Sport and the transformation of Australian television

This article uses sports coverage as a lens to analyse changes in broadcast television (free-to-air [FTA] and subscription) in Australia from the 1950s to the present. Sport has always been a vital genre for broadcast television. It is now, arguably, more important than ever. It is indisputable – though rarely comprehensively documented – that sport and sports coverage have shaped and transformed Australian television over many years. The significance of sports has incrementally increased with successive technological and industrial developments – such as the introduction of colour in 1975, electronic news gathering from 1976, subscription television in 1995, digital terrestrial broadcasting in 2001 and digital subscription broadcasting in 2004 – to the point where broadcast television’s continuing popularity and ongoing cultural significance relies to a great extent on sports coverage and related programming. In 2015, the launch of a bevy of new subscription video on demand (SVOD) services in Australia might appear to have reinforced drama as the key genre in the battle for attention and engagement, but for both historical and contemporary reasons sport remains the crucial form of audiovisual content.

Modeling and control of a robotic power line inspection vehicle

Power line inspection is a vital function for electricity supply companies but it involves labor-intensive and expensive procedures which are tedious and error-prone for humans to perform. A possible solution is to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with video surveillance equipment to perform the inspection. This paper considers how a small, electrically driven rotorcraft conceived for this application could be controlled by visually tracking the overhead supply lines. A dynamic model for a ducted-fan rotorcraft is presented and used to control the action of an Air Vehicle Simulator (AVS), consisting of a cable-array robot. Results show how visual data can be used to determine, and hence regulate in closed loop, the simulated vehicle’s position relative to the overhead lines.

Inferring lung cancer risk factor patterns through joint Bayesian spatio-temporal analysis

Background: Preventing risk factor exposure is vital to reduce the high burden from lung cancer. The leading risk factor for developing lung cancer is tobacco smoking. In Australia, despite apparent success in reducing smoking prevalence, there is limited information on small area patterns and small area temporal trends. We sought to estimate spatio-temporal patterns for lung cancer risk factors using routinely collected population-based cancer data. Methods: The analysis used a Bayesian shared component spatio-temporal model, with male and female lung cancer included separately. The shared component reflected exposure to lung cancer risk factors, and was modelled over 477 statistical local areas (SLAs) and 15 years in Queensland, Australia. Analyses were also run adjusting for area-level socioeconomic disadvantage, Indigenous population composition, or remoteness. Results: Strong spatial patterns were observed in the underlying risk factor exposure for both males (median Relative Risk (RR) across SLAs compared to the Queensland average ranged from 0.48-2.00) and females (median RR range across SLAs 0.53-1.80), with high exposure observed in many remote areas. Strong temporal trends were also observed. Males showed a decrease in the underlying risk across time, while females showed an increase followed by a decrease in the final two years. These patterns were largely consistent across each SLA. The high underlying risk estimates observed among disadvantaged, remote and indigenous areas decreased after adjustment, particularly among females. Conclusion: The modelled underlying exposure appeared to reflect previous smoking prevalence, with a lag period of around 30 years, consistent with the time taken to develop lung cancer. The consistent temporal trends in lung cancer risk factors across small areas support the hypothesis that past interventions have been equally effective across the state. However, this also means that spatial inequalities have remained unaddressed, highlighting the potential for future interventions, particularly among remote areas.

Key beliefs of hospital nurses’ hand-hygiene behaviour: Protecting your peers and needing effective reminders

Issues addressed: Hand hygiene in hospitals is vital to limit the spread of infections. This study aimed to identify key beliefs underlying hospital nurses’ hand-hygiene decisions to consolidate strategies that encourage compliance. Methods: Informed by a theory of planned behaviour belief framework, nurses from 50 Australian hospitals (n = 797) responded to how likely behavioural beliefs (advantages and disadvantages), normative beliefs (important referents) and control beliefs (barriers) impacted on their hand-hygiene decisions following the introduction of a national ‘5 moments for hand hygiene’ initiative. Two weeks after completing the survey, they reported their hand-hygiene adherence. Stepwise regression analyses identified key beliefs that determined nurses’ hand-hygiene behaviour. Results: Reducing the chance of infection for co-workers influenced nurses’ hygiene behaviour, with lack of time and forgetfulness identified as barriers. Conclusions: Future efforts to improve hand hygiene should highlight the potential impact on colleagues and consider strategies to combat time constraints, as well as implementing workplace reminders to prompt greater hand-hygiene compliance. So what? Rather than emphasising the health of self and patients in efforts to encourage hand-hygiene practices, a focus on peer protection should be adopted and more effective workplace reminders should be implemented to combat forgetting.

Social media, audiences, and audience co-creativity in contemporary performance: Restoring balance?

Producers, technicians, performers, audiences and critics are all critical components of the performing arts ecology – critical components of an ecosystem that have to come together into some sort of productive relationship if the performing arts are to be vital, viable and successful. Different performance practices developed in different times, spaces and places do, of course, connect these players in different ways as part of their attempt to achieve their own definition of success, be it based on entertainment, educational, expression, empowerment, or something else. In some contemporary performance practices, social media platforms, applications and processes are seen to have significant potential to restore balance to the relationship between performer and audience, providing audiences with more power to participate in a performance event. In this paper, I investigate prevailing assumptions about social media’s power to democratise performance practice, or, at least, develop more co-creative performance practices in which producers, performers and audiences participate actively before, during and after the event. I focus, in particular, on the use of social media as a means of developing a participatory aesthetic in which an audience member is asked to contribute to the cast of characters, plot or progression of a performance. Although diverse – from performances streamed online, to performances that offer transmedia components the audience can use to learn more about character, context and plot online, to performances that incorporate online voting, liking or linking, to performances that unfold fully online on websites, blogs, microblogs or other social media platforms – what a lot of uses of social media in contemporary performance today share is a desire to encourage audiences to reflect on their role in making, and making meaning, of the event. In this paper I interrogate if, and if so how, this democratises or develops deeper levels of co-creativity in the relationship between producers, performers and audiences.

Feasibility and acceptability of wrist actigraph in assessing sleep quality and sleep quantity: A home-based pilot study in healthy volunteers

Purpose This study aimed to determine the feasibility and acceptability of actigraphy to monitor sleep quality and quantity in healthy self-rated good sleeper adults at home-based settings. Method Sixteen healthy volunteers (age > 18) were invited to participate. Each participant was provided with a wrist actigraph device to be worn for 24-hour/day for seven consecutive days to monitor their sleep-wake patterns. Actigraphy data were downloaded using-proprietary software to generate an individual-sleep report. Participants also completed a set of self-reported Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) using WHO (five) Well Being Index (WBI) questionnaires. Results Actigraphy was well accepted by all participants. Only 43.8% of the participants achieved normal total sleep time (TST) and 62.5% had a mean sleep efficiency value below the normal range. Despite a reduced quality of sleep among the participants, the self-reported HRQOL scores produced by the WHO-5 WBI showed a “fair” to “good” among the participants. Conclusions To maintain healthy well-being, it is vital to have efficient and quality sleep. Insufficient and poor sleep may contribute to various health problems and hazardous outcomes. People often believe they have normal and efficient sleep, not realising they may be developing poor sleep habits. This study found that actigraphy can be easily utilized to monitor sleep-wake patterns at home-based settings. We proposed that actigraphy could be adapted for use in the primary care settings (e.g. community pharmacy) to improve the sleep health management in the community.

Disorganising principles: Corporeal fragmentation and the possibilities for repair

Dancers investigate ever-expanding relationships to embodiment through the variety of unique choreographic signatures that are continually erupting in professional practice. They live fragmented lineages that are interrupted and redirected as they traverse between various projects led by different choreographers or the same choreographer pursuing different creative goals. As contemporary dance continues to reconceive ways of moving, the dominant lineages of dance training are less useful as reference points through which dancers can recalibrate bodily activity and thus rebalance. In this chapter, I examine the impulse towards fragmentation in contemporary dance and explore how moments of agency for dancers might arise and be seized within the complexities of this environment. These issues are discussed in relation to my encounter with a bodywork therapy of Japanese origin, Amatsu, which I studied throughout 2012, and through the teaching principles of Gill Clarke as illuminated through the Minding Motion project, which explored Clarke’s pedagogy for Tanzplan, Germany 2010 (Diehl and Lampert, 2011). Moments from performance and bodywork practice are offered as examples throughout the chapter.

Telomere length in circulating leukocytes is associated with lung function and disease

Several clinical studies suggest the involvement of premature ageing processes in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Using an epidemiological approach, we studied whether accelerated ageing indicated by telomere length, a marker of biological age, is associated with COPD and asthma, and whether intrinsic age-related processes contribute to the interindividual variability of lung function. Our meta-analysis of 14 studies included 934 COPD cases with 15 846 controls defined according to the Global Lungs Initiative (GLI) criteria (or 1189 COPD cases according to the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) criteria), 2834 asthma cases with 28 195 controls, and spirometric parameters (forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and FEV1/FVC) of 12 595 individuals. Associations with telomere length were tested by linear regression, adjusting for age, sex and smoking status. We observed negative associations between telomere length and asthma (β= −0.0452, p=0.024) as well as COPD (β= −0.0982, p=0.001), with associations being stronger and more significant when using GLI criteria than those of GOLD. In both diseases, effects were stronger in females than males. The investigation of spirometric indices showed positive associations between telomere length and FEV1 (p=1.07×10−7), FVC (p=2.07×10−5), and FEV1/FVC (p=5.27×10−3). The effect was somewhat weaker in apparently healthy subjects than in COPD or asthma patients. Our results provide indirect evidence for the hypothesis that cellular senescence may contribute to the pathogenesis of COPD and asthma, and that lung function may reflect biological ageing primarily due to intrinsic processes, which are likely to be aggravated in lung diseases.

The Library beyond (just) the book: Collaboration and co-working spaces for new technology and new technological practices

Libraries have often been first adopters of many new technological innovations, such as, punch cards, computers, barcodes, and e-book readers. It is thus not surprising that many libraries have embraced the advent of the internet as an opportunity to move away from just being repositories of books, towards becoming ideas stores and local network hubs for entrepreneurial thinking and new creative practices. This presentation will look at the case of “The Edge” – an initiative of the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, to establish a digital culture centre and learning environment deliberately designed for the co-creation and co-construction of knowledge. This initiative illustrates the potential role of libraries as testing grounds for new technologies and technological practices, which is particularly relevant in the context of the NBN rollout across Australia. It also provides an example of new engagement strategies for innovative co-working spaces that are a vital element in a trend that sees professionals, creatives and designers leave their traditional places of work and embrace the city as their office.

The role of DNA repair pathways in cisplatin resistant lung cancer

Platinum chemotherapeutic agents such as cisplatin are currently used in the treatment of various malignancies such as lung cancer. However, their efficacy is significantly hindered by the development of resistance during treatment. While a number of factors have been reported that contribute to the onset of this resistance phenotype, alterations in the DNA repair capacity of damaged cells is now recognised as an important factor in mediating this phenomenon. The mode of action of cisplatin has been linked to its ability to crosslink purine bases on the DNA, thereby interfering with DNA repair mechanisms and inducing DNA damage. Following DNA damage, cells respond by activating a DNA-damage response that either leads to repair of the lesion by the cell thereby promoting resistance to the drug, or cell death via activation of the apoptotic response. Therefore, DNA repair is a vital target to improving cancer therapy and reduce the resistance of tumour cells to DNA damaging agents currently used in the treatment of cancer patients. To date, despite the numerous findings that differential expression of components of the various DNA repair pathways correlate with response to cisplatin, translation of such findings in the clinical setting are still warranted. The identification of alterations in specific proteins and pathways that contribute to these unique DNA repair pathways in cisplatin resistant cancer cells may potentially lead to a renewed interest in the development of rational novel therapies for cisplatin resistant cancers, in particular, lung cancer.

Stroke: A brain attack!

Brain cells control everything we do - from speaking to walking to breathing. The brain needs a steady supply of blood and oxygen to function properly. Without this vital steady supply of blood, brain cells don't get enough nutrients and oxygen to do their job, and a stroke or 'brain attack' occurs. The human brain is divided into regions that control various motor (movement) and sensory (the senses) functions. Damage from stroke to a specific region may affect the functions it controls. This causes symptoms such as paralysis (loss of movement), difficulty speaking, or loss of coordination. The left side of the brain controls motor and sensory functions on the right side of the body. The left side is also responsible for scientific functions, understanding written and spoken language, number skills and reasoning. The right side of the brain controls motor and sensory functions on the left side of the body. It also controls artistic functions, such as music, art awareness, and insight. If an artery inside the brain or leading to the brain becomes temporarily blocked, the flow of blood to an area of the brain slows or stops. The lack of blood can cause temporary symptoms such as weakness, numbness, problems with speech, dizziness, or loss of vision.

A crowning glory: Patent law and public health

Australian patent law reforms are critical to ensuring Australians have access to vital health-care services and technologies and that people in developing countries have access to affordable, life-saving medicines...

Genetics of white matter development: A DTI study of 705 twins and their siblings aged 12 to 29

White matter microstructure is under strong genetic control, yet it is largely unknown how genetic influences change from childhood into adulthood. In one of the largest brain mapping studies ever performed, we determined whether the genetic control over white matter architecture depends on age, sex, socioeconomic status (SES), and intelligence quotient (IQ). We assessed white matter integrity voxelwise using diffusion tensor imaging at high magnetic field (4-Tesla), in 705 twins and their siblings (age range 12-29; 290. M/415. F). White matter integrity was quantified using a widely accepted measure, fractional anisotropy (FA). We fitted gene-environment interaction models pointwise, to visualize brain regions where age, sex, SES and IQ modulate heritability of fiber integrity. We hypothesized that environmental factors would start to outweigh genetic factors during late childhood and adolescence. Genetic influences were greater in adolescence versus adulthood, and greater in males than in females. Socioeconomic status significantly interacted with genes that affect fiber integrity: heritability was higher in those with higher SES. In people with above-average IQ, genetic factors explained over 80% of the observed FA variability in the thalamus, genu, posterior internal capsule, and superior corona radiata. In those with below-average IQ, however, only around 40% FA variability in the same regions was attributable to genetic factors. Genes affect fiber integrity, but their effects vary with age, sex, SES and IQ. Gene-environment interactions are vital to consider in the search for specific genetic polymorphisms that affect brain integrity and connectivity.

Automatic population HARDI white matter tract clustering by label fusion of multiple tract atlases

Automatic labeling of white matter fibres in diffusion-weighted brain MRI is vital for comparing brain integrity and connectivity across populations, but is challenging. Whole brain tractography generates a vast set of fibres throughout the brain, but it is hard to cluster them into anatomically meaningful tracts, due to wide individual variations in the trajectory and shape of white matter pathways. We propose a novel automatic tract labeling algorithm that fuses information from tractography and multiple hand-labeled fibre tract atlases. As streamline tractography can generate a large number of false positive fibres, we developed a top-down approach to extract tracts consistent with known anatomy, based on a distance metric to multiple hand-labeled atlases. Clustering results from different atlases were fused, using a multi-stage fusion scheme. Our "label fusion" method reliably extracted the major tracts from 105-gradient HARDI scans of 100 young normal adults. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.

A new combined surface and volume registration

3D registration of brain MRI data is vital for many medical imaging applications. However, purely intensitybased approaches for inter-subject matching of brain structure are generally inaccurate in cortical regions, due to the highly complex network of sulci and gyri, which vary widely across subjects. Here we combine a surfacebased cortical registration with a 3D fluid one for the first time, enabling precise matching of cortical folds, but allowing large deformations in the enclosed brain volume, which guarantee diffeomorphisms. This greatly improves the matching of anatomy in cortical areas. The cortices are segmented and registered with the software Freesurfer. The deformation field is initially extended to the full 3D brain volume using a 3D harmonic mapping that preserves the matching between cortical surfaces. Finally, these deformation fields are used to initialize a 3D Riemannian fluid registration algorithm, that improves the alignment of subcortical brain regions. We validate this method on an MRI dataset from 92 healthy adult twins. Results are compared to those based on volumetric registration without surface constraints; the resulting mean templates resolve consistent anatomical features both subcortically and at the cortex, suggesting that the approach is well-suited for cross-subject integration of functional and anatomic data.