Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Posaconazole Therapeutic Drug Monitoring In A Regional Hospital Setting, Patrick J. Lindsay, Stuart Bond, Ross Norris, Deborah Marriott, Spiros Miyakis

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

BACKGROUND: Posaconazole therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is recommended to promote effective antifungal prophylaxis, but its utility has yet to be optimized. Breakthrough invasive fungal infections have been reported with serum concentrations/L, but there is little evidence to determine the optimal serum concentration for efficacy or concentrations associated with toxicity. Challenges for effective monitoring are greater in settings without posaconazole TDM facilities because of the long turnaround time before receipt of results.

METHODS: Thirty-eight TDM episodes were performed on 18 patients in a regional center in Australia during a 30-month period. Australian guidelines recommend a trough serum concentration of ≥700 mcg/L. …

Is Delirium Being Detected In Emergency?, Victoria Traynor, Nicholas Cordato, Pippa Burns, Yun Xu, Nicole Britten, Kim Duncan, Loren Devries, Colleen Mckinnon

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Objective To report on the use of Delirium Care Pathways to screen for and recognise delirium by Aged Care Services in Emergency Teams (ASETs) at five metropolitan hospitals in New South Wales, Australia. Knowledge of delirium and the use of Delirium Care Pathways are vital to ensure that older people presenting with delirium receive best practice care. Methods An audit of 205 randomly selected medical records of clients over 65 years presenting to an ASET was conducted. Results Delirium was recorded in the medical records notes of four clients (2%). However, the auditors identified another 27 clients with symptoms of …

Ability Of The 4-D-Var Analysis Of The Gosat Besd Xco2 Retrievals To Characterize Atmospheric Co2 At Large And Synoptic Scales, Sébastien Massart, Anna Agustí-Panareda, Jens Heymann, Michael Buchwitz, Frédéric Chevallier, Maximilian Reuter, Michael Hilker, J P. Burrows, Nicholas M. Deutscher, D Feist, Frank Hase, Ralf Sussmann, Filip Desmet, Manvendra K. Dubey, David W. T Griffith, Rigel Kivi, Christof Petri, Matthias Schneider, Voltaire A. Velazco

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

This study presents results from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) carbon dioxide (CO2) analysis system where the atmospheric CO2 is controlled through the assimilation of column-averaged dry-air mole fractions of CO2 (XCO2) from the Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT). The analysis is compared to a free-run simulation (without assimilation of XCO2), and they are both evaluated against XCO2 data from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). We show that the assimilation of the GOSAT XCO2 product from the Bremen Optimal Estimation Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (BESD) algorithm during the year 2013 provides XCO2 fields with an …

Clusterin In The Eye: An Old Dog With New Tricks At The Ocular Surface, M Elizabeth Fini, Aditi Bauskar, Shinwu Jeong, Mark R. Wilson

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

The multifunctional protein clusterin (CLU) was first described in 1983 as a secreted glycoprotein present in ram rete testis fluid that enhanced aggregation ('clustering') of a variety of cells in vitro. It was also independently discovered in a number of other systems. By the early 1990s, CLU was known under many names and its expression had been demonstrated throughout the body, including in the eye. Its homeostatic activities in proteostasis, cytoprotection, and anti-inflammation have been well documented, however its roles in health and disease are still not well understood. CLU is prominent at fluid-tissue interfaces, and in 1996 it was …

Elucidating The Chemical Structure Of Native 1-Deoxysphingosine, Regula Steiner, Essa M. Saied, Alaa Othman, Christoph Arenz, Alan T. Maccarone, Berwyck L. J Poad, Stephen J. Blanksby, Arnold Von Eckardstein, Thorsten Hornemann

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

The 1-deoxysphingolipids (1-deoxySLs) are formed by an alternate substrate usage of the enzyme, serine-palmitoyltransferase, and are devoid of the C1-OH-group present in canonical sphingolipids. Pathologically elevated 1-deoxySL levels are associated with the rare inherited neuropathy, HSAN1, and diabetes type 2 and might contribute to β cell failure and the diabetic sensory neuropathy. In analogy to canonical sphingolipids, it was assumed that 1-deoxySLs also bear a (4E) double bond, which is normally introduced by sphingolipid delta(4)-desaturase 1. This, however, was never confirmed. We therefore supplemented HEK293 cells with isotope-labeled D3-1-deoxysphinganine and compared the downstream formed D3-1-deoxysphingosine (1-deoxySO) to a commercial synthetic …

How Humans Adapt To Exercising And Working In The Tropics, Nigel A.S. Taylor

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Human migration to Australia occurred over 62,000 years ago. Those first Australians established one of the oldest continuous populations on the driest of the inhabited continents, surviving the world's longest drought (>10,000 y). Indeed, the traditional owners established a cultural identity and sustainable lifestyle thousands of years before any of the more recognised ancient civilisations. However, our temperature and rainfall variations belie the national stereotype, with temperatures from -23oC (Charlotte Pass, New South Wales) to 50.7oC (Oodnadatta, South Australia), and annual rainfalls from 125 mm (Lake Eyre, South Australia) through to 12,461 mm in the tropical north-east (Bellenden Ker, …

How To Tackle The Rising Tide Of Poaching In Australia's Tropical Seas, Steven W. Purcell, Hampus B. Eriksson

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

High-value marine species in waters off northern Australia are at increasing risk of poaching by foreign fishing crews, according to figures from the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. The number of foreign fishing boats caught in Australian waters increased from six in 2014-15 to 20 in 2015-16. These fishers have evidently come to poach species that fetch high prices and have been overfished elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region. They seek "lootable resources" - species that are attractive to the black market because they are expensive, easy to catch and weakly regulated.

Adaptation And Acclimation Of Traits Associated With Swimming Capacity In Lake Whitefish (Coregonus Clupeaformis) Ecotypes, Martin Laporte, Anne C. Dalziel, Nicolas Martin, Louis Bernatchez

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Background: Improved performance in a given ecological niche can occur through local adaptation, phenotypic plasticity, or a combination of these mechanisms. Evaluating the relative importance of these two mechanisms is needed to better understand the cause of intra specific polymorphism. In this study, we reared populations of Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) representing the 'normal' (benthic form) and the 'dwarf' (derived limnetic form) ecotypes in two different conditions (control and swim-training) to test the relative importance of adaptation and acclimation in the differentiation of traits related to swimming capacity. The dwarf whitefish is a more active swimmer than the normal ecotype, …

Sexuality, Scott J. Mckinnon, Andrew W. Gorman-Murray

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This chapter investigates sexuality as an individual and collective identity category. The notion of sexual identity is a particularly modern mode of identity and belonging originating in the West in the late nineteenth century and proliferating and transforming over the twentieth century. In this chapter, we explore how sexuality operates as a point of identity and belonging by, firstly, tracing the emergence of sexuality as the basis of personal and collective identities in the West. Once seen as behaviours or acts, sexual desires would gradually be framed in discourse as a critical and innate element of one's being. This discursive …

General Practitioners' Experiences Of, And Responses To, Uncertainty In Prostate Cancer Screening: Insights From A Qualitative Study, Kristen Pickles, Stacy M. Carter, Lucie Rychetnik, Kirsten Mccaffery, Vikki A. Entwistle

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing for prostate cancer is controversial. There are unresolved tensions and disagreements amongst experts, and clinical guidelines conflict. This both reflects and generates significant uncertainty about the appropriateness of screening. Little is known about general practitioners' (GPs') perspectives and experiences in relation to PSA testing of asymptomatic men. In this paper we asked the following questions: (1) What are the primary sources of uncertainty as described by GPs in the context of PSA testing? (2) How do GPs experience and respond to different sources of uncertainty? Methods This was a qualitative study that explored general practitioners' …

An Empirical Study Of The 'Underscreened' In Organised Cervical Screening: Experts Focus On Increasing Opportunity As A Way Of Reducing Differences In Screening Rates, Jane H. Williams, Stacy M. Carter

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background Cervical cancer disproportionately burdens disadvantaged women. Organised cervical screening aims to make cancer prevention available to all women in a population, yet screening uptake and cancer incidence and mortality are strongly correlated with socioeconomic status (SES). Reaching underscreened populations is a stated priority in many screening programs, usually with an emphasis on something like 'equity'. Equity is a poorly defined and understood concept. We aimed to explain experts' perspectives on how cervical screening programs might justifiably respond to 'the underscreened'. Methods This paper reports on a grounded theory study of cervical screening experts involved in program organisation. Participants were …

Doctors' Perspectives On Psa Testing Illuminate Established Differences In Prostate Cancer Screening Rates Between Australia And The Uk: A Qualitative Study, Kristen Pickles, Stacy M. Carter, Lucie Rychetnik, Vikki A. Entwistle

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objectives To examine how general practitioners (GPs) in the UK and GPs in Australia explain their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing practices and to illuminate how these explanations are similar and how they are different. Design A grounded theory study. Setting Primary care practices in Australia and the UK. Participants 69 GPs in Australia (n=40) and the UK (n=29). We included GPs of varying ages, sex, clinical experience and patient populations. All GPs interested in participating in the study were included. Results GPs' accounts revealed fundamental differences in whether and how prostate cancer screening occurred in their practice and in the …

Ethical Justifications In Alcohol-Related Health Warning Discourse, Emma Muhlack, Jaklin Eliott, D Carter, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Cancer is the second most common cause of alcohol-related death in both men and women in Australia. In view of this and other health risks, mandatory health warnings on alcoholic beverages have been proposed in Australia and introduced elsewhere. This paper reviews academic literature and statements from selected advocacy groups to identify the ethical justifications that are used in relation to mandatory health warnings on alcoholic beverages. The paper then analyses how these justifications relate to the ethics of public health interventions in the context of cancer prevention. This involves examining the potential tension between the utilitarian nature of public …

Sexual Harassment And Gender Discrimination In Wildland Fire Management Must Be Addressed, Christine Eriksen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are behavioral patterns not uncommon in the many varied settings of wildland fire. Whether in the classroom, on the fireline, in a government or non-governmental organization office, women and men are subjected to and are targets of sexual harassment and gender discrimination on a daily basis. The prevalence of this issue, its causes, its impacts, and potential solutions are the foci of this Associa- tion for Fire Ecology (AFE) position paper.

More Standing And Just As Productive: Effects Of A Sit-Stand Desk Intervention On Call Center Workers' Sitting, Standing, And Productivity At Work In The Opt To Stand Pilot Study, Josephine Chau, William Sukala, Karla Fedel, Anna Do, Lina Engelen, Megan Kingham, Amanda Sainsbury, Adrian E. Bauman

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study evaluated the effects of sit-stand desks on workers' objectively and subjectively assessed sitting, physical activity, and productivity. This quasi-experimental study involved one intervention group (n = 16) and one comparison group (n = 15). Participants were call center employees from two job-matched teams at a large telecommunications company in Sydney, Australia (45% female, 33 ± 11 years old). Intervention participants received a sit-stand desk, brief training, and daily e-mail reminders to stand up more frequently for the first 2 weeks post-installation. Control participants carried out their usual work duties at seated desks. Primary outcomes were workday …

Ethical Aspects Of Cancer Screening, Stacy M. Carter

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Screening for cancer or cancer risk is well-established in high-income countries. This article considers ethical aspects of cancer screening. Ethical evaluation of screening depends on a contested evidence base, interacts with people's fear of cancer, and their enthusiasm for technology in general and screening in particular. Cancer screening is both a clinical and a public health activity, and so the often-conflicting frameworks from both clinical ethics and public health ethics are relevant to its evaluation. Cancer screening is an intrusion by health services into the lives of well individuals and so requires strong justification. Cancer screening can and should prevent …

International Field Placements- Which Model Will Fit Me, My Team And My Students?, Mim Fox

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

International field placements have become increasingly popular, in line with globalisation (Panos, 2005), and global interdependance (Pettys et al., 2005). Key areas of learning for social work students undertaking an international field placement include international comparison (Healy, 2008), cross-cultural skills and anti-colonialist practice (Gray, 2005), and the development of cultural sensitivity and ethnorelativism (Engstrom and Jones, 2007).

Avoiding The Manufacture Of 'Sameness': First-In-Family Students, Cultural Capital And The Higher Education Environment, Sarah Elizabeth O'Shea

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Drawing upon Bourdieu's theories of social and cultural capital, a number of studies of the higher education environment have indicated that students who are first-in-family to come to university may lack the necessary capitals to enact success. To address this issue, university transition strategies often have the primary objective of 'filling students up' with legitimate forms of cultural capital required by the institution. However, this article argues that such an approach is fundamentally flawed, as students can be either framed as deficit or replete in capitals depending on how their particular background and capabilities are perceived. Drawing on interviews conducted …

Cities Of Australia And The Pacific Islands, Robyn Dowling, Pauline M. Mcguirk

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The Pacific region is a constellation of islands of varying sizes. Australia (the island continent) and Aotearoa/New Zealand (now carrying both Maori and Pakeha, or settler, names) dominate the region geographically and economically. However, many smaller islands are found in those vast realms of the Pacific Ocean known as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Socially, politically, economically, and biophysically, this is a diverse region with diverse cities. In this part of the world, it is easiest to understand cities as forming two main groups: those of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, and those of the Pacific Islands.

Demonstrating Retrofitting: Perspectives From Australian Local Government, Robyn Dowling, Pauline M. Mcguirk, Harriet Bulkeley

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Cities are critical to transitions to low carbon futures, not only because of the large and growing global urban population but also because global resource consumption is concentrated in cities (Gossop, 2011:208; Hodson, Marvin, Robinson, & Swilling, 2012; Monstadt, 2007). Ensuring that new urban spaces, such as new housing or new city precincts, are low or zero carbon is central to these transitions (Hodson & Marvin, 2010). Yet, equally important to reducing urban carbon consumption is the retrofitting of existing urban planning frameworks and imaginaries, infrastructure, built form and patterns of daily life (Eames et.al., 2013; Pincetl, 2012). Retrofitting involves …

Gendered Dynamics Of Wildland Firefighting In Australia, Christine Eriksen, Gordon R. Waitt, Carrie Wilkinson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article examines the gendered dynamics of wildland firefighting through analysis of employment statistics and in-depth interviews with employees of the National Parks and Wildlife Service in New South Wales, Australia. The statistics suggest increased gender equality for women following the affirmative gender politics of the 1990s in a previously male-dominated workplace. However, we argue these statistics mask how some patterns of practice surrounding fire management continue to reproduce a gendered workplace. Turning to the concept of hegemonic masculinity, we explore the ongoing gendered assumptions of this workplace and identify those that prove most resistant to change around bodies, masculinity, …

Clustering Of Cardiovascular Behavioral Risk Factors And Blood Pressure Among People Diagnosed With Hypertension: A Nationally Representative Survey In China, Yichong Li, Xiaoqi Feng, Mei Zhang, Maigeng Zhou, Ning Wang, Limin Wang

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study aimed to examine association between the number of behavioral risk factors and blood pressure (BP) level among a nationally representative sample of Chinese people diagnosed with hypertension. A total of 31,694 respondents aged 18+ years with diagnosed hypertension were extracted from the 2013-2014 China Chronic Disease and Risk Factor Surveillance. BP of each respondent was classified into six levels according to criteria in 2007 Guidelines for the Management of Arterial Hypertension. Information for smoking, alcohol drinking, fruit and vegetables consumption, physical inactivity, and overweight and obesity were obtained. The average number of risk factors was determined by BP …

Sequential Processing And The Matching-Stimulus Interval Effect In Erp Components: An Exploration Of The Mechanism Using Multiple Regression, Genevieve Z. Steiner, Robert J. Barry, Craig J. Gonsalvez

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In oddball tasks, increasing the time between stimuli within a particular condition (target-to-target interval, TTI; nontarget-to-nontarget interval, NNI) systematically enhances N1, P2, and P300 event-related potential (ERP) component amplitudes. This study examined the mechanism underpinning these effects in ERP components recorded from 28 adults who completed a conventional three-tone oddball task. Bivariate correlations, partial correlations and multiple regression explored component changes due to preceding ERP component amplitudes and intervals found within the stimulus series, rather than constraining the task with experimentally constructed intervals, which has been adequately explored in prior studies. Multiple regression showed that for targets, N1 and TTI …

Material Inheritances: How Place, Materiality, And Labor Process Underpin The Path-Dependent Evolution Of Contemporary Craft Production, Christopher R. Gibson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article explores the historic-geographic evolution of contemporary craft production, with sensitivity to materiality of labor process, product design, and accompanying place mythologies. Craft production-increasingly interpolated as a form of creative work-is shaped by concerns about retrieving archaic tools and ways of making things, celebrating provenance and the haptic skills of makers, and delivering (and marketing) manual labor process. In contrast to evolutionary economic geography's seeming immateriality and abstraction, attention is drawn to material aspects of place and path dependence that undergird geographies of new craft industries: how labor process evolves, in iteration with technical lock-ins that stem from production …

An Official Welcome To The Anthropocene Epoch - But Who Gets To Decide It's Here?, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

It's literally epoch-defining news. A group of experts tasked with considering the question of whether we have officially entered the Anthropocene - the geological age characterised by humans' influence on the planet - has delivered its answer: yes.

The British-led Working Group on the Anthropocene (WGA) told a geology conference in Cape Town that, in its considered opinion, the Anthropocene epoch began in 1950 - the start of the era of nuclear bomb tests, disposable plastics and the human population boom.

The Anthropocene has fast become an academic buzzword and has achieved a degree of public visibility in recent years. …

Primary Healthcare System Of Pakistan: Challenges To Self-Management Of Type 2 Diabetes, Rashid M. Ansari, Hassan Hosseinzadeh, Nicholas Arnold Zwar

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This review article is aimed at describing the primary healthcare system of Pakistan and its challenges in the face of epidemic of type 2 diabetes, focusing particularly on the middle-aged population of rural area of Pakistan. The main concern in Pakistan is that its middle-aged population is facing the onslaught of obesity and overweight due to lack of physical activity. In addition unhealthy eating habits making it more difficult for this population to control their weight. All these factors are contributing to a high risk of type 2 diabetes for the population of Pakistan. This article provides insight into the …

Towards Integrating The Principlist And Casuist Approaches To Ethical Decisions Via Multi-Criterial Support, Mette Kjer Kaltoft, Jesper Bo Nielsen, Glenn P. Salkeld, Jack Dowie

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

An interactive decision support tool based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can help health professionals integrate the principlist (principle-based) and casuist (case-based) approaches to ethical decision making in both their training and practice. MCDA can incorporate generic ethical principles as criteria; then draw on case-based reasoning as the basis for specifying, in the individual case, the available options, the ratings of each option on each criterion, and the relative weighting of the criteria. This produces a personalised, transparent and decomposable opinion on the merits of each option, as a contribution to enhanced deliberation. As proof of concept and method an …

Stereoscopic Advantages For Vection Induced By Radial, Circular, And Spiral Optic Flows, Stephen Palmisano, Stephanie Summersby, Rodney G. Davies, Juno Kim

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Although observer motions project different patterns of optic flow to our left and right eyes, there has been surprisingly little research into potential stereoscopic contributions to self-motion perception. This study investigated whether visually induced illusory self-motion (i.e., vection) is influenced by the addition of consistent stereoscopic information to radial, circular, and spiral (i.e., combined radial + circular) patterns of optic flow. Stereoscopic vection advantages were found for radial and spiral (but not circular) flows when monocular motion signals were strong. Under these conditions, stereoscopic benefits were greater for spiral flow than for radial flow. These effects can be explained by …

Confusions And Conundrums During Final Practicum: A Study Of Preservice Teachers' Knowledge Of Challenging Behaviour, Samantha Mcmahon, Valerie Harwood

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This chapter describes the psy-knowledges central to preservice teachers' understandings of challenging behaviour. Particularly, it pays attention to the unexpectedly dangerous questions generated when working towards a practical and integrated understanding of how biological, psychological, and ecological factors interact. This chapter deploys Foucauldian discourse analysis to problematize the preservice teachers' shifting and changeable awareness of these causal attributions of behaviour and how this impacts their pedagogy.

Transplanting, Plotting, Fencing: Relational Property Practices In Community Gardens, Eleonora Van Holstein

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Community gardening is an increasingly popular phenomenon. Local governments wishing to 'green' the city and make the urban environment more 'inclusive' sometimes promote community gardening as a means to meet policy goals. Scholars from various fields have been keen to focus on these positive promises of community gardening. However, community gardens are not inherently different from their surroundings or good in themselves as they are connected to wider urban landscapes and routines through practice. Building on empirical research that I conducted at three community gardens in Sydney, Australia, I reveal how property is practised in three gardens with different property …