Interview with Elliott Johnston

Don Dunstan Oral History Project interview transcripts. Conditions of use: No conditions are imposed on the reuse of this transcript by the interviewee. However, further publication in full by others is not permitted without permission from the State Library of South Australia, and any partial use or quoting in research publications requires proper acknowledgement of the State Library of South Australia.Interview with Elliott Johnston (AO QC) by Rob Linn on 12th November 2004

Occurrence of Cryptosporidium Oocysts in Leisure Pools in the UK, 2017, and Modelling of Oocyst Contamination Events

Cryptosporidium is a major cause of diarrhoea outbreaks linked to swimming pools, but little is known about the frequency of contamination. The primary aim was to investigate the occurrence and concentration, through sampling and modelling, of Cryptosporidium oocysts in leisure pools. Secondary aims were to compare detections with operational parameters, provide the evidence-base for guidance, and improve sampling capacity and interpretation for public health investigations. Up to 1000 L pool water was sampled during swim sessions once weekly for 10 weeks from 8 August 2017 at six volunteer pools. Oocysts were detected by microscopy in 12/59 (20%) pool water samples, at least once in each pool; 8/12 (66%) detections were in August when bather loads were highest. At three pools, 1 L filter backwash was sampled weekly and oocysts were detected in 2/29 (7%) samples, following detections in pool water. The probabilities of a bather contaminating the pool ranged from 1 in 1000 to over 1 in 10,000. Monte Carlo analysis showed that when high bather numbers caused contamination on over 70% of days, multiple events per day were more likely than single events. In these generally well-managed leisure pools, Cryptosporidium risk related to high bather loads. We conclude that public awareness campaigns for bather hygiene, and reminding pool operators of current guidance for managing faecal accidents, should be ahead of peak swim season

Thatcher’s Britain: : a new take on an old illusion

The Thatcher Illusion is generally discussed as a phenomenon related to face perception. Nonetheless, we show that compellingly strong Thatcher Effects can be elicited with nonface stimuli, provided that the stimulus set has a familiar standard configuration and a canonical view. Apparently, the Thatcher Illusion is not about faces, and nor is it about Thatcher. It just might, however, be about Britain

Sensing the Shape of Canine Responses to Cancer

We conducted a short study investigating the pressure patterns produced by cancer detection dogs via a canine-centered interface while searching samples of amyl acetate. We advance previous work by providing further insights into the potential of the approach for supporting and partly automating the practice of cancer detection with dogs

Hake Data: problems, solutions and GLM CPUE sensitivity to alternate scenarios

The checks carried out on the hake offshore trawl catch and effort data, which provide the basis to split the catches by species and to obtain GLM-standardised CPUE indices of abundance by species, have focused on two separate steps. The first was a re-extract of the data from the original files to check for possible errors in the earlier extracts (this applies to the subset of the data for which size composition information can be unambiguously extracted). The second step was to increase the proportion of the data utilised (and at the same time to check for possible selection biases in the existing sample) by assigning size composition to drags for which this information was not directly available, on the basis of the average for other vessels for which this was available for the area and time at which the fishing concerned took place. The first step revealed a problem with extractions over the last few years which at times for certain vessels had linked the accumulated catch for the day with only the effort for the last trawl of the day, rather than for all trawls that day combined