19683 research outputs found
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Linguistic diversity and emergency health alerts: A systematic critical review
No full textAbstract:Australia is a world leader in providing valuable resources that support multilingual access to healthcare services. However, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that these resources are not always effective in ensuring that linguistically diverse citizens have access to information in a crisis. In this paper, we consider whether authorities around the world have implemented effective approaches that might be adapted to enhance multilingual communications in public health crises in the Australian context. Using a systematic literature review, we identify strategies implemented by governments and public health authorities to effectively support communication in a range of languages during public health emergencies. Four databases were searched and resulting studies analysed. We found that substantial bodies of the literature document the communication needs of culturally and linguistically diverse communities and the role of community and religious organisations in providing that support. However, there is almost no attention to the role that governments or public health authorities might play in implementing strategies to address those needs. Analysis of the studies suggests that public health authorities could benefit from working more collaboratively with community organisations to establish communication strategies that are timely, trustworthy, efficient and capable of cultural and linguistic nuance in public health emergencies.</p
Is School Travel too Complex to Handle Without a Car? Assessing “Child-Friendliness” as a Pathway to Reducing Private Car use for Children’s Transport
No full textRecognising the multifaceted challenges of addressing the dominance of cars for children’s transport, this paper introduces and tests a “child-friendliness index” (CFI) to assess the performance of neighbourhoods and school catchments to enable or constrain how children travel to school. The findings demonstrate that car trips both to and from school are negatively associated with child-friendliness. However, counter-intuitively there was no significant association between distance and car use, which remained high for shorter distances (于对解决儿童交通中汽车占主导地位一事之多方面挑战的认识，本文引入并测试了一个“儿童友好指数”（CFI），以评估社区和学校招生地区的表现，从而使儿童能够采用或限制儿童上学的方式。研究结果表明，往返学校的汽车行程与儿童友好性呈负相关。然而，距离和汽车使用之间反直观地没有显著的关联，在较短的距离（<4公里）内，这一关联仍然很高。这些发现表明，上学交通方式的选择容易受许多因素影响。我们探讨了CFI为学校无障碍规划提供的政策途径。</p
The Phase Space Tomographic Propagator and an Exploration of the Properties of 4D Optical Coherence Functions
No full textA thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science to the Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.</p
Chronic Stressor Exposure Impairs Extinction of Fear in Adolescent Rats and Has Associated Effects on Perineuronal Nets and Parvalbumin Interneurons
No full textAdolescents, both human and nonhuman, exhibit impairments in the extinction of learned fear, an effect that is exacerbated, at least in rodents, by exposure to chronic stress. However, we have little understanding of the mechanisms underlying this effect. Therefore, here, we examined whether corticosterone exposure, a model of chronic stress, alters the expression of inhibitory neurons expressing parvalbumin (PV) in the basolateral amygdala and prefrontal cortex, two brain regions that have been implicated in fear extinction memories, in adolescent rats. We also examined the expression of perineuronal nets (PNNs), extracellular matrix structures that encompass inhibitory interneurons, in these two regions. These structures might render fear memories resistant to extinction by applying a structural “brake” on the plasticity of fear memories. Corticosterone-exposed adolescent rats exhibited poor extinction retention, as in past work, and were also found to have reduced percentage of PV-positive cells surrounded by PNNs in the basolateral amygdala. PV cells and PNNs were unaffected by corticosterone exposure in the prefrontal cortex. Our results suggest that the altered function of amygdala interneurons may be associated with the impaired extinction performance in stress-exposed adolescent rats.</p
The small molecule raptinal can simultaneously induce apoptosis and inhibit PANX1 activity
No full textDiscovery of new small molecules that can activate distinct programmed cell death pathway is of significant interest as a research tool and for the development of novel therapeutics for pathological conditions such as cancer and infectious diseases. The small molecule raptinal was discovered as a pro-apoptotic compound that can rapidly trigger apoptosis by promoting the release of cytochrome c from the mitochondria and subsequently activating the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. As raptinal is very effective at inducing apoptosis in a variety of different cell types in vitro and in vivo, it has been used in many studies investigating cell death as well as the clearance of dying cells. While examining raptinal as an apoptosis inducer, we unexpectedly identified that in addition to its pro-apoptotic activities, raptinal can also inhibit the activity of caspase-activated Pannexin 1 (PANX1), a ubiquitously expressed transmembrane channel that regulates many cell death-associated processes. By implementing numerous biochemical, cell biological and electrophysiological approaches, we discovered that raptinal can simultaneously induce apoptosis and inhibit PANX1 activity. Surprisingly, raptinal was found to inhibit cleavage-activated PANX1 via a mechanism distinct to other well-described PANX1 inhibitors such as carbenoxolone and trovafloxacin. Furthermore, raptinal also interfered with PANX1-regulated apoptotic processes including the release of the ‘find-me’ signal ATP, the formation of apoptotic cell-derived extracellular vesicles, as well as NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Taken together, these data identify raptinal as the first compound that can simultaneously induce apoptosis and inhibit PANX1 channels. This has broad implications for the use of raptinal in cell death studies as well as in the development new PANX1 inhibitors.</p
Clinical Developments and Challenges in Treating FGFR2-Driven Gastric Cancer
No full textRecent advances in the treatment of gastric cancer (GC) with chemotherapy, immunotherapy, anti-angiogenic therapy and targeted therapies have yielded some improvement in survival outcomes; however, metastatic GC remains a lethal malignancy and amongst the leading causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Importantly, the ongoing molecular characterisation of GCs continues to uncover potentially actionable molecular targets. Among these, aberrant FGFR2-driven signalling, predominantly arising from FGFR2 amplification, occurs in approximately 3–11% of GCs. However, whilst several inhibitors of FGFR have been clinically tested to-date, there are currently no approved FGFR-directed therapies for GC. In this review, we summarise the significance of FGFR2 as an actionable therapeutic target in GC, examine the recent pre-clinical and clinical data supporting the use of small-molecule inhibitors, antibody-based therapies, as well as novel approaches such as proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) for targeting FGFR2 in these tumours, and discuss the ongoing challenges and opportunities associated with their clinical development.</p
Characterisation of a Parasitic Bacterium with Lytic Capabilities on Streptococcus sp.
No full textSubmitted in total fulfilment of the degree of Master of Science to the School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.</p
Graph Neural Networks for Anomaly Detection: From Static Graphs to Multivariate Time Series Data
No full textA thesis submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.</p
A Foot in the Australian Employment Door: A Qualitative Study of Highly Skilled Migrant Women
No full textIn the recent years, Australia has been seeking highly skilled migrants to close the skill gap and increase economic participation in the labour market. Although women are predominant among recent migrants in Australia, they experience higher unemployment rates than male migrants. Previous research has shown that one key challenge they face is their family responsibilities that hinder them in the employment market. In this study, factors in gaining Australian employment for highly skilled migrant women are highlighted. Drawing on 27 semi-structured qualitative interviews with such women, the analysis identified three main factors in gaining employment in Australia: (1) leveraging social capital; (2) accumulation of human capital; and (3) prior, home-country work experience. These factors are not mutually exclusive but interplay to assist highly skilled migrant women in obtaining employment in Australia. These findings have contributed to the migrant employment literature in filling an empirical gap and supporting human capital theory, as well as presenting micro, meso, and macro implications for policy.</p
May the Force(s) be with You: The Utility of Using a Game-Based Approach to Teach Biomechanics
No full textAbstract: Many high school students fear and dislike introductory biomechanics, which can add to the challenges physical educators face in teaching and supporting their students’ learning. There is evidence that active and participative learning approaches can improve student engagement with and understanding of biomechanical concepts. This can be done by teaching the theoretical and practical components of biomechanics within a specific pedagogical approach, namely Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU). As TGfU has been shown to significantly improve student engagement and learning in a wide variety of other related disciplines, this article provides strategies for introducing biomechanics using the TGfU pedagogy framework—which may also benefit STEM engagement and the application of STEM-related knowledge.
The mere mention of biomechanics can send many high school students running for the hills. Why? The reasons differ, but the fact that many topics covered in a characteristic biomechanics curriculum involve abstract terminology, variables that are not observable but are implied, and a raft of formulas can make the subject off-putting. When tasked with learning a subject that can be complex and difficult to put into practice, high school students often experience anxiety. In fact, many university students even avoid or drop out of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors (including biomechanics) due to anxiety about science and mathematics (Keogh et al., Citation2021). This is a shame, as both teaching and learning biomechanics should be fun, engaging, and rewarding, and ought to provide a significant opportunity for the appreciation and understanding of human movement—something physical education (PE) teachers strive to promote. Physics education research has documented that many high school students fear and dislike university physics, and these negative perceptions endure even after the course is completed (Docktor & Mestre, Citation2014). This may parallel with the anxiety and negative perception of both physics and biomechanics held by many high school students. The consequential outcome is that student comprehension of biomechanical concepts is poor.
However, poor student comprehension could be due to the overly theoretical approach used to teach the various subjects contained within biomechanics. While aspects of biomechanics may lend themselves to being taught scientifically and verified through logical or mathematical proofs (e.g., positivism), many of the constructs and definitions can be taught prior to introducing the mathematical formulas involved. This “flipped” approach may enhance student understanding when it comes to calculating velocity, displacement, speed, and acceleration, for instance, and can be used in PE.
One area that is actively promoted to enhance student engagement and comprehension in PE is the use of game-based learning activities. Specifically, game-based learning has been shown to be beneficial to learning, especially when taught in a blended learning environment (Keogh et al., Citation2017). Different authors have reported on the influence of the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) pedagogy on game performance, physical education, and psychosocial variables (Ortiz et al., Citation2023). Yet, while many researchers working in K–12 educational settings have supported the incorporation of TGfU pedagogy into PE, little has been communicated about the effect of integrating TGfU into the teaching of biomechanics. Therein lies an opportunity, as many biomechanics-based activities lend themselves to practical tasks that can be aligned with the curriculum. To establish the teaching-for-understanding process in biomechanics, the physical educator needs to apply biomechanics in a practical and theoretical context. This article provides a practical strategy for combining several key biomechanical principles using one single sporting activity by means of the TGfU pedagogical method.</p