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In vitro and in silico analysis of epithelial-mesenchymal transition and cancer stemness as prognostic markers of clear cell renal cell carcinoma

- Sharma, Revati, Balta, Showan, Raza, Ali, Escalona, Ruth, Kannourakis, George, Prithviraj, Prashanth, Ahmed, Nuzhat

  • Authors: Sharma, Revati , Balta, Showan , Raza, Ali , Escalona, Ruth , Kannourakis, George , Prithviraj, Prashanth , Ahmed, Nuzhat
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Cancers Vol. 15, no. 9 (2023), p.
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  • Description: The process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) involves the phenotypic transformation of cells from epithelial to mesenchymal status. The cells exhibiting EMT contain features of cancer stem cells (CSC), and the dual processes are responsible for progressive cancers. Activation of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF) is fundamental to the pathogenesis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), and their role in promoting EMT and CSCs is crucial for ccRCC tumour cell survival, disease progression, and metastatic spread. In this study, we explored the status of HIF genes and their downstream targets, EMT and CSC markers, by immunohistochemistry on in-house accrued ccRCC biopsies and adjacent non-tumorous tissues from patients undergoing partial or radical nephrectomy. In combination, we comprehensively analysed the expression of HIF genes and its downstream EMT and CSC-associated targets relevant to ccRCC by using publicly available datasets, the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) and the clinical proteome tumour analysis consortium (CPTAC). The aim was to search for novel biological prognostic markers that can stratify high-risk patients likely to experience metastatic disease. Using the above two approaches, we report the development of novel gene signatures that may help to identify patients at a high risk of developing metastatic and progressive disease. © 2023 by the authors.

Incontinence during and following hospitalisation : a prospective study of prevalence, incidence and association with clinical outcomes

- Campbell, Jill, Hubbard, Ruth, Ostaszkiewicz, Joan, Green, Theresa, Coyer, Fiona, Mudge, Alison

  • Authors: Campbell, Jill , Hubbard, Ruth , Ostaszkiewicz, Joan , Green, Theresa , Coyer, Fiona , Mudge, Alison
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Age and Ageing Vol. 52, no. 9 (2023), p.
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  • Description: Background: Incontinence is common in hospitalised older adults but few studies report new incidence during or following hospitalisation. Objective: To describe prevalence and incidence of incontinence in older inpatients and associations with clinical outcomes. Design: Secondary analysis of prospectively collected data from consecutive consenting inpatients age 65 years and older on medical and surgical wards in four Australian public hospitals. Methods: Participants self-reported urinary and faecal incontinence 2 weeks prior to admission, at hospital discharge and 30 days after discharge as part of comprehensive assessment by a trained research assistant. Outcomes were length of stay, facility discharge, 30-day readmission and 6-month mortality. Results: Analysis included 970 participants (mean age 76.7 years, 48.9% female). Urinary and/or faecal incontinence was self-reported in 310/970 (32.0%, [95% confidence interval (CI) 29.0-35.0]) participants 2 weeks before admission, 201/834 (24.1% [95% CI 21.2-27.2]) at discharge and 193/776 (24.9% [95% CI 21.9-28.1]) 30 days after discharge. Continence patterns were dynamic within the peri-hospital period. Of participants without pre-hospital incontinence, 74/567 (13.1% [95% CI 10.4-16.1) reported incontinence at discharge and 85/537 (15.8% [95% CI 12.8-19.2]) reported incontinence at 30 days follow-up. Median hospital stay was longer in participants with pre-hospital incontinence (7 vs. 6 days, P = 0.02) even in adjusted analyses and pre-hospital incontinence was significantly associated with mortality in unadjusted but not adjusted analyses. Conclusion: Pre-hospital, hospital-acquired and new post-hospital incontinence are common in older inpatients. Better understanding of incontinence patterns may help target interventions to reduce this complication. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved.

Individual-specific relationship between external training and match load and creatine-kinase response in youth national team soccer players

- Schuth, Gabor, Szigeti, Gyorgy, Dobreff, Gergely, Pasic, Alija, Gabbett, Tim, Szilas, Adam, Pavlik, Gabor

  • Authors: Schuth, Gabor , Szigeti, Gyorgy , Dobreff, Gergely , Pasic, Alija , Gabbett, Tim , Szilas, Adam , Pavlik, Gabor
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Sports Health Vol. 15, no. 5 (2023), p. 700-709
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  • Description: Background: Previous studies have examined the relationship between external load and creatine-kinase (CK) response at the team level. This study aimed to build individualized CK prediction models for elite youth national team soccer players. Hypothesis: The CK response of youth soccer players can be categorized as being sensitive to micromovements (MM), high-velocity (HV) parameters, or the combination of both, measured during training sessions and matches. Study Design: Prospective cohort study. Level of Evidence: Level 4. Methods: A total of 25 U16-U17 youth national team soccer players were monitored during training sessions and matches using global positioning system (GPS) units. Individual CK values were measured every morning from whole blood. The data set consisted of 57 ± 17 individual datapoints per player. Individual prediction models were used to examine the relationship between external load and consecutive CK changes. Numerous models were built for each player using MM, HV parameters, or the combination of both. The performance of the models was described by the R2 and the root mean square error (RMSE, U/l for CK values). Results: The MM models were superior for 8 players (R2 = 0.68; RMSE = 113 U/l), followed by HV (8 players; R2 = 0.69; RMSE = 88 U/l) and the combined models (2 players; R2 = 0.64; RMSE = 141 U/l). For the remaining 7 players, the R2 of the models was <0.5. The recovery time between efforts was more important in the HV model. Conclusion: Players could be categorized on sensitivity to MM, HV movements, or the combination of both. Clinical Relevance: These findings can be used to individualize postmatch recovery strategies and to optimize weekly training periodization to maximize match performance. © 2022 The Author(s).

Influence of the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) on tropical cyclones affecting Tonga in the Southwest Pacific

- Tu’uholoaki, Moleni, Espejo, Antonio, Sharma, Krishneel, Singh, Awnesh, Wandres, Moritz, Damlamian, Herve, Chand, Savin

  • Authors: Tu’uholoaki, Moleni , Espejo, Antonio , Sharma, Krishneel , Singh, Awnesh , Wandres, Moritz , Damlamian, Herve , Chand, Savin
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Atmosphere Vol. 14, no. 7 (2023), p.
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  • Description: The modulating influence of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) on tropical cyclones (TCs) has been examined globally, regionally, and subregionally, but its impact on the island scale remains unclear. This study investigates how TC activity affecting the Tonga region is being modulated by the MJO, using the Southwest Pacific Enhanced Archive of Tropical Cyclones (SPEArTC) and the MJO index. In particular, this study investigates how the MJO modulates the frequency and intensity of TCs affecting the Tonga region relative to the entire study period (1970–2019; hereafter referred to as all years), as well as to different phases of the El Niño southern oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. Results suggest that the MJO strongly modulates TC activity affecting the Tonga region. The frequency and intensity of TCs is enhanced during the active phases (phases six to eight) in all years, including El Niño and ENSO-neutral years. The MJO also strongly influences the climatological pattern of genesis of TCs affecting the Tonga region, where more (fewer) cyclones form in the active (inactive) phases of the MJO and more genesis points are clustered (scattered) near (away from) the Tonga region. There were three regression curves that best described the movement of TCs in the region matching the dominant steering mechanisms in the Southwest Pacific region. The findings of this study can provide climatological information for the Tonga Meteorological Service (TMS) and disaster managers to better understand the TC risk associated with the impact of the MJO on TCs affecting the Tonga region and support its TC early warning system. © 2023 by the authors.

Informal training and learning in Australian firms : the need for a new perspective

- Smith, Erica, Smith, Andrew

  • Authors: Smith, Erica , Smith, Andrew
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International Journal of Training and Development Vol. 27, no. 3-4 (2023), p. 442-460
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  • Description: This paper examines the use of informal training for workers, by Australian companies and other organisations. Using survey data, it reports the prevalence of informal training and also the utilisation of different types of informal training. Differences are found by employer size, particularly for the different types. By examining qualitative responses, it is found that employers' perceptions of informal training are often not those reflected in existing literature. The paper therefore argues for a new definition of informal training which is comprehensible to employers and workers alike, so that more, and more reliable, research can be undertaken. © 2023 The Authors. International Journal of Training and Development published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Initial state of excavated soil and rock (ESR) to influence the stabilisation with cement

- Lu, Yi, Xu, Changhao, Baghbani, Abolfazl

  • Authors: Lu, Yi , Xu, Changhao , Baghbani, Abolfazl
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Construction and Building Materials Vol. 400, no. (2023), p.
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  • Description: This paper investigates the initial state of excavated soil and rock (ESR). These initial states include dry density, organic content, water content (Wc), cement content (Cc), liquid index (LI), dry or wet mixing method. Three ESRs collected from tunnelling projects and kaolin were used in this study to compare. The specimens (i.e., 50 mm in diameter and 100 mm in height) were prepared in the laboratory and cured at 7 and 14 days, and then assessed by the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test. The analysis shows that the ratio of Wc/Cc is the primary factor to obtain different UCS for high LI ESR and a simple equation is proposed for quick prediction. For ESR with a more general LI, predictive equations are also proposed in terms of artificial neural network (ANN) and genetic programming (GP) for 7-days curing time. The results indicate that the both ANN models with Bayesian Regularization (BR) algorithm outperform ANN with Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) and GP model are accurate to predict UCS of mixtures. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Intentional paediatric poisoning presentations to emergency departments during the COVID-19 pandemic

- Gatenby, Jennnifer, Low, Gary, Rahman, Muhammad Aziz, Salter, Mark, Bhurawala, Habib

  • Authors: Gatenby, Jennnifer , Low, Gary , Rahman, Muhammad Aziz , Salter, Mark , Bhurawala, Habib
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: EMA - Emergency Medicine Australasia Vol. 35, no. 4 (2023), p. 642-651
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  • Description: Objective: To characterise paediatric poisoning presentations to EDs and determine if the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increased intentional paediatric poisoning presentations. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of paediatric poisoning presentations to three EDs (two regional and one metropolitan). Simple and multiple logistic regression analysis were performed to determine the association between COVID-19 and intentional poisoning events. In addition, we calculated the frequency with which patients reported various psychosocial risk factors as being an implicating factor in engaging in an intentional poisoning event. Results: A total of 860 poisoning events met inclusion criteria during the study period (January 2018–October 2021), with 501 being intentional, and 359 unintentional. There was an increased proportion of intentional poisoning presentations during the COVID-19 pandemic (261 intentional and 218 unintentional in the pre-COVID-19 period vs 241 intentional and 140 unintentional during the COVID-19 period). In addition, we found a statistically significant association between intentional poisoning presentations and an initial COVID-19 lockdown (adjusted odds ratio 26.32, P < 0.05). ‘The COVID-19 lockdown’ or ‘COVID-19’ was reported to be implicating factor for psychological stress in patients who presented with intentional poisonings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: Intentional paediatric poisoning presentations increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in our study population. These results may support an emerging body of evidence that the psychological strain of COVID-19 disproportionately impacts adolescent females. © 2023 The Authors. Emergency Medicine Australasia published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.

Intersex awareness and education : what part can health and physical education bodies of learning and teaching play?

- Hunter, Lisa, Zavros-Orr, Agli, Brömdal, Annette, Hand, Kirstine, Hart, Bonnie

  • Authors: Hunter, Lisa , Zavros-Orr, Agli , Brömdal, Annette , Hand, Kirstine , Hart, Bonnie
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Sport, Education and Society Vol. 28, no. 9 (2023), p. 1047-1067
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  • Description: It is well-documented that schools fail to adequately engage with contemporary content about intersex awareness and education or inclusion of people with intersex variations. Where sexuality and relationships education are the remit of Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum in countries such as Australia, the learning area shows little obligation/response-ability towards the needs of students with intersex variations. It also fails to pay nuanced attention to non-dominant issues, knowledge, or people with respect to sex, gender and sexuality. Similarly, the normative endosex nature/focus of HPE/PE/sport and related professional education bodies (e.g. in teaching and coaching) ignore the need for relevant and affirming content about intersex bodies. A recent project reported here, created a collective narrative addressing how such HPE bodies of learning and teaching can advocate for and enact approaches that are inclusive, affirming, visible, and supportive in promoting and upholding the human rights and health needs of students with intersex variations. The research question driving the project was: What part can HPE bodies of learning and teaching play concerning intersex awareness and education? This original empirical research draws on the methodology and theory of narrative inquiry. The narrative was created between artefacts from a cohort of second year Australian pre-service HPE teacher education students in dialogue with teacher/researcher/expert/author bodies. The paper employs a recently developed Strategic Framework for intersex inclusion that promotes a positive whole-school approach, for educational institutions to be more inclusive, humane, safe and educationally relevant for people with intersex variations. This framework assists critical reflection on project findings. We argue that such engagement, as illustrated in this project’s scope, promotes a positive and diverse understanding about intersex in educational spaces, curriculum and pedagogies, guidelines, and policies, and ultimately reflect Australian Human Rights Commission recommendations and Australian anti-discrimination legislation. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Investigating near-surface hydrologic connectivity in a grass-covered inter-row area of a hillslope vineyard using field monitoring and numerical simulations

- Krevh, Vedran, Filipović, Lana, Defterdarović, Jasmina, Bogunović, Igor, Zhang, Yonggen, Kovač, Zoran, Barton, Andrew, Filipović, Vilim

  • Authors: Krevh, Vedran , Filipović, Lana , Defterdarović, Jasmina , Bogunović, Igor , Zhang, Yonggen , Kovač, Zoran , Barton, Andrew , Filipović, Vilim
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Land Vol. 12, no. 5 (2023), p.
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  • Description: The interplay of surface and shallow subsurface fluxes plays a critical role in controlling water movement in hillslope agroecosystems and impacting soil and plant health during prolonged dry periods, demonstrating a need for in-field monitoring. This study was conducted for two years (2021–2022) by combining field monitoring of the grass-covered inter-row area (passive wick lysimeter, surface runoff, and meteorological data), laboratory determination of soil hydraulic properties (SHPs), and numerical modeling with the aim to explore near-surface fluxes at the SUPREHILL Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) located on a hillslope vineyard. Additionally, sensitivity analysis for basic root water uptake (RWU) parameters was conducted. The model was evaluated (R2, RMSE, and NSE) with lysimeter (hillslope) and runoff (footslope) data, producing good agreement, but only after the inverse optimization of laboratory estimated hydraulic conductivity was conducted, demonstrating that adequate parameterization is required to capture the hydropedological response of erosion-affected soil systems. Results exhibit the dependence of runoff generation on hydraulic conductivity, rainfall, and soil moisture conditions. The data suggest different soil-rewetting scenarios based on temporal rainfall variability. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated that Leaf Area Index (LAI) was the most responsive parameter determining the RWU. The study offers an approach for the investigation of fluxes in the topsoil for similar sites and/or crops (and covers), presenting the methodology of self-constructed soil–water collection instruments. © 2023 by the authors.

Investigating the effectiveness of novel support vector neural network for anomaly detection in digital forensics data

- Islam, Umar, Alwageed, Hathal, Farooq, Malik, Khan, Inayat, Awwad, Fuad, Ali, Ijaz, Abonazel, Mohamed

  • Authors: Islam, Umar , Alwageed, Hathal , Farooq, Malik , Khan, Inayat , Awwad, Fuad , Ali, Ijaz , Abonazel, Mohamed
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Sensors Vol. 23, no. 12 (2023), p.
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  • Description: As criminal activity increasingly relies on digital devices, the field of digital forensics plays a vital role in identifying and investigating criminals. In this paper, we addressed the problem of anomaly detection in digital forensics data. Our objective was to propose an effective approach for identifying suspicious patterns and activities that could indicate criminal behavior. To achieve this, we introduce a novel method called the Novel Support Vector Neural Network (NSVNN). We evaluated the performance of the NSVNN by conducting experiments on a real-world dataset of digital forensics data. The dataset consisted of various features related to network activity, system logs, and file metadata. Through our experiments, we compared the NSVNN with several existing anomaly detection algorithms, including Support Vector Machines (SVM) and neural networks. We measured and analyzed the performance of each algorithm in terms of the accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. Furthermore, we provide insights into the specific features that contribute significantly to the detection of anomalies. Our results demonstrated that the NSVNN method outperformed the existing algorithms in terms of anomaly detection accuracy. We also highlight the interpretability of the NSVNN model by analyzing the feature importance and providing insights into the decision-making process. Overall, our research contributes to the field of digital forensics by proposing a novel approach, the NSVNN, for anomaly detection. We emphasize the importance of both performance evaluation and model interpretability in this context, providing practical insights for identifying criminal behavior in digital forensics investigations. © 2023 by the authors.

Investigation of hillslope vineyard soil water dynamics using field measurements and numerical modeling

- Krevh, Vedran, Groh, Jannis, Weihermüller, Lutz, Filipović, Lana, Defterdarović, Jasmina, Kovač, Zoran, Magdić, Ivan, Lazarević, Boris, Baumgartl, Thomas, Filipović, Vilim

  • Authors: Krevh, Vedran , Groh, Jannis , Weihermüller, Lutz , Filipović, Lana , Defterdarović, Jasmina , Kovač, Zoran , Magdić, Ivan , Lazarević, Boris , Baumgartl, Thomas , Filipović, Vilim
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Water (Switzerland) Vol. 15, no. 4 (2023), p.
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  • Description: Soil heterogeneities can impact hillslope hydropedological processes (e.g., portioning between infiltration and runoff), creating a need for in-depth knowledge of processes governing water dynamics and redistribution. The presented study was conducted at the SUPREHILL Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) (hillslope vineyard) in 2021. A combination of field investigation (soil sampling and monitoring campaign) and numerical modeling with hydrological simulator HYDRUS-1D was used to explore the water dynamics in conjunction with data from a sensor network (soil water content (SWC) and soil-water potential (SWP) sensors), along the hillslope (hilltop, backslope, and footslope). Soil hydraulic properties (SHP) were estimated based on (i) pedotransfer functions (PTFs), (ii) undisturbed soil cores, and (iii) sensor network data, and tested in HYDRUS. Additionally, a model ensemble mean from HYDRUS simulations was calculated with PTFs. The highest agreement of simulated with observed SWC for 40 cm soil depth was found with the combination of laboratory and field data, with the lowest average MAE, RMSE and MAPE (0.02, 0.02, and 5.34%, respectively), and highest average R2 (0.93), while at 80 cm soil depth, PTF model ensemble performed better (MAE = 0.03, RMSE = 0.03, MAPE = 7.55%, R2 = 0.81) than other datasets. Field observations indicated that heterogeneity and spatial variability regarding soil parameters were present at the site. Over the hillslope, SWC acted in a heterogeneous manner, which was most pronounced during soil rewetting. Model results suggested that the incorporation of field data expands model performance and that the PTF model ensemble is a feasible option in the absence of laboratory data. © 2023 by the authors.

Investigation of oscillation and resonance in the renewable integrated DC-microgrid

- Habibullah, Mohammad, Mithulananthan, Nadarajah, Shah, Rakibuzzaman, Islam, Md Radiul, Muyeen, S.

  • Authors: Habibullah, Mohammad , Mithulananthan, Nadarajah , Shah, Rakibuzzaman , Islam, Md Radiul , Muyeen, S.
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Electronics (Switzerland) Vol. 12, no. 7 (2023), p.
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  • Description: This paper assessed the small-signal stability performance of a multi-converter-based direct current microgrid (DCMG). The oscillation and potential interactions between critical modes are evaluated. First, the complete analytical model of the DCMG is developed with the converter and associated controllers. Three methodologies, impedance scanning, eigenvalue analysis, and time-domain simulation, along with the fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis, have been used to comprehensively investigate the oscillations and interactions. The simulation results show inherent weak modes, with a wide range of oscillations in the studied DCMG, which may destabilize the system under disturbances. Based on the sensitivity analysis, controller gains and DC-link capacitance are identified as the most critical parameters and substantially influence the weak modes leading to oscillations, interactions, and resonance. Finally, the performance of the various control synthesis methods is compared. This examination would help the researchers, planning, and design engineers to design and stably operate a multi converter-based DC microgrid. © 2023 by the authors.

IoT-based emergency vehicle services in intelligent transportation system

- Chowdhury, Abdullahi, Kaisar, Shahriar, Khoda, Mahbub, Naha, Ranesh, Khoshkholghi, Mohammad, Aiash, Mahdi

  • Authors: Chowdhury, Abdullahi , Kaisar, Shahriar , Khoda, Mahbub , Naha, Ranesh , Khoshkholghi, Mohammad , Aiash, Mahdi
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Sensors Vol. 23, no. 11 (2023), p. 5324
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  • Description: Emergency Management System (EMS) is an important component of Intelligent transportation systems, and its primary objective is to send Emergency Vehicles (EVs) to the location of a reported incident. However, the increasing traffic in urban areas, especially during peak hours, results in the delayed arrival of EVs in many cases, which ultimately leads to higher fatality rates, increased property damage, and higher road congestion. Existing literature addressed this issue by giving higher priority to EVs while traveling to an incident place by changing traffic signals (e.g., making the signals green) on their travel path. A few works have also attempted to find the best route for an EV using traffic information (e.g., number of vehicles, flow rate, and clearance time) at the beginning of the journey. However, these works did not consider congestion or disruption faced by other non-emergency vehicles adjacent to the EV travel path. The selected travel paths are also static and do not consider changing traffic parameters while EVs are en route. To address these issues, this article proposes an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) guided priority-based incident management system to assist EVs in obtaining a better clearance time in intersections and thus achieve a lower response time. The proposed model also considers disruption faced by other surrounding non-emergency vehicles adjacent to the EVs' travel path and selects an optimal solution by controlling the traffic signal phase time to ensure that EVs can reach the incident place on time while causing minimal disruption to other on-road vehicles. Simulation results indicate that the proposed model achieves an 8% lower response time for EVs while the clearance time surrounding the incident place is improved by 12%.

Key issues of health and safety for workers in residential aged care : an expert study

- Seaward, Liz, Morgan, Damian, Thomson, Alana

  • Authors: Seaward, Liz , Morgan, Damian , Thomson, Alana
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Frontiers in Public Health Vol. 10, no. (2023), p.
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  • Description: Introduction: Residential aged care (RAC) represents a fast-growing sector within Australia's health care system and is characterized by high levels of workplace injury. To better understand this injury problem, this study investigated key informant perspectives concerning sector occupational health and safety (OHS) focused on key issues associated with the risk of worker injury. Method: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with nine key informants representing (OHS) specialists, healthcare employers, regulators, worker association representatives, and academic researchers in OHS or healthcare. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: This study identified six themes on OHS within RAC including (i) the physical and emotional nature of the work, (ii) casualization of employment, (iii) prioritization, (iv) workforce profile, (v) OHS role construction, and (vi) clinical standards. The study highlighted differences in OHS roles between RAC and other safety-critical sectors regarding governance and management of OHS. The key informants identified a propensity within RAC to downplay or disregard worker OHS issues justified through prioritizing resident safety. Further, neither OHS professional nor institutional logics are prominent in RAC leadership and decision-making where the emphasis is placed on mandatory standards to maintain funding purposes. Several recommendations are made to address identified issues. Copyright © 2023 Seaward, Morgan and Thomson.

Keynes from below : a social history of Second World War Keynesian economics

- Coventry, Cameron

  • Authors: Coventry, Cameron
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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  • Description: The macroeconomic agenda known as Keynesianism was highly contentious when it was introduced to Australia during the Second World War. Using a ‘history from below’ approach – correctly understood as a society-wide analysis – this thesis reveals the debates and the participants in the social nexus that considered the work of the British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). It shows that the populous willed a break from the status quo, ranging in favour of socialism to a non-capitalist third way. Support for Keynesianism was isolated to capital and the political right wing, with labour, centrists, the left and far-left strongly opposed. As the war progressed, apathy set in and Keynesianism came to be seen by opponents as either a non-capitalist third way or as the triumph of the possible over the desirable socialist “new order”. From 1936, Keynes had popularised a new economics based on full employment planning that quickly displaced ‘laissez faire capitalism’ in the minds of economists and policymakers. As war broke out, Keynes submitted a war finance plan for public consideration in the United Kingdom. Essentially, the plan addressed the practical aspects of managing an economy experiencing full employment. It contained measures to reduce wage growth to counter rising inflation, welfare for mothers and children to protect their well-being – but also the population growth essential to future economic growth – and the partial repayment of seized wages at the end of the war that would form the basis of post-war “reconstruction”. The Keynes plan generated interest in Australia which rapidly turned to speculation about its applicability. A fierce debate raged, divided on broad political lines, for two years that would shift public opinion and contribute significantly to the rise of the Curtin government (1941-45). However, once enthusiasm for reconstruction waned, it was this government that brought about post-war Keynesianism.
  • Description: Doctor of Philosophy

Knowledge graphs : opportunities and challenges

- Peng, Ciyuan, Xia, Feng, Naseriparsa, Mehdi, Osborne, Francesco

  • Authors: Peng, Ciyuan , Xia, Feng , Naseriparsa, Mehdi , Osborne, Francesco
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Artificial Intelligence Review Vol. 56, no. 11 (2023), p. 13071-13102
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  • Description: With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, it has become vitally important to organize and represent the enormous volume of knowledge appropriately. As graph data, knowledge graphs accumulate and convey knowledge of the real world. It has been well-recognized that knowledge graphs effectively represent complex information; hence, they rapidly gain the attention of academia and industry in recent years. Thus to develop a deeper understanding of knowledge graphs, this paper presents a systematic overview of this field. Specifically, we focus on the opportunities and challenges of knowledge graphs. We first review the opportunities of knowledge graphs in terms of two aspects: (1) AI systems built upon knowledge graphs; (2) potential application fields of knowledge graphs. Then, we thoroughly discuss severe technical challenges in this field, such as knowledge graph embeddings, knowledge acquisition, knowledge graph completion, knowledge fusion, and knowledge reasoning. We expect that this survey will shed new light on future research and the development of knowledge graphs. © 2023, The Author(s).

Knowledge, attitudes and practices of COVID-19 in rural Bangladesh : a cross-sectional study

- Siddiquea, Bodrun, Afroz, Afsana, Chowdhury, Mohammad, Savira, Feby, Alif, Sheikh, Bhattacharya, Oashe, Hossain, Md Nassif, Ali, Liaquat, Chowdhury, Hasina, Shetty, Aishwarya, Islam, Md Shariful, Billah, Baki

Knowledge-based intelligent text simplification for biological relation extraction

- Gill, Jaskaran, Chetty, Madhu, Lim, Suryani, Hallinan, Jennifer

  • Authors: Gill, Jaskaran , Chetty, Madhu , Lim, Suryani , Hallinan, Jennifer
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Informatics Vol. 10, no. 4 (2023), p.
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  • Description: Relation extraction from biological publications plays a pivotal role in accelerating scientific discovery and advancing medical research. While vast amounts of this knowledge is stored within the published literature, extracting it manually from this continually growing volume of documents is becoming increasingly arduous. Recently, attention has been focused towards automatically extracting such knowledge using pre-trained Large Language Models (LLM) and deep-learning algorithms for automated relation extraction. However, the complex syntactic structure of biological sentences, with nested entities and domain-specific terminology, and insufficient annotated training corpora, poses major challenges in accurately capturing entity relationships from the unstructured data. To address these issues, in this paper, we propose a Knowledge-based Intelligent Text Simplification (KITS) approach focused on the accurate extraction of biological relations. KITS is able to precisely and accurately capture the relational context among various binary relations within the sentence, alongside preventing any potential changes in meaning for those sentences being simplified by KITS. The experiments show that the proposed technique, using well-known performance metrics, resulted in a 21% increase in precision, with only 25% of sentences simplified in the Learning Language in Logic (LLL) dataset. Combining the proposed method with BioBERT, the popular pre-trained LLM was able to outperform other state-of-the-art methods. © 2023 by the authors.

Label-free macrophage phenotype classification using machine learning methods

- Hourani, Tetiana, Perez-Gonzalez, Alexis, Khoshmanesh, Khashayar, Luwor, Rodney, Achuthan, Adrian, Baratchi, Sara, O’Brien-Simpson, Neil, Al-Hourani, Akram

  • Authors: Hourani, Tetiana , Perez-Gonzalez, Alexis , Khoshmanesh, Khashayar , Luwor, Rodney , Achuthan, Adrian , Baratchi, Sara , O’Brien-Simpson, Neil , Al-Hourani, Akram
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Scientific Reports Vol. 13, no. 1 (2023), p.
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  • Description: Macrophages are heterogeneous innate immune cells that are functionally shaped by their surrounding microenvironment. Diverse macrophage populations have multifaceted differences related to their morphology, metabolism, expressed markers, and functions, where the identification of the different phenotypes is of an utmost importance in modelling immune response. While expressed markers are the most used signature to classify phenotypes, multiple reports indicate that macrophage morphology and autofluorescence are also valuable clues that can be used in the identification process. In this work, we investigated macrophage autofluorescence as a distinct feature for classifying six different macrophage phenotypes, namely: M0, M1, M2a, M2b, M2c, and M2d. The identification was based on extracted signals from multi-channel/multi-wavelength flow cytometer. To achieve the identification, we constructed a dataset containing 152,438 cell events each having a response vector of 45 optical signals fingerprint. Based on this dataset, we applied different supervised machine learning methods to detect phenotype specific fingerprint from the response vector, where the fully connected neural network architecture provided the highest classification accuracy of 75.8% for the six phenotypes compared simultaneously. Furthermore, by restricting the number of phenotypes in the experiment, the proposed framework produces higher classification accuracies, averaging 92.0%, 91.9%, 84.2%, and 80.4% for a pool of two, three, four, five phenotypes, respectively. These results indicate the potential of the intrinsic autofluorescence for classifying macrophage phenotypes, with the proposed method being quick, simple, and cost-effective way to accelerate the discovery of macrophage phenotypical diversity. © 2023, The Author(s).

Large positive ecological changes of small urban greening actions

- Mata, Luis, Hahs, Amy, Palma, Estibaliz, Backstrom, Anna, Johnston, Nikolas, King, Tyler, Olson, Ashley, Renowden, Christina, Smith, Tessa, Vogel, Blythe, Ward, Samantha

  • Authors: Mata, Luis , Hahs, Amy , Palma, Estibaliz , Backstrom, Anna , Johnston, Nikolas , King, Tyler , Olson, Ashley , Renowden, Christina , Smith, Tessa , Vogel, Blythe , Ward, Samantha
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Ecological Solutions and Evidence Vol. 4, no. 3 (2023), p.
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  • Description: The detrimental effects of environmental change on human and non-human diversity are acutely manifested in urban environments. While urban greenspaces are known to mitigate these effects and support functionally diverse ecological communities, evidence of the ecological outcomes of urban greening remains scarce. We use a longitudinal observational design to provide empirical evidence of positive ecological changes brought about by greening actions. We collected a plant–insect interactions data set 1 year before, and for 3 years after, a greenspace received a small greening action within a densely urbanised municipality. We then assessed how (i) insect species richness; (ii) the probabilities of occurrence, survival and colonisation of the insect community; and (iii) the plant–insect network structure varied across the 4 years of the study. As we understand, this is the first study to apply statistical and network analytical frameworks to quantitatively track how positive ecological changes accrue over time at a site after the implementation of a specific urban greening action. We show how a small greening action quickly led to large positive changes in the richness, demographic dynamics and network structure of a depauperate insect community. An increase in the diversity and complexity of the plant community led to, after only 3 years, a large increase in insect species richness, a greater probability of occurrence of insects within the greenspace and a higher number and diversity of interactions between insects and plant species. We demonstrate how large positive ecological changes may be derived from investing in small greening actions and how these contribute to bring indigenous species back to greenspaces where they have become rare or been extirpated by urbanisation. Our findings provide crucial evidence that supports best practice in greenspace design and contributes to re-invigorate policies aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of urbanisation on people and other species. © 2023 The Authors. Ecological Solutions and Evidence published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.