The Ethics of Embodiment

A review of Rosalyn Diprose's Corporeal Generosity: On Giving with Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas (SUNY Press, Albany, New York. 2002)

Distribution, habitat preferences and population sizes of two threatened tree ferns, Cyathea cunninghamii and Cyathea x marcescens, in south-eastern Australia

The distribution, population sizes and habitat preferences of the rare tree ferns Cyathea cunninghamii Hook.f. (Slender Tree Fern) and F1 hybrid Cyathea x marcescens N.A.Wakef. (Skirted Tree Fern) in south-eastern Australia are described, together with the extension of the known distribution range of Cyathea cunninghamii from eastern Victoria into south-eastern New South Wales. Floristic and ecological data, encompassing most of the known habitat types, vegetation associations and population sizes, were collected across 120 locations. Additional information was sought from literature reviews, herbarium collections and field surveys of extant populations. Cyathea cunninghamii is widespread, with the majority of populations occurring in Tasmania and Victoria, one population in south-eastern NSW and a disjunct population in south-eastern Queensland; Cyathea x marcescens is confined to south and eastern Victoria and south and north eastern Tasmania. Both taxa occur on King Island in Bass Strait. Both taxa have a near coastal distribution with most populations occurring in sub-coastal hinterland and escarpment forests with a median altitude of 288 m. Hierarchical cluster analysis of floristic data across the species’ geographic range identified six vegetation communities ranging from rainforest to damp sclerophyll forest. Their micro-habitat preferences were consistently identified as steeply incised gullies of minor headwater streams of coastal and sub-coastal ranges with a plentiful moisture regime and geomorphic protection from extreme stream flow events, flooding and bank scouring. Sporophyte recruitment was associated with exposed soil of stream banks and edges of constructed walking tracks. Population sizes of both taxa are small with the majority of populations consisting of less than five adult individuals, with total populations of Cyathea cunninghamii and Cyathea x marcescens estimated at 919 and 221 mature individuals respectively. Population extinctions in Victoria and Tasmania have primarily been associated with outlier populations in regions subject to agricultural land clearance, habitat modification and changes to fire regimes in crown forests. Nonanthropogenic mortality was associated with land slips, tree falls and stream bank scouring by flood water. Conservation of the hybrid Cyathea x marcescens necessitates the preservation of habitats where both Cyathea cunninghamii and Cyathea australis occur in close proximity to substrates suitable for spore germination. In future, molecular techniques may prove useful for field identification of juvenile stages, facilitating selection of progeny of Cyathea cunninghamii and Cyathea x marcescens for cultivation and re-introduction to sites of previous or possible future extinctions

Applying the Biopsychosocial Model: Factors Associated with Depression in Mexican-American Adults

Although professionals in psychiatry, psychology and medicine claim to endorse the biopsychosocial model as proposed by George L. Engel (1977), clinicians in all three fields still tend to underutilize it. Some academics have also criticized the model for its inadequate emphasis on cultural contextualization. To improve upon the model, I sought to empirically establish the relationship between culturally-specific social factors and psychological disorder, in this case depressive symptoms in Mexican-American adults. Eighty-six Mexican-American participants living on the US-Mexico border completed scales measuring depressive symptoms, bidirectional acculturation, living situation, diabetes, and health beliefs regarding the origins of diabetes. The results revealed that diabetes, acculturation, and gender were not associated with depressive symptoms in this population, even when controlling for mental health biases. This finding is in contrast to findings from other literature that associated diabetes, low acculturation and gender with depression in Hispanic adults. Extended family cohabitation was also not associated with lower numbers of depressive symptoms, despite the importance of familism and the extended family unit in Mexican-American culture. Unemployment was significantly related to number of depressive symptoms in both genders. There was no significant relationship between acculturation and health beliefs. These results indicate the importance of studying psychological disorders within the context of specific population groups that transcend vague censual terms. The discussion addresses methodological concerns and further directions for research concerning gender roles, chronic illness, depression and out-of-home employment in Mexican-American adults

Primary health care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

This final report presents the findings from each of the phases of the Engaging Stakeholders in Identifying Priority Evidence-Practice Gaps and Strategies for Improvement in Primary Health Care (ESP) Project. This report is designed for people working in a range of roles including national and jurisdictional policy makers, managers, community-controlled organisations and government health authorities, peak bodies, clinical leaders, researchers, primary health care staff and continuous quality improvement (CQI) practitioners who may have an interest in the interpretation and use of aggregated CQI data to drive decision making. Stakeholders across services and systems that deliver Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care (PHC) engaged in a process to analyse and interpret national continuous quality improvement (CQI) data from 132 health centres. We used a consensus process to identify priority evidence-practice gaps in child health care, based on these data. Stakeholders drew on their knowledge and experience working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander PHC to identify barriers and enablers to addressing the priority evidence- practice gaps, and to suggest strategies to overcome barriers and strengthen enablers to addressing the priority evidence-practice gaps. Important messages emerge from these findings

An Exploration of Individual Emergent Leaders' Identity Development Through the Use of Learning Biographies

The English National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services' (NCLSCS) framework for leadership development refers to 'emergent leaders', without being clear what 'emergent' means. This study explores the experiences of those considered as 'emergent leaders' to find out how 'emergence' might be understood. Their development is conceptualised as identity development, by adopting a socio-cultural understanding of the emergent leaders' learning. The focus is on how individuals make meaning of their experiences once in formal leadership roles, so developing their identities. This is important to understand in a context in which schools are experiencing problems with both teacher retention and senior leader recruitment. Five 'emergent' leaders from three English Local Authorities and from Primary, Middle and Secondary schools participated in a series of interviews and 'learning log' activities over periods of 14-36 months. Phase 1 focused on their experiences prior to the start of the study: Phase 2 on their current learning. From the accumulated data set learning biographies were generated. Diverse and personal accounts of identity development were revealed. The study concluded that it was not appropriate to think of 'emergence' in terms of role progression into senior leadership positions, as the NCLSCS framework for leadership might imply. Individuals decided who they wanted to become by making sense of themselves in relation to judgments of their experiences. Whilst three participant leaders did develop identities as aspiring senior leaders, two talked instead of aspiring to be peers, rather than 'leaders'. The study highlighted the central role of talk to identity development and the lack of opportunity for this in schools. This involved reflective 'self talk' as well as talk with others, with the study itself contributing to such 'identity talk'. It is important to develop opportunities (times, spaces, skills and relationships) for talk to support contemporary 'emergent' school leaders'

Chronic illness care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: final report

This project engage a range of stakeholders across different levels of the primary health care system, including service providers, management, policy-makers and researchers and capture their knowledge on the barriers and enablers to addressing the identified priority-evidence practice gaps and their suggestions on strategies for improvement. Overview The purpose of this project is to engage key stakeholders in the use of aggregate continuous quality improvement (CQI) data to identify and address system-wide evidence-practice gaps in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chronic illness care. We aimed to engage a range of stakeholders across different levels of the primary health care (PHC) system, including service providers, management, policy-makers and researchers and capture their knowledge on the barriers and enablers to addressing the identified priority-evidence practice gaps and their suggestions on strategies for improvement. Our research has highlighted the wide variation in performance between different aspects of care and between health centres. While many aspects of care are being done well in many health centres, there are important gaps between evidence and practice in some aspects of PHC. System-wide gaps are likely to be due to deficiencies in the broader (PHC) system, indicating that system-level action is required to improve performance. Such system-level action should be developed with a deep understanding of the holistic nature of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander wellbeing beyond just physical health (including healthy connections to culture, community and country), of the impact of Australian colonist history on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and of how social systems – including the health system - should be shaped to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This project aims to build on the collective strengths within PHC services in order to continue improving the quality of care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

A new floating model level scheme for the assimilation of boundary layer top inversions: the univariate assimilation of temperature.

The assimilation of observations with a forecast is often heavily influenced by the description of the error covariances associated with the forecast. When a temperature inversion is present at the top of the boundary layer (BL), a significant part of the forecast error may be described as a vertical positional error (as opposed to amplitude error normally dealt with in data assimilation). In these cases, failing to account for positional error explicitly is shown t o r esult in an analysis for which the inversion structure is erroneously weakened and degraded. In this article, a new assimilation scheme is proposed to explicitly include the positional error associated with an inversion. This is done through the introduction of an extra control variable to allow position errors in the a priori to be treated simultaneously with the usual amplitude errors. This new scheme, referred to as the ‘floating BL scheme’, is applied to the one-dimensional (vertical) variational assimilation of temperature. The floating BL scheme is tested with a series of idealised experiments a nd with real data from radiosondes. For each idealised experiment, the floating BL scheme gives an analysis which has the inversion structure and position in agreement with the truth, and outperforms the a ssimilation which accounts only for forecast a mplitude error. When the floating BL scheme is used to assimilate a l arge sample of radiosonde data, its ability to give an analysis with an inversion height in better agreement with that observed is confirmed. However, it is found that the use of Gaussian statistics is an inappropriate description o f t he error statistics o f t he extra c ontrol variable. This problem is alleviated by incorporating a non-Gaussian description of the new control variable in the new scheme. Anticipated challenges in implementing the scheme operationally are discussed towards the end of the article

Status epilepticus on the paediatric intensive care unit—the role of EEG monitoring

AbstractA pilot study was undertaken of the feasibility of continuous EEG monitoring of patients admitted to a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for management of status epilepticus or its immediate sequelae. Eight children were studied and seizure activity was recorded in four patients. Additional information influencing management was obtained: the bedside nurse considered decerebrate posturing in one patient to be a seizure: there were no epileptiform EEG changes. Another patient was considered to have seizures (clonic movements of both upper limbs) following cardiac arrest; the EEG showed electrocerebral silence, and thiopentone treatment was discontinued. In another patient, continuing epileptiform activity on EEG gave intensivists the confidence to use higher than usual doses of thiopentone. The problems encountered were delays in monitoring, once for a CT scan and once because of two admissions within hours of each other. We conclude that EEG monitoring on a PICU is feasible and provides clinically useful information