Percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents or coronary artery bypass surgery in subjects with type 2 diabetes : evaluation of: Farkouth ME, Domanski M, Sleeper LA, et al. Strategies for multivessel revascularization in patients with diabetes. N Engl J Med 2012;367(25):2375-84, and Contini GA, Nicolini F, Fortuna D, et al. Five-year outcomes of surgical or percutaneous myocardial revascularization in diabetic patients. Int J Cardiol 2012. [Epub ahead of print]

There is debate as to whether percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stents or coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) is the best procedure for subjects with type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease requiring revascularization. There is some evidence that following these procedures there is less further revascularization with CABG than PCI in subjects with diabetes. Two recent studies; the FREEDOM (Future Revascularization Evaluation in patients with Diabetes mellitus: Optimal Management of Multivessel Disease) trial, and a trial using a real world diabetic population from a Registry, have shown that the benefits of CABG over PCI in subjects with type 2 diabetes extends to lower rates of death and myocardial infarct, in addition to lower rates of revascularization. However, the rates of stroke may be higher with CABG than PCI with drug-eluting stents in this population. Thus, if CABG is going to be preferred to PCI in subjects with type 2 diabetes and multivessel coronary disease, consideration should be given to how to reduce the rates of stroke with CABG.

Market turbulence, temporal orientation and firm performance

This study investigates the role of environmental dynamics (i.e., market turbulence) as a factor influencing an organisation’s top management temporal orientation, and the impact of temporal orientation on innovative and financial performance. Results show that firm’s operating in highly turbulent markets exhibit higher degrees of future orientation, as opposed to present orientation. Future-oriented (rather than present-oriented) firms also experience higher levels of both incremental and radical innovations, which in turn generate financial performance. The study highlights the important role of shared strategic mindset (which is contextually influenced) as a driving factor behind the firm innovative and financial performance.

Keep ahead of the workforce development curve through the establishment of standardised training for rail incident investigators

The Australasian rail industry lacks a consistently accepted standard of minimal training necessary to perform rail incident investigations. Current Australasian courses do not offer the breadth of development required for a comprehensive career pathway in incident investigation (Biggs, Banks & Dovan, 2012; Short, Kains & Harris, 2010).

How 50 years of TV has become Groundhog Day

All the whiz-bang gadgets of television have struggled to turn on the lightbulb of creativity.

A recommendation approach dealing with multiple market segments

A new community and communication type of social networks - online dating - are gaining momentum. With many people joining in the dating network, users become overwhelmed by choices for an ideal partner. A solution to this problem is providing users with partners recommendation based on their interests and activities. Traditional recommendation methods ignore the users’ needs and provide recommendations equally to all users. In this paper, we propose a recommendation approach that employs different recommendation strategies to different groups of members. A segmentation method using the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) is proposed to customize users’ needs. Then a targeted recommendation strategy is applied to each identified segment. Empirical results show that the proposed approach outperforms several existing recommendation methods.

Future-proofing the pharmacy profession in a hypercompetitive market

This paper highlights the hypercompetitive nature of the current pharmacy landscape in Australia and to suggest either a superior level of differentiation strategy or a focused differentiation strategy targeting a niche market as two viable, alternative business models to cost leadership for small, independent community pharmacies. A description of the Australian health care system is provided as well as background information on the current community pharmacy environment in Australia. The authors propose a differentiation or focused differentiation strategy based on cognitive professional services (CPS) which must be executed well and of a superior quality to competitors' services. Market research to determine the services valued by target customers and that they are willing to pay for is vital. To achieve the superior level of quality that will engender high patient satisfaction levels and loyalty, pharmacy owners and managers need to develop, maintain and clearly communicate service quality specifications to the staff delivering these services. Otherwise, there will be a proliferation of pharmacies offering the same professional services with no evident service differential. However, to sustain competitive advantage over the long-term, these smaller, independent community pharmacies will need to exploit a broad core competency base in order to be able to continuously introduce new sources of competitive advantage. With the right expertise, the authors argue that smaller, independent community pharmacies can successfully deliver CPS and sustain profitability in a hypercompetitive market.

Selective combination of visual and thermal imaging for resilient localization in adverse conditions : day and night, smoke and fire

Long-term autonomy in robotics requires perception systems that are resilient to unusual but realistic conditions that will eventually occur during extended missions. For example, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) need to be capable of operating safely in adverse and low-visibility conditions, such as at night or in the presence of smoke. The key to a resilient UGV perception system lies in the use of multiple sensor modalities, e.g., operating at different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, to compensate for the limitations of a single sensor type. In this paper, visual and infrared imaging are combined in a Visual-SLAM algorithm to achieve localization. We propose to evaluate the quality of data provided by each sensor modality prior to data combination. This evaluation is used to discard low-quality data, i.e., data most likely to induce large localization errors. In this way, perceptual failures are anticipated and mitigated. An extensive experimental evaluation is conducted on data sets collected with a UGV in a range of environments and adverse conditions, including the presence of smoke (obstructing the visual camera), fire, extreme heat (saturating the infrared camera), low-light conditions (dusk), and at night with sudden variations of artificial light. A total of 240 trajectory estimates are obtained using five different variations of data sources and data combination strategies in the localization method. In particular, the proposed approach for selective data combination is compared to methods using a single sensor type or combining both modalities without preselection. We show that the proposed framework allows for camera-based localization resilient to a large range of low-visibility conditions.

Exploring the international market selection of small to medium sized enterprises

Research into the international market selection (IMS) of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) commonly identifies psychic distance and networks as being the most important determinants of a firm’s IMS. Whether regional factors, such as bilateral and multilateral regional integration, are important as determinants of IMS is not well understood. This paper utilises a multiple case study method through in-depth interviews to investigate, in the context of the current business environment, how important regionalisation, psychic distance and networks are as determinants of IMS among SMEs in the food and beverage industries within Australia and Malaysia. The study found regional considerations to be important to the IMS of Malaysian but not Australian firms, while psychic distance was considered an important determinant on IMS by only half of the sampled firms. The role of networks, however, was considered the most important determinant of IMS among all the sampled firms.

Defining expected cost for the air conditioning to avoid a price spike of electricity market under DSR model

This work presents a demand side response model (DSR) which assists small electricity consumers, through an aggregator, exposed to the market price to proactively mitigate price and peak impact on the electrical system. The proposed model allows consumers to manage air-conditioning when as a function of possible price spikes. The main contribution of this research is to demonstrate how consumers can minimise the total expected cost by optimising air-conditioning to account for occurrences of a price spike in the electricity market. This model investigates how pre-cooling method can be used to minimise energy costs when there is a substantial risk of an electricity price spike. The model was tested with Queensland electricity market data from the Australian Energy Market Operator and Brisbane temperature data from the Bureau of Statistics during hot days on weekdays in the period 2011 to 2012.

A novel, automated nutrition screening system as a predictor of nutritional risk in an oncology day treatment unit (ODTU)

Purpose Paper-based nutrition screening tools can be challenging to implement in the ambulatory oncology setting. The aim of this study was to determine the validity of the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) and a novel, automated nutrition screening system compared to a ‘gold standard’ full nutrition assessment using the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA). Methods An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted in an outpatient oncology day treatment unit (ODTU) within an Australian tertiary health service. Eligibility criteria were as follows: ≥18 years, receiving outpatient anticancer treatment and English literate. Patients self-administered the MST. A dietitian assessed nutritional status using the PGSGA, blinded to the MST score. Automated screening system data were extracted from an electronic oncology prescribing system. This system used weight loss over 3 to 6 weeks prior to the most recent weight record or age-categorised body mass index (BMI) to identify nutritional risk. Sensitivity and specificity against PG-SGA (malnutrition) were calculated using contingency tables and receiver operating curves. Results There were a total of 300 oncology outpatients (51.7 % male, 58.6±13.3 years). The area under the curve (AUC) for weight loss alone was 0.69 with a cut-off value of ≥1 % weight loss yielding 63 % sensitivity and 76.7 % specificity. MST (score ≥2) resulted in 70.6 % sensitivity and 69.5 % specificity, AUC 0.77. Conclusions Both the MST and the automated method fell short of the accepted professional standard for sensitivity (~≥80 %) derived from the PG-SGA. Further investigation into other automated nutrition screening options and the most appropriate parameters available electronically is warranted to support targeted service provision.

The role of the market sub-system and the socio-technical sub-system in innovation and firm performance : a dynamic capabilities approach

Organizational learning has been studied as a key factor in firm performance and internationalization. Moving beyond the past emphasis on market learning, we develop a more complete explanation of learning, its relationship to innovation, and their joint effect on early internationalization. We theorize that, driven by the founders’ international vision, early internationalizing firms employ a dual subsystem of dynamic capabilities: a market subsystem consisting of market-focused learning capability and marketing capability, and a socio-technical subsystem comprised of network learning capability and internally focused learning capability. We argue that innovation mediates the proposed relationship between the dynamic capability structure and early internationalization. We conduct case studies to develop the conceptual framework and test it in a field survey of early internationalizing firms from Australia and the United States. Our findings indicate a complex interplay of capabilities driving innovation and early internationalization. We provide theoretical and practical implications and offer insights for future research.

Estimating present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the coastline of Australia : tides, extra-tropical storm surges and mean sea level

The occurrence of extreme water levels along low-lying, highly populated and/or developed coastlines can lead to considerable loss of life and billions of dollars of damage to coastal infrastructure. Therefore it is vitally important that the exceedance probabilities of extreme water levels are accurately evaluated to inform risk-based flood management, engineering and future land-use planning. This ensures the risk of catastrophic structural failures due to under-design or expensive wastes due to over-design are minimised. This paper estimates for the first time present day extreme water level exceedence probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia. A high-resolution depth averaged hydrodynamic model has been configured for the Australian continental shelf region and has been forced with tidal levels from a global tidal model and meteorological fields from a global reanalysis to generate a 61-year hindcast of water levels. Output from this model has been successfully validated against measurements from 30 tide gauge sites. At each numeric coastal grid point, extreme value distributions have been fitted to the derived time series of annual maxima and the several largest water levels each year to estimate exceedence probabilities. This provides a reliable estimate of water level probabilities around southern Australia; a region mainly impacted by extra-tropical cyclones. However, as the meteorological forcing used only weakly includes the effects of tropical cyclones, extreme water level probabilities are underestimated around the western, northern and north-eastern Australian coastline. In a companion paper we build on the work presented here and more accurately include tropical cyclone-induced surges in the estimation of extreme water level. The multi-decadal hindcast generated here has been used primarily to estimate extreme water level exceedance probabilities but could be used more widely in the future for a variety of other research and practical applications.

Estimating present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the coastline of Australia : tropical cyclone-induced storm surges

The incidence of major storm surges in the last decade have dramatically emphasized the immense destructive capabilities of extreme water level events, particularly when driven by severe tropical cyclones. Given this risk, it is vitally important that the exceedance probabilities of extreme water levels are accurately evaluated to inform risk-based flood and erosion management, engineering and for future land-use planning and to ensure the risk of catastrophic structural failures due to under-design or expensive wastes due to over-design are minimised. Australia has a long history of coastal flooding from tropical cyclones. Using a novel integration of two modeling techniques, this paper provides the first estimates of present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia, and the first estimates that combine the influence of astronomical tides, storm surges generated by both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones, and seasonal and inter-annual variations in mean sea level. Initially, an analysis of tide gauge records has been used to assess the characteristics of tropical cyclone-induced surges around Australia. However, given the dearth (temporal and spatial) of information around much of the coastline, and therefore the inability of these gauge records to adequately describe the regional climatology, an observationally based stochastic tropical cyclone model has been developed to synthetically extend the tropical cyclone record to 10,000 years. Wind and pressure fields derived for these synthetically generated events have then been used to drive a hydrodynamic model of the Australian continental shelf region with annual maximum water levels extracted to estimate exceedance probabilities around the coastline. To validate this methodology, selected historic storm surge events have been simulated and resultant storm surges compared with gauge records. Tropical cyclone induced exceedance probabilities have been combined with estimates derived from a 61-year water level hindcast described in a companion paper to give a single estimate of present day extreme water level probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia. Results of this work are freely available to coastal engineers, managers and researchers via a web-based tool (www.sealevelrise.info). The described methodology could be applied to other regions of the world, like the US east coast, that are subject to both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones.

A 5- versus 3-day course of oral corticosteroids for children with asthma exacerbations who are not hospitalised : a randomised controlled trial

Objective To determine whether a 5-day course of oral prednisolone is superior to a 3-day course in reducing the 2-week morbidity of children with asthma exacerbations who are not hospitalised. Design, setting and participants Double-blind randomised controlled trial of asthma outcomes following a 5-day course of oral prednisolone (1 mg/kg) compared with a 3-day course of prednisolone plus placebo for 2 days. Participants were children aged 2–15 years who presented to the emergency departments of three Queensland hospitals between March 2004 and February 2007 with an acute exacerbation of asthma, but were not hospitalised. Sample size was defined a priori for a study power of 90%. Main outcome measures Difference in proportion of children who were symptom-free at Day 7, as measured by intention-to-treat (ITT) and per-protocol analysis; quality of life (QOL) on Days 7 and 14. Results 201 children were enrolled, and there was an 82% completion rate. There was no difference between groups in the proportion of children who were symptom-free (observed difference, 0.04 [95% CI, − 0.09 to 0.18] by ITT analysis; 0.04 [95% CI, − 0.17 to 0.09] by per-protocol analysis). There was also no difference between groups in QOL (P = 0.42). The difference between groups for the primary outcome was within the equivalence range calculated post priori. Conclusion A 5-day course of oral prednisolone confers no advantage over a 3-day course for children with asthma exacerbations who are not hospitalised.