Zeta-potential and morphology of electrospun nano- and microfibers from biopolymers and their blends used as scaffolds in tissue engineering

Electrostatic spinning or electrospinning is a fiber spinning technique driven by a high-voltage electric field that produces fibers with diameters in a submicrometer to nanometer range.1 Nanofibers are typical one-dimensional colloidal objects with an increased tensile strength, whose length can achieve a few kilometers and the specific surface area can be 100 m2 g���1 or higher.2 Nano- and microfibers from biocompatible polymers and biopolymers have received much attention in medical applications3 including biomedical structural elements (scaffolding used in tissue engineering,2,4���6 wound dressing,7 artificial organs and vascular grafts8), drug and vaccine delivery,9���11 protective shields in speciality fabrics, multifunctional membranes, etc. Other applications concern superhydrophobic coatings,12 encapsulation of solid materials,13 filter media for submicron particles in separation industry, composite reinforcement and structures for nano-electronic machines.

The challenge of integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk management : lessons from bushfire and flood inquiries in an Australian context

Emergency management and climate change adaptation will increasingly challenge all levels of government because of three main factors. First, Australia is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, particularly through the increasing frequency, duration and/or intensity of disasters such as floods and bushfires. Second, the system of government that divides powers by function and level can often act as a barrier to a well-integrated response. Third, policymaking processes struggle to cope with such complex inter-jurisdictional issues. This paper discusses these factors and explores the nature of the challenge for Australian governments. Investigations into the 2009 Victorian bushfires, the 2011 Perth Hills bushfires, and the 2011 Brisbane floods offer an indication of the challenges ahead and it is argued that there is a need to: improve community engagement and communication; refocus attention on resilience; improve interagency communication and collaboration; and, develop institutional arrangements that support continual improvement and policy learning. These findings offer an opportunity for improving responses as well as a starting point for integrating disaster risk management and climate change adaptation policies. The paper is based on the preliminary findings of an NCCARF funded research project: The Right Tool for the Job: Achieving climate change adaptation outcomes through improved disaster management policies, planning and risk management strategies involving Griffith University and RMIT. It should be noted from the outset that the purpose of this research project is not to criticise the actions of emergency service workers and volunteers who do an incredible job under extreme circumstances, often risking their own lives in the process. The aim is simply to offer emergency management agencies the opportunity to step back and rethink their overall approach to the challenge they face in the light of the impacts of climate change.

Why nurses are resigning from rural and remote Queensland health facilities

This paper presents a selection of the results reported in the study ���Factors Influencing the Recruitment and Retention of Rural and Remote Area Nurses in Queensland��� (Hegney et al 2001). The main aim of this study was to determine why nurses in those rural and remote areas of Queensland that reported higher than State average turnover rates between February 1999 and May 2000, chose to leave their employment. The study therefore investigated the factors that influenced nurses' decisions to leave rural and remote area practice, the factors that influenced them to remain in practice and those factors nurses considered irrelevant to leaving or staying in rural/remote area nursing. This paper reports those factors the participants believed influenced them to leave rural and remote area nursing in Queensland. While the findings cannot be generalised to the Australian nursing workforce or to nurses not employed by Queensland Health, the study does confirm the findings of previous Australian research and formulates recommendations to assist future nursing workforce planning and policy.

In-side-out : photojournalists from community and mainstream media organisations in Brazil's favelas

New media initiatives in Brazil's capital, Rio de Janeiro, are attempting to change mainstream ideas about favelas (poor districts) and their inhabitants. This thesis focuses on two of these initiatives that are being run by non-government organisations, Viva Favela and Imagens do Povo. This study takes an ethnographic and discursive approach to investigating and comparing two categories of professional photographers to determine how their working practices contribute to empowering the people living in Brazil's favelas. While mainstream photojournalists mainly cover human rights abuses in the favelas, community photographers challenge stereotypes by presenting images of the favelas' everyday life.

Decision fusion from parts and samples for robust iris recognition

Fusion techniques can be used in biometrics to achieve higher accuracy. When biometric systems are in operation and the threat level changes, controlling the trade-off between detection error rates can reduce the impact of an attack. In a fused system, varying a single threshold does not allow this to be achieved, but systematic adjustment of a set of parameters does. In this paper, fused decisions from a multi-part, multi-sample sequential architecture are investigated for that purpose in an iris recognition system. A specific implementation of the multi-part architecture is proposed and the effect of the number of parts and samples in the resultant detection error rate is analysed. The effectiveness of the proposed architecture is then evaluated under two specific cases of obfuscation attack: miosis and mydriasis. Results show that robustness to such obfuscation attacks is achieved, since lower error rates than in the case of the non-fused base system are obtained.

Re : Why optometry must work from urban and regional Aboriginal health services

We are writing to support the recent Viewpoint written by Anjou, Boudville and Taylor ���Why optometry must work in Aboriginal Health Services in urban and regional Australia���.[1] We are a group of optometrists who provide optometric services within Aboriginal Health Services in urban and regional settings and we agree that access to optometry in Aboriginal Health Services should be supported and expanded in an effort to ���close the gap��� for vision.

An investigation into the production of chloromethly furfual from bagasse and bagasse pulp

There are many attractive alternatives to produce chemicals similar to those currently produced from fossil fuel resources. The most viable renewable resource of fixed carbon is biomass. This paper examines processing conditions for the production and recovery of furanics from bagasse as well as bagasse pulp. It is shown that bio-oil consisting mainly of furanics (~84% chloromethly furfural) may be obtained in yields of ~78% and ~87% by weight from bagasse and bagasse pulp respectively using a biphasic acid hydrolysis system. The biphasic system consists of an organic layer of dichloroethane and an aqueous phase of concentrated hydrochloric acid. Generally the lower the impurity content and the higher the cellulose content, the higher the furanics yield.

The project approach in early childhood education for sustainability : examplars from Korea and Australia

Sustainability is a global issue that urgently needs addressing, and for which the most serious consequences are for children and future generations. This insightful research text tackles one of the most significant contemporary issues of our times ��� the nexus between society and environment ��� and how early childhood education can contribute to sustainable living. By offering international and multidisciplinary research perspectives on Early Childhood Education for Sustainability, each chapter explores and investigates the complex topic of sustainability and its relationship to early childhood education. A particular emphasis that runs through this text is young children as empowered citizens, capable of both contributing to and creating change for sustainability. The chapter authors work from, or are aligned with, a transformative education paradigm that suggests the socio-constructivist frameworks currently underpinning Early Childhood Education require reframing in light of the social transformations necessary to address humanity���s unsustainable, unjust and unhealthy living patterns. This research text is designed to be provocative and challenging; in so doing it seeks to encourage exploration of current understandings about Early Childhood Education for Sustainability, offers new dimensions for more deeply informed practice, and proposes avenues for further research in this field.

Binding and degradation of hyaluronan by human breast cancer cell lines expressing different forms of CD44 : correlation with invasive potential

In the present study, we examined a panel of human breast cancer cell lines with regard to their expression of CD44 and ability to bind and degrade hyaluronan. The cell lines expressed varying amounts of different molecular weight forms of CD44 (85-200 kDa) and, in general, those that expressed the greatest amounts of CD44 were the most invasive as judged by in vitro assays. In addition, the ability to bind and degrade hyaluronan was restricted to the cell lines expressing high levels of CD44, and both these functions were blocked by an antibody to CD44 (Hermes-1). Moreover, the rate of [3H]hyaluronan degradation was highly correlated with the amount of CD44 (r = 0.951, P < 0.0001), as well as with the invasive potential of the cells. Scatchard analysis of the [3H]hyaluronan binding of these cells revealed the existence of significant differences in both their binding capacity and their dissociation constant. To determine the source of this deviation, the different molecular weight forms of CD44 were partially separated by gel filtration chromatography. In all cell lines, the 85 kDa form was able to bind hyaluronan, although with different affinities. In contrast, not all of the high molecular weight forms of CD44 had this ability. These results illustrate the diversity of CD44 molecules in invasive tumor cells, and suggest that one of their major functions is to degrade hyaluronan.

Nanostructures of various dimensionalities from plasma and neutral fluxes

A complex multi-scale model and numerical simulations are used to demonstrate, by simulating the development of patterns of nanotips, nanowalls, nanoislands and nanovoids of a characteristic size of 5-100 nm, a greater degree of determinism in the formation of various nanostructures by using the low-density, low-temperature plasma-based processes. It is shown that in the plasma, in contrast to the neutral gas-based processes, one can synthesize nanostructures of various dimensionalities and shapes with a larger surface density, desired geometrical parameters and narrower size distribution functions. This effect is mainly attributed to strong ion focusing by irregular electric fields in the nanopatterns, which effectively redistributes the influxes of plasma-generated building units and thus provides a selective control of their delivery to the growing nanostructures.

Anterior temporal cortex and semantic memory : reconciling findings from neuropsychology and functional imaging

Studies of semantic impairment arising from brain disease suggest that the anterior temporal lobes are critical for semantic abilities in humans; yet activation of these regions is rarely reported in functional imaging studies of healthy controls performing semantic tasks. Here, we combined neuropsychological and PET functional imaging data to show that when healthy subjects identify concepts at a specific level, the regions activated correspond to the site of maximal atrophy in patients with relatively pure semantic impairment. The stimuli were color photographs of common animals or vehicles, and the task was category verification at specific (e.g., robin), intermediate (e.g., bird), or general (e.g., animal) levels. Specific, relative to general, categorization activated the antero-lateral temporal cortices bilaterally, despite matching of these experimental conditions for difficulty. Critically, in patients with atrophy in precisely these areas, the most pronounced deficit was in the retrieval of specific semantic information.

Investigating early childhood education for sustainability : insights from history and literature

Seemingly straightforward tasks often have a way of becoming complex. This was the case for our guest editorial team charged with creating Early Childhood Australia���s Best of Sustainability publication drawn from the the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood and Every Child. The complexities we encountered ranged from the varied terminologies and understandings of constructs such as education for sustainable development, environmental education and education for sustainability, through to the fundamental lack of published research on which to draw as the basis for a special issue. It is timely to explore these complexities as we face the global challenges of The Critical Decade (DCCEE, 2011) including rising sea levels, extreme weather events and food security. At a local level, the early childhood field in Australia is seeking to interpret sustainability with systemic support from the National Quality Standards(NQS) (ACECQA, 2011), while elsewhere environmental/sustainability education is encouraged through national curricula documents (for example, Singapore Ministry of Education, 2008; Swedish National Agency for Education,2010; Ministry of Education of Korea, 2011). Both The Critical Decade and the NQS provide imperatives to drive early childhood education���s engagement with sustainability. In other words, sustainability in early childhood education is no longer optional, but essential (Elliott, 2010). While some twenty years of advocacy has led to this somewhat subdued celebratory position, in this publication we do recognise the historical contexts that have led to early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS), as we (Elliott & Davis) phrase it, becoming almost ���mainstream not marginal��� (Davis, 1999)��� a stitching together of the isolated ���patches of green���, first identified a decade ago by Elliott (NSW EPA, 2003). Here we weave together, through these articles, a story of the evolving history of ECEfS from our particular perspective. In so doing, we also acknowledge that there are other perspectives or ���paths��� for this field as identified by Edwards and Cutter-McKenzie in their concluding paper to this compilation.