Patient satisfaction from two studies of collaborative doctor : pharmacist prescribing in Australia

Background Pharmacist prescribing has been introduced in several countries and is a possible future role for pharmacy in Australia. Objective To assess whether patient satisfaction with the pharmacist as a prescriber, and patient experiences in two settings of collaborative doctor-pharmacist prescribing may be barriers to implementation of pharmacist prescribing. Design Surveys containing closed questions, and Likert scale responses, were completed in both settings to investigate patient satisfaction after each consultation. A further survey investigating attitudes towards pharmacist prescribing, after multiple consultations, was completed in the sexual health clinic. Setting and Participants A surgical pre-admission clinic (PAC) in a tertiary hospital and an outpatient sexual health clinic at a university hospital. Two hundred patients scheduled for elective surgery, and 17 patients diagnosed with HIV infection, respectively, recruited to the pharmacist prescribing arm of two collaborative doctor-pharmacist prescribing studies. Results Consultation satisfaction response rates in PAC and the sexual health clinic were 182/200 (91%) and 29/34 (85%), respectively. In the sexual health clinic, the attitudes towards pharmacist prescribing survey response rate were 14/17 (82%). Consultation satisfaction was high in both studies, most patients (98% and 97%, respectively) agreed they were satisfied with the consultation. In the sexual health clinic, all patients (14/14) agreed that they trusted the pharmacist’s ability to prescribe, care was as good as usual care, and they would recommend seeing a pharmacist prescriber to friends. Discussion and Conclusion Most of the patients had a high satisfaction with pharmacist prescriber consultations, and a positive outlook on the collaborative model of care in the sexual health clinic.

Are Australian homes liveable and adaptable for Muslim families? - Six case studies in Brisbane

This paper investigates how Muslims living in Brisbane live within their current Australian homes and the liveability and adaptability of these homes from the perspective of home dwellers with respect to their Islamic faiths, cultural traditions and lifestyle. A qualitative case study approach was used to gather information about Muslims’ use of domestic spaces through their lived experiences, within an Australian context. Six participants were interviewed, including: a) three Muslim families residing in one suburb of Brisbane, and; b) three international Muslim students living in three different Brisbane suburbs. These cases indicate that apart from minor difficulties, case study participants were able to perform their daily activities within their current homes through various adaptations made to ensure their respective domestic domains provided their families with privacy and a sense of security and safety. Insight gained from these cases suggest the need for more research into the homes of Muslims homes within an Australian context and the development of culturally adaptable housing as a means of meeting the diverse needs of modern Australian multicultural society.

Design democratisation and its understandings through the meaning of the word “design” in Portuguese colonised countries

This paper explores the literature and analyses the different uses and understandings of the word “design” in Portuguese colonised countries, using Brazil as the main example. It investigates the relationship between the linguistic existence of terms to define and describe “design” as an activity and field, and the roles and perceptions of Design by the general society. It also addresses the effects that the lack of a proper translation causes on the local community from a cultural point of view. The current perception of Design in Portuguese colonies is associated to two main aspects: linguistic and historical. Both of them differentiate the countries taken into consideration from other countries that have a different background. The changes associated to the meaning of “design” throughout the years, caused a great impact on the perceptions that people have about Design. On the other hand, the development of Design has also influenced the changes on the meaning of the term, as a result of the legacy from the colonisation period and also as a characteristic of the Portuguese language. Design has developed and reached a level of excellence in Portuguese colonised countries that competes with the most traditional Design cultures in the world. However, this level of Design is enmeshed into an elite belonging to universities and specialised markets, therefore Design is not democratised. The ultimate aim of this study is to promote discussions on how to make the discourse surrounding this area more accessible to people from non-English speaking countries that do not have the word “design” in their local language.

Visual control for automated aircraft collision avoidance systems

This thesis presents a new vision-based decision and control strategy for automated aircraft collision avoidance that can be realistically applied to the See and Avoid problem. The effectiveness of the control strategy positions the research as a major contribution toward realising the simultaneous operation of manned and unmanned aircraft within civilian airspace. Key developments include novel classical and visual predictive control frameworks, and a performance evaluation technique aligned with existing aviation practise and applicable to autonomous systems. The overall approach is demonstrated through experimental results on a small multirotor unmanned aircraft, and through high fidelity probabilistic simulation studies.

Equilibrium and column studies of iron exchange with strong acid cation resin

The exchange of iron species from iron (III) chloride solutions with a strong acid cation resin has been investigated in relation to a variety of water and wastewater applications. A detailed equilibrium isotherm analysis was conducted wherein models such as Langmuir Vageler, Competitive Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Dubinin Astakhov, Sips and Brouers-Sotolongo were applied to the experimental data. An important conclusion was that both the bottle-point method and solution normality used to generate the ion exchange equilibrium information influenced which sorption model fitted the isotherm profiles optimally. Invariably, the calculated value for the maximum loading of iron on strong acid cation resin was substantially higher than the value of 47.1 g/kg of resin which would occur if one Fe3+ ion exchanged for three “H+” sites on the resin surface. Consequently, it was suggested that above pH 1, various iron complexes sorbed to the resin in a manner which required less than 3 sites per iron moiety. Column trials suggested that the iron loading was 86.6 g/kg of resin when 1342 mg/L Fe (III) ions in water were flowed at 31.7 bed volumes per hour. Regeneration with 5 to 10 % HCl solutions reclaimed approximately 90 % of exchange sites.

Sealing the leak on classical NTRU signatures

Initial attempts to obtain lattice based signatures were closely related to reducing a vector modulo the fundamental parallelepiped of a secret basis (like GGH [9], or NTRUSign [12]). This approach leaked some information on the secret, namely the shape of the parallelepiped, which has been exploited on practical attacks [24]. NTRUSign was an extremely efficient scheme, and thus there has been a noticeable interest on developing countermeasures to the attacks, but with little success [6]. In [8] Gentry, Peikert and Vaikuntanathan proposed a randomized version of Babai’s nearest plane algorithm such that the distribution of a reduced vector modulo a secret parallelepiped only depended on the size of the base used. Using this algorithm and generating large, close to uniform, public keys they managed to get provably secure GGH-like lattice-based signatures. Recently, Stehlé and Steinfeld obtained a provably secure scheme very close to NTRUSign [26] (from a theoretical point of view). In this paper we present an alternative approach to seal the leak of NTRUSign. Instead of modifying the lattices and algorithms used, we do a classic leaky NTRUSign signature and hide it with gaussian noise using techniques present in Lyubashevky’s signatures. Our main contributions are thus a set of strong NTRUSign parameters, obtained by taking into account latest known attacks against the scheme, a statistical way to hide the leaky NTRU signature so that this particular instantiation of CVP-based signature scheme becomes zero-knowledge and secure against forgeries, based on the worst-case hardness of the O~(N1.5)-Shortest Independent Vector Problem over NTRU lattices. Finally, we give a set of concrete parameters to gauge the efficiency of the obtained signature scheme.

Studies on the failure of unreinforced masonry shear walls

This thesis aims at studying the structural behaviour of high bond strength masonry shear walls by developing a combined interface and surface contact model. The results are further verified by a cost-effective structural level model which was then extensively used for predicting all possible failure modes of high bond strength masonry shear walls. It is concluded that the increase in bond strength of masonry modifies the failure mode from diagonal cracking to base sliding and doesn't proportionally increase the in-plane shear capacity. This can be overcome by increasing pre-compression pressure which causes failure through blocks. A design equation is proposed and high bond strength masonry is recommended for taller buildings and/ or pre-stressed masonry applications.

Experimental studies of cold-formed steel hollow section columns at elevated temperatures

This paper reports the details of an experimental study of cold-formed steel hollow section columns at ambient and elevated temperatures. In this study the global buckling behaviour of cold-formed Square Hollow Section (SHS) slender columns under axial compression was investigated at various uniform elevated temperatures up to 700℃. The results of these column tests are reported in this paper, which include the buckling/failure modes at elevated temperatures, and ultimate load versus temperature curves. Finite element models of tested columns were also developed and their behaviour and ultimate capacities at ambient and elevated temperatures were studied. Fire design rules given in European and American standards including the Direct Strength Method (DSM) based design rules were used to predict the ultimate capacities of tested columns at elevated temperatures. Elevated temperature mechanical properties and stress-strain models given in European steel design standards and past researches were used with design rules and finite element models to investigate their effects on SHS column capacities. Comparisons of column capacities from tests and finite element analyses with those predicted by current design rules were used to determine the accuracy of currently available column design rules in predicting the capacities of SHS columns at elevated temperatures and the need to use appropriate elevated temperature material stress-strain models. This paper presents the important findings derived from the comparisons of these column capacities.

Exploring the usefulness of structural-functional approaches to systematically assess the functionality of governance arrangements for natural resource management planning in two Australian case studies

This research developed and applied an evaluative framework to analyse multiple scales of decision-making for environmental management planning. It is the first exploration of the sociological theory of structural-functionalism and its usefulness to support evidence based decision-making in a planning context. The framework was applied to analyse decision-making in Queensland's Cape York Peninsula and Wet Tropics regions.

Inference and hypothesis in ethnographic studies

This chapter explores the possibility and exigencies of employing hypotheses, or educated guesses, as the basis for ethnographic research design. The authors’ goal is to examine whether using hypotheses might provide a path to resolve some of the challenges to knowledge claims produced by ethnographic studies. Through resolution of the putative division between qualitative and quantitative research traditions , it is argued that hypotheses can serve as inferential warrants in qualitative and ethnographic studies.

Book Review: "Below the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy by Vicki Mayer", Duke University Press, 2012

Vicki Mayer’s book is unusual in that, despite its title, it is not about television producers at all, or at least not in the sense that scholars and the television industry itself have traditionally understood the role. Rather than referring to those in creative, managerial or financial control, or those with substantial intellectual input into a program, Mayer uses the term in a deliberately broad sense to mean, essentially, anyone ‘whose labor, however small, contributes to [television] production’ (179).

Raman and infrared spectroscopic studies of phurcalite from Red Canyon, Utah, USA – Implications for the molecular structure

Raman and infrared spectra of the uranyl mineral phurcalite, Ca2(UO2)3O2(PO4)2⋅7H2O, from Red Canyon, Utah, USA, were studied and tentatively interpreted. Observed bands were assigned to the stretching and bending vibrations of (UO2)2+ and (PO4)3− units and to the stretching and bending vibrations and libration modes of water molecules. Approximate lengths of U–O in (UO2)2+ and O–H⋯O hydrogen bond lengths were inferred from observed stretching vibrations. The presence of structurally nonequivalent U6+ and P5+ was inferred from the number of corresponding stretching bands of (UO2)2+ and (PO4)3− units observed in the Raman and infrared spectra..

Local buckling studies of cold-formed steel compression members at elevated temperatures

Cold-formed steel members have been widely used in residential and commercial buildings as primary load bearing structural elements. They are often made of thin steel sheets and hence they are more susceptible to local buckling. The buckling behaviour of cold-formed steel compression members under fire conditions is not fully investigated yet and hence there is a lack of knowledge on the fire performance of cold-formed steel compression members. Current cold-formed steel design standards do not provide adequate design guidelines for the fire design of cold-formed steel compression members. Therefore a research project based on extensive experimental and numerical studies was undertaken to investigate the local buckling behaviour of light gauge cold-formed steel compression members under simulated fire conditions. First a series of 91 local buckling tests was conducted at ambient and uniform elevated temperatures up to 700oC on cold-formed lipped and unlipped channels. Suitable finite element models were then developed to simulate the behaviour of tested columns and were validated using test results. All the ultimate load capacity results for local buckling were compared with the predictions from the available design rules based on AS/NZS 4600, BS 5950 Part 5, Eurocode 3 Parts 1.2 and 1.3 and the direct strength method (DSM), based on which suitable recommendations have been made for the fire design of cold-formed steel compression members subject to local buckling at uniform elevated temperatures.

Anatomical studies of the flower, fruit and seeds of Myrceugenia rufa (Myrtaceae)

Myceugenia rufa is a rare and endemic species from the coast of central Chile. There are no published studies describing flower, fruit or seed anatomy. Forty-two accessions were collected from across the geographic range of the species. Reproductive structures were fixed, dehydrated, embedded in paraffin, sectioned and stained with Safranin O and Fast green. Anatomy of floral buds, mature flowers, fruits and seeds was described. Reproductive anatomy matches that of other Myrtaceae, such as presence of druses, internal phloem and schizogenous secretory cavities in buds, flowers, fruits and seeds. The anatomy and development of reproductive structures of M. rufa might enhance the understanding for future studies regarding natural reproduction and conservation programs.