A mystery to the medical world : Florence Nightingale, Rosendo Salvado and the risk of civilisation

In 1860 Florence Nightingale conducted a study on the mortality rates of indigenous children attending native colonial schools across the British Empire. Her study was driven by the question: ‘Can we civilise the natives without killing them?’ One colonial school that participated in the survey was New Norcia Benedictine mission in Western Australia. When Rosendo Salvado, the mission’s superintendent, responded, he drew on his daily encounters with the Yuat people, his statistics on the mission residents and his Benedictine philosophy of civilisation and conversion of colonised peoples. The correspondence between Salvado and Nightingale took place in the climate of intense debates about Aboriginal health, colonisation and extinction in Britain and the colonies. While many settlers and colonial observers understood Aboriginal depopulation to be the result of either the vices and diseases of unprincipled Europeans or an unstoppable destiny, whether Divine Providence or natural selection, Nightingale and Salvado shared a belief in practical solutions to what they understood to be a practical problem. Their collaboration is an example of the humanitarian opposition to the racial pessimism of Social Darwinism. They both sought to use the recently influential intellectual discipline of social statistics to support their conviction that Aborigines, if patiently and carefully handled, would survive the admittedly risky process of civilisation.

Genetic variation in SH3-domain GRB2-like (endophilin)-interacting protein 1 has a major impact on fat mass

Objective:

The SH3-domain GRB2-like (endophilin)-interacting protein 1 (SGIP1) gene has been shown to be differentially expressed in the hypothalamus of lean versus obese Israeli sand rats (Psammomys obesus), and is suspected of having a role in regulating food intake. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of genetic variation in SGIP1 in human disease.
Subjects:

We performed single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping in a large family pedigree cohort from the island of Mauritius. The Mauritius Family Study (MFS) consists of 400 individuals from 24 Indo-Mauritian families recruited from the genetically homogeneous population of Mauritius. We measured markers of the metabolic syndrome, including diabetes and obesity-related phenotypes such as fasting plasma glucose, waist:hip ratio, body mass index and fat mass.
Results:

Statistical genetic analysis revealed associations between SGIP1 polymorphisms and fat mass (in kilograms) as measured by bioimpedance. SNP genotyping identified associations between several genetic variants and fat mass, with the strongest association for rs2146905 (P=4.7 × 10−5). A strong allelic effect was noted for several SNPs where fat mass was reduced by up to 9.4% for individuals homozygous for the minor allele.
Conclusions:

Our results show association between genetic variants in SGIP1 and fat mass. We provide evidence that variation in SGIP1 is a potentially important determinant of obesity-related traits in humans.

The role of cultural values and religion on views of body size and eating practices among adolescents from Fiji, Tonga and Australia

Objectives This study investigated cultural values related to body image and eating practices in Western and non-Western societies.

Design and Methods In total, 628 Fijian, 463 Indo-Fijian, 598 Tongan, and 534 Australian adolescents completed measures of cultural values and religious influences in relation to the ideal body and eating practices.

Results Fijian and Tongan adolescents were more likely to value a large body. Religious influences were most strongly associated with eating practices for Fijians, Indo-Fijians, and Tongans.

Conclusions The findings support the role of religion in transmitting cultural values regarding eating practices in Pacific Island communities.

Statement of contribution
What is already known on this subject? Previous research has demonstrated that sociocultural factors shape body image and eating behaviours. Most of this research has been conducted in Western countries.

What does this study add? The current study identifies the role of cultural values and religious influences on body image and eating behaviours in a number of different cultural groups. This is the first study to use the same methodology to explore these relationships across Western and Pacific Island communities.

The prevalence and risk factors of epiretinal membranes: the Melbourne collaborative cohort study

Purpose
To determine the prevalence of epiretinal membranes (ERMs) in Melbourne, Australia and its risk factors in this population.

Methods
The Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study is a prospective study investigating the role of diet and life style in the causation of common chronic diseases. Eighty-six percent of participants were of Northern European origin born in Australia or United Kingdom and 14% were migrants from Greece or Italy (Southern European origin). Nonmydriatic digital retinal photography was implemented at Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study follow-up. The ERMs were recorded as cellophane macular reflex without retinal folds or preretinal macular fibrosis (PMF) with retinal folds.

Results
A total of 22,406 participants had retinal photography, 95% (n = 21,241) were eligible for ERM grading. The ERM prevalence were 8.9% (1,882); cellophane macular reflex, 4.9% (1,047); and preretinal macular fibrosis, 3.9% (835). After adjustment for age, sex, level of education, smoking status, level of cholesterol, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, waist measurement, blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke, increasing age and Southern European ethnicity was significantly associated with ERMs. Overall, in Southern Europeans, ERMs odd ratio was 1.97 (95% confidence intervals, 1.67–2.31), P < 0.001; preretinal macular fibrosis was 1.82 (95% confidence intervals, 1.43–2.31), P < 0.001; and cellophane macular reflex was 1.93 (1.57–2.38), P < 0.001.

Conclusion
In an older Australian population, the prevalence of ERMs was 8.9% and was almost two times higher in participants of Southern European origin than Northern European origin.

A framework to determine if Australia's suburbs have ever been sustainable

Australia is a suburban society. It has been since Europeans came. Unlike many other urban societies at the time, there was no existing hard infrastructure to provide the essential needs of human urban life - clean water, food, shelter and waste management. These had to be met by individual residents in the emerging cities and towns until infrastructure could be provided to local communities by Government. This reality led to Governor Phillip establishing the block size in Sydney as being large enough to provide food and treat waste within its boundaries. The block dimensions were a major influence on Australia’s urban form for the next two centuries and with social developments not only led to low density urban form, but also fostered a strong connection with the backyard and a societal love of gardening at home. Despite a push to densification in the past two decades, low density suburban form is physical and cultural and is likely to be dominant for the foreseeable future. Gardening at home is also likely to continue to be a favourite pass time. While some Australian research has started to explore the role of backyards and gardening in increasing urban sustainability, little work has been done on to what extent the suburban block has and can meet the core needs of people. Even less has been done on determining the impact of suburbs on underlying ecosystem services that provide these core needs. This paper provides a brief history of backyards in suburban Australia, a conceptual framework for assessing the sustainability of Australian suburbs over time and a description of the major ecosystem types in what is now urban Geelong at the time of European settlement. It provides the foundation for future sustainability assessments of the residential block in various periods of suburban development in Geelong.

Cardiovascular disease in Europe 2014: epidemiological update

This paper provides an update for 2014 on the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and in particular coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke, across the countries of Europe. Cardiovascular disease causes moredeaths among Europeans than any other condition, and in many countries still causes more than twice as many deaths as cancer. There is clear evidence in most countries with available data that mortality and casefatality rates from CHD and stroke have decreased substantially over the last 5–10 years but at differing rates. The differing recent trends have therefore led to increasing inequalities in the burden of CVD between countries. For some Eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine, the mortality rate for CHD for 55–60 year olds is greater than the equivalent rate in France for people 20 years older.

Invertebrate diversity of the unexplored marine western margin of Australia: taxonomy and implications for global biodiversity

However derived, predictions of global marine species diversity rely on existing real data. All methods, whether based on past rates of species descriptions, on expert opinion, on the fraction of undescribed species in samples collected, or on ratios between taxa in the taxonomic hierarchy, suffer the same limitation. Here we show that infaunal macrofauna (crustaceans and polychaetes) of the lower bathyal depth range are underrepresented among available data and documented results from Australia. The crustacean and polychaete fauna (only partially identified) of the bathyal continental margin of Western Australia comprised 805 species, representing a largely novel and endemic fauna. Overall, 94.6% of crustacean species were undescribed, while 72% of polychaete species were new to the Australian fauna, including all tanaidaceans, amphipods, and cumaceans, as well as most isopods. Most species were rare, and the species accumulation rate showed no sign of reaching an asymptote with increasing area sampled. Similar data are likely for the largely unexplored bathyal regions. This leads us to conclude that the numbers upon which extrapolations to larger areas are based are too low to provide confidence. The Southern Australian and Indo-West Pacific deep-sea regions contribute significantly to global species diversity. These regions and bathyal and abyssal habitats generally are extensive, but are so-far poorly sampled. They appear to be dominated by taxonomically poorly worked and species-rich taxa with limited distributions. The combination of high species richness among infaunal taxa-compared to better known taxa with larger individuals, higher endemism than presently acknowledged because of the presence of cryptic species, the low proportion of described species in these taxa, and the vast extent of unexplored bathyal and abyssal environments-will lead to further accumulation of new species as more and more deep sea regions are explored. It remains to be tested whether ratios of 10 or more undescribed to described species, found in this study for the dominant taxa and for the deep Southern Ocean and the Indo-West Pacific, are replicable in other areas. Our data and similar figures from other remote regions, and the lack of faunal overlap, suggest that Appeltans et al.'s (Current Biology 22:1-14, 2012) estimate that between one-third and two-thirds of the world's marine fauna is undescribed is low, and that Mora et al.'s (PLoS Biol 9(8):e1001127. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127, 2011) of 91% is more probable. We conclude that estimates of global species, however made, are based on limited data. © 2014 Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Sociocultural influences on strategies to lose weight, gain weight, and increase muscles among ten cultural groups

This study determined how sociocultural messages to change one's body are perceived by adolescents from different cultural groups. In total, 4904 adolescents, including Australian, Chilean, Chinese, Indo-Fijian, Indigenous Fijian, Greek, Malaysian, Chinese Malaysian, Tongans in New Zealand, and Tongans in Tonga, were surveyed about messages from family, peers, and the media to lose weight, gain weight, and increase muscles. Groups were best differentiated by family pressure to gain weight. Girls were more likely to receive the messages from multiple sociocultural sources whereas boys were more likely to receive the messages from the family. Some participants in a cultural group indicated higher, and others lower, levels of these sociocultural messages. These findings highlight the differences in sociocultural messages across cultural groups, but also that adolescents receive contrasting messages within a cultural group. These results demonstrate the difficulty in representing a particular message as being characteristic of each cultural group.

A molecular and morphological investigation of species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships in Australian free-tailed bats Mormopterus (Chiroptera:Molossidae)

The taxonomic uncertainty surrounding several prominent genera of Australian microbat has been a long-standing impediment to research and conservation efforts on these groups. The free-tail bat genus Mormopterus is perhaps the most significant example, with a long history of acknowledged species-level confusion. This study uses a combined molecular and morphological approach to conduct a comprehensive assessment of species and subgeneric boundaries, between-species phylogenetic affinities and within-species phylogeographic structure in Australian members of Mormopterus. Phylogenetic analyses based on 759 base pairs of the NADH Dehydrogenase subunit 2 mitochondrial gene were concordant with species boundaries delineated using an expanded allozyme dataset and by phallic morphology, and also revealed strong phylogeographic structure within two species. The levels of divergence evident in the molecular and morphological analyses led us to recognise three subgenera within Australia: Micronomus, Setirostris subgen. nov. and Ozimops subgen. nov. Within Ozimops we recognise seven Australian species, three of which are new, and none are conspecific with Indo-Papuan species. The family Molossidae now comprises eleven species across three subgenera in Australia, making it the continent's second most speciose family of bats. © CSIRO 2014.

Marketing esportivo : um estudo exploratório

O papel que o esporte vem desempenhando ao longo do tempo faz dele, hoje, um fator de grande influência no comportamento de diversos segmentos do mercado. Em conseqüência, este campo de atividades vem estabelecendo fortes ligações com o setor empresarial. A consulta à literatura, no entanto, sinaliza que as relações entre esporte e marketing — ou seja, o marketing esportivo — vêm sendo alvo de um pequeno esforço em termos acadêmicos. Esse documento pretende colaborar na formulação de hipóteses que alarguem as fronteiras da teoria nessa área do conhecimento. Sendo assim, trata-se de situar o marketing esportivo como um campo de atividades com características próprias. Indo além, com base no paradigma da troca, apresenta-se uma visão alternativa sobre o tema, sugerindo-se a dualidade como principal característica de suas relações. A partir disto, o objetivo do trabalho é identificar e descrever as relações estabelecidas na prática do marketing esportivo. A fim de cumpri-lo, discutem-se as possíveis nuances do tema, e apresentam-se as modalidades de negócio desenvolvidas nesse terreno. Feito isso, parte-se para a busca de elementos práticos que sustentem a teoria formulada. Para tanto, através de um estudo de casos reais, pesquisam-se relacionamentos entre clubes esportivos e empresas investidoras.

O processo decisório de migrar e a identidade sociocultural dos migrantes do Alto Uruguai para Sapiranga no Vale dos Sinos

O trabalho consiste em um ensaio sobre a identidade sociocultural de migrantes com histórica tradição de migração e de exclusão, provindos do meio rural e indo para cidade de colonização germânica. Tais indivíduos vivem, em seu espaço social de origem e de destino, o confronto entre duas racionalidades: o modo de vida tradicional e moderno, o que resulta em interação social conflituosa no âmbito dos valores e estilo de vida, evidenciando características socioculturais dos migrantes que os predispõem à instabilidade social. A análise está centrada nos fatores objetivos e subjetivos que constituem a decisão de migrar e, em sua relação, com o patrimônio sociocultural e a condição de precariedade do migrante. A migração é entendida como uma estratégia de sobrevivência que ocorre num espaço social complexo, marcado pela efervescência política e pela diversidade étnica e cultural, observadas, principalmente, em seu locus de origem. A pesquisa está baseada numa análise multidimensional, sob a abordagem qualitativa, fazendo uso de amostragem do tipo proposital e de observação participante que inclui migrantes e não-migrantes, em seu local de origem e de destino. O trabalho reconstrói a trajetória social do migrante com base na decisão de migrar, de modo a revelar seu significado e a relação com os aspectos da identidade que o condicionam e caracterizam sua frágil inserção.

Outros dizeres sobre o ensino de segunda língua : um lugar para a tomada da palavra no terreno da opacidade e do real

Um olhar diferenciado sobre o ensino de segunda língua é o que pretende apresentar este trabalho, olhar forjado a partir dos conceitos da Análise do Discurso de linha francesa. O que buscamos é um tratamento do ensino da língua do outro que, no encontro com o real e a opacidade constitutivos de toda língua, possibilite ao aluno mais do que a instrumentalização a fim de que esteja ele capacitado para reproduzir estruturas, mas que consiga tomar a palavra, encontrar um lugar nessa outra língua, espaço a partir do qual seja capaz de produzir sentidos. Para tanto fazemos uma incursão na teoria do discurso, buscando os conceitos fundamentais da AD e o modo como foram construídos. Isso possibilita que entendamos os deslocamentos necessários em relação à compreensão de língua e sujeito, de discurso e formação discursiva, entre outros conceitos, para que sejamos capazes de construir esse discursivo olhar sobre a língua estrangeira, para que sejamos capazes de vislumbrar uma prática diferenciada para esse ensino a fim de que trabalhemos a palavra do outro em movimento, a vida dessa estrangeira palavra, indo ao encontro do texto literário como um caminho para tal realização.

Uma estratégia para controle e supervisão de processos industriais via Internet

Este trabalho descreve de uma fonna geral a proposta de uma estratégia para controle e supervisão de plantas industriais através da Internet. Tal proposta consiste na apresentação de três contextos distintos: o contexto planta industrial, o contexto servidor e o contexto cliente. O levantamento criterioso de requisitos para cada um dos contextos é apresentado. A união entre as tecnologias Web e os barramentos de campo resultam naturalmente no acesso remoto através da Internet a sistemas de automação industrial, sendo assim, surge uma nova tendência em tennos de supervisão e controle. A motivação para este trabalho surgiu através de alguns estudos de casos presentes na literatura, que disponibilizam laboratórios através da Internet. A maioria destes estudos de caso não possuía os requisitos considerados primordiais para a disponibilização de um processo através da Internet, como por exemplo, a independência de platafonna no lado cliente e um processo de escala industrial no contexto planta industrial. A estratégia proposta tem por objetivo suprir as carências apresentadas pela maioria dos centros de ensino e pesquisa que disponibilizam laboratórios através da Internet. Para validar a estratégia proposta, foi desenvolvido um sistema de acesso remoto no DELET da UFRGS que é constituído de uma Planta Piloto Foundation Fieldbus e sua posterior disponibilização para a Internet Neste trabalho é apresentada sua fundamentação teórica, sua aplicabilidade na área de automação industrial e controle, baseando-se no protocolo de comunicação industrial, o Foundation Fieldbus; descreve-se também como é feito o interfaceamento entre softwares de controle da Planta Piloto e o sistema de supervisão e controle indo até a estrutura de comunicação com a Internet para que se tome possível para o cliente da Internet visualizar e interagir com a Planta Piloto. Configuração de hardware e software e vários outros conceitos ligados às ferramentas utilizadas neste sistema também são abordados neste trabalho.

O País dos cineastas : cinema e identidade chilena da década de 1990-2000

Este estudo aborda a relação cinema e identidade cultural através da análise do cinema chileno da década de 1990-2000, estabelecendo como foco de pesquisa os cineastas como mediadores culturais, que transitam pelos diferentes mundos e submundos do país, contribuindo para a construção e reconstrução da identidade chilena durante o período da transição democrática. Acolhendo a proposta teórico metodológica de Gilberto Velho (1999, 2001), foram estudadas as trajetórias de sete cineastas chilenos inseridos no seu contexto histórico, indo além da representação cinematográfica. A identidade chilena observada e construída pelos cineastas é um processo aberto, ressaltando a diversidade de traços identitários do país do final do século XX e início do XXI, que falam de uma multiplicidade de matrizes culturais. Coexistem, assim, o urbano, o rural, o insular, o barroco, o racionalista, o moderno e o tradicional, o culto e o popular e o massivo, registrando uma identidade híbrida que admite a valorização do local e o resgate de um imaginário próprio com referentes da memória coletiva e da memória nacional, no tempo presente com uma perspectiva do futuro.