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Where do we stand? The availability and efficacy of diabetes related foot health programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: a systematic review
No full textBackground: Aboriginal and Torres Islander Australians experience considerably higher rates of diabetes and diabetes related foot complications and amputations than non-Indigenous Australians. Therefore there is a need to identify aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Islander focussed foot health programs that have had successful outcomes in reducing diabetes related foot complications. Wider knowledge and implementation of these programs may help reduce the high burden of diabetes related foot disease experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Islander Australians. Methods: PubMeD, Informit Indigenous collection, CINAHL, SCOPUS, the Cochrane Library and grey literature sources were searched to 28th August 2018. We included any published reports or studies of stand-alone diabetes related foot care interventions, programs, services, educational resources or assessment of these interventions, designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Results: Thirteen studies detailing interventions in the Northern Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia met the inclusion criteria. Five reports described delivery of podiatry services while the other eight investigated educational and training programs. Half of the reports related to aspects of the Indigenous Diabetic Foot program which provides culturally appropriate foot education and training workshops for health care providers. One article reported quantitative data related to clinical patient outcome measures. Conclusions: No state- or nation-wide foot health programs for prevention of diabetes related foot complications in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were identified. One program achieved high adherence to the national guidelines regarding timing of podiatry review treatments through use of an evidence based foot risk classification tool and provision of services in a culturally appropriate centre
Evaluating model outputs using integrated global speleothem records of climate change since the last glacial
No full textAlthough quantitative isotope data from speleothems has been used to evaluate isotope-enabled model simulations, currently no consensus exists regarding the most appropriate methodology through which to achieve this. A number of modelling groups will be running isotope-enabled palaeoclimate simulations in the framework of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, so it is timely to evaluate different approaches to using the speleothem data for data–model comparisons. Here, we illustrate this using 456 globally distributed speleothem δ18O records from an updated version of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis (SISAL) database and palaeoclimate simulations generated using the ECHAM5-wiso isotope-enabled atmospheric circulation model. We show that the SISAL records reproduce the first-order spatial patterns of isotopic variability in the modern day, strongly supporting the application of this dataset for evaluating model-derived isotope variability into the past. However, the discontinuous nature of many speleothem records complicates the process of procuring large numbers of records if data–model comparisons are made using the traditional approach of comparing anomalies between a control period and a given palaeoclimate experiment. To circumvent this issue, we illustrate techniques through which the absolute isotope values during any time period could be used for model evaluation. Specifically, we show that speleothem isotope records allow an assessment of a model's ability to simulate spatial isotopic trends. Our analyses provide a protocol for using speleothem isotope data for model evaluation, including screening the observations to take into account the impact of speleothem mineralogy on δ18O values, the optimum period for the modern observational baseline and the selection of an appropriate time window for creating means of the isotope data for palaeo-time-slices
Maternal prenatal stress exposure and sex-specific risk of severe infection in offspring
No full textBackground: Maternal stressful life events during pregnancy have been associated with immune dysregulation and increased risk for asthma and atopy in offspring. Few studies have investigated whether prenatal stress is associated with increased overall or specific infectious diseases in childhood, nor explored sex differences. We sought to examine the relationship between the nature and timing of maternal stress in pregnancy and hospitalisation with infection in offspring. Methods: Between 1989 and 1992, exposure data on stressful life events were collected from pregnant women (Gen1) in the Raine Study at 18 and 34 weeks’ gestation and linked to statutory state-wide hospital morbidity data. We examined associations between the number, category and timing of maternal prenatal stress events and overall and clinical groups of offspring (Gen2) infection-related hospitalisation until age 16 years, adjusting for maternal age, education, and smoking in pregnancy in addition to the presence of siblings at birth. Results: Of 2,141 offspring with complete stress in pregnancy data available, 1,089 had at least one infection-related hospitalisation, with upper respiratory tract infections the most common (n = 556). Each additional stressful life event during pregnancy was associated with increased risk in male offspring for hospitalisation with all infection types. There was little evidence of these associations in girls. Conclusions: Increased exposure to stressful life events in utero is associated with sex-specific infection-related hospitalisations in childhood. Prenatal stress may adversely affect early immune development for boys and increase the risk of more severe infections. Mechanistic understanding would inform preventative interventions
Then and Now – Sorlie’s tour to Broken Hill in 1960
No full textThis article draws on a survey of entertainments in a Broken Hill newspaper between 1955 and 1964 to consider historical change in the mix of entertainments attracting audiences in mid-twentieth century Australia. Located remotely in far-west New South Wales, Broken Hill became well-serviced with transport routes and communications to three capital cities. Commercial producers of live entertainments took advantage of these routes, touring successful productions from the capital cities for seasons in Broken Hill. In this article, the focus is Sorlie’s musical revue, the premier travelling show at the time, presenting world-class variety entertainment to audiences in regional Australia. Since regular television transmissions did not reach Broken Hill until the mid-1960s, audiences in Broken Hill continued to enjoy opportunities for live entertainments that were undergoing contraction in the capital cities, where television had already been. Sorlie’s 1960 tour to Broken Hill affords a distinctive vantage point from which to consider historical change in Australian entertainment, as touring entertainers relayed in performance narratives of progress from a ‘future’ already unfolding elsewhere. Jonathan Bollen is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales, Australia
Performing farmscapes on urban streets
No full textIn The Principle of Hope, Ernst Bloch introduces the idea of the “Not-Yet”, a ubiquitous utopian impulse that stimulates future-oriented thinking about “something … that has never been conscious before.” These imaginings of a better future, Bloch argues, are really only ways to understand the obscurities of the present. Street theatre companies, like Le Phun, Opéra Pagaï, Friches Théâtre Urbain and Fallen Fruit, seek to envisage a “not-yet” of future urban farmscapes in familiar present-day locations. Their performance-based projects highlight contemporary social issues around alternative agricultural practices and suggest imaginative provocations to world-wide concerns around food security by proposing ephemeral urban farms in unexpected city sites and restoring the efficacy of an agricultural “commons” where resources and tasks are shared. Each project thus metaphorically marks the urban landscape with creative possibilities for a more secure food future. Dr Susan Haedicke is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick, UK. Her current research interests include a focus on local food growing initiatives and community gardens worldwide and how they ‘perform’ in the larger social setting
‘A theatrical meteor,’ Francis Nesbitt McCron (c.1807-1853) and his travels from the Old World to the Australian colonies and the San Francisco goldfields
No full text“A theatrical meteor, shooting about between the colonies,” so was Francis Nesbitt McCron described. Nesbitt rose from being a stock actor in England and Ireland to becoming the leading tragedian of Australian colonial theatre in the 1840s. His wanderings commenced in 1843, taking him to Launceston, Hobart, Melbourne and Adelaide. In 1849 they led him to the Californian goldfields and back again. Though his successes were many his flaws plagued him. In 1853 Nesbitt, the “great tragedian,” died suddenly in Geelong in tragic circumstances. Nesbitt’s career shows the up and downs that actors faced as touring players in an emergent global theatrical circuit, and the rather controversial position of the theatre in mid-nineteenth Australian society. Janette Pelosi is a professional archivist, historian and a director of the Society of Australian Genealogists. She has worked at State Records NSW for over 20 years where she became interested in colonial theatre history
Adiposity associated DNA methylation signatures in adolescents are related to leptin and perinatal factors
No full textEpigenetics links perinatal influences with later obesity. We identifed differentially methylated CpG (dmCpG) loci measured at 17 years associated with concurrent adiposity measures and examined whether these were associated with hsCRP, adipokines, and early life environmental factors. Genome-wide DNA methylation from 1192 Raine Study participants at 17 years, identified 29 dmCpGs (Bonferroni corrected p < 1.06E-07) associated with body mass index (BMI), 10 with waist circumference (WC) and 9 with subcutaneous fat thickness. DmCpGs within Ras Association (RalGDS/AF-6), Pleckstrin Homology Domains 1 (RAPH1), Musashi RNA-Binding Protein 2 (MSI2), and solute carrier family 25 member 10 (SLC25A10) are associated with both BMI and WC. Validation by pyrosequencing confirmed these associations and showed that MSI2 , SLC25A10 , and RAPH1 methylation was positively associated with serum leptin. These were also associated with the early environment; MSI2 methylation (β = 0.81, p = 0.0004) was associated with pregnancy maternal smoking, SLC25A10 (CpG2 β = 0.12, p = 0.002) with pre- and early pregnancy BMI, and RAPH1 (β = -1.49, p = 0.036) with gestational weight gain. Adjusting for perinatal factors, methylation of the dmCpGs within MSI2, RAPH1, and SLC25A10 independently predicted BMI, accounting for 24% of variance. MSI2 methylation was additionally associated with BMI over time (17 years old β = 0.026, p = 0.0025; 20 years old β = 0.027, p = 0.0029) and between generations (mother β = 0.044, p = 7.5e-04). Overall findings suggest that DNA methylation in MSI2, RAPH1, and SLC25A10 in blood may be robust markers, mediating through early life factors
Environmental discourses and water law: a case study of the regulation of the Murray-Darling Basin
No full textThe Murray-Darling Basin, in south-eastern Australia, comprises 14 per cent of Australia’s geography. This paper examines some of the historical and contemporary discourses that have been deployed in the last 120 years in managing the complex challenges of the Basin. Differently to prior Indigenous practices, prevailing nvironmental discourses in this period have highlighted the disconnect between humans and their environment. Whilst ecologically Sustainable Development underpins the objects of the Water Act 2007 (Cth), it is evident that, in fact, it is an economic rationalism discourse that has been deployed to regulate environmental outcomes through the marketisation of water rights
Increasing fruit and vegetable variety over time is associated with lower 15-year healthcare costs: Results from the Australian longitudinal study on women’s health
No full textHealthcare costs are lower for adults who consume more vegetables; however, the association between healthcare costs and fruit and vegetable varieties is unclear. Our aim was to investigate the association between (i) baseline fruit and vegetable (F&V) varieties, and (ii) changes in F&V varieties over time with 15-year healthcare costs in an Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. The data for Survey 3 (n = 8833 women, aged 50–55 years) and Survey 7 (n = 6955, aged 62–67 years) of the 1946–1951 cohort were used. The F&V variety was assessed using the Fruit and Vegetable Variety (FAVVA) index calculated from the Cancer Council of Victoria’s Dietary Questionnaire for Epidemiological Studies food frequency questionnaire. The baseline FAVVA and change in FAVVA were analysed as continuous predictors of Medicare claims/costs by using multiple regression analyses. Healthy weight women made, on average, 4.3 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.7–6.8) fewer claims for every 10-point-higher FAVVA. Healthy weight women with higher fruit varieties incurred fewer charges; however, this was reversed for women overweight/obese. Across the sample, for every 10-point increase in FAVVA over time, women made 4.3 (95% CI 1.9–6.8) fewer claims and incurred 129.3–488.8) less in charges over 15 years. A higher F&V variety is associated with a small reduction in healthcare claims for healthy weight women only. An increasing F&V variety over time is associated with lower healthcare costs
A methanol and protic ionic liquid Ugi multicomponent reaction path to cytotoxic a-phenylacetamido amides
No full textThe Ugi four component reaction of an aldehyde, amine, isocyanide and an ethanoic acid was effected smoothly in protic ionic liquids ethylammonium nitrate (EAN) and propylammonium nitrate (PAN) to afford analogues of α-phenylacetamido amides in good to excellent isolated yields. The corresponding reactions in [BMIM][PF6] and the protic ionic liquid ethanolammonium nitrate (ETAN) failed. Microwave irradiation in EAN facilitated rapid access to three focused libraries, based on the parent isocyanide: cyclohexyl isocyanide, benzyl isocyanide and ethyl isocyanoacetate. Analysis of the structure activity relationship data suggested the presence of a bulky moiety originating from the isocyanide (cyclohexyl and benzyl) enhanced cytotoxicity. Removal of the acetylenic H-atom from the ethanoic acid moiety was detrimental to cytotoxicity. The most active analogues produced, N-(2-cyclohexylamino)-1-(4-methoxyphenyl)-2-oxoethyl-N-(3,5-dimethoxyphenyl)propiolamide, returned average GI50 values of ≤1 μM across the cancer cell lines evaluated. Combined, these data suggest that analogues of this nature are interesting potential anti-cancer development leads