Cardiac ARIA Index: Measuring Accessibility to Cardiovascular Services in Rural and Remote Australia via Applied Geographic Spatial Technology

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to impose a heavy burden in terms of cost, disability and death in Australia. Evidence suggests that increasing remoteness, where cardiac services are scarce, is linked to an increased risk of dying from CVD. Fatal CVD events are reported to be between 20% and 50% higher in rural areas compared to major cities. The Cardiac ARIA project, with its extensive use of geographic Information Systems (GIS), ranks each of Australia’s 20,387 urban, rural and remote population centres by accessibility to essential services or resources for the management of a cardiac event. This unique, innovative and highly collaborative project delivers a powerful tool to highlight and combat the burden imposed by cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Australia. Cardiac ARIA is innovative. It is a model that could be applied internationally and to other acute and chronic conditions such as mental health, midwifery, cancer, respiratory, diabetes and burns services. Cardiac ARIA was designed to: 1. Determine by expert panel, what were the minimal services and resources required for the management of a cardiac event in any urban, rural or remote population locations in Australia using a single patient pathway to access care. 2. Derive a classification using GIS accessibility modelling for each of Australia’s 20,387 urban, rural and remote population locations. 3. Compare the Cardiac ARIA categories and population locations with census derived population characteristics. Key findings are as follows: • In the event of a cardiac emergency, the majority of Australians had very good access to cardiac services. Approximately 71% or 13.9 million people lived within one hour of a category one hospital. • 68% of older Australians lived within one hour of a category one hospital (Principal Referral Hospital with access to Cardiac Catheterisation). • Only 40% of indigenous people lived within one hour of the category one hospital. • 16% (74000) of indigenous people lived more than one hour from a hospital. • 3% (91,000) of people 65 years of age or older lived more than one hour from any hospital or clinic. • Approximately 96%, or 19 million, of people lived within one hour of the four key services to support cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention. • 75% of indigenous people lived within one hour of the four cardiac rehabilitation services to support cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention. Fourteen percent (64,000 persons) indigenous people had poor access to the four key services to support cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention. • 12% (56,000) of indigenous people were more than one hour from a hospital and only had access one the four key services (usually a medical service) to support cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention.

Are alphabetic language-derived models of L2 reading relevant to L1 logographic background readers?

In this paper, we argue that second language (L2) reading research, which has been informed by studies involving first language (L1) alphabetic English reading, may be less relevant to L2 readers with non-alphabetic reading backgrounds, such as Chinese readers with an L1 logographic (Chinese character) learning history. We provide both neuroanatomical and behavioural evidence from Chinese language reading studies to support our claims. The paper concludes with an argument outlining the need for a universal L2 reading model which can adequately account for readers with diverse L1 orthographic language learning histories.

The perceived importance of mall retail categories and its effect on likelihood of purchase during a recession

Recessions impact the retail sector and as such research into consumer decision making during such times is imperative. In response to this, our study takes an innovative approach to examining how the perceived importance of retail store categories in a shopping mall influences the relationship between consumers' shopping attitudes and likelihood of purchasing in those categories during a recession. The overall findings show the importance of a product category to a consumer, which is often overlooked, has a strong explanatory influence on consumer purchase intentions for that specific retail store categories in a shopping mall under recession conditions. Findings also show that for consumers’ who have altered their shopping behaviour the perceived importance of a retail store category fully mediates the relationship for: Majors, Leisure, Food Catered and Mini Majors categories, and partial mediation for Apparel. Importance has no mediating effect for: Food Retail, General Retail, Mobile Phone Services, Home wares, and Retail Services. Our study makes a key contribution to the retail management literature with the findings suggesting that redefining and articulating the importance of the value offering for specific retail store categories can help reduce the impact of changes in consumers' recessionary shopping intentions across the mall tenant mix. Such actions can then help preserve the image of the shopping mall in the minds of the consumers when the economic recovery begins.

Middle school social sciences : exploring teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge

This study examines teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge in the humanities and social sciences, commonly referred to as "social education", in the middle years of schooling. Social education has long been a highly contested area of the curriculum in Australia. In Queensland, social education comprises the integrated learning area of Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE). However, the new Australian Curriculum marks a return to discipline-based study of history and geography. This phenomenographic study addresses a perceived lack of understanding in the current research literature in Australia of the nature of middle school teachers’ professional knowledge for teaching the social sciences. Teachers are conceptualised in this study as curriculum makers in the classroom and, as such, their conceptions of essential knowledge are significant. Shulman’s (1986, 1987) theory of teachers’ knowledge forms the theoretical foundation of the study, which is contextualised in Federal and State education policies and the literature on the middle phase of schooling. Transcripts of interviews conducted with a group of thirty-one Queensland middle school teachers of SOSE were subjected to phenomenographic analysis, revealing seven qualitatively different categories of description. Essential aspects of knowledge for social education emerging from the study were: (1) discipline-based knowledge; (2) curriculum knowledge; (3) knowledge derived from teaching experience; (4) knowledge of middle years learners; (5) knowledge of integration; (6) knowledge of current affairs; and (7) knowledge invested in teacher identity. The three dimensions of variation that linked and differentiated the categories were: (1) content; (2) inquiry learning; and (3) teacher autonomy. These findings are presented as an outcome space where the categories are grouped as knowledge of the learning area, knowledge of contexts and knowledge of self as teacher. The results of the study suggest that social education teachers’ identity and knowledge of self are critical aspects of their knowledge as curriculum makers. The results illustrate that the professional and personal domains intersect, extending Shulman’s (1986, 1987) original theorisation of teachers’ knowledge into the personal arena. Further, middle years teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge reveal a practice-based theorisation of knowledge for social education that fits the goals of middle schooling. The research concludes that attention to teacher identity in teacher education and in-service professional development has considerable potential to grow teachers’ knowledge in the social sciences and enhance their capacity for school-based curriculum leadership.

Simple rules to contain an invasive species with a complex life cycle and high dispersal capacity

Designing practical rules for controlling invasive species is a challenging task for managers, particularly when species are long-lived, have complex life cycles and high dispersal capacities. Previous findings derived from plant matrix population analyses suggest that effective control of long-lived invaders may be achieved by focusing on killing adult plants. However, the cost-effectiveness of managing different life stages has not been evaluated. We illustrate the benefits of integrating matrix population models with decision theory to undertake this evaluation, using empirical data from the largest infestation of mesquite (Leguminosae: Prosopis spp) within Australia. We include in our model the mesquite life cycle, different dispersal rates and control actions that target individuals at different life stages with varying costs, depending on the intensity of control effort. We then use stochastic dynamic programming to derive cost-effective control strategies that minimize the cost of controlling the core infestation locally below a density threshold and the future cost of control arising from infestation of adjacent areas via seed dispersal. Through sensitivity analysis, we show that four robust management rules guide the allocation of resources between mesquite life stages for this infestation: (i) When there is no seed dispersal, no action is required until density of adults exceeds the control threshold and then only control of adults is needed; (ii) when there is seed dispersal, control strategy is dependent on knowledge of the density of adults and large juveniles (LJ) and broad categories of dispersal rates only; (iii) if density of adults is higher than density of LJ, controlling adults is most cost-effective; (iv) alternatively, if density of LJ is equal or higher than density of adults, management efforts should be spread between adults, large and to a lesser extent small juveniles, but never saplings. Synthesis and applications.In this study, we show that simple rules can be found for managing invasive plants with complex life cycles and high dispersal rates when population models are combined with decision theory. In the case of our mesquite population, focussing effort on controlling adults is not always the most cost-effective way to meet our management objective.

ATF5, a possible regulator of osteogenic differentiation in human adipose-derived stem cells

The regulatory pathways involved in maintaining the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells are partially known, whereas the regulatory pathways governing adult stem cells and their "stem-ness" are characterized to an even lesser extent. We, therefore, screened the transcriptome profiles of 20 osteogenically induced adult human adipose-derived stem cell (ADSC) populations and investigated for putative transcription factors that could regulate the osteogenic differentiation of these ADSC. We studied a subgroup of donors' samples that had a disparate osteogenic response transcriptome from that of induced human fetal osteoblasts and the rest of the induced human ADSC samples. From our statistical analysis, we found activating transcription factor 5 (ATF5) to be significantly and consistently down-regulated in a randomized time-course study of osteogenically differentiated adipose-derived stem cells from human donor samples. Knockdown of ATF5 with siRNA showed an increased sensitivity to osteogenic induction. This evidence suggests a role for ATF5 in the regulation of osteogenic differentiation in adipose-derived stem cells. To our knowledge, this is the first report that indicates a novel role of transcription factors in regulating osteogenic differentiation in adult or tissue specific stem cells. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Strategy taxonomy and classification system development : study of two state governments

There is limited understanding about business strategies related to parliamentary government's departments. This study focuses on the strategies of departments of two state governments in Australia. The strategies are derived from department strategic plans available in public domain and collected from respective websites. The results of this research indicate that strategies fall into seven categories: internal, development, political, partnership, environment, reorientation and status quo. The strategies of the departments are mainly internal or development where development strategy is mainly the focus of departments such as transport, and infrastructure. Political strategy is prevalent for departments related to communities, and education and training. Further three layers of strategies are identified as kernel, cluster and individual, which are mapped to the developed taxonomy.

Learning domain-specific sentiment lexicons for predicting product sales

Generic sentiment lexicons have been widely used for sentiment analysis these days. However, manually constructing sentiment lexicons is very time-consuming and it may not be feasible for certain application domains where annotation expertise is not available. One contribution of this paper is the development of a statistical learning based computational method for the automatic construction of domain-specific sentiment lexicons to enhance cross-domain sentiment analysis. Our initial experiments show that the proposed methodology can automatically generate domain-specific sentiment lexicons which contribute to improve the effectiveness of opinion retrieval at the document level. Another contribution of our work is that we show the feasibility of applying the sentiment metric derived based on the automatically constructed sentiment lexicons to predict product sales of certain product categories. Our research contributes to the development of more effective sentiment analysis system to extract business intelligence from numerous opinionated expressions posted to the Web

Molecular characterisation of environmental enterococci derived from water samples and assessment of associated public health hazards

Enterococci are versatile Gram-positive bacteria that can survive under extreme conditions. Most enterococci are non-virulent and found in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals. Other strains are opportunistic pathogens that contribute to a large number of nosocomial infections globally. Epidemiological studies demonstrated a direct relationship between the density of enterococci in surface waters and the risk of swimmer-associated gastroenteritis. The distribution of infectious enterococcal strains from the hospital environment or other sources to environmental water bodies through sewage discharge or other means, could increase the prevalence of these strains in the human population. Environmental water quality studies may benefit from focusing on a subset of Enterococcus spp. that are consistently associated with sources of faecal pollution such as domestic sewage, rather than testing for the entire genus. E. faecalis and E. faecium are potentially good focal species for such studies, as they have been consistently identified as the dominant Enterococcus spp. in human faeces and sewage. On the other hand enterococcal infections are predominantly caused by E. faecalis and E. faecium. The characterisation of E. faecalis and E. faecium is important in studying their population structures, particularly in environmental samples. In developing and implementing rapid, robust molecular genotyping techniques, it is possible to more accurately establish the relationship between human and environmental enterococci. Of particular importance, is to determine the distribution of high risk enterococcal clonal complexes, such as E. faecium clonal complex 17 and E. faecalis clonal complexes 2 and 9 in recreational waters. These clonal complexes are recognized as particularly pathogenic enterococcal genotypes that cause severe disease in humans globally. The Pimpama-Coomera watershed is located in South East Queensland, Australia and was investigated in this study mainly because it is used intensively for agriculture and recreational purposes and has a strong anthropogenic impact. The primary aim of this study was to develop novel, universally applicable, robust, rapid and cost effective genotyping methods which are likely to yield more definitive results for the routine monitoring of E. faecalis and E. faecium, particularly in environmental water sources. To fullfill this aim, new genotyping methods were developed based on the interrogation of highly informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in housekeeping genes of both E. faecalis and E. faecium. SNP genotyping was successfully applied in field investigations of the Coomera watershed, South-East Queensland, Australia. E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates were grouped into 29 and 23 SNP profiles respectively. This study showed the high longitudinal diversity of E. faecalis and E. faecium over a period of two years, and both human-related and human-specific SNP profiles were identified. Furthermore, 4.25% of E. faecium strains isolated from water was found to correspond to the important clonal complex-17 (CC17). Strains that belong to CC17 cause the majority of hospital outbreaks and clinical infections globally. Of the six sampling sites of the Coomera River, Paradise Point had the highest number of human-related and human-specific E. faecalis and E. faecium SNP profiles. The secondary aim of this study was to determine the antibiotic-resistance profiles and virulence traits associated with environmental E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates compared to human pathogenic E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates. This was performed to predict the potential health risks associated with coming into contact with these strains in the Coomera watershed. In general, clinical isolates were found to be more resistant to all the antibiotics tested compared to water isolates and they harbored more virulence traits. Multi-drug resistance was more prevalent in clinical isolates (71.18% of E. faecalis and 70.3 % of E. faecium) compared to water isolates (only 5.66 % E. faecium). However, tetracycline, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin and ampicillin resistance was observed in water isolates. The virulence gene esp was the most prevalent virulence determinant observed in clinical isolates (67.79% of E. faecalis and 70.37 % of E. faecium), and this gene has been described as a human-specific marker used for microbial source tracking (MST). The presence of esp in water isolates (16.36% of E. faecalis and 19.14% of E. faecium) could be indicative of human faecal contamination in these waterways. Finally, in order to compare overall gene expression between environmental and clinical strains of E. faecalis, a comparative gene hybridization study was performed. The results of this investigation clearly demonstrated the up-regulation of genes associated with pathogenicity in E. faecalis isolated from water. The expression study was performed at physiological temperatures relative to ambient temperatures. The up-regulation of virulence genes demonstrates that environmental strains of E. faecalis can pose an increased health risk which can lead to serious disease, particularly if these strains belong to the virulent CC17 group. The genotyping techniques developed in this study not only provide a rapid, robust and highly discriminatory tool to characterize E. faecalis and E. faecium, but also enables the efficient identification of virulent enterococci that are distributed in environmental water sources.

The social car : new interactive vehicular applications derived from social media and urban informatics

Digital information that is place- and time-specific, is increasingly becoming available on all aspects of the urban landscape. People (cf. the Social Web), places (cf. the Geo Web), and physical objects (cf. ubiquitous computing, the Internet of Things) are increasingly infused with sensors, actuators, and tagged with a wealth of digital information. Urban informatics research explores these emerging digital layers of the city at the intersection of people, place and technology. However, little is known about the challenges and new opportunities that these digital layers may offer to road users driving through today’s mega cities. We argue that this aspect is worth exploring in particular with regards to Auto-UI’s overarching goal of making cars both safer and more enjoyable. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study, which included 14 urban informatics research experts participating in a guided ideation (idea creation) workshop within a simulated environment. They were immersed into different driving scenarios to imagine novel urban informatics type of applications specific to the driving context.