‘The stratified record upon which we set our feet’: The spatial turn and the multilayering of history, geography, and geology

In Thomas Mann’s tetralogy of the 1930s and 1940s, Joseph and His Brothers, the narrator declares history is not only “that which has happened and that which goes on happening in time,” but it is also “the stratified record upon which we set our feet, the ground beneath us.” By opening up history to its spatial, geographical, and geological dimensions Mann both predicts and encapsulates the twentieth-century’s “spatial turn,” a critical shift that divested geography of its largely passive role as history’s “stage” and brought to the fore intersections between the humanities and the earth sciences. In this paper, I draw out the relationships between history, narrative, geography, and geology revealed by this spatial turn and the questions these pose for thinking about the disciplinary relationship between geography and the humanities. As Mann’s statement exemplifies, the spatial turn itself has often been captured most strikingly in fiction, and I would argue nowhere more so than in Graham Swift’s Waterland (1983) and Anne Michaels’s Fugitive Pieces (1996), both of which present space, place, and landscape as having a palpable influence on history and memory. The geographical/geological line that runs through both Waterland and Fugitive Pieces continues through Tim Robinson’s non-fictional, two-volume “topographical” history Stones of Aran. Robinson’s Stones of Aran—which is not history, not geography, and not literature, and yet is all three—constructs an imaginative geography that renders inseparable geography, geology, history, memory, and the act of writing

The politics of open-access publishing: M/C Journal, public intellectualism, and academic discourses of legitimacy

M/C Journal was created in 1998 as a student project for an Internet studies honours course, taught by David Marshall, in the then English Department of The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. Its stated goal was to become an internationally significant media and cultural studies journal that was created in and for the Web, that was dedicated to the principles of open access to scholarly work, and that would, moreover, foster a spirit of public intellectualism by providing a “crossover […] between the popular and the academic.” It was also, from the outset, dedicated to the principles of complete open access. Despite numerous funding and institutional support crises, its parent organisation M/C – Media and Culture (M/C) has remained committed to providing free access to online scholarship and has never considered charging either for access or submission

The Cultural Atlas of Australia

An online interactive map and associated database including textual extracts and audiovisual material of film/novel/play locations in Australia

General practice physicians\u27 and nurses\u27 self- reported multidisciplinary end-of-life care: A systematic review

Background: General practitioners (GPs) and general practice nurses (GPNs) face increasing demands to provide end-of-life care (EoLC) as the population ages. To enhance primary palliative care (PC), the care they provide needs to be understood to inform best practice models of care. Objective: To provide a comprehensive description of the self-reported role and performance of GPs and GPNs in (1) specific medical/nursing roles, (2) communication, (3) care co-ordination, (4) access and out-of-hours care, and (5) multidisciplinary care. Method: Systematic literature review. Data included papers (2000 to 2017) sought from Medline, Psychinfo, Embase, Joanna Briggs Institute and Cochrane databases. Results: From 6209 journal articles, 29 reviewed papers reported the GPs’ and GPNs’ role in EoLC or PC practice. GPs report a central role in symptom management, treatment withdrawal, non-malignant disease management and terminal sedation. Information provision included breaking bad news, prognosis and place of death. Psychosocial concerns were often addressed. Quality of communication depended on GP–patient relationships and GP skills. Challenges were unrealistic patient and family expectations, family conflict and lack of advance care planning. GPs often delayed endof-life discussions until 3 months before death. Home visits were common, but less so for urban, female and part-time GPs. GPs co-ordinated care with secondary care, but in some cases parallel care occurred. Trust in, and availability of, the GP was critical for shared care. There was minimal reference to GPNs’ roles. Conclusions: GPs play a critical role in palliative care. More work is required on the role of GPNs, case finding and models to promote shared care, home visits and out-of-hours services

Pharmacy Diabetes Screening Trial: protocol for a pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial to compare three screening methods for undiagnosed type 2 diabetes in Australian community pharmacy

INTRODUCTION: With the rising prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Australia, screening and earlier diagnosis is needed to provide opportunities to intervene with evidence-based lifestyle and treatment options to reduce the individual, social and economic impact of the disease. The objectives of the Pharmacy Diabetes Screening Trial are to compare the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of three screening models for type 2 diabetes in a previously undiagnosed population. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The Pharmacy Diabetes Screening Trial is a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial to be conducted in 363 community pharmacies across metropolitan, regional and remote areas of Australia, randomly allocated by geographical clusters to one of three groups, each with 121 pharmacies and 10 304 screening participants. The three groups are: group A: risk assessment using a validated tool (AUSDRISK); group B: AUSDRISK assessment followed by point-of-care glycated haemoglobin testing; and group C: AUSDRISK assessment followed by point-of-care blood glucose testing. The primary clinical outcome measure is the proportion of newly diagnosed cases of type 2 diabetes. Primary outcome comparisons will be conducted using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test to account for clustering. The secondary clinical outcomes measures are the proportion of those who (1) are referred to the general practitioner (GP), (2) take up referral to the GP, (3) are diagnosed with pre-diabetes, that is, impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose and (4) are newly diagnosed with either diabetes or pre-diabetes. The economic outcome measure is the average cost (direct and indirect) per confirmed new case of diagnosed type 2 diabetes based on the incremental net trial-based costs of service delivery and the associated incremental longer term health benefits from a health funder perspective. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The protocol has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committees at University of Sydney and Deakin University. Results will be available on the Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement website and will be published in peer reviewed journals

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural clines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale