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Chronic Pain in Parkinson's Disease: Prevalence, Sex Differences, Regional Anatomy and Comorbidities
Get PDFObjective: Chronic pain is prevalent among people living with Parkinson's disease (PD). We analyzed data from 10,631 Australian individuals with PD to assess the prevalence, age and sex differences, severity, anatomical distribution, clinical history, and associated factors. Methods: We analysed data from 10,631 participants with PD enrolled in the Australian Parkinson's Genetics Study (APGS), an ongoing nationwide cohort. Participants completed an online or paper-based questionnaire assessing sociodemographic factors, PD-related variables, and chronic pain characteristics. Chronic pain was defined as pain persisting for more than 3 months and occurring most days or daily. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, and group comparisons using chi-squared tests, Fisher's exact tests, and independent samples t-tests. Results: Two-thirds (66.2%) reported chronic pain, with females experiencing higher prevalence (70.8%) and severity (4.7 vs. 4.3 on a 10-point scale). Common pain sites included the buttocks (35.6%), lower back (25.4%), neck (19.4%), and knees (17.2%). Chronic pain was strongly linked to comorbid depression, sleep disorders, and osteoarthritis (p < 0.05). Environmental exposures such as pesticides, heavy metals, and alcohol were associated with higher pain prevalence, especially in males (p < 0.05). Interpretation: These findings emphasise the substantial burden of chronic pain in PD, highlighting sex differences and strong links to multimorbidity. Further research is warranted to clarify sex-specific treatments and identify novel therapeutic targets.Full Tex
Patient-Reported Outcome Measures to Determine Sleep Problems in Adults With Chronic Kidney Disease: A Systematic Review
Get PDFBackground
Adults with chronic kidney disease are prone to sleep problems, which can impact sleep quality and harm physical and mental wellbeing. Subjective sleep instruments help assess sleep quality and symptom severity. Evaluating the characteristics and psychometric properties of these instruments aids health practitioners in selecting suitable tools.
Objective
To identify optimal patient-reported outcome measures for assessing sleep quality and/or problems in the chronic kidney disease population.
Design
Systematic review.
Participants
Adults with chronic kidney disease.
Measurements
A comprehensive search was conducted in CINAHL, MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, and JBI for studies published between January 2010 and December 2023. Methodological quality was evaluated using COSMIN-COMIT guidelines.
Results
Nineteen instruments were identified. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, assessing both sleep quality and problems, was used in 73.8% of studies and has only been validated in kidney transplant populations. The Athens Insomnia Scale and Epworth Sleepiness Scale, while useful for insomnia and daytime sleepiness, provide narrower coverage, and the STOP-BANG and Berlin Questionnaire target sleep apnoea risk but are less practical for broad sleep assessment. These limitations may explain their less frequent use compared with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index.
Conclusion
Future research should validate sleep instruments in non-transplant chronic kidney disease populations through comprehensive psychometric testing. Clinicians and researchers should carefully select multiple instruments to assess both overall sleep quality and sleep disorder-specific symptoms.Full Tex
A programmable shape memory bioscaffold incorporating doxorubicin for postoperative chemotherapy and enhanced bone regeneration
No full textThe clinical management of bone cancers remains challenging due to the risk of residual tumour cells following surgical resection and the associated complications of systemic chemotherapy. To address this, we developed a shape memory scaffold (SMS) with ion-responsive functionality, designed to enable localised drug delivery and promote bone regeneration postoperatively. Constructed from silk fibroin, carboxymethyl chitosan, alginate, and montmorillonite, the optimised rSCAM scaffold exhibited a porous microarchitecture (93.0 ± 1.2%) and toughness (10.6 ± 0.5 MJ m−3), along with rapid shape recovery triggered by bicarbonate ions. rSCAM sustained doxorubicin release over 14 days and showed high drug loading efficiency. In vitro, the scaffold was highly biocompatible, with over 80% cell viability, low ROS induction, and potent anti-osteosarcoma activity, achieving complete tumour cell inhibition within 12 hours. It also supported MC3T3-E1 proliferation, migration, and osteogenic differentiation, as evidenced by elevated MMP2/MMP9 expression, TEER enhancement, and Alizarin Red S staining. CAM assay confirmed neovascularisation and scaffold–host tissue integration. These results demonstrate the multifunctionality of SMS rSCAM as a promising strategy for minimally invasive treatment of postoperative bone cancer, integrating chemotherapeutic delivery and tissue regeneration within a single therapeutic platform.Full Tex
Evaluating cardiorespiratory fitness in people with psychotic disorders
No full textThe premature mortality of people with mental illness is a human rights issue. People with psychotic disorders are at the highest risk, having a 10–20-year reduced life expectancy, primarily due to preventable cardiometabolic conditions [1]. Contributors to this health gap include unhealthy lifestyle behaviours such as low exercise, and metabolic side-effects of antipsychotic medications [1,2]. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is inversely related to all-cause mortality [3]. Routine CRF screening would support risk identification and intervention; however, the utility of CRF tests for people with psychotic disorders is unclear.Full Tex
Evaluation of Salivary Carcinogenic microR-21 and miR-125a Expression Associated with Alcohol Consumption and Smoking
Get PDFOBJECTIVE: The concept of "lifestyle" encompasses various factors, including nutrition, behavior, stress, physical activity, work habits, smoking, and alcohol consumption. Increasing evidence suggests that environmental and lifestyle factors can influence epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation, histone acetylation, and microRNA expression. Given that microRNAs (miRNAs) are an emerging focus in cancer research, there is growing interest in understanding how lifestyle choices affect miRNA responses. MiR-21 is well-established as an oncogenic miRNA, while miR-125a is reported as a tumor-suppressive miRNA in different cancers. This study aimed to analyze whether cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption are associated with altered levels of these salivary miRNAs in healthy individuals. METHODS: Saliva supernatant samples from 50 healthy individuals (10% smokers and 34% alcohol drinkers) were analyzed alongside non-smokers and non-alcohol drinkers using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The expression levels of miR-21 and miR-125a were compared across samples based on demographic characteristics, social status, and smoking and drinking habits. RESULT: The data showed overexpression of salivary miR-21 in individuals who regularly consumed alcohol and smoked, while miR-125a expression was not significantly affected in either group. CONCLUSION: The differential expression of salivary miR-21 in healthy individuals from a localized population suggests a correlation with common lifestyle risk factors.Full Tex
Seafood Sustainability Challenges for Import-Dependent Nations
Get PDFDependence on seafood imports is growing for many nations, effectively exporting the environmental and social impacts from consuming nations to producers. While countries have commitments to national regulations and global sustainability targets, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, sustainability standards for imported seafood are lacking. This paper examines the sustainability implications of seafood import reliance among high-income countries, using Australia as a case study. Australia imports around 60–70% of domestically consumed seafood, with 96.5% imported from 20 countries. These trade partners generally have lower environmental performance, higher vulnerability to slavery, and increased risk of illicit trade in their supply chains than Australia. Biophysical limits on wild catch, low demand for underutilized species, social conflict, environmental concerns over aquaculture expansion, and insufficient domestic production to meet growing demand, suggest imports will likely remain an important source of seafood for Australian consumers. Other high-income countries in Europe and North America face similar challenges. These countries have a pivotal role in promoting responsible trade. Comprehensive sustainability assessments that integrate environmental and social considerations of production and trade, improved mapping of seafood production activities, and more granular trade data will be critical for informed and effective trade regulations that support sustainability commitments.Full Tex
Situational irony in Australian prison radio: humour as a tool for coping and resistance
Get PDFThis article examines the use of humour in a selection of prison radio shows in Australia. Prison radio consists of radio and other audio that involves incarcerated people and their communities, either produced inside prisons – limited to and targeting a prison-based population – or produced outside of correctional centres and broadcasting to a wider public. Drawing on approximately broadcast content from Jailbreak, Beyond the Bars, and Radio Seeds, we identified 30 humorous instances, of which 17 were best understood as examples of situational irony. Through a thematic analysis, we argue that situational irony in prison radio serves as both a coping mechanism and a subtle form of resistance, which gives a platform to narratives of desistance from crime and improving the quality of life condition inside prisons. Situational irony provides a humorous framing of the incongruities and restrictions inherent to prison life. While humour was not frequent across the data set, it offered moments of agency, levity, and collective resistance. This study contributes to growing scholarship on prison radio and suggests the need for further research into the editorial constraints that shape humour and expression in carceral media.Full Tex
A scoping review of the role of mindful parenting in youth's emotional, behavioral, and social adjustment, coping, and emotion regulation
Get PDFMindful parenting involves parents’ moment-to-moment awareness during parent–child interactions and nonjudgemental acceptance of children. There is not yet an extensive history of research on the impact of mindful parenting on youth’s adjustment and well-being, but the last decade has seen an increase in attention. This growth suggests the need for a scoping review to summarize the current state of the research, to identify research gaps, and to suggest future directions for research. Electronic databases were searched, which identified 31 studies of mindful parenting and youth’s (aged 12 to 25 years) emotional, behavioral, or social adjustment; coping with stress; and/or emotion regulation. Mindful parenting was associated with better youth adjustment in most studies, including fewer emotional and behavioral problems (23 and 20 studies, respectively), and better well-being (three studies) and life satisfaction (three studies), with parenting and youth adjustment reported by parents, youth, or both. Only one study reported associations of mindful parenting with better social adjustment, and two studies found associations with more adaptive and positive coping and/or emotional regulation. Twenty-one studies investigated indirect pathways, with mindful parenting related to youth adjustment through numerous youth characteristics, parent characteristics, or relationship factors. Four studies included tests of whether the link between mindful parenting and youth’s adjustment differed depending on a third variable (e.g., gender). Two studies found significant moderation, but the effects were small and sometimes counterintuitive. There was very little replication across studies. Future research could draw upon this review to develop a model that links mindful parenting to youth’s adjustment, while considering other aspects of parenting, as well as parent and child characteristics as precursors, covariates, and mediators.Full Tex
Landscape-wide modelling of canopy tree crowns and heights using LiDAR: a case study in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Australia
Get PDFContext
Understanding the extant structure of forests reveals important insights into their ecological condition, age, biodiversity and related ecosystem services. Advances in LiDAR and computational power enable detailed assessments of forest structure at an individual tree resolution over large geographic extents.
Aims
This study aimed to model and map tree canopy crowns and heights at a landscape scale and investigate the influence of forest type, land use and tenure, and environmental factors on spatial variation in forest height.
Methods
We utilised publicly available Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data to model canopy shape and height for individual trees, across a 3.1 Mha study region in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, employing LiDAR-derived Canopy Height Model (CHM) and Dalponte crown segmentation techniques. Tree heights were subsequently compared between different vegetation formations and stratified by land use and tenure.
Key results
A total of 180,709,102 tree crowns was identified. The tallest trees included a 81 m tall Eucalyptus grandis specimen and a 77 m tall Araucaria cunninghamii specimen. The analysis of tree heights among vegetation formations and land use/tenure revealed that tree heights were tallest in wet sclerophyll forest, and Nature Conservation and Production Native Forest tenures. Tree crown detection accuracy was high (2.3% difference), although discrepancies were noted in areas affected by severe fires and complex rainforest canopies.
Conclusions
The results show that LiDAR and advanced modelling techniques can be applied to model map forest canopy structure on an individual tree basis at a landscape scale.
Implications
These results provide valuable insights into the ecological condition of the region’s forests that can inform management strategies and conservation efforts. The methods can be readily applied to other forested landscapes where airborne LiDAR is available.Full Tex
Machine learning methods to investigate the movement ecology of the endangered southern black-throated finch
No full textSavannas are a major terrestrial biome that cover about one fifth of the global land surface. The world's savannas have been extensively transformed by human activities including conversion to rangelands for livestock grazing and clearing for cropping. Despite the savannas of northern Australia being the largest and least cleared on earth, significant population declines have been observed among some vertebrate fauna, with declines particularly evident among ground-foraging granivorous birds. The southern black-throated finch (SBTF; Poephila cincta cincta) is one such species whose range has contracted by over 80% from its historical distribution. Now listed as Endangered, the species has a present-day distribution restricted to two population strongholds. Most previous research on the species has focused on the species' population in the Townsville Plains Bioregion, despite the less-researched population in the Desert Uplands Bioregion occurring in a substantially more arid area, with less surface water availability, limited overlap in vegetation communities and less habitat fragmentation. These climatic and habitat differences are likely to drive different patterns of movement and habitat use between the populations. Understanding these patterns is important for the targeted conservation of SBTF in the Desert Uplands Bioregion. However, monitoring rare and threatened species over large areas is challenging and this thesis explores avenues of methodological improvement that are broadly applicable.
Methods to investigate avian movement ecology have rapidly progressed in recent decades, driven by advances in sensor technologies. Prominent among these are automated radio telemetry (ART) systems and acoustic recorders. Both methods produce large volumes of data, necessitating continued development of analytical tools to extract meaningful ecological insights. For ART systems, the primary challenge is generating accurate location estimates from complex signal data. While for acoustic recorders, a key challenge is developing deep learning call detection models for species that are rare, difficult to record and lack pre-existing training datasets. This thesis aims to develop methods to address these methodological challenges that have broad relevance in movement ecology research. I then apply these methods to investigate the movement ecology of the SBTF population within the Desert Uplands Bioregion.
In response to the challenges of localising wildlife positions from complex ART signal data, I introduce a novel machine learning-based location fingerprinting method for ART systems and compare its performance with two alternative methods, biangulation and linear regression. The location fingerprinting method achieved slightly better accuracy than the linear regression method and substantially outperformed the biangulation method. Broadly, the location fingerprinting method provides a greater versatility of use than alternative methods, allowing application across various ART system designs with minimal need for study-specific customisation.
To improve methods to build deep learning models to detect rare bird calls, I implement an active learning framework, informed by the broader machine learning literature. This framework uses a human-machine interface to selectively label data that are most likely to improve model performance. I demonstrate that this active learning framework is an efficient strategy to create a state-of-the-art call detection model in a scenario with no pre-existing training data and where target calls are extremely rare within a large, unlabelled dataset of long-term audio recordings.
I then apply the ART system and bioacoustic methodological developments from this thesis to investigate the seasonal habitat use, movement and activity patterns of SBTF within the Desert Uplands Bioregion of Queensland, Australia. My results show that over short periods (of less than one month), SBTF are largely sedentary but occupy extensive home ranges. Within these ranges, they make daily movements among foraging, drinking and nesting sites. Few landscape-scale movements exceeding 4.5 km were observed. I found that the distances SBTF travel from permanent water sources were substantially larger than previously reported for the Townsville Plains SBTF population. I recorded an average resighting distance of 1.2 km from water, with some observations as far as 4.2 km from water, which was close to the maximum distance from water that could be achieved within the study area. Additionally, both telemetry and bioacoustic studies found that SBTF diversified their habitat use in the dry season compared to the wet season, potentially due to SBTF using a broader area of habitat when food resources were relatively scarce.
The methodological developments presented in this thesis introduce new open access tools to improve ART localisation methods and facilitate the creation of call detection models for rare and difficult to record species. These tools establish a foundation for refining location fingerprinting techniques in wildlife telemetry and developing reliable methods to monitor SBTF population sizes using acoustic recorders. The insights into movement ecology derived from this research can be used to inform conservation strategies for SBTF and have broader implications for the monitoring and management of species across large spatial scales in environments with substantial spatiotemporal variation in resource availability.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of PhilosophySchool of Environment and ScienceGriffith SciencesFull Tex