Intranasal vaccination with proinsulin DNA induces regulatory CD4+ T cells that prevent experimental autoimmune diabetes

Insulin, an autoantigen in type 1 diabetes, when administered mucosally to diabetes-prone NOD mice induces regulatory T cells (T_reg) that protect against diabetes. Compared with protein, Ag encoded as DNA has potential advantages as a therapeutic agent. We found that intranasal vaccination of NOD mice with plasmid DNA encoding mouse proinsulin II-induced CD4⁺ T_reg that suppressed diabetes development, both after adoptive cotransfer with "diabetogenic" spleen cells and after transfer into NOD mice given cyclophosphamide to accelerate diabetes onset. In contrast to prototypic CD4⁺CD25⁺ T_reg, CD4⁺ T_reg induced by proinsulin DNA were both CD25⁺ and CD25^– and not defined by markers such as glucocorticoid-induced TNFR-related protein (GITR), CD103, or Foxp3. Intriguingly, despite induction of T_reg and reduced islet inflammation, diabetes incidence in proinsulin DNA-treated mice was unchanged. However, diabetes was prevented when DNA vaccination was performed under the cover of CD40 ligand blockade, known to prevent priming of CTL by mucosal Ag. Thus, intranasal vaccination with proinsulin DNA has therapeutic potential to prevent diabetes, as demonstrated by induction of protective T_reg, but further modifications are required to improve its efficacy, which could be compromised by concomitant induction of pathogenic immunity.

The Australian Government`s abandoned infrastructure outsourcing program: "fiasco" or relatively typical?

Early in 2001, after a damning public report by the Auditor-General, the Australian Federal Government was forced to abandon its highly promoted “whole of government” infrastructure outsourcing initiative. This about-face was greeted in the press with reports that the initiative was a “fiasco”. Yet a four-year case study of the initiative suggests a more complex picture. The initiative can be viewed in a quite different light on the basis of comparisons with a contemporary survey of 240 Australian organisations engaged in IT outsourcing. This reveals that many of the negative outcomes associated with this “fiasco” are typical of those experienced by large Australian organisations. This has important implications for decision makers confronted with choices about sourcing IT service delivery.

Supporting knowledge management infrastructure : a multi-agent approach

Knowledge management has by now exerted a large influence over industrial practice. We propose a multi-agent based system to provide infrastructure service to meet various requirements of knowledge management in view of the complex nature of the task, i.e., covering science and technologies across different disciplines. The paper discusses the use of a multi-agent system to support the knowledge management infrastructure. It will also discuss the design rational and implementation details as well as an application to the problem of feature extraction in weather prediction.

Survey commentaries and analysis on Singapore biotechnology venture capital, intellectual and property regulatory law

The article presents survey commentaries and analysis on biotechnology venture capital, intellectual and property regulatory law in Singapore as of April 2006. The survey revealed that the financial sector and venture capitalists lack the ability to evaluate and understand biotechnology. Some major concerns for stakeholders are the lack of experience in the litigation of cases by Singaporean law firms and the lack of strategic management of portfolios for biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and the government. Stakeholders cited the need for Singaporean laws to be amended to accommodate developments in medical devices, herbal medicine, some biological areas and pre-clinical and clinical trials.

Federally funded aged care provision in regional Victoria : Examining current provision and estimating future infrastructure requirements using existing population-based benchmarks

The following paper examines federally accredited and funded aged care provision in regional Victoria. Benchmarks that have been set by the Australian Department of Health and Ageing, are used to measure and compare the relative number of high and low level aged care positions and Community Aged Care Packages in six regional Victorian centres.
Using population forecasts, the additional aged care positions that each centre will require to meet the provision benchmarks in the year 2021 have been estimated. These figures are then translated into infrastructure requirements for the regional Victorian city of Greater Bendigo. This is done by surveying Greater Bendigo’s existing residential aged care facilities. Strategies for the provision of additional high and low level residential aged care infrastructure are explored using a matrix governed by size and configuration. Variations in these two aspects are shown to affect the location options for future facilities in Greater Bendigo. The implications of the benchmarks are also investigated in terms of facilities for the provision of Community Aged Care Packages.
The research is funded by a double ARC APAI grant between the Built Environment Research Group at Deakin University, The Centre for Sustainable Regional Centres at La Trobe University, the City of Greater Bendigo and the City of Warrnambool.

Critical infrastructure systems modelling : benchmarking CPN tools

This paper reports on the application of systems modelling benchmarks to determine the viability of systems modelling software and its suitability for modelling critical infrastructure systems. This research applies the earlier research that related to developing benchmarks that when applied to systems modelling software will indicate its likely suitability to modelling critical infrastructure systems. In this context, the systems modelling benchmarks will assess the practicality of CPNTools to the task of modelling critical infrastructure systems.

Commercial critical systems and critical infrastructure protection : a future research agenda

Secure management of Australia’s commercial critical infrastructure presents ongoing challenges to owners and the government. Although it is currently managed through high-level information sharing via collaboration, but does this suit the commercial sector. One of the issues facing Australia is that the majority of critical infrastructure resides under the control of the business sector and certain aspects such of the critical infrastructure such as Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems are distributed entities and not a single entity. The paper focuses upon the security issues associated with SCM systems and critical infrastructure protection.

Security protection for critical infrastructure

Understanding and managing information infrastructure (II) security risks is a priority to most organizations dealing with information technology and information warfare (IW) scenarios today (Libicki, 2000). Traditional security risk analysis (SRA) was well suited to these tasks within the paradigm of computer security, where the focus was on securing tangible items such as computing and communications equipment (NCS,1996; Cramer, 1998). With the growth of information interchange and reliance on information infrastructure, the ability to understand where vulnerabilities lie within an organization, regardless of size, has become extremely difficult (NIPC, 1996). To place a value on the information that is owned and used by an organization is virtually an impossible task. The suitability of risk analysis to assist in managing IW and information infrastructure-related security risks is unqualified, however studies have been undertaken to build frameworks and methodologies for modeling information warfare attacks (Molander, Riddile, & Wilson, 1996; Johnson, 1997; Hutchinson & Warren, 2001) which will assist greatly in applying risk analysis concepts and methodologies to the burgeoning information technology security paradigm, information warfare.

Modelling regulatory change V's volume of trading effects in HSIF and HSI volatility

In an earlier paper, we adopted a bi-variate BEKK–GARCH framework and employed a systematic approach to examine structural breaks in the Hang Seng Index and Index Futures market volatility. Switching dummy variables were included and tested in the variance equations to check for any structural changes in the autoregressive volatility structure due to the events that have taken place in the Hong Kong market surrounding the Asian markets crisis. In this paper, we include measures of daily trading volume from both markets in the estimation. Likelihood ratio tests indicate the switching dummy variables become insignificant and the GARCH effects diminish but remain significant. There is some evidence that the Sequential Arrival of Information Model (SIM) provides a platform to explain these market induced effects when volume of trade is accounted for.

A systematic policy approach to changing the food system and physical activity environments to prevent obesity

As obesity prevention becomes an increasing health priority in many countries, including Australia
and New Zealand, the challenge that governments are now facing is how to adopt a systematic
policy approach to increase healthy eating and regular physical activity. This article sets out a
structure for systematically identifying areas for obesity prevention policy action across the food
system and full range of physical activity environments. Areas amenable to policy intervention can
be systematically identified by considering policy opportunities for each level of governance (local,
state, national, international and organisational) in each sector of the food system (primary
production, food processing, distribution, marketing, retail, catering and food service) and each
sector that influences physical activity environments (infrastructure and planning, education,
employment, transport, sport and recreation). Analysis grids are used to illustrate, in a structured
fashion, the broad array of areas amenable to legal and regulatory intervention across all levels of
governance and all relevant sectors. In the Australian context, potential regulatory policy
intervention areas are widespread throughout the food system, e.g., land-use zoning (primary
production within local government), food safety (food processing within state government), food
labelling (retail within national government). Policy areas for influencing physical activity are
predominantly local and state government responsibilities including, for example, walking and
cycling environments (infrastructure and planning sector) and physical activity education in schools
(education sector). The analysis structure presented in this article provides a tool to systematically
identify policy gaps, barriers and opportunities for obesity prevention, as part of the process of
developing and implementing a comprehensive obesity prevention strategy. It also serves to
highlight the need for a coordinated approach to policy development and implementation across
all levels of government in order to ensure complementary policy action.