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Transformative change in a nexus world:product and process in the eleventh plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES-11)
Get PDFThe eleventh session of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES-11) was held in Windhoek, Namibia, in December 2024. Approval of two assessments were the highlights of this plenary: the thematic assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health - the so-called Nexus Assessment, and the thematic assessment of the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, determinants of transformative change and options for achieving the 2050 vision for biodiversity – the so-called Transformative Change Assessment. Yet the negotiations on the summaries for policymakers for those two assessments were marked more by national interests than by science. The authors were frequently challenged to justify evidence expressed in plain English, and the three years of work with its original scientific language was weakened by bureaucratically-driven wordsmithing. The assessments were finally approved with a range of response options and ways forward. Both assessments stress urgency and are policy-ready to be taken up by governments for implementation globally. IPBES continues ringing the scientific alarm bell, and science hopes that bell is heard.</p
The 2024 report of the MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change:Australia emerging as a hotspot for litigation
Get PDFThe MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change in Australia was established in 2017 and produced its first national assessment in 2018 and annual updates in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. It examines five broad domains: health hazards, exposures and impacts; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. In this, the seventh report of the MJA–Lancet Countdown, we track progress on an extensive suite of indicators across these five domains, accessing and presenting the latest data and further refining and developing our analyses. We also examine selected indicators of trends in health and climate change in New Zealand. Our analyses show the exposure to heatwaves is growing in Australia, increasing the risk of heat stress and other health threats such as bushfires and drought. Our analyses also highlight continuing deficiencies in Australia's response to the health and climate change threat. A key component of Australia's capacity to respond to bushfires, its number of firefighting volunteers, is in decline, dropping by 38 442 people (17%) in just seven years. Australia's total energy supply remains dominated by fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), and although energy from coal decreased from 2021 to 2023, energy from oil increased, and transport energy from petrol grew substantially in 2021–22 (the most recent year for which data are available). Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia's health care sector in 2021 rose to their highest level since 2010. In other areas some progress is being made. The Australian Government completed the first pass of the National Climate Risk Assessment, which included health and social support as one of the eleven priority risks, based in part on the assessed severity of impact. Renewable sources such as wind and solar now provide almost 40% of Australia's electricity, with growth in both large-scale and small-scale (eg, household) renewable generation and battery storage systems. The sale of electric vehicles reached an all-time high in 2023 of 98 436, accounting for 8.47% of all new vehicle sales. Although Australia had a reprieve from major catastrophic climate events in 2023, New Zealand experienced cyclone Gabrielle and unprecedented floods, which contributed to the highest displacement of people and insured economic losses over the period of our analyses (ie, since the year 2010 and 2000 respectively). Nationally, regionally and globally, the next five years are pivotal in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning energy production to renewables. Australia is now making progress in this direction. This progress must continue and accelerate, and the remaining deficiencies in Australia's response to the health and climate change threat must be addressed. There are strong signs that Australians are increasingly engaged and acting on health and climate change, and our new indicator on health and climate change litigation in Australia demonstrates the legal system is active on this issue in this country. Our 2022 and 2023 reports signalled our intentions to introduce indicators on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and climate change, and mental health and climate change in Australia. Although the development of appropriate indicators is challenging, these are key areas and we expect our reporting on them will commence in our next report.</p
Practical Applications of Research Outcomes—Who, How, and When
No full textResearch information moves very quickly in this age of social media and online platforms. The scholarly practice of not releasing or publicizing research outcomes (and their importance and application) until after formal peer-reviewed journal publication has largely disappeared. Researchers are keen to promote their work, and a key aspect of the likely impact is prominent reporting of the study’s practical applications.<br/
Nutritional Screening During Pregnancy:Women’s Views of Weight Monitoring as Part of This Process
No full textBackground: Worldwide, appropriate weight maintenance is one of the most important elements of human health, and this is especially true for pregnancy. Gestational weight gain below or above the recommended range is associated with numerous adverse outcomes. In addition, it may induce epigenetic changes leading to an increased risk of developing future chronic disease, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, in both the woman and her offspring. Despite this, little is known of the views and experiences of pregnant women regarding weight monitoring and advice during the antenatal period. Methods: A qualitative study using individual interviews was undertaken in south-eastern Australia. Sixteen women with varying body mass index participated. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data was analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. In any phenomenological study, the researcher’s objective is to elicit the participant’s views on their lived experiences. Results: Three major themes emerged: (1) The physiological perspective of weight monitoring during pregnancy; (2) The psychological perspective of weight monitoring during pregnancy; (3) The sociological perspective of weight monitoring during pregnancy. Conclusions: The findings from this study may assist the future development and support of weight monitoring information and practices for pregnant women. Women want more individualized support regarding weight monitoring during pregnancy.</p
Exploring the Role of a Dietitian in an Early Intervention Program for People With Dementia and Their Care Partners:A Composite Case Series
No full textSymptoms of dementia can impact the nutritional status and quality of life of people with dementia, but there is limited research exploring the dietitian's role in post-diagnostic care. This study aims to explore the role of a dietitian in a multidisciplinary dementia program for people living in the community. Participants in a twelve-week multicomponent, multidisciplinary post-diagnostic intervention for people with dementia and care partners were offered three consultations with a dietitian to receive dietary assessment, education and advice. Key clinical findings from dietetics case notes of 40 people with dementia were analyzed using a composite case series approach. Of these, 39 required ongoing nutrition support and intervention. Common issues identified include insufficient energy and/or nutrient intake, unintentional weight loss, poor management of comorbidities and difficulties with coordination of care. Dietitians are an integral part of a multicomponent intervention for dementia. Future work is needed to optimize dietetic care models. Running headline. Dietetics in an early intervention for dementia.</p
The challenges of coeliac disease at work:A contestation of the politics of inclusion
Get PDFBy focusing on the experiences of employees living with coeliac disease as evidenced in UK employment tribunal cases, this paper interrogates the way practices of exclusion are performed in legal and organisational contexts that purport to promote values of inclusion. In paying attention to how differences are constructed and negotiated, the paper unpacks the way organisational practices mobilise an array of workplace mechanisms to produce complex dynamics of exclusion. Applying Laclau and Mouffe’s logics of equivalence and difference, we show how questionable impulses and practices emerge in a workplace environment characterised by unclarity and vagueness. One impulse, for example, involves privatising and individualising the condition of employees with coeliac disease, giving rise to patronising and stigmatising attitudes that can turn them into victims. However, we also identify workplace mechanisms countering these tendencies, which can underpin forms of collective support in the struggle for recognition. Our study thus contributes to the body of sociological literature that pays attention to health-related workplace injustices by challenging the purported promotion of health-based inclusion through a focus on tribunal cases, leading to suggestions for further research into the way medical conditions are theorised and ‘lived’ at work.</p
@Fesshole and the discourse of confession on X: A study of online sharing and community building
Get PDFAs a centuries-old discursive practice, confessional acts that are typically understood as an acceptance of one's guilt or shame regarding a particular action or thought, have been observed and studied in various contexts including religion, law and crime, and medicine. However, the nature and practice of confessions have been increasingly reconfigured within newer, evolving digital media contexts. Social media platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter), have afforded users diverse ways to interact and engage in self-presentation online. The growing need to build and be part of communities, as well as reconceptualised notions of trust, intimacy and authenticity online, facilitated by mechanics of social media platforms and user anonymity have altered conventional notions of confession and absolution. This paper explores the reconfiguration of confessional acts by analysing a corpus of posts submitted to the X account @fesshole, which solicits confessions from its community of followers in a non-institutional, public online context. We analyse the posts by borrowing from van Dijk's (2015) socio-cognitive model for analysis of discourse, which focuses on the micro and macro levels on which cognition mediates in terms of socially shared norms and ideologies within and across discursive communities. The results of the analysis suggest that X users establish rapport through confessions of an intra- and interpersonal nature about topics of varying degrees of seriousness and in ways that give the ambient online audience something to relate to and connect with. In doing so, confessors seek to bond in place of absolution, and they offer inspiration or commonality in place of guilt.</p
Transformer-Based Approach for Predicting Transactive Energy in Neurorehabilitation
No full textAdvancements in robotic neurorehabilitation have made it imperative to enhance the safety and personalization of physical human-robot interactions (pHRI). Estimation and management of energy transfer between humans and robots is essential for enhancing safety during the rehabilitation. Traditional control methods, which rely on coordinate-based monitoring of robot velocity and external forces, often fail in unstructured environments due to their susceptibility to sensor noise and limited adaptability to individual patient needs. This paper introduces the concept of transactive energy, a coordinate-invariant entity that captures the energy dynamics between the human and the robot during robot-assisted rehabilitation and can be used for personalized robot control. However, estimation of such energy transfer is a complex process and therefore, we have developed a transformer-based model to predict the transactive potential energy. The proposed model is implemented on an ankle rehabilitation robot which is a compliant parallel robot and provides the required three rotational degrees of freedom (DOF). The model learns from the data obtained from the experiments carried out using the ankle robot with five stroke patients on two types of controllers: an impedance controller operated in zero impedance control mode and a trajectory tracking controller. This study provides a baseline, for future research on energy-based control mechanisms in pHRI applications, by utilizing the advanced deep learning models
How to ensure Labor wins the next election:Splintering the vote will undo Menzies’ legacy
Get PDFThe outcome of elections has little to do with supporters of the major parties. Historically, the party that forms government is decided by those who defect from the Coalition. Those who move further left remain within the radical Labor or Greens camps. Unlike the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) of the 50s and 60s, it is unlikely that left-leaning groups would preference the Coalition. This means that those conservatives who move away from the Coalition effectively hand government to Labor
A Unified Deep Learning-Based EEG Biometric Authentication System for Cross-Session Scenarios
No full textAdvancements in technology have heightened concerns over personal privacy and security. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, valued for their unique and non-forgeable characteristics, have garnered increasing interest for biometric verification. Yet challenges persist in real-world applications, including poor performance in cross-session recognition, lack of generalizability, and narrow focus on specific EEG elicitation protocols. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-based EEG biometric verification system. Our approach introduces advancements in feature extraction: starting with Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) for converting signals to frequency domain, followed by feature mining through a convolutional autoencoder. User verification is accomplished using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), known for its superior performance in data mining and classification tasks. In addition, to evaluate the generalizability of the proposed method, extensive experiments are carried out with EEG data collected under seven distinct signal elicitation protocols and over two different recording sessions. Results highlight the stability and reliability of the our method cross diverse scenarios. Comparative analysis with state-of-the-art approaches for EEG biometrics shows that our method excels in robust feature extraction, resulting in better verification performance.</p