Applied Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases in Western Australia

The Western Australian (WA) Communicable Disease Control Directorate (CDCD) is responsible for the surveillance, prevention and control of communicable diseases in WA, while Metropolitan Communicable Disease Control (MCDC) is responsible for the public health management of all communicable diseases across metropolitan Perth. From March 2019 to December 2020, I undertook my MAE field placement split between CDCD and MCDC. This thesis presents the projects undertaken during this 21-month placement. My projects comprise of: First 600 COVID-19 Cases in Western Australia: Public Health Response Effectiveness of Contact Tracing & Restrictions in WA Evaluation of the COVID-19 Surveillance System in Western Australia Measles Outbreak Investigation & Response, Perth, Western Australia Measles cases that have previously received any measles-containing immunisations: infectivity & reasons for an apparent rise in incidence. This thesis also describes other experiences and public health activities undertaken during my placement, specifically an investigation of an invasive meningococcal disease serogroup C outbreak in the Pilbara and involvement in the subsequent targeted vaccination campaign. These projects and experiences fulfil the core requirements of the Australian National University Master of Philosophy (Applied Epidemiology) program

Analysis of Cyclin E in Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma (FL-HCC), a rare primary liver cancer, differs from the most common liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, as FL-HCC is not correlated with chronic liver diseases. Mayo Clinic conducted a proteomic screening and found the proline biosynthetic pathway to be dysregulated in FL-HCC patients. In liver cells, free proline has been shown to induce the mTOR pathway, which stimulates cell proliferation through upregulation of full-length Cyclin E (FL-E). In addition, FL-E can be partially cleaved by an enzyme called serine protease neutrophil elastase, creating low molecular weight cyclin E (LMW-E) that has been linked to tumorigenesis. To further investigate the expression of FL-E and LMW-E; we performed western blot and densitometry analysis in FL-HCC and normal liver samples. Preliminary results found significant differences between the expression of Cyclin E. LMW-E was seen in a higher expression level than the FL-E when comparing FL-HCC samples to the normal liver samples. More experiments are currently underway to further investigate this disparity

The embedding theorem in Hurwitz-Brill-Noether Theory

We generalize the Embedding Theorem of Eisenbud-Harris from classical Brill-Noether theory to the setting of Hurwitz-Brill-Noether theory. More precisely, in classical Brill-Noether theory, the embedding theorem states that a general linear series of degree d and rank r on a general curve of genus g is an embedding if r is at least 3. If $f \colon C \to \mathbb{P}^1$ is a general cover of degree k, and L is a line bundle on C, recent work of the authors shows that the splitting type of $f_* L$ provides the appropriate generalization of the pair (r, d) in classical Brill--Noether theory. In the context of Hurwitz-Brill-Noether theory, the condition that r is at least 3 is no longer sufficient to guarantee that a general such linear series is an embedding. We show that the additional condition needed to guarantee that a general linear series |L| is an embedding is that the splitting type of $f_* L$ has at least three nonnegative parts. This new extra condition reflects the unique geometry of k-gonal curves, which lie on scrolls in $\mathbb{P}^r$

Gender Differences Among Veterans Deployed in Support of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

BACKGROUND: The changing scope of women’s roles in combat operations has led to growing interest in women’s deployment experiences and post-deployment adjustment. OBJECTIVES: To quantify the gender-specific frequency of deployment stressors, including sexual and non-sexual harassment, lack of social support and combat exposure. To quantify gender-specific post-deployment mental health conditions and associations between deployment stressors and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to inform the care of Veterans returning from the current conflicts. DESIGN: National mail survey of OEF/OIF Veterans randomly sampled within gender, with women oversampled. SETTING: The community. PARTICIPANTS: In total, 1,207 female and 1,137 male Veterans from a roster of all Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) Veterans. Response rate was 48.6 %. MAIN MEASURES: Deployment stressors (including combat and harassment stress), PTSD, depression, anxiety and alcohol use, all measured via self-report. KEY RESULTS: Women were more likely to report sexual harassment (OR = 8.7, 95% CI: 6.9, 11) but less likely to report combat (OR = 0 .62, 95 % CI: 0.50, 0.76). Women and men were equally likely to report symptoms consistent with probable PTSD (OR = 0 .87, 95 % CI: 0.70, 1.1) and symptomatic anxiety (OR  =  1.1, 9 5% CI: 0.86, 1.3). Women were more likely to report probable depression (OR = 1.3, 95 % CI: 1.1, 1.6) and less likely to report problematic alcohol use (OR  = 0 .59, 9 5% CI: 0.47, 0.72). With a five-point change in harassment stress, adjusted odds ratios for PTSD were 1.36 (95 % CI: 1.23, 1.52) for women and 1.38 (95 % CI: 1.19, 1.61) for men. The analogous associations between combat stress and PTSD were 1.31 (95 % CI: 1.24, 1.39) and 1.31 (95 % CI: 1.26, 1.36), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Although there are important gender differences in deployment stressors—including women’s increased risk of interpersonal stressors—and post-deployment adjustment, there are also significant similarities. The post-deployment adjustment of our nation’s growing population of female Veterans seems comparable to that of our nation’s male Veterans

A Design and Feasibility Study for the Detector Assembly of the Experiment for X-ray Characterization and Timing (EXACT ) CubeSat Project

The Experiment for X-ray Characterization and Timing (EXACT) is intended to be a proof of concept for the use of inexpensive small satellite technology to fill the need for long term solar Hard X-Ray monitoring with co-observation as a high energy counterpart to existing solar X-ray monitoring satellites (e.g. GOES), as well as provide precise timing measurements of solar HXR's. EXACT is a three-axis-stabilized, 3U CubeSat that makes use of an existing University of Minnesota Aerospace Department designed Gamma Ray Burst sensor that is intended for studies in deep space navigation using Gamma-ray burst timing for relative ranging of spacecraft. The high timing resolution of the GRB sensor, as well as the heritage of the pulse-read-out circuitry, makes it a good candidate for use on EXACT if it can be shown to suit the energy range and resolution requirements in the HXR regime. The GRB detector design incorporates square scintillators of Thallium-doped Cesium Iodide (CsI(Tl)), each connected to one Avalanche Photodiode (APD) for read-out to a pulse processing board. This paper will detail the design of the current GRB detector, report the results of the laboratory evaluation of that design, and make recommendations for modifications to the current design in order to fulfill the instrumentation requirements of EXACT

Prematur ovarialinsuffisiens

Prematur ovarialinsuffisiens defineres som tap av ovariefunksjon før 40 års alder og er en kompleks tilstand med heterogen etiologi. Tidlig diagnose og igangsetting av hormonerstattende behandling er viktig for å lindre symptomer og forebygge senkomplikasjoner som følge av prematur østrogenmangel. I denne kliniske oversikten presenterer vi en oppdatering på diagnostikk og behandling av tilstanden.publishedVersio

Silent Phase of Johne’s Disease in Experimentally Infected Goats – A Study on New and Established Diagnostic Approaches Using Specific and Non-Specific Parameters

The current gold standard diagnostic test for Johne’s disease (JD) is detecting Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) from fecal samples via culture and/or PCR. Other commercially available JD diagnostic tests focus on the detection of specific antibodies within the serum or milk of infected ruminants. These tests have a high specificity but low their sensitivity and usually fail to diagnose the disease until later stages of the disease. The ideal diagnostic test should detect infected animals already during the silent phase. Here, we evaluate the use of new and established approaches to define the silent phase of JD in experimentally infected goats. None of the established diagnostic tests or new approaches for the detection of humoral and cellular immune responses were positive during the first year of infection. Only the characterization of various subsets of peripheral blood leukocytes and the weight development gave some indication for the presence of a chronic, but silent, infection. Weight differences were present throughout the first year. In addition, some of the subsets of leukocytes (WC1+ T cells, MHC class II+ leukocytes, CD1+ leukocytes, CD14+ granulocytes, and CD14+/MHC class II+ granulocytes) demonstrated significant differences, but only at certain time points

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected