Raman microscopy study of tyrolite : a multi-anion arsenate mineral

The Raman spectrum of tyrolite, CaCu5(AsO4)2(CO3)(OH) 4.6H2O, from Brixlegg, Tyrol, Austria, is reported. Comparison with copper hydroxy-arsenate and basic carbonates was used to achieve assignments of the observed bands. The AsO43- group is characterized by two υ4 modes around 433 and 480 cm-1 plus a broad band around 840 cm-1 as the υ overlapping with the υ. The υ3 mode is observed as a single band around 355 cm -1. The CO32- υ1 mode is observed around 1035 and 1088 cm-1, although this assignment is difficult because of the in-plane OH bending vibrations at similar frequencies. Two υ4 modes are assigned to the 717 and 755 cm-1 bands. The υ3 mode is present as three bands at 1431, 1463, and 1498 cm-1. A large split caused by bridging carbonates may explain the band at 1370 cm -1. The H2O bending region shows two bands at 1635 and 1667 cm-1 together with stretching modes around 3204 and 3303 cm-1, the first associated with adsorbed H2O, while the second indicates more strongly bonded H2O. Three bands around 3534, 3438, and 3379 cm -1 are assigned to OH stretching modes of the OH groups in the crystal structure. The 202, 262, 301, 524, and 534 cm-1 bands are assigned to Cu-OH bending and stretching modes, whereas the bands around 179, 202, and 217 cm-1 are ascribed to O-(Ca, Cu)-O(H) with the O(H) at much greater distance from the cation. The bands around 503, 570, and 598 cm-1 are ascribed to the Cu-O stretching modes.

The acquisition and exercise of nephrology nursing expertise : A grounded theory study

Aims and objectives. This purpose of this study was to describe the process of expertise acquisition in nephrology nursing practice. Background. It has been recognized for a number of decades that experts, compared with other practitioners in a number of professions and occupations, are the most knowledgeable and effective, in terms of both the quantity and quality of output. Studies relating to expertise have been undertaken in a range of nursing contexts and specialties; to date, however, none have been undertaken which focus on nephrology nursing. Design. This study, using grounded theory methodology, took place in one renal unit in New South Wales, Australia and involved six non-expert and 11 expert nurses. Methods. Simultaneous data collection and analysis took place using participant observation, semi-structured interviews and review of nursing documentation. Findings. The study revealed a three-stage skills-acquisitive process that was identified as non-expert, experienced non-expert and expert stages. Each stage was typified by four characteristics, which altered during the acquisitive process; these were knowledge, experience, skill and focus. Conclusion. This was the first study to explore nephrology nursing expertise and uncovered new aspects of expertise not documented in the literature and it also made explicit other areas, which had only been previously implied. Relevance to clinical practice. Of significance to nursing, the exercise of expertise is a function of the recognition of expertise by others and it includes the blurring of the normal boundaries of professional practice. © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

An economic evaluation of the Safe Motherhood programme in Guangxi, China

Maternal and infant mortality is a global health issue with a significant social and economic impact. Each year, over half a million women worldwide die due to complications related to pregnancy or childbirth, four million infants die in the first 28 days of life, and eight million infants die in the first year. Ninety-nine percent of maternal and infant deaths are in developing countries. Reducing maternal and infant mortality is among the key international development goals. In China, the national maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate were reduced greatly in the past two decades, yet a large discrepancy remains between urban and rural areas. To address this problem, a large-scale Safe Motherhood Programme was initiated in 2000. The programme was implemented in Guangxi in 2003. Interventions in the programme included both demand-side and supply side-interventions focusing on increasing health service use and improving birth outcomes. Little is known about the effects and economic outcomes of the Safe Motherhood Programme in Guangxi, although it has been implemented for seven years. The aim of this research is to estimate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the interventions in the Safe Motherhood Programme in Guangxi, China. The objectives of this research include: 1. To evaluate whether the changes of health service use and birth outcomes are associated with the interventions in the Safe Motherhood Programme. 2. To estimate the cost-effectiveness of the interventions in the Safe Motherhood Programme and quantify the uncertainty surrounding the decision. 3. To assess the expected value of perfect information associated with both the whole decision and individual parameters, and interpret the findings to inform priority setting in further research and policy making in this area. A quasi-experimental study design was used in this research to assess the effectiveness of the programme in increasing health service use and improving birth outcomes. The study subjects were 51 intervention counties and 30 control counties. Data on the health service use, birth outcomes and socio-economic factors from 2001 to 2007 were collected from the programme database and statistical yearbooks. Based on the profile plots of the data, general linear mixed models were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme while controlling for the effects of baseline levels of the response variables, change of socio-economic factors over time and correlations among repeated measurements from the same county. Redundant multicollinear variables were deleted from the mixed model using the results of the multicollinearity diagnoses. For each response variable, the best covariance structure was selected from 15 alternatives according to the fit statistics including Akaike information criterion, Finite-population corrected Akaike information criterion, and Schwarz.s Bayesian information criterion. Residual diagnostics were used to validate the model assumptions. Statistical inferences were made to show the effect of the programme on health service use and birth outcomes. A decision analytic model was developed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the programme, quantify the decision uncertainty, and estimate the expected value of perfect information associated with the decision. The model was used to describe the transitions between health states for women and infants and reflect the change of both costs and health benefits associated with implementing the programme. Result gained from the mixed models and other relevant evidence identified were synthesised appropriately to inform the input parameters of the model. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of the programme were calculated for the two groups of intervention counties over time. Uncertainty surrounding the parameters was dealt with using probabilistic sensitivity analysis, and uncertainty relating to model assumptions was handled using scenario analysis. Finally the expected value of perfect information for both the whole model and individual parameters in the model were estimated to inform priority setting in further research in this area.The annual change rates of the antenatal care rate and the institutionalised delivery rate were improved significantly in the intervention counties after the programme was implemented. Significant improvements were also found in the annual change rates of the maternal mortality ratio, the infant mortality rate, the incidence rate of neonatal tetanus and the mortality rate of neonatal tetanus in the intervention counties after the implementation of the programme. The annual change rate of the neonatal mortality rate was also improved, although the improvement was only close to statistical significance. The influences of the socio-economic factors on the health service use indicators and birth outcomes were identified. The rural income per capita had a significant positive impact on the health service use indicators, and a significant negative impact on the birth outcomes. The number of beds in healthcare institutions per 1,000 population and the number of rural telephone subscribers per 1,000 were found to be positively significantly related to the institutionalised delivery rate. The length of highway per square kilometre negatively influenced the maternal mortality ratio. The percentage of employed persons in the primary industry had a significant negative impact on the institutionalised delivery rate, and a significant positive impact on the infant mortality rate and neonatal mortality rate. The incremental costs of implementing the programme over the existing practice were US $11.1 million from the societal perspective, and US $13.8 million from the perspective of the Ministry of Health. Overall, 28,711 life years were generated by the programme, producing an overall incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of US $386 from the societal perspective, and US $480 from the perspective of the Ministry of Health, both of which were below the threshold willingness-to-pay ratio of US $675. The expected net monetary benefit generated by the programme was US $8.3 million from the societal perspective, and US $5.5 million from the perspective of the Ministry of Health. The overall probability that the programme was cost-effective was 0.93 and 0.89 from the two perspectives, respectively. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of the programme was insensitive to the different estimates of the three parameters relating to the model assumptions. Further research could be conducted to reduce the uncertainty surrounding the decision, in which the upper limit of investment was US $0.6 million from the societal perspective, and US $1.3 million from the perspective of the Ministry of Health. It is also worthwhile to get a more precise estimate of the improvement of infant mortality rate. The population expected value of perfect information for individual parameters associated with this parameter was US $0.99 million from the societal perspective, and US $1.14 million from the perspective of the Ministry of Health. The findings from this study have shown that the interventions in the Safe Motherhood Programme were both effective and cost-effective in increasing health service use and improving birth outcomes in rural areas of Guangxi, China. Therefore, the programme represents a good public health investment and should be adopted and further expanded to an even broader area if possible. This research provides economic evidence to inform efficient decision making in improving maternal and infant health in developing countries.

Drinking and driving in Vietnam : perceptions and risk

Road traffic injuries are a major global public health problem but continue to receive inadequate attention. Alcohol influences both risk and consequence of road traffic injury but the scale of the problem is not well understood in many countries. In Vietnam, economic development has brought a substantial increase in the number of registered motorcycles as well as alcohol consumption. Traffic injury is among the leading causes of death in Vietnam but there is little local information regarding alcohol related traffic injuries. The primary goal of this study is to explore the drinking and driving patterns of males and their perceptions towards drink-driving and to determine the relationship between alcohol consumption and road traffic injuries. Furthermore, this thesis aims to present the situation analysis for choosing priority actions to reduce drinking and driving in Vietnam. The study is a combination of two cross-sectional surveys and a pilot study. The pilot study, involving 224 traffic injured patients, was conducted to test the tools and the feasibility of approach methods. In the first survey, male patrons (n=464) were randomly selected at seven restaurants. Face-to-face interviews were conducted when patrons just arrived and breath tests were collected when they were about to leave the restaurant. In the second survey, male patients admitted to hospital following a traffic injury (n=480, of which 414 were motorcycle or bicycle riders) were interviewed and their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) measured by breathalyzer. The results show broadly similar patterns of drinking and driving among male patrons and male traffic injured patients with a high frequency of drinking and drink-driving reported among the majority of the two groups. A high proportion of male patrons were leaving restaurants with a BAC over the legal limit. Factors that significantly associate with the number of drinks and BAC were age, hazardous drinking, frequency of drink-driving in the past year, self-estimated number of drinks consumed to drive legally, perceived family’s disapproval of drink-driving, and perceived legal risk and physical risk. The proportion of patrons and patients with BAC above the legal limit of 0.05 were 86.7% and 60.4% respectively, which was much higher than found in previous studies. In addition, both groups had a high prevalence of BAC over 0.15g/100ml (39.7% of patrons and 45.6% patients), a level that can seriously affect driving capacity. Results from the case-crossover analysis for patients indicate a dose-response relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of traffic injury. The risk of traffic injury increased when alcohol was consumed before driving and there was a more than 13 fold increase when six or more drinks were consumed. Regarding perceptions towards drinking and driving, findings corroborate the low awareness among males in Vietnam, with a majority of respondents holding a low knowledge of safe and legally permissible alcohol use, and a low perceived risk of drinking and driving. The results also indicate a huge gap in prevention skills in terms of planning ahead or using alternative transport to avoid drink-driving and a perception by patrons and patients of a low rate of disapproval of drink-driving from peers and family. Findings in this study have considerable implications for national policy, injury prevention, clinical practice, reporting systems, and for further research. The low rate of compliance with existing laws and a generally low perceived legal risk toward drink-driving in this study call for the strengthening of enforcement along with mass media campaigns and news coverage in order to decrease the widespread perception of impunity and thereby, to reduce the level of drink-driving. In addition, no significant difference was found in this study on risk of traffic injuries between car drivers and motorcycle drivers. The current inconsistency between legal BAC for drivers of motorcycles, compared to cars, thus needs addressing. Furthermore, as drinking was found to be very common, rather than solely targeting drink-driving, it is important to call for a more strategic and comprehensive approach to alcohol policy in Viet Nam. This study also has considerable implications for clinical practice in terms of screening and brief interventions. Our study suggests that the short form of the AUDIT (AUDIT-C) screening tool is appropriate for use in busy emergency departments. The high proportion of traffic injured patients with evidence of alcohol abuse or hazardous drinking suggests that brief interventions by alcohol and drug counselors in emergency departments are a sensible option to addressing this important problem. The significance of this study is in the combination of the systematic collection of breath test and use of case-crossover design to estimate the risk of traffic injuries after alcohol consumption. The results provide convincing evidence to policy makers, health authorities and the media to help raise community awareness and policy advocacy toward the drinkdriving problem in Vietnam. The findings suggest an urgent need for a multi-sectoral approach to curtail drink-driving in Vietnam, especially programs to raise community awareness and effective legal enforcement. Furthermore, serving as a situation analysis, the thesis should inform the formulation of interventions designed to curtail drinking and driving in Vietnam and other developing countries.

The defence of joint illegal activity must be looked at in context

In Miller v Miller (2011) 85 ALJR 480; [2011] HCA 9 the High Court examined the complex issue of joint illegal activity. The issue before the court was whether a plaintiff who had engaged in an illegal activity with the defendant may claim damages in negligence. In its decision the court analysed the cases of Henwood v Municipal Tramways Trust (SA) (1938) 60 CLR 438, Smith v Jenkins (1970) 119 CLR 397, Jackson v Harrison (1978) 138 CLR 438 and Gala v Preston (1991) 172 CLR 243.

Graph rigidity for near-coplanar structure from motion

Recent algorithms for monocular motion capture (MoCap) estimate weak-perspective camera matrices between images using a small subset of approximately-rigid points on the human body (i.e. the torso and hip). A problem with this approach, however, is that these points are often close to coplanar, causing canonical linear factorisation algorithms for rigid structure from motion (SFM) to become extremely sensitive to noise. In this paper, we propose an alternative solution to weak-perspective SFM based on a convex relaxation of graph rigidity. We demonstrate the success of our algorithm on both synthetic and real world data, allowing for much improved solutions to marker less MoCap problems on human bodies. Finally, we propose an approach to solve the two-fold ambiguity over bone direction using a k-nearest neighbour kernel density estimator.

Enhancing Sustainability Deliverables for Infrastructure Project Delivery

Despite an increasing highlight on the sustainability agenda by the construction industry, sustainable development is often treated with different philosophy, interpretation, and responsibility at various stages of project development by various stakeholders involved. The actual sustainability deliverables from the industry is not substantially tangible, especially at project levels. For infrastructure projects which typically span over long periods of time, achieving consistent sustainability outcomes during various stages of development remains as a formidable task. The absence of common understanding among stakeholders and the lack of appropriate sustainability reporting mechanism are possible causes. Many policies dealing with these issues tend to be too generic and broad-based for practical adaptation. While there had been a plenty of research initiatives on sustainability assessment, there is often a gap between sustainability deliverables during project implementation and the grandeur of promises during project conception. This paper reviews the historical context of sustainable development and its principles, and past studies on sustainable construction, focusing on infrastructure projects. It goes on to introduce a QUT research project aimed at identifying and integrating the different perceptions and priority needs of the stakeholders, along with identifying issues that impact on the gap between sustainability foci and its actual realization at project end level, in order to generate a framework of enhancing sustainable deliverables. It is expected that the research will help promote more integrated approaches to decision-making on the implementation of sustainability strategies and foci during the construction project delivery processes.

A novel method for the synthesis of monodisperse gold-coated silica nanoparticles

Monodisperse silica nanoparticles were synthesised by the well-known Stober protocol, then dispersed in acetonitrile (ACN) and subsequently added to a bisacetonitrile gold(I) coordination complex ([Au(MeCN)2]?) in ACN. The silica hydroxyl groups were deprotonated in the presence of ACN, generating a formal negative charge on the siloxy groups. This allowed the [Au(MeCN)2]? complex to undergo ligand exchange with the silica nanoparticles and form a surface coordination complex with reduction to metallic gold (Au0) proceeding by an inner sphere mechanism. The residual [Au(MeCN)2]? complex was allowed to react with water, disproportionating into Au0 and Au(III), respectively, with the Au0 adding to the reduced gold already bound on the silica surface. The so-formed metallic gold seed surface was found to be suitable for the conventional reduction of Au(III) to Au0 by ascorbic acid (ASC). This process generated a thin and uniform gold coating on the silica nanoparticles. The silica NPs batches synthesised were in a size range from 45 to 460 nm. Of these silica NP batches, the size range from 400 to 480 nm were used for the gold-coating experiments.

Unsupervised multi-label text classification using a world knowledge ontology

The development of text classification techniques has been largely promoted in the past decade due to the increasing availability and widespread use of digital documents. Usually, the performance of text classification relies on the quality of categories and the accuracy of classifiers learned from samples. When training samples are unavailable or categories are unqualified, text classification performance would be degraded. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised multi-label text classification method to classify documents using a large set of categories stored in a world ontology. The approach has been promisingly evaluated by compared with typical text classification methods, using a real-world document collection and based on the ground truth encoded by human experts.

Beef carcasses with larger eye muscle areas, lower ossification scores and improved nutrition have a lower incidence of dark cutting

This study evaluated the effect of eye muscle area (EMA), ossification, carcass weight, marbling and rib fat depth on the incidence of dark cutting (pH u > 5.7) using routinely collected Meat Standards Australia (MSA) data. Data was obtained from 204,072 carcasses at a Western Australian processor between 2002 and 2008. Binomial data of pH u compliance was analysed using a logit model in a Bayesian framework. Increasing eye muscle area from 40 to 80 cm 2, increased pH u compliance by around 14% (P < 0.001) in carcasses less than 350 kg. As carcass weight increased from 150 kg to 220 kg, compliance increased by 13% (P < 0.001) and younger cattle with lower ossification were also 7% more compliant (P < 0.001). As rib fat depth increased from 0 to 20 mm, pH u compliance increased by around 10% (P < 0.001) yet marbling had no effect on dark cutting. Increasing musculature and growth combined with good nutrition will minimise dark cutting beef in Australia.