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    Paris to Flamingo and all this is blurred and much bluer than it was

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    Two poems: Paris to Flamingo and all this is blurred and much bluer than it wa

    The effect of axial compression and distraction on cervical facet mechanics during anterior shear, flexion, axial rotation, and lateral bending motions

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    © 2018 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 12 month embargo from date of publication (December 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThe subaxial cervical facets are important load-bearing structures, yet little is known about their mechanical response during physiological or traumatic intervertebral motion. Facet loading likely increases when intervertebral motions are superimposed with axial compression forces, increasing the risk of facet fracture. The aim of this study was to measure the mechanical response of the facets when intervertebral axial compression or distraction is superimposed on constrained, non-destructive shear, bending and rotation motions. Twelve C6/C7 motion segments (70 ± 13 yr, nine male) were subjected to constrained quasi-static anterior shear (1 mm), axial rotation (4°), flexion (10°), and lateral bending (5°) motions. Each motion was superimposed with three axial conditions: (1) 50 N compression; (2) 300 N compression (simulating neck muscle contraction); and, (3) 2.5 mm distraction. Angular deflections, and principal and shear surface strains, of the bilateral C6 inferior facets were calculated from motion-capture data and rosette strain gauges, respectively. Linear mixed-effects models (α = 0.05) assessed the effect of axial condition. Minimum principal and maximum shear strains were largest in the compressed condition for all motions except for maximum principal strains during axial rotation. For right axial rotation, maximum principal strains were larger for the contralateral facets, and minimum principal strains were larger for the left facets, regardless of axial condition. Sagittal deflections were largest in the compressed conditions during anterior shear and lateral bending motions, when adjusted for facet side

    Dietary supplementation of selenium yeast enhances the antioxidant capacity and immune response of juvenile Eriocheir Sinensis under nitrite stress

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    © 2019 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 12 month embargo from date of publication (December 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThis study elucidates the response to nitrite stress and the effect of dietary selenium supplements on the growth, antioxidant activity, immunity and transcriptome of juvenile Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis. In the control group, the crabs were fed the diet without selenium supplementation and there was no nitrite addition to the water. In the test group, the crabs were fed diets with three levels of selenium 0 (N1), 0.5 (N2) and 1.0 (N3) mg/kg in the water containing 2 mg/L NO2N as a stress factor for eight weeks. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was improved by adding dietary selenium. There was no significant difference in specific growth rate and weight gain between N1 and the control groups, or among different selenium levels in the test group. The superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity was significantly lower, but malondialdehyde (MDA) was higher in the N1 group than those in the serum and hepatopancreas of the control group. The activities of SOD, glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and acid phosphatase increased at the medium level of selenium but decreased as the level of dietary selenium increased to 1.0 mg/kg. The serum lysozyme (LZM) activity increased but the MDA content in both serum and hepatopancreas decreased with the increase of selenium levels. The total clean reads of the crabs in the control group, N1 and N3 groups reached 390.7M and were assembled into 106 471 transcripts. Compared with the control group, 1196 gene were significantly expressed (588-up and 608-down) in the N1 group under nitrite stress. Between the N1 and N3 groups, the expression of 1537 genes (751-up and 786-down) were significantly different. KEGG pathway analysis reveals that 11 and 19 pathways were significantly different between N1 and control and between N3 and N1 groups, respectively. Transcriptome results demonstrate that nutrient metabolism is much more active in crabs fed additional selenium under nitrite stress. This study indicates that dietary selenium can improve both antioxidant capacity and immune response and alter the protein and carbohydrate metabolism of E. sinensis under nitrite stress

    Qualitative protocol for understanding the contribution of Australian policy in the urban planning, justice, energy and environment sectors to promoting health and health equity

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    © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.Introduction A well-established body of literature demonstrates that health and equity are strongly influenced by the consequences of governments’ policy and resultant actions (or inactions) outside the health sector. Consequently, the United Nations, and its agency the WHO, have called for national leadership and whole-of-government action to understand and address the health impacts of policies in all sectors. This research responds to that call by investigating how policymaking in four sectors—urban planning, justice, energy and environment—may influence the social determinants of health and health equity (SDH/HE). Methods and analysis The research design is informed by a critical qualitative approach. Three successive stages are included in the design. The first involves analysing all strategic policy documents and selected legislative documents from the four sectors (n=583). The document analysis is based on a coding framework developed to identify alignment between the documents and the SDH/HE. Two policies that demonstrate good practice in regard to SDH/HE will be selected from each sector during the second stage for embedded case study analysis (total n=8). This is intended to illuminate which factors have supported recognition and action on SDH/HE in the selected policies. The third stage involves progressive theoretical integration and development to understand political and institutional facilitators and barriers to action on SDH/HE, both within and between sectors. Ethics and dissemination The research will provide much needed evidence about how coherent whole-of-government action on SDH/HE can be advanced and contribute knowledge about how health-enhancing policy activity in the four sectors may be optimised. Learnings from the research will be shared via a project advisory group, policy briefings, academic papers, conference presentations and research symposia. Ethics approval has been secured for the embedded case studies, which involve research participants

    Start-up plane Poiseuille flow of a Bingham fluid

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    © 2018 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/ Supplementary Raw Research Data, is open data under the CC BY license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (October 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThe start-up flow of a Bingham plastic in a channel is considered and Safronchik’s solution [1] for the initial evolution of the yield surface and the core velocity is revisited. Stricter time bounds for the validity of the above solution are derived and the solution is extended to include the velocity profile in the evolving yielded zone. Comparisons are made with another approximate solution derived under the assumption that the velocity in the yielded zone is parabolic adjusting with the evolving yield surface. This approximation performs well for small values of the yield stress, or, equivalently, for large values of the imposed pressure gradient

    What is the role of endogenous gut serotonin in the control of gastrointestinal motility?

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    © 2018 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 12 month embargo from date of publication (June 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyIn recent years, there have been dramatic changes in our understanding of the role of endogenous 5-Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT or serotonin) in the control of gastrointestinal (GI) motility. Whilst it is well accepted that there are numerous types of 5-HT receptors expressed on enteric neurons and that exogenous 5-HT potently stimulates GI-motility, understanding the role of endogenous 5-HT in GI-motility has been substantially more difficult to resolve. Recent studies found 5-HT3 and 5-HT4 antagonists have the same effects on peristalsis in colon preparations depleted of endogenous 5-HT. Then, recent work revealed that in mice with genetic mutations to prevent the synthesis of endogenous 5-HT from enterochromaffin EC) cells did not block major neurogenic motor patterns in the gut wall and did not reduce GI-transit in conscious animals, raising doubts about early hypotheses that endogenous 5-HT was critical for neurogenic GI-motility patterns. Indeed, functional evidence now suggests that 5-HT3 and 5-HT4 receptors on enteric nerves display constitutive activity. In summary, recent findings demonstrate that endogenous 5-HT released from the mucosa or enteric neurons is not required for the generation of major neurogenic motor patterns, at least in the large intestine, but that it likely acts as a modulator of contractile frequency. This review will discuss how and why our understanding of endogenous 5-HT has dramatically changed in the past few years

    Toxicogenetic study of omeprazole and the modulatory effects of retinol palmitate and ascorbic acid on Allium cepa

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    © 2018 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 12 month embargo from date of publication (May 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyOmeprazole (OME) is a proton pump inhibitor used for the treatment of various gastric and intestinal disease; however, studies on its effects on the genetic materials are still restricted. The present study aimed to evaluate possible toxicogenic effects of OME in Allium cepa meristems with the application of cytogenetic biomarkers for DNA damage, mutagenic, toxic and cytotoxic effects. Additionally, retinol palmitate (RP) and ascorbic acid (AA) were also co-treated with OME to evaluate possible modulatory effects of OME-induced cytogenetic damages. OME was tested at 10, 20 and 40 μg/mL, while RP and AA at 55 μg/mL and 352.2 μg/mL, respectively. Copper sulphate (0.6 μg/mL) and dechlorinated water were used as positive control and negative control, respectively. The results suggest that OME induced genotoxicity and mutagenicity in A. cepa at all tested concentrations. It was noted that cotreatment of OME with the antioxidant vitamins RP and/or AA significantly (p < 0.05) inhibited and/or modulated all toxicogenic damages induced by OME. These observations demonstrate their antigenotoxic, antimutagenic, antitoxic and anticitotoxic effects in A. cepa. This study indicates that application of antioxidants may be useful tools to overcome OME-induced toxic effects

    Skeletal Ontogeny and Anomalies in Larval and Juvenile Crimson Snapper, Lutjanus erythropterus Bloch, 1790

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    This article is made available under the CC-BY-NC license. Copyright © 2018 Zoological Society of Pakistan.Skeletal anomalies in farmed fish affect animal welfare and economic return in aquaculture but very limited information exists on skeletal ontogeny and anomalies among species of the family Lutjanidae. This study describes the skeletal ontogeny and anomalies of crimson snapper Lutjanus erythropterus larvae and juveniles from hatching to 36 day-post hatching (DPH). Mandible, ceratobranchial, cleithrum and gill arches were the initial skeletal structures appeared at 3 DPH that supported the vital life functions such as feeding and respiration. Ossification of premaxilla and maxilla and dentary started at 3.21 ± 0.25 mm (9 DPH), and completed at 5.91 ± 0.34 mm (18 DPH). The head skeleton formation completed at 22.35 ± 2.26 mm (31 DPH). The axial skeleton development started with the formation of neural arches at 3.64 ± 0.07 mm (10 DPH) and ossification of axial skeleton completed at 11.01 ± 0.88 mm (24 DPH). The fins developed sequentially and the ossification of fins completed at 30.57 ± 2.44 mm (36 DPH). A total of 39.5% fish exhibited anomalies in the present study and the anomalies were: lordosis, vertebral fusion, neural spines bifurcation, connection of adjacent pterygiophores, haemal spine anomaly, neural spines anomaly, anomaly in pterygiophores and supernumerary neural spines. Results from this study add new knowledge to functional morphology of crimson snapper that would be useful to larval aquaculture of marine teleosts. Read more at http://researcherslinks.com/current-issues/Skeletal-Ontogeny-and-Anomalies-in-Larval/20/1/1391/html#LWtRCAugubXQpPjy.9

    Societal determinants of HIV vulnerability among clients of female commercial sex workers in Indonesia

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    Copyright: © 2018 Fauk et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This study aimed to explore societal determinants of HIV vulnerability among the clients of female commercial sex workers (FCSWs) in Belu and Malaka districts, Indonesia. A qualitative inquiry using in-depth interviews was employed to collect data from participants (n = 42) recruited using a purposive and snowball sampling technique. Data analysis was guided by a qualitative data analysis framework. The study results revealed several societal determinants that supported vulnerability to HIV infection among the participants. They included low education level and sexual health literacy including the lack of knowledge and information about HIV transmission and prevention. Additional determinants identified were limited source of HIV/AIDS-related information, availability of and ease of accessibility of brothels and FCSWs, peer influence, and high mobility of the study participants. Findings of this study indicate the needs and call for interventions that aim to protect both FCSWs and their clients, through provision of HIV/AIDS and sexual health education and information and improvement in the availability and accessibility of condoms

    Comparison of three clinical facilitation models for midwifery students undertaking clinical placement in South Australia.

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    Clinical placement is a core feature of Australian midwifery education programs, with clinical supervision acknowledged as a key component for student success. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical facilitation models in South Australia, specifically the quality of clinical supervision to facilitate learning, and key stakeholder satisfaction. A mixed method evaluation research design was used to compare three models of clinical facilitation for midwifery students undertaking clinical placement across five venues. Midwifery students (n = 174), across two universities completed an anonymous e-survey utilising the validated Clinical Placement Experience Questionnaire. Midwives (n = 149) across five venues completed an anonymous purpose-designed questionnaire on their experience providing clinical supervision to midwifery students and Clinical Facilitators (n = 8) representing three facilitation models completed a self-report e-diary for two weeks and engaged in a focus group. Few differences were identified between the quality of student support and learning opportunities. Students in all models were well orientated and prepared for the clinical environment. Clinical Facilitators were supportive, educative and valuable for the students to achieve their learning objectives. One significant difference was that facilitators employed in the ‘Shared’ model were more able to provide support to midwives supervising students and maintain good liaison with the universities.This research was funded by a University of South Australia Learning and Teaching Grant

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