A molecular survey of Eimeria in chickens across Australia

Coccidiosis is a costly enteric disease of chickens caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Eimeria. Disease diagnosis and management is complicated since there are multiple Eimeria species infecting chickens and mixed species infections are common. Current control measures are only partially effective and this, combined with concerns over vaccine efficacy and increasing drug resistance, demonstrates a need for improved coccidiosis diagnosis and control. Before improvements can be made, it is important to understand the species commonly infecting poultry flocks in both backyard and commercial enterprises. The aim of this project was to conduct a survey and assessment of poultry Eimeria across Australia using genetic markers, and create a collection of isolates for each Eimeria species. A total of 260 samples (faecal or caecal) was obtained, and survey results showed that Eimeria taxa were present in 98% of commercial and 81% of backyard flocks. The distribution of each Eimeria species was widespread across Australia, with representatives of all species being found in every state and territory, and the Eimeria species predominating in commercial flocks differed from those in backyard flocks. Three operational taxonomic units also occurred frequently in commercial flocks highlighting the need to understand the impact of these uncharacterised species on poultry production. As Eimeria infections were also frequent in backyard flocks, there is a potential for backyard flocks to act as reservoirs for disease, especially as the industry moves towards free range production systems. This Eimeria collection will be an important genetic resource which is the crucial first step in the development of more sophisticated diagnostic tools and the development of new live vaccines which ultimately will provide savings to the industry in terms of more efficient coccidiosis management.

Doctors’ perspectives on law and life-sustaining treatment: Survey design and recruitment strategies for a challenging cohort

- Background Palliative medicine and other specialists play significant legal roles in decisions to withhold and withdraw life-sustaining treatment at the end of life. Yet little is known about their knowledge of or attitudes to the law, and the role they think it should play in medical practice. Consideration of doctors’ views is critical to optimizing patient outcomes at the end of life. However, doctors are difficult to engage as participants in empirical research, presenting challenges for researchers seeking to understand doctors’ experiences and perspectives. - Aims To determine how to engage doctors involved in end-of-life care in empirical research about knowledge of the law and the role it plays in medical practice at the end of life. - Methods Postal survey of all specialists in palliative medicine, emergency medicine, geriatric medicine, intensive care, medical oncology, renal medicine, and respiratory medicine in three Australian states: New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. The survey was sent in hard copy with two reminders and a follow up reminder letter was also sent to the directors of hospital emergency departments. Awareness was further promoted through engagement with the relevant medical colleges and publications in professional journals; various incentives to respond were also used. The key measure is the response rate of doctors to the survey. - Results Thirty-two percent of doctors in the main study completed their survey with response rate by specialty ranging from 52% (palliative care) to 24% (medical oncology). This overall response rate was twice that of the reweighted pilot study (16%). - Conclusions Doctors remain a difficult cohort to engage in survey research but strategic recruitment efforts can be effective in increasing response rate. Collaboration with doctors and their professional bodies in both the development of the survey instrument and recruitment of participants is essential.

To ask or not to ask? Investigating workers' flexibility requests and the phenomenon of discontented non-requesters

Flexible working arrangements have attracted growing attention in workplaces across Australia and in many other countries in recent years. This contribution utilises the results of two large Australian employee surveys to analyse who asks for flexibility, why, and with what effects on work-life interference. This analysis is set in the context of Australia’s ‘Right to Request’ (RTR) provisions which, at the time of the study, gave parents of preschool children and those with a disabled child aged up to 18 the RTR flexibility. The analysis also draws on a set of qualitative interviews of those we term ‘discontented non-requesters’ (that is, those who are not content with current arrangements but who do not ask for flexibility) to probe beneath the survey results to consider explanations about why some people do not ask for flexibility despite desiring different working arrangements. We conclude with the implications for policy and regulation.

Essays on Economic Integration and Labour Demand

This dissertation consists of an introductory section and three essays investigating the effects of economic integration on labour demand by using theoretical models and by empirical analysis. The essays adopt an intra-industry trade approach to specify a theoretical framework of estimation for determining the effects of economic integration on employment. In all the essays the empirical aim is to explore the labour demand consequences of European integration. The first essay analyzes how labour-demand elasticities with own price have changed during the process of economic integration. As a theoretical result, intensified trade competition increases labour-demand elasticity, whereas better advantage of economies of scale decreases labour-demand elasticity by decreasing the elasticity of substitution between differentiated products. Furthermore, if integration gives rise to an increase in input-substitutability and/or outsourcing activities, labour demand will become more elastic. Using data from the manufacturing sector from 1975 to 2002, the empirical results provide support for the hypothesis that European integration has contributed to increased elasticities of total labour demand in Finland. The second essay analyzes how economic integration affects the impact of welfare poli-cies on employment. The essay considers the viability of financing the public sector, i.e. public consumption and social security expenses, by general labour taxation in an economy which has become more integrated into international product markets. The theoretical results of the second essay indicate that, as increased trade competition crowds out better economies of scale, it becomes more costly to maintain welfare systems financed by labour taxation. Using data from European countries for the years 1975 to 2004, the empirical results provide inconsistent evidence for the hypothesis that economic integration has contributed to the distortion effects of welfare policies on employment. The third essay analyzes the impact of profit sharing on employment as a way to introduce wage flexibility into the process of economic integration. The results of the essay suggest that, in theory, the effects of economic integration on the impact of profit sharing on employment clearly depend on a trade-off between intensified competition and better advantage of economies of scale. If product market competition increases, the ability of profit sharing to improve employment through economic integration increases with moderated wages. While, the economic integration associating with market power in turn decrease the possibilities of profit sharing with higher wages to improve employment. Using data from the manufacturing sector for the years 1996 to 2004, the empirical results show that profit-sharing has a positive impact on employment during the process of European integration, but can have ambiguous effects on the stability of employment in Finland.

Chapter 1: Precarious creativity: Global media, local labor

In most parts of the world, screen media workers—actors, directors, gaffers, and makeup artists—consider Hollywood to be glamorous and aspirational. If given the opportunity to work on a major studio lot, many would make the move, believing the standards of professionalism are high and the history of accomplishment is renowned. Moreover, as a global leader, Hollywood offers the chance to rub shoulders with talented counterparts and network with an elite labor force that earns top-tier pay and benefits. Yet despite this reputation, veterans say the view from inside isn’t so rosy, that working conditions have been deteriorating since the 1990s if not earlier. This grim outlook is supported by industry statistics that show the number of good jobs has been shrinking as studios outsource production to Atlanta, London, and Budapest, among others...

Studies on Wage Differentials and Labour Market Transitions

This thesis consists of four studies. The first study examines wage differentials between women and men in the Finnish manufacturing sector. A matched employer-employee data set is used to decompose the overall gender wage gap into the contributions of sex differences in human capital, labour market segregation, and residual within-job wage differentials. The topic of the second study is the relationship between the extended unemployment benefits and labour market transitions of older workers. The analysis exploits a quasi-experimental setting caused by a change in the law that raised the eligibility age of workers benefiting from extended benefits. Roughly half of the unemployed workers with extended benefits are estimated to be effectively withdrawn from labour market search. The risk of unemployment declined and the re-employment probability increased among the age groups directly affected by the reform. The third study provides an empirical analysis of a structural equilibrium search model. Estimation results from various model specifications are compared and discussed. The last study is a methodological study where the difficulties of interpreting the results of competing risks hazard models are discussed and a solution for a particular class of models is proposed. It is argued that a common practice of reporting the results of qualitative response models in terms of marginal effects is also useful in the context of competing risks duration models.

Optimum design of Lanchester damper for a viscously damped single degree of freedom system by using minimum force transmissibility criterion

The problem of optimum design of a Lanchester damper for minimum force transmission from a viscously damped single degree of freedom system subjected to harmonic excitation is investigated. Explicit expressions are developed for determining the optimum absorber parameters. It is shown that for the particular case of the undamped single degree of freedom system the results reduce to the classical ones obtained by using the concept of a fixed point on the transmissibility curves.

Yhteisöllisyys juutalaisessa kansallisuusajattelussa ja Israelin valtion itsenäisyysjulistuksessa

The Idea of Community in the Jewish National Thinking and in the Proclamation of Independence The aim of this study is to clarify the idea of community in the Jewish national thinking and in the Proclamation of Independence of the State of Israel in 1948. The method is the community analysis. The values of the culture are studied by two- and threefold dimensions on the arena. On the field of that arena one can find the society of order, the society of pressure, the societies made by mosaics and the societies that are breaking apart. The community way of behaving means, that the individuals voluntarily follow common values. The earliest Jewish ideals elevated the concept of unity among the people. The reality in the society was different especially in Roman times when the religious and national thinking was fragmented into four different main views. During the Diaspora the religious tradition mostly warned against pursuing a Jewish state, but many forms of Anti-Judaism and the new national thinking in the nineteenth century created the Zionist movement. The religious Jewish people did not rely on the earthy nationalism and when some of them later chose Zionism, they stressed the religious aspects in governing the state. The cultural Zionists preferred a slower and more low key spiritual way of change. The Revisionists saw no alternatives but to use military force. Many in the majority, the Labour movement, hoped that the progress brought to the region by Zionism would change the minds of opponents. The general appearance of the proclamation is optimistic. It characterizes national and political unity gathering people who think differently and who come from different factions of the Jewish political and cultural orientation. These people can be placed on different corners in the community analysis. The proclamation concentrates on state and administrative points of view. It aims at a state for the Jews, and the Jewishness of the state is more clearly seen in later legislation. The hope for co-operation from all sides was clearly articulated. The central aim was the security of the Jews. The proclamation has a community quotation because it aimed to build up a net of cooperation. The vision of building a nation of their own is balanced by the collaboration with the Arabs and the international community. In the same roclamation the individual civil rights are side by side with the Prophets thoughts about peace and justice. The Proclamation describes a society of a good order which aims at uniting the people. In the midst of grave difficulties a noble proclamation of national and international co-operation was created. It was not taken for granted that the ideals would be realized. The care of the national homeland could become egocentric nationalism and the attention to the Prophets heritage could turn to emphasizing strict religious rules or to isolation from others. The emphasis of civil rights could turn to assimilation or in other words to other kinds of values in their own country.

Effects of solar radiation pressure and Aerodynamic forces on satelliteattitude Dynamics and their utilization for Control: a survey

The environmcnl exerts an important inJuence on the pefirmance of space systems. A brief rel'iew of mo.s/ of the studies, pre.~ented over the past eightem years, relating to the influence ar7d the possible utilization of thc solar radiation pressure &d aero&namic forces, with particular reference to attitude dynamics and control qf satellites is presented here. The semi-passive stabilizers employing rhese forces show p~qmise of long life, low power and economic sjsfems, which though slower in response, compare we1I wit11 the octiw coi~trollers. It is felt that mud more attention is necessary to the actual implema~tution of these ideas and devices: some of which me quite ingenious und unique.

Scoping study for a national survey of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect

This is a report produced as a result of a study commissioned by the Australian Government Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Effect of concentrated force on a Crack in dissimilar media

Efect of concentrated force or edge dislocation with Burger's vector on a line crack in di,aimilar media has been studied in this paper. Crack surfaces may be subjected to surface loads or opuwd by rigid inclusions. Complex variable methods have been employed to study the distribution of stresses and displacements every where and in particnlar at the tips of the crack.

Fatigue self-management behaviors in patients with advanced cancer: A prospective longitudinal survey

Purpose: To explore the fatigue self-management behaviors and factors associated with effectiveness of these behaviors in patients with advanced cancer. Design: Prospective longitudinal interviewer-administered survey. Setting: A tertiary cancer center in Queensland Australia. Sample: One hundred fifty two outpatients with metastatic breast, lung, colorectal and prostate cancer experiencing fatigue (>3/10) were recruited. Main Research Variables: Fatigue self-management behaviors outcomes (perceived effectiveness, self-efficacy and frequency), medical/demographic characteristics (including sites of primary cancer and metastasis, comorbidity, performance status), social support, depressive, anxiety, and other symptoms were assessed. Findings: The participants reported moderate levels of fatigue at baseline (M=5.85, SD 1.44), and maintained moderate levels at 4 weeks and 8 weeks. On average, participants consistently used approximately nine behaviors at each time point. Factors significantly associated with higher levels of perceived effectiveness of fatigue self-management behaviors were higher self-efficacy (p<.001), higher education level (p=.02), and lower levels of depressive symptoms (p=.04). Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrate that patients with cancer, even with advanced disease, still want and are able to use a number of behaviors to control their fatigue. Self-management interventions that aim to enhance self-efficacy and address any concurrent depressive symptoms have the potential to reduce fatigue severity. Implications for Nursing: Nurses are well positioned to play a key role in supporting patients in their fatigue self-management. Knowledge Translation: This study particularly focused on the perspectives of patients about fatigue self-management, highlighting a number of issues requiring further attention in clinical practice and the potential for future research.

Can current force fields reproduce ring puckering in 2-O-sulfo-α-l-iduronic acid? A molecular dynamics simulation study

The monosaccharide 2-O-sulfo-α-l-iduronic acid (IdoA2S) is one of the major components of glycosaminoglycans. The ability of molecular mechanics force fields to reproduce ring-puckering conformational equilibrium is important for the successful prediction of the free energies of interaction of these carbohydrates with proteins. Here we report unconstrained molecular dynamics simulations of IdoA2S monosaccharide that were carried out to investigate the ability of commonly used force fields to reproduce its ring conformational flexibility in aqueous solution. In particular, the distribution of ring conformer populations of IdoA2S was determined. The GROMOS96 force field with the SPC/E water potential can predict successfully the dominant skew-boat to chair conformational transition of the IdoA2S monosaccharide in aqueous solution. On the other hand, the GLYCAM06 force field with the TIP3P water potential sampled transitional conformations between the boat and chair forms. Simulations using the GROMOS96 force field showed no pseudorotational equilibrium fluctuations and hence no inter-conversion between the boat and twist boat ring conformers. Calculations of theoretical proton NMR coupling constants showed that the GROMOS96 force field can predict the skew-boat to chair conformational ratio in good agreement with the experiment, whereas GLYCAM06 shows worse agreement. The omega rotamer distribution about the C5–C6 bond was predicted by both force fields to have torsions around 10°, 190°, and 360°.