Exploring health behaviour determinants of ageing Australians with chronic diseases

Background: Chronic disease presents overwhelming challenges to elderly patients, their families, health care providers and the health care system. The aim of this study was to explore a theoretical model for effective management of chronic diseases, especially type 2 diabetes mellitus and/or cardiovascular disease. The assumed theoretical model considered the connections between physical function, mental health, social support and health behaviours. The study effort was to improve the quality of life for people with chronic diseases, especially type 2 diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease and to reduce health costs. Methods: A cross-sectional post questionnaire survey was conducted in early 2009 from a randomised sample of Australians aged 50 to 80 years. A total of 732 subjects were eligible for analysis. Firstly, factors influencing respondents‘ quality of life were investigated through bivariate and multivariate regression analysis. Secondly, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model for regular physical activity, healthy eating and medication adherence behaviours was tested for all relevant respondents using regression analysis. Thirdly, TPB variable differences between respondents who have diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease and those without these diseases were compared. Finally, the TPB model for three behaviours including regular physical activity, healthy eating and medication adherence were tested in respondents with diabetes and/or cardiovascular diseases using Structure Equation Modelling (SEM). Results: This was the first study combining the three behaviours using a TPB model, while testing the influence of extra variables on the TPB model in one study. The results of this study provided evidence that the ageing process was a cumulative effect of biological change, socio-economic environment and lifelong behaviours. Health behaviours, especially physical activity and healthy eating were important modifiable factors influencing respondents‘ quality of life. Since over 80% of the respondents had at least one chronic disease, it was important to consider supporting older people‘s chronic disease self-management skills such as healthy diet, regular physical activity and medication adherence to improve their quality of life. Direct measurement of the TPB model was helpful in understanding respondents‘ intention and behaviour toward physical activity, healthy eating and medication adherence. In respondents with diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease, the TPB model predicted different proportions of intention toward three different health behaviours with 39% intending to engage in physical activity, 49% intending to engage in healthy eating and 47% intending to comply with medication adherence. Perceived behavioural control, which was proven to be the same as self-efficacy in measurement in this study, played an important role in predicting intention towards the three health behaviours. Also social norms played a slightly more important role than attitude for physical activity and medication adherence, while attitude and social norms had similar effects on healthy eating in respondents with diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease. Both perceived behavioural control and intention directly predicted recent actual behaviours. Physical activity was more a volitional control behaviour than healthy eating and medication adherence. Step by step goal setting and motivation was more important for physical activity, while accessibility, resources and other social environmental factors were necessary for improving healthy eating and medication adherence. The extra variables of age, waist circumference, health related quality of life and depression indirectly influenced intention towards the three behaviours mainly mediated through attitude and perceived behavioural control. Depression was a serious health problem that reduced the three health behaviours‘ motivation, mediated through decreased self-efficacy and negative attitude. This research provided evidence that self-efficacy is similar to perceived behavioural control in the TPB model and intention is a proximal goal toward a particular behaviour. Combining four sources of information in the self-efficacy model with the TPB model would improve chronic disease patients‘ self management behaviour and reach an improved long-term treatment outcome. Conclusion: Health intervention programs that target chronic disease management should focus on patients‘ self-efficacy. A holistic approach which is patient-centred and involves a multidisciplinary collaboration strategy would be effective. Supporting the socio-economic environment and the mental/ emotional environment for older people needs to be considered within an integrated health care system.

Triangular Linguistic Fuzzy based performance measurement model for supply chain to assess leanness attributes

Increasing global competitiveness worldwide has forced manufacturing organizations to produce high-quality products more quickly and at a competitive cost. In order to reach these goals, they need good quality components from suppliers at optimum price and lead time. This actually forced all the companies to adapt different improvement practices such as lean manufacturing, Just in Time (JIT) and effective supply chain management. Applying new improvement techniques and tools cause higher establishment costs and more Information Delay (ID). On the contrary, these new techniques may reduce the risk of stock outs and affect supply chain flexibility to give a better overall performance. But industry people are unable to measure the overall affects of those improvement techniques with a standard evaluation model .So an effective overall supply chain performance evaluation model is essential for suppliers as well as manufacturers to assess their companies under different supply chain strategies. However, literature on lean supply chain performance evaluation is comparatively limited. Moreover, most of the models assumed random values for performance variables. The purpose of this paper is to propose an effective supply chain performance evaluation model using triangular linguistic fuzzy numbers and to recommend optimum ranges for performance variables for lean implementation. The model initially considers all the supply chain performance criteria (input, output and flexibility), converts the values to triangular linguistic fuzzy numbers and evaluates overall supply chain performance under different situations. Results show that with the proposed performance measurement model, improvement area for each variable can be accurately identified.

Understanding business process models : the costs and benefits of structuredness

Previous research has put forward a number of properties of business process models that have an impact on their understandability. Two such properties are compactness and(block-)structuredness. What has not been sufficiently appreciated at this point is that these desirable properties may be at odds with one another. This paper presents the results of a two-pronged study aimed at exploring the trade-off between compactness and structuredness of process models. The first prong of the study is a comparative analysis of the complexity of a set of unstructured process models from industrial practice and of their corresponding structured versions. The second prong is an experiment wherein a cohort of students was exposed to semantically equivalent unstructured and structured process models. The key finding is that structuredness is not an absolute desideratum vis-a-vis for process model understandability. Instead, subtle trade-offs between structuredness and other model properties are at play.

The impact of infrastructure charges on new housing costs : an international comparison

Sourcing funding for the provision of new urban infrastructure has been a policy dilemma for governments around the world for decades. This is particularly relevant in high growth areas where new services are required to support swelling populations. Existing communities resist the introduction of new taxes to fund such infrastructure, hence the introduction of charges to the developer has flourished. The Australian infrastructure funding policy dilemmas are reflective of similar matters to some extent in the United Kingdom, and to a greater extent the United States of America. In these countries, infrastructure cost recovery policies have been in place since the 1940’s and 1970’s respectively. There is an extensive body of theoretical and empirical literature that discusses the passing on (to home buyers) or passing back (to the englobo land seller) of these increased infrastructure charges, and the corresponding impact on housing cost and supply. The purpose of this research is to examine the international evidence that suggests infrastructure charges contribute to increased house prices as well as reduced land supply. The paper concludes that whilst the theoretical work is largely consistent, the empirical research to date is inconclusive and further research is required into these impacts in Australia.

Land buyers likely to foot reform costs

Article in Courier Mail. Friday July 22, 2011.

Predictive compensation for variable network delays and packet losses in networked control systems

Networked control systems (NCSs) offer many advantages over conventional control; however, they also demonstrate challenging problems such as network-induced delay and packet losses. This paper proposes an approach of predictive compensation for simultaneous network-induced delays and packet losses. Different from the majority of existing NCS control methods, the proposed approach addresses co-design of both network and controller. It also alleviates the requirements of precise process models and full understanding of NCS network dynamics. For a series of possible sensor-to-actuator delays, the controller computes a series of corresponding redundant control values. Then, it sends out those control values in a single packet to the actuator. Once receiving the control packet, the actuator measures the actual sensor-to-actuator delay and computes the control signals from the control packet. When packet dropout occurs, the actuator utilizes past control packets to generate an appropriate control signal. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated through examples.

Legal Profession Act 2007 s 319 - Whether costs agreement made after trial valid and enforceable - whether agreement had retrospective operation

The decision in QCOAL Pty Ltd v Cliffs Australia Coal Pty Ltd [2010] QSC 479 involved an examination of a number of issues relating to the assessment of costs under the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld). The decision highlights a range of issues which, in slightly different circumstances, may have deprived the successful party of the right to recover costs by reference to the costs agreement.

Interim bills and costs assessment : was the application in or out of time?

This article examines the decision in Turner v Mitchells Solicitors [2011] QDC 61 and the issue whether an application for assessment of costs under an interim bill at the time of a final bill is subject to the usual 12-month restriction.

The GST Compliance Costs Of Nonprofit Organisations

On 2 December 1998, the Federal Government tabled their policy paper entitled Regulation Impact Statement for the Introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (RIS) in the House of Representatives. The Federal Government predicted that total gross GST compliance costs to Australian businesses in the first year of implementation would be approximately $1,912 million (or $1,195 per firm). Furthermore, it is estimated that the recurrent net compliance costs will be much lower at $131 per firm. Whilst the government made brief references to charitable organisations in their analysis, it stated that the compliance costs faced by nonprofits would, in substance, be no different to the compliance costs faced by businesses or government departments. This paper examines the RIS process in relation to nonprofit organisations in the context of recent taxation legislation affecting nonprofit organisations. It argues that the assumption that nonprofit compliance costs are similar to government and business costs is flawed and makes a case for the RIS process to be reformed to include more appropriate assessments of the impact of legislation on nonprofit enterprises.

Computationally efficient methods for solving time-variable-order time-space fractional reaction-diffusion equation

Fractional differential equations are becoming more widely accepted as a powerful tool in modelling anomalous diffusion, which is exhibited by various materials and processes. Recently, researchers have suggested that rather than using constant order fractional operators, some processes are more accurately modelled using fractional orders that vary with time and/or space. In this paper we develop computationally efficient techniques for solving time-variable-order time-space fractional reaction-diffusion equations (tsfrde) using the finite difference scheme. We adopt the Coimbra variable order time fractional operator and variable order fractional Laplacian operator in space where both orders are functions of time. Because the fractional operator is nonlocal, it is challenging to efficiently deal with its long range dependence when using classical numerical techniques to solve such equations. The novelty of our method is that the numerical solution of the time-variable-order tsfrde is written in terms of a matrix function vector product at each time step. This product is approximated efficiently by the Lanczos method, which is a powerful iterative technique for approximating the action of a matrix function by projecting onto a Krylov subspace. Furthermore an adaptive preconditioner is constructed that dramatically reduces the size of the required Krylov subspaces and hence the overall computational cost. Numerical examples, including the variable-order fractional Fisher equation, are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the approach.

An estimate of road accident costs in Singapore

An earlier study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) showed that the annual cost of road traffic accidents in 2001 was S$699.36 million which was 0.5% of the annual GDP. This paper attempts to update of the cost estimates of road traffic accidents. More precise methods of computing the human cost, lost output and property damage are adopted which grew in an annual cost of S$610.3 million or 0.338% of the annual GDP in 2003. A more conservative estimate of S$878,000 for fatal accident is also obtained, compared to the earlier figure of S$1.4 million. This study has shown that it is necessary to update the annual traffic accident costs regularly, as the figures vary with the number of accidents which change with time.

Soil carbon sequestration and associated economic costs for farming systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plain : a meta-analysis

Soil organic carbon sequestration rates over 20 years based on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) methodology were combined with local economic data to determine the potential for soil C sequestration in wheat-based production systems on the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP). The C sequestration potential of rice–wheat systems of India on conversion to no-tillage is estimated to be 44.1 Mt C over 20 years. Implementing no-tillage practices in maize–wheat and cotton–wheat production systems would yield an additional 6.6 Mt C. This offset is equivalent to 9.6% of India's annual greenhouse gas emissions (519 Mt C) from all sectors (excluding land use change and forestry), or less than one percent per annum. The economic analysis was summarized as carbon supply curves expressing the total additional C accumulated over 20 year for a price per tonne of carbon sequestered ranging from zero to USD 200. At a carbon price of USD 25 Mg C−1, 3 Mt C (7% of the soil C sequestration potential) could be sequestered over 20 years through the implementation of no-till cropping practices in rice–wheat systems of the Indian States of the IGP, increasing to 7.3 Mt C (17% of the soil C sequestration potential) at USD 50 Mg C−1. Maximum levels of sequestration could be attained with carbon prices approaching USD 200 Mg C−1 for the States of Bihar and Punjab. At this carbon price, a total of 34.7 Mt C (79% of the estimated C sequestration potential) could be sequestered over 20 years across the rice–wheat region of India, with Uttar Pradesh contributing 13.9 Mt C.

Numerical simulation of a new two-dimensional variable-order fractional percolation equation in non-homogeneous porous media

Percolation flow problems are discussed in many research fields, such as seepage hydraulics, groundwater hydraulics, groundwater dynamics and fluid dynamics in porous media. Many physical processes appear to exhibit fractional-order behavior that may vary with time, or space, or space and time. The theory of pseudodifferential operators and equations has been used to deal with this situation. In this paper we use a fractional Darcys law with variable order Riemann-Liouville fractional derivatives, this leads to a new variable-order fractional percolation equation. In this paper, a new two-dimensional variable-order fractional percolation equation is considered. A new implicit numerical method and an alternating direct method for the two-dimensional variable-order fractional model is proposed. Consistency, stability and convergence of the implicit finite difference method are established. Finally, some numerical examples are given. The numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods. This technique can be used to simulate a three-dimensional variable-order fractional percolation equation.

Numerical analysis of the time variable fractional order mobile-immobile advection-dispersion model

Many physical processes exhibit fractional order behavior that varies with time or space. The continuum of order in the fractional calculus allows the order of the fractional operator to be considered as a variable. In this paper, we consider the time variable fractional order mobile-immobile advection-dispersion model. Numerical methods and analyses of stability and convergence for the fractional partial differential equations are quite limited and difficult to derive. This motivates us to develop efficient numerical methods as well as stability and convergence of the implicit numerical methods for the fractional order mobile immobile advection-dispersion model. In the paper, we use the Coimbra variable time fractional derivative which is more efficient from the numerical standpoint and is preferable for modeling dynamical systems. An implicit Euler approximation for the equation is proposed and then the stability of the approximation are investigated. As for the convergence of the numerical scheme we only consider a special case, i.e. the time fractional derivative is independent of time variable t. The case where the time fractional derivative depends both the time variable t and the space variable x will be considered in the future work. Finally, numerical examples are provided to show that the implicit Euler approximation is computationally efficient.