related to "creativity", "exploration", "collaboration", and "problem-solving", in the context of connecting with people and technologies. This small pilot project asked 20 pre-service educators a number of questions designed to elicit both their understanding and their practices relating to technology. Responses were recorded and from those given, it was apparent that the Early childhood educators not only included technological activities in their daily practices with children, but generally had a basic understanding of technology, differentiated from other forms of learning activities.

Fracture toughness of titanium foams for medical applications

The fracture behavior of titanium open foam is characterized and the R-curves of crack propagation from pre-cracks are measured. The crack growth has been optically observed, the measured initiation toughness, J_IC, has been analyzed and the effect of material morphology on the J_IC is discussed. The fracture toughness was found to be dependent on the expanding crack bridging zone at the back of the crack tip. The compact tension specimens also have some plastic collapse along the ligaments and it has shown that the titanium foam with a higher relative density is tougher. The non-uniform stressing within the plastic zone at the crack tip and the plastic collapse of cell topology behind the tip was found to be the primary cause of the R-curve behavior in low relative density titanium foams.

Independent functions of yeast Pcf11p in pre-mRNA 3´ end processing and in transcription termination

Pcf11p, an essential subunit of the yeast cleavage factor IA, is required for pre-mRNA 3' end processing, binds to the C-terminal domain (CTD) of the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RNAP II) and is involved in transcription termination. We show that the conserved CTD interaction domain (CID) of Pcf11p is essential for cell viability. Interestingly, the CTD binding and 3' end processing activities of Pcf11p can be functionally uncoupled from each other and provided by distinct Pcf11p fragments in trans. Impaired CTD binding did not affect the 3' end processing activity of Pcf11p and a deficiency of Pcf11p in 3' end processing did not prevent CTD binding. Transcriptional run-on analysis with the CYC1 gene revealed that loss of cleavage activity did not correlate with a defect in transcription termination, whereas loss of CTD binding did. We conclude that Pcf11p is a bifunctional protein and that transcript cleavage is not an obligatory step prior to RNAP II termination.

Intelligent clothing for automated recognition of human physical activities in free-living environment

This paper presents an intelligent clothing framework for human daily activity recognition using a single waist-worn tri-axial accelerometer sensor coupled with a robust pattern recognition system. The activity recognition algorithm is realized to distinguish six different physical activities through three major steps: acceleration signal collection/pre-processing, wavelet-based principle component analysis, and a support vector machine classifier. The proposed activity recognition method has been experimentally validated through two batches of trials with an overall mean classification accuracy of 95.25 and 94.87%, respectively. These results suggest that the intelligent clothing is not only able to learn the activity patterns but also capable of generalizing new data from both known and unknown subjects. This enables the proposed intelligent clothing to be applied in a comfortable and in situ assessment of human physical activities, which would open up new market segments to the textile industry.

Social commerce activities – a taxonomy

In recent years businesses large and small have jumped on the Social Commerce bandwagon, all in the hope of utilising social media services to facilitate various Social Commerce activities. Given the growing influence of social media on social, economic and political events globally, the rise in business interest in Social Commerce is not unexpected. This paper examines the Social Commerce activities of several Fortune 500 businesses. It analyses and categorises how businesses utilise social media to interact with customers, trading partners, employees and other important stakeholders. Two important themes have emerged, firstly, businesses utilise social media services mostly to facilitate Pre- and Post-transactional type Social Commerce activities such as marketing and customer support. Opportunities exist for businesses to leverage social media for transactional type Social Commerce activities such as purchase, payment, and order-fulfilment. Secondly, the business use of social media seems haphazard. Stakeholders wishing to succeed in Social Commerce will have to reformulate their strategies to take advantage of how users behave on social media services and opportunities to draw synergy from utilising an assortment of social media services. The paper contributes to theory by developing a taxonomy of Social Commerce activities. It contributes to practice by highlighting opportunities to engage in Social Commerce activities, in particular, to leverage opportunities from implementing Transactional Social Commerce.

Positioning people with intellectual disabilities as the experts : enhancing pre-service teachers’ competencies in teaching for diversity

The need for graduate teachers to own their professional responsibilities to engage successfully with students with special educational needs (SENs) in mainstream classrooms has been recognised in educational policies and programmes in many countries for well over two decades. Despite wide-ranging research, questions remain as to how pre-service education courses can help beginning teachers to develop the required commitment, knowledge and pedagogies to feel confident in teaching students with disabilities. Challenges to find new ways to enhance pre-service teachers’ familiarity with special needs children, overcome resistance from some towards including SEN students in mainstream classrooms and develop a sense of efficacy in teaching are common to many programmes. In this paper, we report on a pilot study where adults with intellectual disabilities, as members of a community theatre, were positioned as the experts and explored their schooling experiences and personal biographies with soon-to-be graduate teachers in a 3 h workshop. Taking the lead and working collaboratively with the workshop participants, members of Fusion Theatre used drama activities to develop understandings of strategies that helped them to learn. By challenging the traditional power relationships between those labelled as ‘disabled’ and those who would be teachers, the workshop helped the participants to engage on many levels. Here, we report on the data, analyse the findings and discuss implications for other pre-service programmes.

Zebrafish as a genetic model in pre-clinical drug testing and screening

The traditional drug discovery pipeline for the identification and development of compounds that selectively target specific molecules to ameliorate disease remains a major focus for medical research. However, the zebrafish is increasingly providing alternative strategies for various components of this pipeline. Zebrafish and their embryos are small, easily accessible and relatively low cost, making them applicable to high-throughput, small molecule screening. Zebrafish can also be manipulated by a range of forward and reverse genetics techniques to facilitate gene discovery and functional studies. Moreover, their physiological and developmental complexity provides accurate models of human disease to underpin mechanism of action and in vivo validation studies. Finally, several of these biological characteristics make zebrafish eminently suitable for toxicity testing, including eco-toxicology. Here we review the application of zebrafish to preclinical drug development and toxicity testing, including recent advances in mutant generation, drug screening and toxicology that serve to further enhance the capabilities of this valuable model organism in drug discovery.

Australian Mothers' notions of risk and uncertainty in relation to their pre-teen children

In this article we examine the ways discourses of risk manifested and played out within and across two groups of Australian mothers living in two large urban centres in Australia: the first comprised of mothers who had a pre-teen child diagnosed with an eating disorder (n = 13); the second of mothers who had a pre-teen child without the symptoms or diagnosis of an eating disorder (n = 13). In 2011 and 2012, we conducted in-depth interviews with the mothers in their homes on their ideas about health and their relationships with their children. An analysis of the data collected from these interviews indicated that having a pre-teen child diagnosed with an eating disorder had a decisive impact on how the mothers constituted and responded to risk. For mothers, who had a pre-teen child with an eating disorder, risk was intensified by bio-medical discourses. The particular intensifications of risk limited the ways in which mothers could act and often threatened to undermine their abilities as competent carers. By contrast, the mothers who did not have a pre-teen child with an eating disorder spoke about risk less directly, and with less sense of immediacy. Where these mothers acknowledged risk discourses particularly in regard to health, they were in a stronger position to negotiate them. Our analysis indicates that the ways in which mothers responded to risk is contingent on circumstances and contexts. Mothers’ responses to risk were related to the calculability of the risk and their perceived capacity to manage it.