Indigenous-led precision public health: a new starting point

Precision public healthcare has been applied to bring about positive change, narrowing the gap in healthcare inequity for Aboriginal peoples. Three such examples include the Mappa, Lyfe Languages, and Pilbra Faces projects, which were all developed through engagement and codesign with Indigenous Australians and each meet a distinct critical need. The Mappa project offers patients and healthcare providers with the necessary geographical information to navigate and maximally utilize available healthcare services. Lyfe Languages is a community driven translational tool that empowers indigenous languages in healthcare. The Pilbara Faces project aims to create a database of clinical measurements enabling better disease diagnosis and monitoring. These three projects have been integrated into a multi-faceted precision public health program, the Healthy Pilbara Project Initiative, acting synergistically to improve the lives of Aboriginal peoples living in Western Australia

Illinoian and Late Wisconsin Tills in Eastern New England: a Transect from Northeastern Massachusetts to West-Central Maine

Guidebook for field trips in southern and west-central Maine, October 13, 14 and 15, 1989: New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference 81st annual meeting: Trip A-

How does banking market power affect bank opacity? Evidence from analysts' forecasts

Whilst the ongoing banking regulatory reforms towards a comprehensive Basel III framework emphasise bank transparency, disclosure and a competitive banking market environment, very little is known about the empirical relationship between bank opacity and banking competition. We investigate the impact of competition, as measured by the individual bank's pricing power in the banking market, on bank opacity using a large sample of US bank holding companies over the 1986–2015 period. We uncover new evidence, on the competition-bank opacity nexus, which suggests that banks with higher market power and operating in less competitive banking markets have lower analysts' forecast errors and dispersions and may thus be less opaque. This effect is more pronounced for the 2007–09 global financial crisis period. Our evidence is robust to controlling for analysts' characteristics, bank fixed-effects and endogeneity problems

Dynamic pH mapping in microfluidic devices by integrating adaptive coatings based on polyaniline with colorimetric imaging techniques

In this paper we present a microfluidic device that has integrated pH optical sensing capabilities based on polyaniline. The optical properties of polyaniline coatings change in response to the pH of the solution that is flushed inside the microchannel offering the possibility of monitoring pH in continuous flow over a 10 wide pH range throughout the entire channel length. This work also features an innovative detection system for spatial localisation of chemical pH gradients along microfluidic channels through the use of a low cost optical device. Specifically, the use of a microfluidic channel coated with polyaniline is shown to respond colorimetrically to pH and that effect is detected by the detection system, even when pH gradients are induced within the channel. This study explores the capability of detecting this gradient by means of imaging techniques and the mapping of the camera’s response to its corresponding pH after a successful calibration process. The provision of an inherently responsive channel means that changes in the pH of a sample moving through the system can be detected dynamically using digital imaging along the entire channel length in real time, without the need to add reagents to the sample. This approach is generic and can be applied to other chemically responsive coatings immobilised on microchannels

Benefits for children with suspected cancer from routine whole-genome sequencing

Clinical whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has been shown to deliver potential benefits to children with cancer and to alter treatment in high-risk patient groups. It remains unknown whether offering WGS to every child with suspected cancer can change patient management. We collected WGS variant calls and clinical and diagnostic information from 281 children (282 tumors) across two English units (n = 152 from a hematology center, n = 130 from a solid tumor center) where WGS had become a routine test. Our key finding was that variants uniquely attributable to WGS changed the management in ~7% (20 out of 282) of cases while providing additional disease-relevant findings, beyond standard-of-care molecular tests, in 108 instances for 83 (29%) cases. Furthermore, WGS faithfully reproduced every standard-of-care molecular test (n = 738) and revealed several previously unknown genomic features of childhood tumors. We show that WGS can be delivered as part of routine clinical care to children with suspected cancer and can change clinical management by delivering unexpected genomic insights. Our experience portrays WGS as a clinically impactful assay for routine practice, providing opportunities for assay consolidation and for delivery of molecularly informed patient care.</p

The structure and functions of state school councils: a proposal for governance of the schools in the Darling Downs region

In recent years in Australia increasing demands have been made to involve the employee in decision making at the level of management. Education systems have not been excluded from this movement to involve the community, teachers and in some cases even students in the management of their schools. To date no formal proposals similar to those made in New South Wales in 1973 have been suggested for Queensland. It is the intention of this thesis therefore, to examine existing proposals in other systems to determine the preferences for the composition and functions of school governing bodies in one region in Queensland and to propose a model based on the findings of this study for school councils in the state schools of the Darling Downs Region

Designing application stores for public display networks

Current public display systems are often ignored by passersby. We believe that increasing the level of engagement requires substantial innovation for the content shown -- and that this in turn requires opening up displays to new forms of applications and content from a wide variety of sources. In this paper we consider the design of "application stores" that are intended to facilitate the introduction of these new forms of content in future display networks