The best Australian essays 2004 /

Some of these essays are thought-provoking pieces about great events of the day. Others are spell-binding explorations of personalities and ideas. Combined they provide a picture of the year that has just been, and a way of catching up on the best that has been thought and said in our society. With newly-appointed editor, the acclaimed author and broadcaster Robert Dessaix at the helm, The Best Australian Essays 2004 promises to be the best collection ever. Contributors to this edition include: John Birmingham, Inga Clendinnen, JM Coetzee, Thomas Keneally and Richard Flanagan

Transcendental themes in the works of I.S. Turgenev

The purpose of this dissertation is an interpretive one: to elucidate certain themes in Turgenev's mature writings which are rarely investigated in depth or with a proper sense of their development and interaction and which may be broadly termed 'transcendental'; and to review what might be called the semantic thrust of Turgenev's works taken as a whole in the light of these newly emphasized transcendental themes

Pathways to a cancer-free future: A protocol for modelled evaluations to minimise the future burden of colorectal cancer in Australia

Introduction&nbsp;With almost 50% of cases preventable and the Australian National Bowel Cancer Screening Program in place, colorectal cancer (CRC) is a prime candidate for investment to reduce the cancer burden. The challenge is determining effective ways to reduce morbidity and mortality and their implementation through policy and practice. Pathways-Bowel is a multistage programme that aims to identify best-value investment in CRC control by integrating expert and end-user engagement; relevant evidence; modelled interventions to guide future investment; and policy-driven implementation of interventions using evidence-based methods.Methods and analysis&nbsp;Pathways-Bowel is an iterative work programme incorporating a calibrated and validated CRC natural history model for Australia (Policy1-Bowel) and assessing the health and cost outcomes and resource use of targeted interventions. Experts help identify and prioritise modelled evaluations of changing trends and interventions and critically assess results to advise on their real-world applicability. Where appropriate the results are used to support public policy change and make the case for optimal investment in specific CRC control interventions. Fourteen high-priority evaluations have been modelled or planned, including evaluations of CRC outcomes from the changing prevalence of modifiable exposures, including smoking and body fatness; potential benefits of daily aspirin intake as chemoprevention; increasing CRC incidence in people aged &lt;50 years; increasing screening participation in the general and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations; alternative screening technologies and modalities; and changes to follow-up surveillance protocols. Pathways-Bowel is a unique, comprehensive approach to evaluating CRC control; no prior body of work has assessed the relative benefits of a variety of interventions across CRC development and progression to produce a list of best-value investments.Ethics and dissemination&nbsp;Ethics approval was not required as human participants were not involved. Findings are reported in a series of papers in peer-reviewed journals and presented at fora to engage the community and policymakers.</div

Impacts of global changes and extreme hydroclimatic events on macroinvertebrate community structures in the French Rhône River

We assessed the temporal changes in and the relationships between the structures of the macroinvertebrate communities and the environmental conditions of the French Rhône River (the river from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea) over the last 20 years (1985–2004). Multisite environmental and biological datasets were analysed using multiple CO-inertia analysis (MCOA) and Procrustean analysis. Changes in environmental conditions were mainly marked by an improvement in water quality between 1985 and 1991 and by an increase in water temperature from 1985 onwards due to climate change. Improvement in water quality seemed to delay changes in community structures under global warming. We then observed trends in community structures coupled with high temperatures and a decrease in oxygen content. Interestingly, we observed both gradual changes and rapid switches in community states. These shifts seemed coupled to extreme hydroclimatic events (i.e. pulse disturbances). Floods and the 2003 heatwave enhanced the development of eurytolerant and invasive taxa which were probably able to take advantage of gradual warming environmental conditions. Despite various site-specific “press” constraints (e.g. hydropower schemes, nuclear power plants), similar changes in community structures were observed along the French Rhône River. Such consistency in temporal processes at large geographical scales underlined the strength of hydroclimatic constraints on community dynamics compared to specific local disturbances. Finally, community structures did not show any sign of recovery, and their relative sensitivities to extreme hydroclimatic events seemed to increase with time. Thus, our results suggest that global changes may reduce the resilience of current community states