The socioeconomic gradient and chronic illness and associated risk factors in Australia

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of major chronic diseases and their risk factors in different socioeconomic groups in the Australian population, in order to highlight the need for public policy initiatives to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in health. METHODS: Data were provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) from the 2001 National Health Survey (NHS) for selected chronic diseases and associated risk factors. Conditions selected were those, which form the National Health Priority Area (NHPA) conditions (other than injury, which has not been included in this paper, with its focus on chronic disease); plus other 'serious' chronic conditions, in line with the classification developed by Mathers; and for which sufficient cases were available for analysis by socioeconomic status. Indirectly age-standardised prevalence rates were calculated by broad age group for Australia and for five groups of socioeconomic status; rate ratios were calculated to show variations in prevalence between these groups. RESULTS: Significant socioeconomic inequalities were evident for many of the major chronic diseases; the largest was for diabetes mellitus (at ages 25 to 64 years); and for many diseases, there was also a strong, continuous socioeconomic gradient in the rates. Circulatory system diseases (in particular, hypertensive disease) and digestive system diseases also exhibited a strong differential in the 25 to 64 year age group. In the 65 years and over age group, the strongest inequalities were evident for mental and behavioural problems, diabetes (with a continuous socioeconomic gradient in rates) and respiratory system diseases. A number of risk factors for chronic diseases, namely self-reported smoking, alcohol misuse, physical inactivity and excess weight showed a striking association with socioeconomic status, in particular for people who were smokers and those who did not exercise. CONCLUSION: This analysis shows that the prevalence of chronic disease varies across the socioeconomic gradient for a number of specific diseases, as well as for important disease risk factors. Therefore, any policy interventions to address the impact of chronic disease, at a population level, need to take into account these socioeconomic inequalities

Minimising costs of environmental service provision: water-yield, salt-load and biodiversity targets with new tree planting in Simmons Creek Catchment, NSW, a dryland farming/grazing area.

Although dryland farming and grazing have been practiced for over 130 years in the 17,000 ha Simmons Creek catchment without surface salinity problems, the area has been identified as a significant source of salt seepage to Billabong Creek in the NSW Murray catchment. Groundwater movement and salinity levels are spatially heterogenous at Simmons Creek. Groundwater of the upper catchment is relatively fresh and seemingly unconnected with the highly saline groundwater of the lower catchment. However, fresh surface water does flow from the upper to the lower catchment. This spatial diversity provokes the question of where high-water-use forest habitats might be placed to achieve different combinations of environmental services (greater water yield, lower stream salinity and greater biodiversity) at least cost. Agro-forestry and or carbon sequestration benefits are not considered here. This paper presents methods and preliminary calculations of land use changes for least-cost delivery of these environmental service targets.Optimisation, opportunity costs, forest-habitat, environmental services, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Abyssal fauna of the UK-1 polymetallic nodule exploration area, Clarion-Clipperton Zone, central Pacific Ocean: Mollusca

The file attached is the Published/publisher’s pdf version of the article. This is an OpenAccess article.Copyright Helena Wiklund et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Applying CLIPS to control of molecular beam epitaxy processing

A key element of U.S. industrial competitiveness in the 1990's will be the exploitation of advanced technologies which involve low-volume, high-profit manufacturing. The demands of such manufacture limit participation to a few major entities in the U.S. and elsewhere, and offset the lower manufacturing costs of other countries which have, for example, captured much of the consumer electronics market. One such technology is thin-film epitaxy, a technology which encompasses several techniques such as Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), Chemical Beam Epitaxy (CBE), and Vapor-Phase Epitaxy (VPE). Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) is a technology for creating a variety of electronic and electro-optical materials. Compared to standard microelectronic production techniques (including gaseous diffusion, ion implantation, and chemical vapor deposition), MBE is much more exact, though much slower. Although newer than the standard technologies, MBE is the technology of choice for fabrication of ultraprecise materials for cutting-edge microelectronic devices and for research into the properties of new materials

Heavy Black Hole Seed Formation in High-z Atomic Cooling Halos

Halos with masses in excess of the atomic limit are believed to be ideal environments in which to form heavy black hole seeds with masses above 10^3 Msun. In cases where the H_2 fraction is suppressed this is expected to lead to reduced fragmentation of the gas and the generation of a top heavy initial mass function. In extreme cases this can result in the formation of massive black hole seeds. Resolving the initial fragmentation scale and the resulting protostellar masses has, until now, not been robustly tested. Cosmological simulations were performed with the moving mesh code Arepo using a primordial chemistry network until z = 11. Three haloes with masses in excess of the atomic cooling mass were then selected for detailed examination via zoom-ins. The highest resolution simulations resolve densities up to 10^-6 g cm^-3 (10^18 cm^-3) and capture a further 100 yr of fragmentation behaviour at the center of the halo. Our simulations show intense fragmentation in the central region of the halos, leading to a large number of near-solar mass protostars. Despite the increased fragmentation the halos produce a protostellar mass spectrum that peaks at higher masses relative to standard Population III star forming halos. The most massive protostars have accretion rates of 10^-3-10^-1 Msun yr^-1 after the first 100 years of evolution, while the total mass of the central region grows at 1 Msun yr^-1. Lower resolution zoom-ins show that the total mass of the system continues to accrete at 1 Msun yr^-1 for at least 10^4 yr, although how this mass is distributed amongst the rapidly growing number of protostars is unclear. However, assuming that a fraction of stars can continue to accrete rapidly the formation of a sub-population of stars with masses in excess of 10^3 Msun is likely in these halos.Comment: Submitted to A&A, comments welcom

1.62 GHz Circularly Polarized Pin-Fed Notched Circular Patch Antenna

This paper studies a circular patch antenna which is fed by using a coaxial pin, which is a suitable antenna design for applications where small size is of importance. Such applications are wearable antenna designs. The main purpose of this paper is to design an antenna with wearable capabilities and adequate radiation characteristics for satellite communications and more specifically for the Iridium satellite constellation. The goals for the radiation characteristics of the antenna are the tuning of the antenna to 1.62GHz which is the Iridium's frequency, maximum boresight gain for this frequency, as well as circular polarization

Genetic analysis redraws the management boundaries for the European sprat

Sustainable fisheries management requires detailed knowledge of population genetic structure. The European sprat is an important commercial fish distributed from Morocco to the Arctic circle, Baltic, Mediterranean, and Black seas. Prior to 2018, annual catch advice on sprat from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) was based on five putative stocks: (a) North Sea, (b) Kattegat–Skagerrak and Norwegian fjords, (c) Baltic Sea, (d) West of Scotland—southern Celtic Seas, and (e) English Channel. However, there were concerns that the sprat advice on stock size estimates management plan inadequately reflected the underlying biological units. Here, we used ddRAD sequencing to develop 91 SNPs that were thereafter used to genotype approximately 2,500 fish from 40 locations. Three highly distinct and relatively homogenous genetic groups were identified: (a) Norwegian fjords; (b) Northeast Atlantic including the North Sea, Kattegat–Skagerrak, Celtic Sea, and Bay of Biscay; and (c) Baltic Sea. Evidence of genetic admixture and possibly physical mixing was detected in samples collected from the transition zone between the North and Baltic seas, but not between any of the other groups. These results have already been implemented by ICES with the decision to merge the North Sea and the Kattegat–Skagerrak sprat to be assessed as a single unit, thus demonstrating that genetic data can be rapidly absorbed to align harvest regimes and biological units

Coronary CT Angiography and 5-Year Risk of Myocardial Infarction.

BACKGROUND: Although coronary computed tomographic angiography (CTA) improves diagnostic certainty in the assessment of patients with stable chest pain, its effect on 5-year clinical outcomes is unknown. METHODS: In an open-label, multicenter, parallel-group trial, we randomly assigned 4146 patients with stable chest pain who had been referred to a cardiology clinic for evaluation to standard care plus CTA (2073 patients) or to standard care alone (2073 patients). Investigations, treatments, and clinical outcomes were assessed over 3 to 7 years of follow-up. The primary end point was death from coronary heart disease or nonfatal myocardial infarction at 5 years. RESULTS: The median duration of follow-up was 4.8 years, which yielded 20,254 patient-years of follow-up. The 5-year rate of the primary end point was lower in the CTA group than in the standard-care group (2.3% [48 patients] vs. 3.9% [81 patients]; hazard ratio, 0.59; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.41 to 0.84; P=0.004). Although the rates of invasive coronary angiography and coronary revascularization were higher in the CTA group than in the standard-care group in the first few months of follow-up, overall rates were similar at 5 years: invasive coronary angiography was performed in 491 patients in the CTA group and in 502 patients in the standard-care group (hazard ratio, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.88 to 1.13), and coronary revascularization was performed in 279 patients in the CTA group and in 267 in the standard-care group (hazard ratio, 1.07; 95% CI, 0.91 to 1.27). However, more preventive therapies were initiated in patients in the CTA group (odds ratio, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.19 to 1.65), as were more antianginal therapies (odds ratio, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.54). There were no significant between-group differences in the rates of cardiovascular or noncardiovascular deaths or deaths from any cause. CONCLUSIONS: In this trial, the use of CTA in addition to standard care in patients with stable chest pain resulted in a significantly lower rate of death from coronary heart disease or nonfatal myocardial infarction at 5 years than standard care alone, without resulting in a significantly higher rate of coronary angiography or coronary revascularization. (Funded by the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office and others; SCOT-HEART ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01149590 .)

Electrical and structural properties of In-implanted Si1−xGex alloys

We report on the effects of dopant concentration and substrate stoichiometry on the electrical and structural properties of In-implanted Si1−xGex alloys. Correlating the fraction of electrically active In atoms from Hall Effect measurements with the In atomic environment determined by X-ray absorption spectroscopy, we observed the transition from electrically active, substitutional In at low In concentration to electrically inactive metallic In at high In concentration. The In solid-solubility limit has been quantified and was dependent on the Si1−xGex alloy stoichiometry; the solid-solubility limit increased as the Ge fraction increased. This result was consistent with density functional theory calculations of two In atoms in a Si1−xGex supercell that demonstrated that In–In pairing was energetically favorable for x ≲ 0.7 and energetically unfavorable for x ≳ 0.7. Transmission electron microscopy imaging further complemented the results described earlier with the In concentration and Si1−xGex alloy stoichiometry dependencies readily visible. We have demonstrated that low resistivity values can be achieved with In implantation in Si1−xGex alloys, and this combination of dopant and substrate represents an effective doping protocol

Wireless Communication Networks for Gas Turbine Engine Testing

A new trend in the field of Aeronautical Engine Health Monitoring is the implementation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for data acquisition and condition monitoring to partially replace heavy and complex wiring harnesses, which limit the versatility of the monitoring process as well as creating practical deployment issues. Using wireless technologies instead of fixed wiring will fuel opportunities for reduced cabling, faster sensor and network deployment, increased data acquisition flexibility and reduced cable maintenance costs. However, embedding wireless technology into an aero engine (even in the ground testing application considered here) presents some very significant challenges, e.g. a harsh environment with a complex RF transmission environment, high sensor density and high data-rate. In this paper we discuss the results of the Wireless Data Acquisition in Gas Turbine Engine Testing (WIDAGATE) project, which aimed to design and simulate such a network to estimate network performance and de-risk the wireless techniques before the deployment