RELEVANCY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE POLICY ARENA: IMPLICATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: DISCUSSION

Agricultural and Food Policy,

LAND DIVERSION AND SUPPLY CONTROL PROGRAMS

Land Economics/Use,

Australia and Latin America

This is a good time to reflect on opportunities and challenges for Australia in Latin America. Impressive economic growth and opportunities for trade and investment have made Latin America a dynamic area for Australia and the Asia Pacific region. A growing Latin American population, Australia’s attractiveness to Latin American students, a fascination with the cultural vibrancy of the Americas and an awareness of Latin America’s increasingly independent stance in politics and economic diplomacy, have all contributed to raising the region’s profile. This collection of essays provides the first substantial introduction to Australia’s evolving engagement with Latin America, identifying current trends and opportunities, and making suggestions about how relationships in trade, investment, foreign aid, education, culture and the media could be strengthened

Rural and regional Australian public accounting firm services : service provision, concerns and tensions

Public accounting firms provide a necessary and important service for rural and regional areas. However, the provision of high-quality services is hindered by a number of factors. This paper reports the findings from a large-scale survey of professional accounting firm practitioners located in rural and regional Australia, identifying factors causing concerns and tensions and quantifying their scope and importance. Prominent concerns and tensions identified include adverse effects arising from the employment market, communications technology developments and legislation such as the Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (Audit Reform and Corporate Disclosure) Act 2004 and the Financial Services Reform Act 2001

Children with disorders of sex development: A qualitative study of early parental experience

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Clinical research on psychological aspects of disorders of sex development (DSD) has focused on psychosexual differentiation with relatively little attention directed toward parents' experiences of early clinical management and their influence on patient and family psychosocial adaptation.</p> <p>Objectives</p> <p>To characterize parental experiences in the early clinical care of children born with DSD.</p> <p>Study Design</p> <p>Content analysis of interviews with parents (n = 41) of 28 children, newborn to 6 years, with DSD.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Four major domains emerged as salient to parents: (1) the gender assignment process, (2) decisions regarding genital surgery, (3) disclosing information about their child's DSD, and (4) interacting with healthcare providers. Findings suggested discordance between scientific and parental understandings of the determinants of "sex" and "gender." Parents' expectations regarding the benefits of genital surgery appear largely met; however, parents still had concerns about their child's future physical, social and sexual development. Two areas experienced by many parents as particularly stressful were: (1) uncertainties regarding diagnosis and optimal management, and (2) conflicts between maintaining privacy versus disclosing the condition to access social support.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Parents' experiences and gaps in understanding can be used to inform the clinical care of patients with DSD and their families. Improving communication between parents and providers (and between parents and their support providers) throughout the early clinical management process may be important in decreasing stress and improving outcomes for families of children with DSD.</p

Renal artery calcified plaque associations with subclinical renal and cardiovascular disease

Renal artery calcified plaque associations with subclinical renal and cardiovascular disease.BackgroundThe prognostic significance of renal artery calcified plaque (RAC) and its relationship with renal function, albuminuria, and systemic atherosclerosis are unknown.MethodsCalcified atherosclerotic plaque was measured in the renal arteries of 96 unrelated Caucasian subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) using four-channel multidetector–row computed tomography (MDCT4). Renal artery calcium was measured as the sum of ostial and main renal artery calcium scores. Participants also underwent MDCT scanning to measure coronary artery calcium (CAC), carotid artery calcium, common iliac artery calcium, infra-renal aorta calcium, and B-mode ultrasound to measure carotid artery intima-medial thickness (IMT). Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were used to assess associations between RAC and measures of subclinical renal and cardiovascular disease. Partial correlation coefficients were computed to adjust for the potential confounding effects of age, gender, body mass index (BMI), DM duration, smoking, and serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels.ResultsCharacteristics of the study group were 54% (52/96) female with a mean ± SD (median) age 62.8 ± 8.4 (62.5) years, DM duration 10.6 ± 6.3 (8.0) years, hemoglobin A1C 7.5 ± 1.5 (7.2)%, BMI 32.1 ± 6.3 (31.1) kg/m2, serum creatinine concentration 1.11 ± 0.18 (1.10) mg/dL, urine albumin:creatinine ratio (ACR) 105.3 ± 423.1 (17.6) mg/g, modified MDRD equation glomerular filtration rate (GFR) 64.3 ± 12.6 (63.6) mL/min, RAC 372 ± 799 (101), CAC 1819 ± 2594 (622), carotid artery calcium 264 ± 451 (72), and B-mode ultrasound carotid IMT 0.70 ± 0.12 (0.69) mm. Sixty-five percent of subjects (62/96) had detectable RAC. Renal artery calcium was significantly associated with CAC (r = 0.50, P < 0.0001), carotid artery calcium (r = 0.58, P < 0.0001), common iliac artery calcium (r = 0.45, P < 0.0001), infra-renal aorta calcium (r = 0.70, P < 0.0001), IMT (r = 0.40, P = 0.0004), diastolic blood pressure (r=-0.33, P = 0.0009), BMI (r=-0.19, P = 0.0573), and age (r = 0.54, P < 0.0001). There was no association between RAC and GFR (r=-0.15, P = 0.1637) or between RAC and urine ACR (r = 0.07, P = 0.5083).ConclusionRenal artery calcium is strongly associated with older age, diastolic blood pressure, BMI, carotid artery IMT, and coronary, carotid, common iliac artery, and infra-renal aorta calcium in Caucasians with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Renal artery calcium, similar to CAC and IMT, appears to be a useful noninvasive marker of subclinical atherosclerosis. However, RAC is not significantly associated with either GFR or albuminuria