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Heptaplex-direct PCR assay for simultaneous detection of foodborne pathogens
Get PDF© 2017 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (Sept 2017) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyFoodborne pathogens pose significant problems for public health and economy. The gold standard, cultivation, is time-consuming and costly. In this study, a heptaplex-direct PCR assay for simultaneous detection of seven foodborne pathogens without DNA extraction and enrichment was developed and validated. Seven virulent genes of target strains were amplified and found that the assay provided the expected PCR fragment of 583, 490, 415, 343, 224, 209, and 105 bp for Shigella spp., Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), Streptococcus pyogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella Typhi, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. Validation study showed that the assay was highly reproducible, specific and sensitive (106–100 CFU/ml of detection limit). Moreover, assay application on 22 artificially-contaminated and 100 food samples provided a statistically equivalent efficiency to the culture method. A heptaplex-direct PCR assay thus can be used in microbial forensic science
Flux dynamics at the groundwater-surface water interface in a tropical catchment
Get PDF© 2017 Elsevier GmbH. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (July 2017) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policySeasonal shifts between wet and dry seasons cause marked changes in river flow regimes and therefore exchanges with the streambed surface. This seasonal variation is particularly apparent in tropical climates, which are characterized by strong differences between wet and dry seasons. However, fluxes between surface water and groundwater and the impacts of these interactions on streambed dynamics are rarely investigated in tropical climates, where few surface water-groundwater field investigations have been performed. In this study, an intermittent river in south coastal Vietnam was investigated to better understand links between seasonal hydrologic shifts, human use of water resources, and streambed dynamics. Three transects along the main tributary were instrumented with water level and streambed temperature sensors to examine both spatial and temporal variability in stream-aquifer dynamics. Calibrated models estimated increasing streambed fluxes along the length of the river, with highly variable fluxes up to 1.6 m2 h−1 upstream and 0.2 m2 h−1 downstream during the rainy season (i.e. the rate of the total amount of water exchanged per meter of river length) decreasing to low fluxes of 1.0 m2 h−1 upstream and 0.15 m2 h−1 downstream in the dry season before flow ceased. During the wet and into the dry season the river was gaining (i.e. flux from the aquifer into the river) at all times and all locations with the notable exception of fluxes into the streambed only at the upstream and downstream sites during peak flow of the largest captured rain event (550 mm in 164 h). Based on 30 years of precipitation data, this suggests that water is pushed from the stream into the streambed approximately three times per year. Groundwater withdrawal by households near the cross-sections was found to have a comparatively small effect on streambed fluxes, reducing the flux by up to 3% during dry conditions, although this pumping did cause a reversal in the gradient to the stream for a short period (less than 12 h) on one occasion during the dry season
Norbornene probes for the study of cysteine oxidation
Get PDF© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Cysteine residues on proteins can react with cellular oxidants such as hydrogen peroxide. While this process is important for scavenging excess reactive oxygen species, the products of this oxidation may also mediate cell signalling. To understand the role of cysteine oxidation in biology, selective probes are required to detect and quantify its occurrence. Cysteine oxidation products such as sulfenic acids are sometimes unstable and therefore short-lived. If such cysteine derivatives are to be analysed, rapid reaction with the probe is required. Here we introduce norbornene derivatives as probes for cysteine oxidation, and demonstrate their ability to trap sulfenic acids. The synthesis of norbornene derivatives containing alkyne or biotin affinity tags are also reported to facilitate the use of these probes in chemical biology and proteomics
Uncertainty of groundwater recharge estimated from a water and energy balance model
Get PDF© 2017 Elsevier B.V. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (August 2017) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policy.Coupled water and energy balance models have become increasingly popular for estimating groundwater recharge, because of the integration of energy and water balances and sometimes carbon balance. The additional balances are thought to constrain the water balance and as a result should help reduce the uncertainty of groundwater recharge. However, these models usually have a large number of parameters. The uncertainty of these parameters may result in a large uncertainty in groundwater recharge estimates. This study aims to assess the potential uncertainty of groundwater recharge estimated from a widely used water and energy model. It is largely based on annual pasture vegetation in the lower part of the Campaspe catchment in southeast Australia. A Monte Carlo analysis method was employed to examine potential uncertainties introduced by different types of errors. The results show that for a mean rainfall of 398 mm/y and using a particular set of pedotransfer functions for deriving soil hydraulic parameters, the estimated recharge ranged from 7 to 144 mm/y due to the uncertainty in vegetation parameters. This upper bound of the recharge range increased to 236 mm/y when using different sets of pedotransfer functions. Through several synthetic test cases, this study shows that soil moisture time series may not offer much help for reducing recharge uncertainty, whereas evapotranspiration time series are able to reduce recharge uncertainty by more than 50%. The reduction in recharge uncertainty steadily improves as the uncertainty in observations reduces
Reducing occupational stress among registered nurses in very remoteAustralia: A participatory action research approach
No full text© 2017 Australian College of Nursing Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access articleunder the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).tBackground: Nurses in very remote areas of Australia (RANs), work in complex and isolated settings forwhich they are often inadequately prepared, and stress levels are high. This paper, based on the ‘Backfrom the edge’ project, evaluates the development and implementation of an intervention to reduce andprevent the impact of occupational stress in the RAN workforce in the Northern territory.Methods: The methods involved a combined participatory action research/organisational developmentmodel, involving seven steps, to develop and implement system changes within the (then) Northern Ter-ritory Department of Health and Families (NTDH&F). The development, implementation and evaluationwas informed via information from participants collected during workshops and interviews. Pre and postsurveys were undertaken to evaluate the study.Results: Occupational stress interventions developed by the workgroups were categorised into four maingroups: (1) remote context, (2) workload and scope of practice, (3) poor management, and (4) violenceand safety concerns. The main interventions centred on promoting a well educated, stable workforce.There were very few measurable changes as a result of the interventions as many were not able to beimplemented in the time period of the study, but implementation is continuing.Conclusion: While the outcome evaluations showed few effects, the study through consensus approaches,provides a blueprint for reducing stress among remote area nurses and evidence which should informpolicy and practice with respect to service delivery in remote areas
An audit of the management of nicotine withdrawal in an Australian inpatient unit: are we there yet?
Get PDFThis manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/av which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Objectives: This paper reports outcomes of a clinical audit of smoke-free policy implementation within an Australian inpatient psychiatric setting. It aimed to evaluate assessment of smoking status and subsequent management of nicotine withdrawal, and investigate any patient factors influencing these processes.
Methods:
A total of 67 medical case notes were retrospectively analysed for inpatients admitted to psychiatric units of a general hospital in South Australia, from July to September 2015. Patient demographic variables and information from the hospital’s Smoking Assessment and Management Form (SAMF) were recorded. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests of association between dependent variables (how the SAMF was completed) and independent variables (sex, voluntary status, diagnosis).
Results:
The SAMF was implemented for most patients (76.1%), with 64.71% completed within 24 hours of admission; though, many were incomplete. Nicotine dependence was not properly assessed for 42.3% of smokers; 69.23% were prescribed nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), despite most scoring moderate to high nicotine dependence. No statistically significant relationships were found between patient factors and form completion.
Conclusions:
SAMF completion was timely for most patients; however, sections important for determining support actions remained largely incomplete, suggesting patients’ nicotine withdrawal is not being adequately addressed. More work is needed to improve inpatient staff’s assessment to ensure optimal care.The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
Explaining Memory Amplification: Is It All About the Test Format?
Get PDFTakarangi, M. K. T., Oulton, J. M., & Strange, D. (2017). Explaining Memory Amplification: Is It All About the Test Format? Clinical Psychological Science, 6(3), 394–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617744326 which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617744326 Copyright © 2018 The Authors. DOI: 10.1177/2167702617744326Trauma-exposed people commonly exhibit a “memory amplification” effect, endorsing exposure to more traumatic events over time. Studies reporting this phenomenon have typically relied on checklists, where participants read event descriptions and indicate (yes/no) their exposure. We examined whether that approach is vulnerable to response biases and memory errors. In two experiments, participants viewed negative photos and completed an Old-New recognition test. In Experiment 1, participants completed either a photo recognition test or description test—composed of written descriptions of negative photos. In Experiment 2, we measured analogue PTSD symptoms and participants completed the description test twice, 24 hr apart. Those in the description test condition performed worse on the memory test and were more biased to endorse negative photos compared with the photo test condition. Furthermore, this bias to endorse negative photos increased over time and was related to analogue PTSD symptoms. Overall, our findings suggest that test format plays a role in memory amplification
Lessons from Medicare Locals for Primary Health Networks
No full textCopyright 2017 AMPCo Pty Ltd. Produced with Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.In the past few years, Australian primary health care (PHC) has experienced a major system restructuring that has created tensions in relation to efficiency, effectiveness and equity, fundamental concepts used to evaluate health systems performance.1 Efficiency refers to making the most of available resources to maximise output,2 effectiveness is meeting the needs of target populations and achieving objectives,1 and equity concerns fairness in the delivery of services and outcomes.1 Our analysis of Medicare Locals (MLs) provides insights into the tensions faced by PHC policy makers and Primary Health Networks (PHNs) when planning for improved population health. Between 2014 and 2015, as part of a 3-year study funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, we conducted an online survey and 50 individual interviews with ML senior staff, which provided in-depth understanding of the challenges and opportunities for the new PHNs. The link to the online survey was sent to the chief executive officers (CEOs) of 61 MLs for distribution among senior staff and board members. To calculate the response rate, we asked CEOs to report on the number of people the survey was sent to, but we did not receive an exact number from all CEOs to calculate the response rate. However, the spread of responses was high across MLs (120 responses from 52 MLs; 86%), which shows that representatives from different MLs participated in the survey
Effects of Outcome Predictability on Human Learning
Get PDFCopyright © 2017 Griffiths and Thorwart. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Cue-outcome learning is a cornerstone of intelligent action. Learning that a stimulus (the cue) can be used to predict a second event (the outcome) affords adaptive decision making. If an animal can use environmental cues to predict the presence of food (an appetitive outcome) or a predator (an aversive outcome), then it can potentially act to maximize the likelihood of the former and minimize the latter. This capacity also allows for the development of complex associative webs of knowledge. For example, it allows humans to associate a visual icon with an auditory phoneme (and thus read), or to connect new information with existing knowledge. These are fundamental capacities of intelligent agents.
The capacity to learn cue-outcome mental associations is crucial. However, forming mental associations may be cognitively costly, so it is important to be selective about which associations are learned, and thus to prioritize which stimuli gain access to the learning process. One way to achieve this efficiency is to leverage prior knowledge to focus primarily upon those events (cues and outcomes) that are most likely to be meaningfully associated (e.g., Mackintosh, 1975; Le Pelley, 2004, 2010; Mitchell and Le Pelley, 2010; Esber and Haselgrove, 2011).
There are three logically distinguishable components of a person's prior associative knowledge that could be used to guide the selectivity of subsequent cue-outcome learning. First, there is the knowledge about specific cue-outcome associations that have already been learned (represented as associative strength, or V). Second, there is knowledge about the cueing stimuli themselves (represented as cue associability, or α). Finally, people could use prior knowledge about the outcome stimuli. The influence of the first two forms of associative knowledge in guiding subsequent learning has been extensively investigated. However, the influence of the third form (i.e., information about outcome stimuli) has been largely overlooked in the learning literature. We argue herein that this oversight of the potential role of outcome predictability in shaping learning offers fertile new ground for the science of learning. Before making this case, we first briefly note how associative strength and cue associability have been shown to guide learning
Material deprivation and capability deprivation in the midst of affluence: The case of young people in Australia
Get PDF© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (January 2017) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThis paper presents Australian young people's perspectives on deprivation that they experience in the space of food and clothing. Amartya Sen's Capability Approach is used to characterise this as absolute capability deprivation. Lack of adequate food and clothing denies young people the capability to avoid shame and severely inhibits the intrinsically important capabilities of social participation and engagement in education.
We use data obtained from groupwork and in-depth interviews with 193 young people to explore young Australians' experience of severe deprivation in food and clothing. Their stories are integrated with data on severe deprivation collected in a nationally representative survey of 9–14 year olds (N = 5440). The survey data show that food and clothing deprivation is notable among young people who are marginalised in other respects, for example, young people with disability, young carers and Indigenous young people. The analysis shows that the experience of severe deprivation in the space of food and clothing is associated with feelings of shame, exclusion from participation, and low levels of engagement with education. We consider how neoliberal constructions of poverty exacerbate young people's experience of deprivation, while at the same time undermining the contemporary political agenda of maximising human capital development