7,766 research outputs found
Colourful children’s author visits Notre Dame
No full textOne of Australia’s most cherished authors, Morris Gleitzman, spoke about his passion for writing, the impacts of his literature on children and the enjoyment he receives from exploring his imagination every day to a vast audience at Notre Dame’s Fremantle Campus on Monday 21 May.
Author of more than 30 books, including the timeless classics Worry Warts, Two Weeks with the Queen and Adults Only, Mr Gleitzman said his stories reflected the essential qualities and values each person held dear in their lives.
“I wanted to suggest that stories, while we use them often for entertainment, have been around the centre of human culture for millennia,” Mr Gleitzman said.
“These stories are modelling exactly the same skills, abilities and cultural traits via the main characters as teachers hope to develop in their students in the classroom.”
The British-born author was an avid reader as a child and soon found a love for writing after migrating to Australia in 1969. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Mr Gleitzman’s colourful career included working as a department store Santa Claus, a frozen chicken defroster and as a paperboy.
Mr Gleitzman also worked as a television screenwriter for the popular Norman Gunston Show in the 1970s.
However, it was not until a publishing company presented Mr Gleitzman with an opportunity to turn his script about a schoolboy who drove his family and friends “bonkers” into a book that his vocation as an author was realised.
He says that, for him, writing is a technical process that is assisted by a love of language and the ability to explore and evolve characters in any given setting.
“The aspect of writing that I most enjoy is going into my imagination, a place free of all the constraints of the physical and social world where I can have adventures in the context of that freedom,” Mr Gleitzman said.
“When I’m looking for, as I do with each new character, the biggest problem in their life, the problem is almost always timeless and universal.
“The biggest problems we face in our lives today are problems that humans have faced forever and everywhere. Everyone has a need for love, friendship, recognition, validation and, sometimes, survival in their lives.”
Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the Fremantle Campus, Dr Angeline O’Neill, said Mr Gleitzman exemplified the power and importance of children’s literature in contemporary society.
Notre Dame was indeed fortunate to host the first week of Morris Gleitzman’s Perth visit,” Dr O’Neill said.
“He is a major Australian author with a significant global readership, ranging from child readers to adults.
“We see literature in action through Mr Gleitzman’s work. His novels simultaneously entertain and inform young readers, promoting social awareness through the pleasure of reading.
While in Perth, Mr Gleitzman was sponsored by Notre Dame to conduct a series of school visits which included Mercedes College and John XXIII College. These visits provided students with the opportunity to hear about his new book titled After and the chance to speak to the highly acclaimed author.
MEDIA CONTACT: Shelley Robinson: Tel (08) 9433 0610; Mob 0408 959 138 Leigh Dawson: Tel (08) 9433 0569; Mob 0405 441 09
Defining simple nD operations based on prismatic nD objects
No full textAn alternative to the traditional approaches to model separately 2D/3D space, time, scale and other parametrisable characteristics in GIS lies in the higher-dimensional modelling of geographic information, in which a chosen set of non-spatial characteristics, e.g. time and scale, are modelled as extra geometric dimensions perpendicular to the spatial ones, thus creating a higher dimensional model. While higher-dimensional models are undoubtedly powerful, they are also hard to create and manipulate due to our lack of an intuitive understanding in dimensions higher than three. As a solution to this problem, this paper proposes a methodology that makes nD object generation easier by splitting the creation and manipulation process into three steps: (i) constructing simple nD objects based on nD prismatic polytopes—analogous to prisms in 3D—, (ii) defining simple modification operations at the vertex level, and (iii) simple postprocessing to fix errors introduced in the model. As a use case, we show how two sets of operations can be defined and implemented in a dimension-independent manner using this methodology: the most common transformations (i.e. translation, scaling and rotation) and the collapse of objects. The nD objects generated in this manner can then be used as a basis for an nD GIS.Urban Data Scienc
Pre-hospital management of acute Addison’s Disease – Audit of patients attending a referral hospital in a regional area
No full textContext: Adrenal crises (AC) cause morbidity and mortality in patients with Addison’s disease [primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI)]. Patient-initiated oral stress dosing, with parenteral hydrocortisone, is recommended to avert ACs. While these should be effective, the continued incidence of ACs remains largely unexplained.
Methods: Audit of all attendances between 2000 and 2017 by adult patients with treated PAI to one large regional referral centre in New South Wales, Australia. Measurements were those taken on arrival at hospital.
Results: There were 252 attendances by 56 patients with treated PAI during the study period. Women comprised 60.7% (n=34) of the patients. The mean age of attendees was 53.7 (19.6) years. Nearly half (45.2%, n=114) the patients had an infection. There were 61 (24.2%) ACs diagnosed by the treating clinician. Only 17.9% (n=45) of the hospital presentations followed any form of stress dosing. IM hydrocortisone was used before 7 (2.8%) attendances only. Among patients with a clinician diagnosed AC, only 32.8% (n=20) had used stress dosing before presentation. Vomiting was reported by 47.6% (n=120) of the patients but only 33 (27.5%) of these attempted stress dosing and 5 patients with vomiting used IM hydrocortisone. The number of prior presentations was a significant independent predictor of use of stress doses [1.05 (1.01,1.09)].
Conclusion: Dose escalation strategies are not used universally or correctly by unwell patients with PAI, many patients do not use IM or SC hydrocortisone injections. Previous hospital treatment increases the likelihood of stress dosing and offers the opportunity for reinforcement of prevention strategies
Prehospital management of acute Addison Disease: Audit of patients attending a referral hospital in a regional area
No full textContext: Adrenal crisis (AC) causes morbidity and mortality in patients with Addison disease[primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI)]. Patient-initiated stress dosing (oral or parenteral hydrocortisone) is recommended to avert ACs. Although these should be effective, the continued incidence of ACs remains largely unexplained.
Methods: Audit of all attendances between 2000 and 2017 of adult patients with treated PAI to one large regional referral center in New South Wales, Australia. Measurements were those taken on arrival at hospital.
Results: There were 252 attendances by 56 patients with treated PAI during the study period. Women comprised 60.7% (n 5 34) of the patients. The mean age of attendees was 53.7 (19.6) years. Nearly half (45.2%, n 5 114) of the patients had an infection. There were 61 (24.2%) ACs diagnosed by the treating clinician. Only 17.9% (n 5 45) of the hospital presentations followed any form of stress dosing. IM hydrocortisone was used prior to presentation 7 (2.8%) attendances only. Among patients with a clinician-diagnosed AC, only 32.8% (n 5 20) had used stress dosing before presentation. Vomiting was reported by 47.6% (n 5 120) of the patients but only 33 (27.5%) of these attempted stress dosing and 5 patients with vomiting used IM hydrocortisone. The numberof prior presentations was an independent predictor of use of stress doses [1.05 (1.01, 1.09)]. Conclusion: Dose-escalation strategies are not used universally or correctly by unwell patients with PAI; many patients do not use IM or subcutaneous hydrocortisone injections. Previous hospital treatment increases the likelihood of stress dosing, and hospital attendance offers the opportunity for reinforcement of prevention strategies
Executing convex polytope queries on nD point clouds
No full textEfficient spatial queries are frequently needed to extract useful information from massive nD point clouds. Most previous studies focus on developing solutions for orthogonal window queries, while rarely considering the polytope query. The latter query, which includes the widely adopted polygonal query in 2D, also plays a critical role in many nD spatial applications such as the perspective view selection. Aiming for an nD solution, this paper first formulates a convex nD-polytope for querying. Then, the paper integrates three approximate geometric algorithms – SWEEP, SPHERE, VERTEX, and a linear programming method CPLEX, developing a solution based on an Index-Organized Table (IOT) approach. IOT is applied with space filling curve based clustering and advanced querying mechanism which recursively refines hypercubic nD spaces to approach the query geometry for primary filtering. Results from experiments based on both synthetic and real data have confirmed the superior performance of SWEEP. However, the algorithm may lag behind CPLEX due to pessimistic intersection computation in high dimensional spaces. In a real application, by properly transforming a perspective view selection into a polytope query, the solution achieves a sub-second querying performance using SWEEP. In another flood risk query, SWEEP also leads the others. In general, the robust and efficient solution can be immediately used to address different polytope queries, including those abstract ones whose constraints on combinations of different dimensions are formed into a polytope model. Besides, the knowledge of high-dimensional computations acquired also provides significant guidance for handling more nD GIS issues.GIS Technologi
Award winning Indigenous author speaks at Notre Dame
No full textMultiple Miles Franklin Literary Award winning Indigenous author, Kim Scott, discussed the role of language in developing and exploring relationships between people of different cultures with guests at Notre Dame’s Fremantle Campus recently.
Scott spoke of the background and inspiration behind his recent publication That Deadman Dance to community members and Notre Dame’s Study Abroad students from the United States of America.
The event was hosted by the College of St Benedict (CSB) and St John’s University (SJU), Minnesota, with support from Notre Dame’s Study Abroad Office.
The students had been studying That Deadman Dance to further their understanding of Australia’s diverse and continually evolving culture.
The book explores the first contact between the Noongar people, European settlers and American whalers in a 19th century setting in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.
It follows the story of young Noongar man, Bobby Wabalanginy, and decisions that lay before him which could have potentially affected not only the lives of his ancestors, but the lives of his new-found settler friends in Australia.
Study Abroad Director from CSB and SJU, Janelle Hinchley, said the Study Abroad students responded well to the issues presented in the novel surrounding cultural diversity in Australia.
“He challenged our students to look at the layered dynamics involved in these early cultural exchanges and the propensity that the Aboriginal people had in the facilitation of multiculturalism in Australia,” Ms Hinchley said.
Study Abroad student Christine Schneider said That Deadman Dance provided her with an artistic outlook of the Aboriginal heritage in WA.
“After hearing Kim Scott speak, I realised how poetic and insightful he is which lent itself to the discovery of all the hidden meanings within his novel,” Ms Schneider said.
“It was a great example of being able to take written work and further develop our understanding of its impact on our lives.”
That Deadman Dance won several awards in 2011, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award for the best Australian novel or play which portrays the beauty, challenges and characteristics of Australian life. The novel also collected the Premier’s Prize and the Best Fiction Book prize at the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards.
MEDIA CONTACT: Shelley Robinson: Tel (08) 9433 0610; Mob 0408 959 138 Leigh Dawson: Tel (08) 9433 0569; Mob 0405 441 09
Fructose Rich Diet-Induced High Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) Production in the Adult Female Rat: Protective Effect of Progesterone
No full textThe effect of progesterone (P4) on fructose rich diet (FRD) intake-induced metabolic, endocrine and parametrial adipose tissue (PMAT) dysfunctions was studied in the adult female rat. Sixty day-old rats were i.m. treated with oil alone (control, CT) or containing P4 (12 mg/kg). Rats ate Purina chow-diet ad libitum throughout the entire experiment and, between 100 and 120 days of age drank ad libitum tap water alone (normal diet; CT-ND and P4-ND) or containing fructose (10% w/v; CT-FRD and P4-FRD).
At age 120 days, animals were subjected to a glucose tolerance test or decapitated. Plasma concentrations of various biomarkers and PMAT gene abundance were monitored.
P4-ND (vs. CT-ND) rats showed elevated circulating levels of lipids. CT-FRD rats displayed high (vs. CT-ND) plasma concentrations of lipids, leptin, adiponectin and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). Lipidemia and adiponectinemia were high (vs. P4-ND) in P4-FRD rats. Although P4 failed to prevent FRD-induced hyperleptinemia, it was fully protective on FRD-enhanced plasma PAI-1 levels. PMAT leptin and adiponectin mRNAs were high in CT-FRD and P4-FRD rats. While FRD enhanced PMAT PAI-1 mRNA abundance in CT rats, this effect was absent in P4 rats. Our study supports that a preceding P4-enriched milieu prevented the enhanced prothrombotic risk induced by FRD-elicited high PAI-1 production
Fructose rich diet-induced high plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) production in the adult female rat: Protective effect of progesterone
No full textThe effect of progesterone (P4) on fructose rich diet (FRD) intake-induced metabolic, endocrine and parametrial adipose tissue (PMAT) dysfunctions was studied in the adult female rat. Sixty day-old rats were i.m. treated with oil alone (control, CT) or containing P4 (12 mg/kg). Rats ate Purina chow-diet ad libitum throughout the entire experiment and, between 100 and 120 days of age drank ad libitum tap water alone (normal diet; CT-ND and P4-ND) or containing fructose (10% w/v; CT-FRD and P4-FRD). At age 120 days, animals were subjected to a glucose tolerance test or decapitated. Plasma concentrations of various biomarkers and PMAT gene abundance were monitored. P4-ND (vs. CT-ND) rats showed elevated circulating levels of lipids. CT-FRD rats displayed high (vs. CT-ND) plasma concentrations of lipids, leptin, adiponectin and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). Lipidemia and adiponectinemia were high (vs. P4-ND) in P4-FRD rats. Although P4 failed to prevent FRD-induced hyperleptinemia, it was fully protective on FRD-enhanced plasma PAI-1 levels. PMAT leptin and adiponectin mRNAs were high in CT-FRD and P4-FRD rats. While FRD enhanced PMAT PAI-1 mRNA abundance in CT rats, this effect was absent in P4 rats. Our study supports that a preceding P4-enriched milieu prevented the enhanced prothrombotic risk induced by FRD-elicited high PAI-1 production.Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología CelularFacultad de Ciencias MédicasFacultad de Ciencias Exacta
Fundamentals, implementations and experimental benchmarks of nD-polytype queries on point cloud data sets
No full textAs an extension to 2D polygonal queries, the nD-polytope queries on point clouds also play a crucial rolein nD GIS applications such as the perspective view selection. This report rst denes the nD-polytopemathematically, and then develops an ecient nD-polytope querying solution by extending an index-organized table (IOT) approach. The solution integrates four novel intersection algorithms includingCPLEX, SWEEP, SPHERE and VERTEX, each of which can be used to realize the primary lteringfor polytope querying. The performance of these algorithms is then measured and compared using anrepresentative nD-simplex and an nD-prism query region, respectively. It turns out that SWEEP performsthe best over all, but it may degrade signicantly as dimensionality goes up. On the other hand, thelinear programming algorithm CPLEX although takes more time on intersection computation, performsmore stable. Besides, the experiments also reveal that the properties of a same geometry can changesignicantly across dierent dimensionality, and thus optimal strategies developed in 2D/3D may not beapplicable in high dimensional spaces.GIS Technologi
Interaction between hypotension and age on adrenal crisis diagnosis
No full textObjective: To determine whether adrenal crisis (AC) identification may be affected by the definition of hypotension.
Context: Delays in AC diagnosis can result in adverse outcomes. AC-related cardiovascular compromise may vary according to baseline blood pressure and may be associated with delayed AC detection in some patients.
Design: A retrospective study of paired systolic blood pressure (sBP) measurements in hospitalized patients with primary AI (PAI).
Patients: Patients with PAI and an acute illness admitted for urgent treatment between 2000 and 2017.
Measurements: A comparison between sBP on hospital arrival and on discharge. Hypotension was classified as either absolute hypotension (sBP 100mg or lower) or relative hypotension (sBP over 100 mg but at least 20 mm Hg lower than discharge sBP).
Results: Of 152 admissions with paired blood pressure measurements, 46 (30.3%) included a medically diagnosed AC. Absolute hypotension was found in 38 (25.0%) records, and a further 21 (13.8%) patients were classified as having relative hypotension. Patients aged 65 years and older had the lowest (14.8%, n = 8) proportion with absolute hypotension but the highest (27.8%, n = 15) with relative hypotension. Use of either absolute or relative hypotension as the criterion for AC diagnosis increased the proportion of patients with an AC by 28.3% and the proportion of patients with an AC in the oldest age group by 130%.
Conclusions: Failure to detect cardiovascular compromise is common in older AI patients, may underestimate the AC rate in this group, and delay essential treatment. Relative hypotension may play a role in AC diagnosis
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