An Examination of Australians of Hellenic Descent in the State Parliament of Victoria

Continuing a series of analyses of the role of elected State and Federal representatives of Hellenic descent in Australia, this paper will focus on the Victorian State Parliament, but with reference also to current and former Victorian Federal parliamentarians

Contribution of cod liver oil-related nutrients (vitamins A, D, E and eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid) to daily nutrient intake and their associations with plasma concentrations in the EPIC-Norfolk cohort

Total nutrient intake (TNI) is intake from food and supplements. This provides an assessment of nutrient adequacy and the prevalence of excessive intake, as well as the response with respect to biomarkers. Cod liver oil (CLO) is the most frequently consumed supplement in the UK, containing nutrients that might have varying influences on health. We calculated TNI for vitamins A, D and E, as well as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and assessed associations with the respective blood concentrations

Developing a gender-based approach to chronic conditions and women's health: A qualitative investigation of communitydwelling women and service provider perspectives

© 2015 DiGiacomo et al. Background: Chronic conditions contribute to over 70 % of Australia's total disease burden, and this is set to increase to 80 % by 2020. Women's greater longevity means that they are more likely than men to live with disability and have unique health concerns related to their gender based roles in society. Cultural and social issues can impact on women's health and are important to consider in health services planning and research. In this study, we aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to providing a gender-based approach to chronic conditions and women's health in an eastern metropolitan region of Australia. Methods: Focus groups were used to engage both community-dwelling women who had chronic conditions and relevant professional stakeholders in the target area. Recorded proceedings underwent thematic analysis. Results: Five focus groups were conducted with professional stakeholders and women community members in February and March 2014. Resultant themes included: women's disempowerment through interactions with health systems; social and economic constraints and caregiving roles act to exclude women from participating in self-care and society; and empowerment can be achieved through integrated models of care that facilitate voice and enable communication and engagement. Conclusions: This study underscores the importance of including perspectives of sex and gender in health care services planning. Tailoring services to socio-demographic and cultural groups is critical in promoting access to health care services. Unique epidemiological trends, particularly the ageing of women and new migrant groups, require particular attention

Phagocytes and the Lung

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72927/1/j.1749-6632.1997.tb46258.x.pd

Satellite soil moisture observations: applications in the UK and India

The India-UK Water Centre (IUKWC) promotes cooperation and collaboration between the complementary priorities of NERC-MoES water security research. The State of Science Brief was produced as an output from an India-UK Water Centre supported Pump Priming Project on Synergistic utilisation of EO-based soil moisture observations: Applications in the UK and India

Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction in Sri Lanka: What Methodology?

Research methodology is the procedural framework within which the research is conducted. This includes the overall approach to a problem that could be put into practice in a research process, from the theoretical underpinning to the collection and analysis of data. Choice of methodology depends on the primary drivers: topic to be researched and the specific research questions. Hence, methodological perspectives of managing stakeholder expectations of PDHR context are composed of research philosophies, research strategy, research design, and research techniques. This research belonged to social constructivism or interpretivism within a philosophical continuum. The nature of the study was more toward subjectivism where human behavior favored voluntary stance. Ontological, methodological, epistemological, and axiological positioning carried the characteristics of idealism, ideographic, anti-positivism, and value laden, respectively. Data collection comprises two phases, preliminary and secondary. Exploratory interviews with construction experts in the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka were carried out to refine the interview questions and identify the case studies. Case study interviews during the secondary phase took place in Sri Lanka. Data collected at the preliminary stage were used to assess the attributes of power, legitimacy/proximity, and urgency of stakeholders to the project using Stakeholder Circle™ software. Moreover, the data collected at secondary phase via case studies will be analyzed with NVivo 8. This article aims to discuss these methodological underpinnings in detail applied in a post-disaster housing reconstruction context in Sri Lanka

Management of type 2 diabetes mellitus in people with severe mental illness: an online cross-sectional survey of healthcare professionals

Objectives To establish healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) views about clinical roles, and the barriers and enablers to delivery of diabetes care for people with severe mental illness (SMI). Design Cross-sectional, postal and online survey. Setting Trusts within the National Health Service (NHS), mental health and diabetes charities and professional bodies. Participants HCPs who care for people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and/or SMI in the UK. Primary and secondary outcome measures The barriers, enablers and experiences of delivering T2DM care for people with SMI, informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF). Results Responders were 273 HCPs, primarily mental health nurses (33.7%) and psychiatrists (32.2%). Only 25% of respondents had received training in managing T2DM in people with SMI. Mental health professionals felt responsible for significantly fewer recommended diabetes care standards than physical health professionals (p<0.001). For those seeing diabetes care as part of their role, the significant barriers to its delivery in the regression analyses were a lack of knowledge (p=0.003); a need for training in communication and negotiation skills (p=0.04); a lack of optimism about the health of their clients (p=0.04) and their ability to manage T2DM in people with SMI (p=0.003); the threat of being disciplined (p=0.02); fear of working with people with a mental health condition (p=0.01); a lack of service user engagement(p=0.006) and a need for incentives (p=0.04). The significant enablers were an understanding of the need to tailor treatments (p=0.04) and goals (p=0.02) for people with SMI. Conclusions This survey indicates that despite current guidelines, diabetes care in mental health settings remains peripheral. Even when diabetes care is perceived as part of a HCP’s role, various individual and organisational barriers to delivering recommended T2DM care standards to people with SMI are experienced

Identification of two distinct intron elements involved in alternative splicing of beta-tropomyosin pre-mRNA

The rat beta-tropomyosin gene encodes two isoforms, termed skeletal muscle beta-tropomyosin and fibroblast last tropomyosim 1 (TM-1), via an alternative RNA processing mechanism. The gene contains 11 exons. Exons 1-5 and exons 8 and 9 are common to all mRNAs expressed from the gene. Exons 6 and 11 are used in fibroblasts, as well as smooth muscle, whereas exons 7 and 10 are used only in skeletal muscle. In the present studies we focused on the mutually exclusive internal alternative splice choice involving exon 6 (fibroblast-type splice) and exon 7 (skeletal muscle-type splice). We have identified two distinct elements in the intron, upstream of exon 7, involved in splice site selection. The first element is comprised of a polypyrimidine tract located 89-143 nucleotides upstream of the 3' splice site, which specifies the location of the lariat branchpoints used, 144-153 nucleotides upstream of exon 7. The 3' splice site AG dinucleotide has no role in selection of these branchpoints. The second element is comprised of intron sequences located between the polypyrimidine tract and the 3' splice site of exon 7. It contains an important determinant in alternative splice site selection, because deletion of these sequences results in the use of the skeletal muscle-specific exon in nonmuscle cells. We propose that the use of lariat branchpoints located far upstream from a 3' splice site may be a general feature of some alternatively excised introns, reflecting the presence of regulatory sequences located between the lariat branch site and the 3' splice site. The data also indicate that alternative splicing of the rat beta-tropomyosin gene is regulated by a somewhat different mechanism from that described for rat alpha-tropomyosin gene and the transformer-2 gene of Drosophila melanogaster