With a little help from my friends: Developing an assisted automated peritoneal dialysis program in Western Australia

Background: Nurse-assisted automated peritoneal dialysis (AAPD) offers a model of care that has been successfully used in frail dialysis populations internationally. AAPD offers cost savings over hospitalisation on peritoneal dialysis (PD) or in-centre haemodialysis (HD). Method: A pilot AAPD model of care was developed in Western Australia (WA). Patient evaluation was measured utilising a perceptions of dialysis survey, clinical events, hospitalisation and peritonitis rates, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), KDQoL-SF 36 and a survey. Staff opinions and perceived competency were measured by an online survey. Economic analysis was undertaken. Results: A successful collaborative model was developed. 40 staff were trained and competency significantly improved during program delivery (p < 0.0001). 15 patients with an average CCI score of 8.7 used the service for 18 periods of care over 18 months (mean 33 days SD 47). Two non-renal cause deaths and two episodes of peritonitis occurred. Patient opinions were extremely positive. Cost savings were estimated at $620,000. Conclusion: In WA, an AAPD pilot program has been successfully developed and delivered. A sustainable model has overcome initial hurdles. Staff have gained new skills and delivered effective care, demonstrated by high patient acceptance. The program was cost-effective compared to staying in hospital or transferring to HD

Format of Meteor Position Data Files

Describes the format of the SKiYMET meteor position data (MPD) files

South Australian Art Needlework 1876-1909

Art Needlework was the first technical art at the Adelaide School of Design. It became a conduit to an alternative form of higher education which fostered independent careers for women at a time when that was still radical. The elevation of Art Needlework into the curriculum of the Adelaide School of Design occurred because of a conflation of four things. First, middle and upper-class women spent considerable time practising existing needlework skills for domestic necessity or pleasure. Second, female-operated ecclesiastical embroidery guilds were purposely furnishing a proliferation of new churches in the colony of South Australia and beyond its borders. Third, there was a growing aesthetic awareness of the Arts & Crafts trend for handmade objects of original design, and fourth, the influential Director of the Adelaide School of Design, H. P. Gill arrived in Adelaide to take up his position already supportive of women in a working environment. By harnessing the scene, Gill established a secular Art Needlework Society as a commercial arm of the school. The Society was successful because it prioritised original design and borrowed the same business practices as the ecclesiastical ateliers. This thesis determines that in contrast to the few who pursued a University pathway, many more women were able to leverage their existing needlework skills into an alternative form of higher education at the Adelaide School of Design. It also demonstrates how the School’s Art Needlework Society modelled the commercial practices that successfully underpinned the first Art Needlework studios operated by New Women seeking independent careers, even before they were enfranchised.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 202

Evolutionary rates vary among rRNA structural elements

Understanding patterns of rRNA evolution is critical for a number of fields, including structure prediction and phylogeny. The standard model of RNA evolution is that compensatory mutations in stems make up the bulk of the changes between homologous sequences, while unpaired regions are relatively homogeneous. We show that considerable heterogeneity exists in the relative rates of evolution of different secondary structure categories (stems, loops, bulges, etc.) within the rRNA, and that in eukaryotes, loops actually evolve much faster than stems. Both rates of evolution and abundance of different structural categories vary with distance from functionally important parts of the ribosome such as the tRNA path and the peptidyl transferase center. For example, fast-evolving residues are mainly found at the surface; stems are enriched at the subunit interface, and junctions near the peptidyl transferase center. However, different secondary structure categories evolve at different rates even when these effects are accounted for. The results demonstrate that relative rates and patterns of evolution are lineage specific, suggesting that phylogenetically and structurally specific models will improve evolutionary and structural predictions

The Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar Orbital System (SAAMER-OS): An initial sporadic meteoroid orbital survey in the southern sky

We present an initial survey in the southern sky of the sporadic meteoroid orbital environment obtained with the Southern Argentina Agile MEteor Radar (SAAMER) Orbital System (OS), in which over three-quarters of a million orbits of dust particles were determined from 2012 January through 2015 April. SAAMER-OS is located at the southernmost tip of Argentina and is currently the only operational radar with orbit determination capability providing continuous observations of the southern hemisphere. Distributions of the observed meteoroid speed, radiant, and heliocentric orbital parameters are presented, as well as those corrected by the observational biases associated with the SAAMER-OS operating parameters. The results are compared with those reported by three previous surveys performed with the Harvard Radio Meteor Project, the Advanced Meteor Orbit Radar, and the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar, and they are in agreement with these previous studies. Weighted distributions for meteoroids above the thresholds for meteor trail electron line density, meteoroid mass, and meteoroid kinetic energy are also considered. Finally, the minimum line density and kinetic energy weighting factors are found to be very suitable for meteroid applications. The outcomes of this work show that, given SAAMER's location, the system is ideal for providing crucial data to continuously study the South Toroidal and South Apex sporadic meteoroid apparent sources.Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísica

Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar: System design and initial measurements of large-scale winds and tides

The Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar (SAAMER) was installed at Rio Grande on Tierra del Fuego (53.8°S, 67.8°W) in May 2008 and has been operational for ∼24 months. This paper describes the motivations for the radar design and its placement at the southern tip of South America, its operating modes and capabilities, and observations of the mean winds, planetary waves, and tides during its first ∼20 months of operation. SAAMER was specifically designed to provide very high resolution of large-scale motions and hopefully enable direct measurements of the vertical momentum flux by gravity waves, which have only been possible previously with dual- or multiple-beam radars and lidars or in situ measurements. SAAMER was placed on Tierra del Fuego because it was a region devoid of similar measurements, the latitude was anticipated to provide high sensitivity to an expected large semidiurnal tide, and the region is now recognized to be a "hot spot" of small-scale gravity wave activity extending from the troposphere into the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, perhaps the most dynamically active location on Earth. SAAMER was also intended to permit simultaneous enhanced meteor studies, including "head echo" and "nonspecular" measurements, which were previously possible only with high-power large-aperture radars. Initial measurements have defined the mean circulation and structure, exhibited planetary waves at various periods, and revealed large semidiurnal tide amplitudes and variability, with maximum amplitudes at higher altitudes often exceeding 60 m s-1 and amplitude modulations at periods from a few to ∼30 days.Universidad Nacional De La Plat

Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar: System design and initial measurements of large-scale winds and tides

The Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar (SAAMER) was installed at Rio Grande on Tierra del Fuego (53.8°S, 67.8°W) in May 2008 and has been operational for ∼24 months. This paper describes the motivations for the radar design and its placement at the southern tip of South America, its operating modes and capabilities, and observations of the mean winds, planetary waves, and tides during its first ∼20 months of operation. SAAMER was specifically designed to provide very high resolution of large-scale motions and hopefully enable direct measurements of the vertical momentum flux by gravity waves, which have only been possible previously with dual- or multiple-beam radars and lidars or in situ measurements. SAAMER was placed on Tierra del Fuego because it was a region devoid of similar measurements, the latitude was anticipated to provide high sensitivity to an expected large semidiurnal tide, and the region is now recognized to be a "hot spot" of small-scale gravity wave activity extending from the troposphere into the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, perhaps the most dynamically active location on Earth. SAAMER was also intended to permit simultaneous enhanced meteor studies, including "head echo" and "nonspecular" measurements, which were previously possible only with high-power large-aperture radars. Initial measurements have defined the mean circulation and structure, exhibited planetary waves at various periods, and revealed large semidiurnal tide amplitudes and variability, with maximum amplitudes at higher altitudes often exceeding 60 m s-1 and amplitude modulations at periods from a few to ∼30 days.Universidad Nacional De La Plat

The Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar Orbital System (SAAMER-OS): An initial sporadic meteoroid orbital survey in the southern sky

We present an initial survey in the southern sky of the sporadic meteoroid orbital environment obtained with the Southern Argentina Agile MEteor Radar (SAAMER) Orbital System (OS), in which over three-quarters of a million orbits of dust particles were determined from 2012 January through 2015 April. SAAMER-OS is located at the southernmost tip of Argentina and is currently the only operational radar with orbit determination capability providing continuous observations of the southern hemisphere. Distributions of the observed meteoroid speed, radiant, and heliocentric orbital parameters are presented, as well as those corrected by the observational biases associated with the SAAMER-OS operating parameters. The results are compared with those reported by three previous surveys performed with the Harvard Radio Meteor Project, the Advanced Meteor Orbit Radar, and the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar, and they are in agreement with these previous studies. Weighted distributions for meteoroids above the thresholds for meteor trail electron line density, meteoroid mass, and meteoroid kinetic energy are also considered. Finally, the minimum line density and kinetic energy weighting factors are found to be very suitable for meteroid applications. The outcomes of this work show that, given SAAMER's location, the system is ideal for providing crucial data to continuously study the South Toroidal and South Apex sporadic meteoroid apparent sources.Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísica

Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar: System design and initial measurements of large-scale winds and tides

The Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar (SAAMER) was installed at Rio Grande on Tierra del Fuego (53.8°S, 67.8°W) in May 2008 and has been operational for ∼24 months. This paper describes the motivations for the radar design and its placement at the southern tip of South America, its operating modes and capabilities, and observations of the mean winds, planetary waves, and tides during its first ∼20 months of operation. SAAMER was specifically designed to provide very high resolution of large-scale motions and hopefully enable direct measurements of the vertical momentum flux by gravity waves, which have only been possible previously with dual- or multiple-beam radars and lidars or in situ measurements. SAAMER was placed on Tierra del Fuego because it was a region devoid of similar measurements, the latitude was anticipated to provide high sensitivity to an expected large semidiurnal tide, and the region is now recognized to be a "hot spot" of small-scale gravity wave activity extending from the troposphere into the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, perhaps the most dynamically active location on Earth. SAAMER was also intended to permit simultaneous enhanced meteor studies, including "head echo" and "nonspecular" measurements, which were previously possible only with high-power large-aperture radars. Initial measurements have defined the mean circulation and structure, exhibited planetary waves at various periods, and revealed large semidiurnal tide amplitudes and variability, with maximum amplitudes at higher altitudes often exceeding 60 m s-1 and amplitude modulations at periods from a few to ∼30 days.Universidad Nacional De La Plat

Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) for Pan-Genomic Evolutionary Studies of Non-Model Organisms

Background: High-throughput tools for pan-genomic study, especially the DNA microarray platform, have sparked a remarkable increase in data production and enabled a shift in the scale at which biological investigation is possible. The use of microarrays to examine evolutionary relationships and processes, however, is predominantly restricted to model or near-model organisms. Methodology/Principal Findings: This study explores the utility of Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) in evolutionary studies of non-model organisms. DArT is a hybridization-based genotyping method that uses microarray technology to identify and type DNA polymorphism. Theoretically applicable to any organism (even one for which no prior genetic data are available), DArT has not yet been explored in exclusively wild sample sets, nor extensively examined in a phylogenetic framework. DArT recovered 1349 markers of largely low copy-number loci in two lineages of seed-free land plants: the diploid fern Asplenium viride and the haploid moss Garovaglia elegans. Direct sequencing of 148 of these DArT markers identified 30 putative loci including four routinely sequenced for evolutionary studies in plants. Phylogenetic analyses of DArT genotypes reveal phylogeographic and substrate specificity patterns in A. viride, a lack of phylogeographic pattern in Australian G. elegans, and additive variation in hybrid or mixed samples. Conclusions/Significance: These results enable methodological recommendations including procedures for detecting and analysing DArT markers tailored specifically to evolutionary investigations and practical factors informing the decision to use DArT, and raise evolutionary hypotheses concerning substrate specificity and biogeographic patterns. Thus DArT is a demonstrably valuable addition to the set of existing molecular approaches used to infer biological phenomena such as adaptive radiations, population dynamics, hybridization, introgression, ecological differentiation and phylogeography