Metropolitan planning Australia : urban consolidation.

Urban consolidation is a major issue on the agenda of Australian cities. The significance of this is explored in the three papers in this collection. Richard Cardew reviews the papers by Troy and Bunker, introducing some additional considerations with particular reference to Sydney. He sees urban consolidation as an ongoing process which will continue with metropolitan growth and rising land values. However, he argues, the flats boom and the massive increase in household formation - shown in trends in headship ratios - which occurred in the 1960s and 1970s are unlikely to reoccur. The era of most rapid consolidation is past. Pat Troy offers the most critical view of present urban consolidation policies. He questions many of the benefits claimed for consolidation, in particular the assumption that it will lower requirements for public sector investment in infrastructure through more efficient use of area services such as schools and hospitals, and network services such as water, sewerage, power, transportation and communication. He argues that these and other assumed benefits are based on demographic trends unlikely to be realised, and on infrastructure savings which are illusory. Troy is especially critical of the claim that higher urban densities will lower the cost of housing, pointing out that multi-unit housing tends to be at the higher end of the market. Troy concludes his paper with a programmatic call for an increase in the supply of dwellings and a set of recommendations for achieving this. Ray Bunker's paper reviews the history of urban consolidation as part of metropolitan planning over the last ten years. Like Troy, he questions many of the assumptions invested in urban consolidation policies,· and argues that while a degree of consolidation is occurring, it is but one means invoked to serve a number of ends, and the pursuit of those ends themselves involves other instruments, some of which may be more effective. Further, consolidation needs to be gradual, locally differentiated and responsive, and these local dimensions need to be expressed more poweifully.Urban consolidation : a comment by Richard Cardew -- Metropolitan planning and urban consolidation: the Getting of Wisdom - or for the Term of His Natural Life? by Patrick N. Troy -- A decade of urban consolidation by Raymond Bunker

The Calcium-dependent protein kinase 1 from Toxoplasma gondii as target for structure-based drug design

The apicomplexan protozoan parasites include the causative agents of animal and human diseases ranging from malaria (Plasmodium spp.) to toxoplasmosis (Toxoplasma gondii). The complex life cycle of T. gondii is regulated by a unique family of calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) that have become the target of intensive efforts to develop new therapeutics. In this review, we will summarize structure-based strategies, recent successes and future directions in the pursuit of specific and selective inhibitors of T. gondii CDPK1

Dynamic body acceleration as a proxy for human energy expenditure.

RATIONALE: The use of dynamic body acceleration (DBA) has previously been used as a proxy for energy expenditure (EE) in humans with promising results. Two forms of dynamic body acceleration have been used; overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA) which comprises of the sum of acceleration data from three orthogonal axes and vectorial dynamic body acceleration (VeDBA) which constitutes of the vector of the acceleration data from three orthogonal axes. VeDBA is the mathematically correct calculation of body acceleration however there is strong biological rationale for the use of OBDA. This study sought to ascertain which DBA metric is the most accurate predictor of EE and in addition, how accelerometer orientation and placement, body anthropometries, body composition and aerobic capacity might influence these relationships. METHODS: Twenty-one voluntary participants [seventeen males, four females; age = 22.44 +/- 3.28 years, height = 1.75 +/- 0.07 m; weight = 70.66 +/- 9.78 kg] performed an incremental maximal exercise test on a motor driven treadmill [0% grade]. Volume of oxygen utilised per minute (VO2) was measured using an online gas analyser and body acceleration (g) measured simultaneously, via three tri-axial accelerometers; two attached to the upper back (one in a straight orientation and the other skewed 30°in each axis) and one attached to the right hip (in a straight orientation). Body composition data was collected using the skinfold method. RESULTS: Both ODBA and VeDBA were good proxies for VO2 with values exceeding 0.78, although ODBA accounted for slightly but significantly more of the variation in VO2 than did VeDBA (p = 0.002). There were no significant differences between ODBA and VeDBA in terms of the change in VO2 estimated by the acceleration data in a simulated situation of the accelerometer being mounted straight but becoming skewed. In terms of placement. ODBA and VeDBA values were significantly greater at the waist than the upper back (straight orientated device only) (p = 0.000) however when plotted against VO2 the differences between the hip and upper back became insignificant for both metrics. Fat-free mass, fat mass and age added significantly to the VO2 versus ODBA and VO2 versus VeDBA relationship in terms of r2. CONCLUSIONS: ODBA was found to be a marginally better proxy for VO2 than VeDBA although should only be used where researchers can guarantee a reasonably consistent device orientation. The upper back and hip are equally appropriate placements and should be chosen depending on the practicality. The ability of DBA to predict VO2 can be improved by adding additional variables to the regression equation, hi this case fat-free mass was the most significant covariate in terms of the improvement in r2

Development of a new integration algorithm for parallel implementation of the finite element elasto-plastic analysis

The accurate integration of stress-strain relations is an important factor in element analysis for elasto-plastic problems. The conventional method for this problem is the Euler algorithm which divides the whole integration process into a number of smaller substeps of equal size. It is difficult to control the errors in such integration scheme. In this paper, we will present a new algorithm for integrating strain-stress relations. It is based on the third and the fourth order Runge-Kutta method. This substepping scheme controls the errors in the integration process by adjusting the substep size automatically. In order to implement the substepping scheme on parallel systems, a parallel preconditioned conjugate gradient method is developed. The resulting algorithms have been implemented on a parallel environment defined by a cluster of workstation and their performance will be presented